The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-02
Conservatism
STATE TO CAIN
IN RESTORATION
OF KANKAKEE
Refuge for Wild Life to
Be Set Up in Swamp
Unfit for Farming.
BY WILLIAM F. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

ZINES cpcSiaA hEltSF
Last week we reviewed the ma
tional program of conservation.
Now let us look at the state pro-
gram to see how it gears in with
the work outlined by the nation
under the three bills passed by
congress and about to become a law
with the Presidents signature. We
are anticipating these bills will be-
come laws as the President already
has given them his Endorsement.
Under the allotment provided for
game refugees, Indiana has had ac-
cepted by the Biological Survey
under j. N. Darling, our beloved
cartoonist known as Ding, the
restoration of the old marsh land
in the Kankakee drainage area.
Ask any one of the old time duck
hunters Of your acquaintance about
his recollection of English lake and
the immense swamp that extended
from North Judson southwesterly to
the Illinois line nearly to Momence.
Era of Slaughter
This swamp was not only rest
ing place for ducks, but the breed
ing grounds of the more southern
nesting varieties I grant you that
the idea of conserving anything had
not entered the minds of the sports
man of that day, most of them were
destructionists of the first water and
prided themselves in their ability
to slaughter
But they grew up and divorced
themselves from the idea that to
be duck hunter one must fill a
wagon with dead birds every hunt.
They grew up and taught us kids
that to have hunting we must create
the natural conditions for it or re-
create them if they had been 0e-
stroyed.
Most of you are familiar with the
old Kankakee marsh. In the nine
ties it was a sportsman's paradise
ranking at the top of the list with
such famous hunting grounds as
Thief river, st. Francis overflow,
Illinois River flats, Currituck and
Albermarle sounds and to it came
the annual migration of millions of
waterfowl
The drainage level was good and
the water followed the dredge boats
down the channels and the marsh
went dry, dry as dust and the wild
life left with the water.
Drainage Took Wild Life
That is what happened to the
Kankakee. The old marsh was de-
stroyed in the name of agriculture.
Land hungry persons, engineers
with more vision than foresight and
lawyers with fat fees in the off1ng
filed drainage petitions and a huge
series of dredged bitches appeared
on the face of the marsh.
1t would have been all right if
the uncovered land was fertile, but
it was not. In the drainage prism
90 per cent of the soil was chaffy
and sandy, with no supporting sub
soil. IN few years of cultivation
the humus of the water borne vege-
tation was plowed under and
leached out. With the removal of
the swamp cover the winds of ad-
versity mournfully swept over the
land and it's owners.
Farmers Lost All
The heavy drain tax went de-
linquent, the mortgage loans fell
due, farms were abandoned and
those that were not, became yearly
more difficult to farm prof1tably.
Finally. more than $4,000 acres
became distinctly submarginal and
the owners subdued.
To visualize this picture, scan the
countryside as you travel to Chi
cago over route Al, beginning at
Enos, thence north to the Kankakee
bridge. Can you imagine any one
spending money to drain the land
around Bogus Island?
I have maintained that as a
swamp, the Kankakee would have
returned to the state in profit and
recreation treble its value as plowed
land. We will now have the chance
to prove the theory under the fed
eral allotment of $2500,O00 to re-
store the old marsh.
1t will be used principally as a
wild life reservoir protected at all
times and from which there will
spill annually a sufficient amount
of game to satisfy the demands of
the hunter.
Fish May Return
The old swamp was full of fish.
believe that with the return of