The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1912-06-16

tural transformation so stupendon;
| in extent that figures fail to convey
any estimate of the vastncss of the
national benefits that would result
from it.
I An Illustration,
Merely as an illustration Of what
this would mean, as one o. the eco
nomic aspects of the problem, let
100000 acres in the Missouri
RIVER Drainage Basin be irrigated
with '2-acde feet of water.
What would be the result ia the
ltcrritory vice the irrigated lands
are located? 1t would result In the
production of at least crop of hay
worth $1,000 or more per acre, ovec
every ;tre OF the whole tract of 10,-
/ 100000 acres This would mean a
production of at least 500, geo
a year worth of hay. This hay III
Eturn would ~ fed to stock and would
| be turned into beef cattle, and there
4
by replcnish the beef supply OF the
country, which is rapidly diminish
! ing year after year in its proportion
| to population, with the consequence
! that beef is so rapidly rising in price
| that it will soon cease to be within
reach of the poor mans purse for
/
his family table. That is an eco
nomic aspect of the question which
affects not only territory directly in
voved, but the entire county az
well, and every citizen who is a con-
sumner of beef for food
Turning from the question of ag-
ricultural production to that of mood
prevention, this is what it would
mean to draw off floodwater enough
to irrigate 10,0%,000. acres of land
with 2-acre feet of water,
1t would soak into the ground,
which would absorb is as great
earth longe. 20,o00,0o0 acre feet
OF water in one year That would be
water enough to cover 1880 square
miles, one foot dep in water.
Change the form of the volume os
water and it is enough to make a
| food three miles wide, ten feet deep
and more than 1000 miles long. In
| other words, a food volume ten feet
deep, three miles wide, and extend
ing all the way from New Orleans to
| st. Louis.
A Levee System.
In the lower Mississippi Valley,
from St. Louis and Cairo to the Gulf
of Mexico. a system OF levees SHOULD
be built under national control land
supervision, and the National Coy
eminent should assume the obliga-
tion of the maintenance Of that sys-
TEN, The levees should be in every
respect as high and as strong and as
complete and perfect as may be rec
commended by engineers Of the War
Department or any advocate of sys-
TEN of levees for protection of the
lower Mississippi Valley from over
Tow
Such a system will hold all ordi-
nary floods, bun not the great foods
that periodically come when several
of tt,o uroa+ trib,,t rfnc aro T., Hoo1
in conjunction, as was the case in
the spring ,of 1912, but such leyee
system supplemented by a national
policy of head-water control under
which the foods will be, so far as pos
sible, .harnessed and controlled in
the territory of their origin in the
drainage basin of the Ohio river,
the upper Mississippi river and the
Missouri river, will permanently
safeguard the lower river country
against overflow.
When that shall have been done
the lower Mississippi Valley will be
freed from the menace of such food
disasters as that which has over
taken 1t in the year ,19T2 Then It
WIN be possible and practicable to
settle the present overflow area with
dense population of farmers who
will cultivate small farms and pros
duce the immense agriculral wealth
which such a system of agriculture
will make possible in "the sugar bowl
of the Continent"
A Billion Dollars Worth of Food.
A dense population on the low
lands of Louisiana alone will be cap
able Of producing from two to three
crops each year on 100000 acres
Of alluvial prairies aggregating a
billion dollars annually of agricul-
tural wealth.
The damage from the great food
of 1912 has been so large that it is
impossible to make a satisfactory
estimate of the amount. 1t has been
contended that it aggregates as much
as 800, 100000. However large it
may have been, should it ever occur
again it will be due to the failure OF
the people of the Nation to turn TO
enofinial nee tho Nations most va In