reat loss
would have been averted had the government acted upon the suggestions
which I made some years ago in a paper on "Emergency Measures for
Maintaining Self-respecting Manhood," in which it was shown that a
permanent levee was practicable, and could be built in such a way as to
resist the floods, reclaim many hundreds of thousands of acres of rich
land, and protect millions of dollars' worth of property which is now
under a yearly menace through danger of floods.

In this enterprise, which I shall again touch upon, we have a striking
illustration of a practicable work which would immediately increase the
national wealth far beyond the outlay required, while it would also
change an army of idle consumers into an army of wealth-producers.

But as I wish to consider this question more at length a little later,
I now pass on to a brief notice of the vast tracts of land in the West,
which have not yet fallen into the clutches of land syndicates, and
which for a comparatively small outlay by proper irrigation could be
transformed into garden spots. Take, for example, the State of Nevada.
Here we find immense tracts of arid land, representing millions of
acres, which to-day are unproductive for lack of moisture, but which,
wherever irrigation has been introduced, have been transformed into
wonderfully productive garden land. Mr. William M. Smythe, in the April
_Forum_, has given some very interesting facts in regard to the
agricultural resources of Nevada, from which we summarize the following:

The most painstaking and systematic inquiry, however, ever made
with regard to the extent of her water supply resulted in the
conclusion that at least 6,000,000 acres of rich soil could be
irrigated. The commission of 1893 reported twenty lakes and sixteen
rivers of importance, which with minor streams and springs could be
made to irrigate upward of 5,000,000 acres; and artesian wells
would bring up the total to the figure above named. It should be
borne in mind that the splendid agricultural prosperity of Colorado
and Utah is based upon a cultivated area of only about 2,000,000
acres. It seems, then, that, so far as her agricultural
capabilities are concerned, Nevada might sustain at least as many
people as do Utah and Colorado put together, at their present stage
of development. The products of the irrigated lands of Nevada are
the fruits, the vegetables, c