The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-05-27

needed to fill it. With the new immi- grafton from Europe at the close of the war, the demand will be larger than ever, and it is absolutely necessary that we increase our agricultural empire to the fullest extent.
 We are doing something toward this by retaining the dry lands of the west but their possibilities, are nothing in com parison with the potential food wealth now lying In the swamps of the south and especially In the Mississippi delta
 According to the scientists of the geo logical survey, there are in the neigh. borhood of S0,OO0OOO acres of good land in the United States which is more or less covered with water. This, at the lowest calculation, represents country bigger than Great Britain and Ireland It is equal to the three states of Indiana Illinois and Ohio, and it is 10 times as big as that little garden patch which we know as Holland. The soil of our swamps is also 10 times as rich as that of the Netherlands Nevertheless, Holland is now feeding almost 6,00o,00O people, anc at the same ratio our swamps could feed SC, o,o0o GOO, or 100000 more than half of the people in the country today.
 A great part, of these swamps lie in the south. and vast drainage projects are under way to reclaim them. I know of one little tract in North Carolina A flew years ago it was celebrated as the largest lake of that state. It's name was Lake Mattamuskeet. Ii covered 30 0Ot acres, and almost every part of it had water deep enough to have drowned the Cardiff Giant if stood upright within it. Today colony on that land has the title of New Holland. The tract has been divided up into farms, and one of the biggest pumping stations of the world keeps it as dry as is needed for cotton tobacco and corn. The surplus water is cart,ed off into the Atlantic ocear through Pamlico sound.
 Other big drainage projects are going on in North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. The lower part of Flor ida, which is 300 miles long and almost as big as Indiana, is made up of low lands, covered with water. These are being drained by private parties and by the state. The Everglades, containins something like 100000 acres, are 3 drowned prairie of wonderful fertility They are being drained by the state, anc semi-tropical garden patch for feedins the north.
 More important than all, however, are the swamp lands of the Mississippi val ley, which contain altogether somethins like 2o. GOO coo acres of the richest sol upon earth I am told there are nearly 10, ,000OO0 acres in southern Louisiana alone and that vast tracts, easily re claimable, lie in Mississippi and the othel states farther north.
 Under these swamSs is the cream O the soil of the United States. The Mis- NHt-z +L JO,,r ct fVxTa nf world, is one of the greatest robbers or earth For countless ages, year aftel year, it has been tearing down and car rying away the soil of the vast Misss sippi basin and dropping it down here or the ancient bed of the sea. The geolo gists say that the Gulf of Mexico once extended northward to the mouth of tht Ohio, and that all the land between there and New Orleans has been built up pS the earth washings brought down by the river Even now the stream carries or the average something like AGO, ,O0o, 900 tons every year. From the Missouri alone comes 120 tons every second, or more than 10000 eco cubic yards every day.
 Four hundred million tons every year The amount is so great that we cannot comprehend it in figures. If it were load ed on cars at 50 tons to the car 1t Woule take s,oo0,0C0 cars to carry the load, and the train would be long enough to react twice through the center. If a Hume three feet wide and three feet deep coult be built from the earth to the moon that trainload of dirt would be almos enough to fill the great box to the top and it might all come from the silt brought down by the Mississippi within the space of F months.
 As I have said, this sol is the cream