The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-12-08

, of Massachusetts. It would equal six New YorSs, five Georgias, four Minne- sotas or two Californias.
 Some of this land Is in the deserts and it will be reclaimed by irrigation. There is about 100000 acres of this character, an amount three times as great as the cultivated parts of the Nile val ley which supports more than 100000 | people, and which in 1910 gave products for export amounting to $120 0,000. Much | of the Nile land is worth $500 per acre. Fifteen million acres! It is just about I 10 times the area we have already turned | into farm settlements by our present reclamation projects. We have now 1,50o, I 900 acres of those lands in cultivation, and there are under water 50000o acres more which will soon be in use. The amount already reclaimed represents an | investment of s120,000,0o0 and the crops | from it this year win sell for more than half that amount. At the present prices every acre will produce $50 or upward | per annun and every cent that the gov ernment has laid out upon the land will
 have been paid back by the farmers with l in 20 years
 1 Those tracts are now inhabited by | 50,000 families who own taxable farm l property worth more than $500, ,000,0e0.
 They are now producing crops which will annually sell for S100, ,000,000, CT l $7,000, 900 more than all the gold taken 1 out of the United States in 1916. In ! other words, the lands we have already 1 reclaimed are yielding more than eall | the gold mines of the United States, l including those of Alaska, and that notwithstanding when the youngest 1 boys now in the draft age were raw | red babies those lands were as bar ren and dry as the most arid part of ! the Sahara. All this comes from 1,560,- 1 900 acres, and the engineers say we have 10 times as much which can be | developed as homes for the soldiers 1 The reclamation lands are now yield 1 ing the government about $9,0e000O per annum, which is applied to new | projects. It is believed that similar
 results will be had in connection with l the farms for the soldiers.
 But the deserts are the smallest l factor in this great reclamation prop l osition. Their available lands are not
 one fifth as large as the swamps. We have scattered over the United States | swamp lands having an area of 75,- l 100000 or 80,000,000 acres, underlaid | with soil as rich as that of the deserts The total is larger than Great Britain and Ireland, and equal in extent to the three states of Indiana Illinois and l Ohio. It is 10 times as large as Hol-
 
 feeding almost 6,0o0.000 people and. al
 the same ratio 1t could feed 60O00,000 l or more than half of our whole popu- 1 lation. Holland is now draining the Builder Zee to get more land, and the work is costing in the neighborhood of $200 per acre. Many of our swamps | can be drained for few dollars pe1 l acre. and the surveys and plans for | some of them have already been made 1 Before the war in Europe began the l topographers of the geological sur vey had mapped out about 10,000,o0t acres, and the work is so organized 1 that they can tell us just where tn. swamps are and what has to be done ] to reclaim them.
 These swamp lands are in many cases close to the 'centers of popula- | tion They are to be found in almost | every state of the live, up to date | east, and some of them near the big | cities. Others are surrounded by | farms worth S100 an acre and nearly