The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-06-16

create sinking fund that will eventually pay all the bonds issued to cover the cost of both the aqueduct and the electrical power.
 The people of the city of Los Angeles will, therefore, eventually become the absolute owners. without cost to them, of one of the largest municipal water sys- tems of the world together with the cleo trical power and the income from the sale thereof. after the payment of the bonds.
 Every tributary of the Ohio river should be separately studied and plan made i for it's compelte development for eleetri- cal power and to regulate it's flow as to prevent floods and pour into the river | in the summer season at it's low water stage the excess flood water which now l runs to waste, causing only disaster and destruetion retarding industrial develop ment, injuring property values, and inter fering with and preventing interstate l commerce.
 Replenishing Summer Flow | No figures are available as to the an- | nuai flood damage or possibilities of power development on rle upper Missis- l sipp river above St. Louis. but the same conditions and principles that apply to | lae ohio river valley are in the main ep-
  The necessity for repenishing the sum mer flow for navigation is becoming more manifest each year as the timber 1 is cleared and the swamps are drained throughout the wide extent of territory on the watershed of the upper Mississippi, which was once an unbroken swamp or l forest constituting a natural reservoir l system that is now being destroyed to make way for civilization and agricul- 1 tnre.
 On the Missouri river and it's tributaries the necessity for flood prevention is as great as in the Ohio river drainage basin, and if the flow of the Missouri river were regulated, 1t might again be made navigable as in the old days, all the way l from St Louis to Fort Benton. the whole year round.
 m me telrltuIy drained by the Missouri river, two additional economic factors enter into the problem as reasons that warrant the expenditure of the large sum of money that would be required to build the controlling works necessary to utilize and standardize the How or the lnef through the year.
 Making Hay
 1 One is the enormous area which might he irrigated from flood water canals, so as to produce on all the lands for which such irrigation could be provided, a crop L, iaA 5, grain worth from s10 an acre upwards each year
 The second benefit would be that, if the surplus od-flow of all the tributaries of the Missouri river were distributed out l over the vast area of dry plains and bench lands in that region the water l from canals and the water that was l poured out over the plains and soaAed 1 into the earth, would gradually raise the underground water table over millions of acres of land adapted to dry farming, but l or which a supply of water for surface irrigation could not be regularly provided i This raising of the water-table would bring the underground water near enough to the surface to be reached by alfalfa roots or fruit trees. and also near enough | for the underground moisture to be brought to the surface by such dry farm l ing processes as the Campbell system, which would in this way make fertile many millions of acres of land otherwise available only for pasture of grazing.
 If all the spurplus flood water of the Missouri river and it's tributaries that ! could be so distributed out over the plains were disposed of p that way, in- stead of. as now, coming down in de- structive floods. the floods of the Mis- souri river would cease to be, and return seepage would insure the navigahle stage of the river throughout the entire low water season. In addition the life-giving Influence of the water upon the immense l territory that 1t would be spread over, would create an agricultural transforma- ton so stupendous in extent that figures i fail to convey any estimate of the vast ness of the national benefits that would ] result from it.
 An Illustration
 Merely as an illustration of what this would mean, as one of the economic as- poets of the problem let 10.co900o acres in (, ,it d ut1a po 1a S Q | gated with two acre feet of water.
 What would be the result in the terri tory where tho irrigated lands are locat- ed? It would result in the production qf at least crop of hay worth sl0 or more rer acre, over every acre of the whole | tract of 1o.G0pC00 acres. This would mean a production of at least $1o0,0eo,ooo year worth of hay This hay in turn would be fed to stock and would be turned into beef cattle. and thereby replenissl the beef l supply of the country which is rapidly di- minishing year after year in it's 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 economic aspect of the 'ques- ton which affects not only territory di- rectly involved, but the entire country as well, and every citizen who is a con sufner of beef for food.
 Turning from the question of agricul- tural production to that of flood proven ton, this is what it would mean to draw off flood water enough to irrgate 10.000,- eco acres .of land with two acre feet oi water.
 1t would soak into the ground whcl would absorb it as a great earth sponge 20 o0o.oco acre feet of water in one year That would be water enough to cover sl,- e5o square miles, one foot deep with water Il Change the form of the volume of water and it is enough to make a flood three miles wide, 10 feet deep and more than 1000 miles long, In other words, a fioo1 volume 10 feet deep, three miles wide and extending 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 lerees should De built under