necessity, we may turn to these
arid lands for relief. In such an event, the question of forestry
becomes an important factor.

"By referring to the tenth annual report of the director of the U. S.
Geological Survey, we learn that the arid regions of the United States,
comprise the astonishing area of one million, three hundred thousand
square miles. This immense region contains more than one-third of all
our lands; a territory much larger than that of the thirteen original
states combined. North and south, it stretches for hundreds of miles on
either side of the Rocky Mountain Range, that great backbone and
water-shed of our Continent. On the west, it covers nearly all of the
surface of that vast, broken and irregular basin, lying between the
Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains. On the east, it occupies that
extended and peculiar domain of high plateaus, treeless plains and
alkali barrens, known as the Great American Desert.

"From this broad expanse of arid lands, in accordance with the
statements of the survey officials, we may choose an area of one hundred
and fifty thousand square miles of irrigable lands; that is lands which
may be restored to productive fertility, by means of irrigating ditches
along the valleys, and by building great catch basins, near the head
waters of a multitude of mountain streams, in which may be conserved,
the wasting waters of melting snows and those of the heavy mountain
rainfalls combined. At this point we may mention incidentally, that this
area of irrigable lands could be largely increased, by covering the
available slopes of the Rocky Mountains with dense forests of fine
timber. With this accomplished, the annual rainfall would be doubled,
while the necessary conditions would be established, which, a few
decades hence might yield an annual crop of valuable timber, that would
soon repay the entire cost of planting and culture.

"In addition to the last named increase, we may add an area of lands
equal in size to the state of Illinois, which are beyond the reach of
irrigating streams. We find these lands along the eastern foothills of
the Rocky Mountains, and around the borders of the Great American
desert. They may easily be restored to fertility, by the skillfully
applied labor of a legion of co-operative farms. At varying depths
beneath these lands, flow perennial streams of artesian water. By the
spouting, life-giving waters of a vast number of artesian wells, a large
proportion