Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-04-01
And Why Not IN Georgia, Too?

~ the marshy 1owlands of southern Min
nesota tolls a curious successor to
the hardy heroes Of old who
field the forest,
Letting in the sun, and made broad
pathways
For the hunter and the knight.
No such romantic figure as the poet dream
ed is this modern vanquisher of wilderness
and FEM but a dumb, drab mechanical
giant-"a seventy-six-ton ditchlng ma
chine" as Popular Mechanics describes IT.,
which "crawls steadily ahead and as it ad-
yances digs a ditch that is twelve feet wide
on top and seven feet Deep" The earth is
scooped out by great revolving wheel, and
then is carried out by "conveyer belt"
twenty feet to the side, where 1t is deposited
to form spoil bank" Manned by crew
of five and driven by an engine of one hun
dred and ten horsepower, this deviation OF
tractors will easily dig ditch quarter of
a mile long within working day; and,
with certain supplementary machines, 1t
renders the draining of swamp no more
difficult than coring an apple.
This. however, is only half the wonder of
the Minnesota enterprise. Hard upon the
tracks of drainage follow road-makeTs'
bridge-builders. drivers of Artesian wells,
and little armies Of workmen who soon
have farmsteads fenced, dwellings and barns
constructed new world ready to blossom
and bear, where but lately couched jungle
wrapped in nlists~ and breathing feVerlsh
perils forth. This will be added to the pro-
ductive powers of the commonwealth i'm
mense areas of land which heretofore have
earned nothing for it's owners, yielded next
to no revenue to the State, and has been not
infrequently a source of danger to pubic
health. Reclamation is now conferred on
tract of some fifteen thousand acres, out Of
which will be made scores of farms measur-
ing, for the most part, eighty or one hun
dred and twenty acres. Imagine the har-
vests the prosperity, and the human JOY
that will crown the completed task!
But why merely imagine it of that thrifty
region in the far North? Why not repeat
the happy marvel in Georgia, where nearly
eight million acres of swamp and wet lands
await reclamation? What the Northern
STAR State is doing in this sphere of enter
prise. assuredly the Empire" Of the South
could undertake and speed to success. Min
nesotas population is 2,3S7,125; Georglas
2;895,S32; while their areas are, respective
ly, 1852 and 59,265 square miles. Min
nesota it is true, numbers more taxpayers
than Georgia. the former having no appre-
ciable percentage Of negroes; but what of
their comparative resources? Rich the
Northern Commonwealth Enthusiastically is,
with it's bountiful harvests of grain it's wool
clip of nearly three million pounds a year,
its extensive cattle and dairying industries,
and it's valuable stores of iron. But it is no
richer than Georgia in either agriculture or
minerals, if mineral variety be reckoned,
and no richer, potentially, in sheep raising
or live stock interests in general. Indeed,
dairying and cattle breeding can be conduct
ed far more economically in Georgia. Then
think of the diversity and abundance of
Georgia products which are not found in Min
nesota, and of Georgia's proximity to the
highways Of ocean commerce. These great
gifts and vast opportunities we ought to con-
slider more intently and realize that they
carry with them a power which we most
grievously have neglected.
In this one matter of swamp and wet land
reclamation Georgia can achieve prosper
ity the fame of which will ring round the
nation. Eight million acres of wondrous
soil needing only to be drained to afford fer
tile farm sites! That alone, to many an Old
World vision, would seem an empire. And
an empire in sober fact it will be if once it
is brought to pass. In monetary terms it
would be worth at least around billion dol
lars, dollars, whereas now it is of little mar
ket value or none. In productive power ii
would rank among the great priced gardens
Of the earth. In its impetus to the States up
building it would repay within few twelve
months the total cost of the reclamation. A
day-dream? No more than the Minnesota
achievement is a day-dream-if Georgia wills
vigorously for the result.