Land improvement

“ The soils of Virginia need not have become worn out and abandoned; because the earth and the air are filled with the elements of plant food that are essential to the restoration and permanent maintenance of the high productive capacity of these soils. Moreover there is more profit and greater prosperity for the present landowner in a possible practicable system of positive soil improvement than under any system which leads to ultimate depletion and abandonment of the land. ”

“ It is seldom that a small settlement can do this successfully. I have been pleased with the suggestions offered by President Hyde in relation to the better cultivation of the soil; for when we go to the expense of taking out water, of keeping up dams, making requisite canals, repairing tunnels and smaller ditches and water sects, it would seem really sound policy that every foot of land thus watered, in order to make it effective, should be cultivated in the best possible manner. ”

“ The State shall coordinate urban and rural afforestation and land greening, carry out large-scale land greening campaigns, green and beautify urban and rural areas, promote construction of forest cities, facilitate rural revitalization, and build a beautiful homeland. ”

“ To revert to the parallel of the disposition of land made by the owner of an estate, who certainly would not place his kitchen - garden in the loveliest part of his park, do not let the Nation surrender forest or hillside, but, preserving them intact, apportion for purposes of cultivation the less beautiful, flatter, and probably more productive ground. Let the public watch how many of the schemes brought forward relate to regulation, not inclosure. ”

“ I particularly direct your attention to the very practical plans which the Secretary of the Interior has developed in his annual report and before your Committees for the reclamation of arid, swamp, and cutover lands which might, if the States were willing and able to cooperate, redeem some three hundred million acres of land for cultivation. There are said to be fifteen or twenty million acres of land in the West, at present arid, for whose reclamation water is available, if properly conserved. ”

“ Whatever increases the fertility of land in producing food, increases not only the value of the lands upon which the improvement is bestowed, but contributes likewise to increase that of many other lands, by creating a new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of which, in consequence of the improvement of land, many people have the disposal beyond what they themselves can consume, is the great cause of the demand, both for the precious metals and the precious stones, as well as for every other conveniency and ornament of dress, lodging, household furniture, and equipage. ”

“ Thus, whenever tract values rise and development impends, good productive land, which the country may well miss later as populations grow and food supplies for them thin out, goes permanently under pavements and construction. Even though it is just in such places that protected, scenic, connotative rural landscapes might have the most meaning for the most people in the long run, their preservation presents some tough questions. ”

“ We will adhere to and apply the strictest possible systems for protecting arable land and economizing on the use of land, and do everything in our power to keep the total amount of arable land above the red line of 120 million hectares. ”

“ Just as one example, we know that a very hopeful and immediate means of relief, both for the unemployed and for agriculture, will come from a wide plan of the converting of many millions of acres of marginal and unused land into timberland through reforestation. There are tens of millions of acres east of the Mississippi River alone in abandoned farms, in cut-over land, now growing up in worthless brush. Why, every European Nation has a definite land policy, and has had one for generations. ”

“ Land consolidation projects will be undertaken by the Department of Agra­rian Reform on acquired private agricultural landed estates to maximize the utilization of farm lands and to generate increase in productivity at the lowest production cost. Under this scheme, a number of irrigation projects and infra­structure facilities will be constructed. ”

“ Third, we will intensify development of agricultural infrastructure and projects designed to improve the lives of rural people. We will develop land on a large scale and comprehensively improve farmland, water supplies, roads, and forests. ”

“ There are millions of acres of arid land to be irrigated by national enterprise and offered for settlement to industrious families. There are great areas of swamp land to be drained which would support a busy, happy population. There are forests to be conserved and renewed in a way that would change the whole face of the situation for the farmer and the fruit-grower in great sections of our country. ”

“ Given institutional and ecological variations, a universal approach to land reform is impossible. Each country should work out its own programme of land reform to assist the land-poor and to provide a base for coordinated resource conservation. ”

“ The arid plains of the Great West have the richest of known soils, if a little human sweat mixed with water in sufficient quantity could be kneaded into it. Government as the lord paramount of its domain, should force the growing of trees and should prevent the destruction of timber wherever the same is necessary to keep up or improve the land. It has parted with the title to the soil, but still retains the power to use it for its own support. ”

“ The influence of topography, all-powerful when cities start, is constantly modified by human labor, hills being cut down, waterfronts extended, and swamps, creeks and low-lands filled in, this, however, not taking place until the new building sites are worth more than the cost of filling and cutting. The measure of resistance to the city's growth is here changed from terms of land elevation or depression, and hence income cost, to terms of investment or capital cost. ”

“ We gave our swamp lands, but to be reclaimed. We found our coal lands going as farms and we put a price upon them. We saw our forests being swept clean or monopolized and we held them out for the mass. Use! Use by as many as possible! The superior use! These were the things we wished and these gave form to our legislation. The homesteader may have 320 acres if it is dry farming or grazing land. But he cannot have it as a speculation. It must be made a home and brought into the body of the world’s producing area by cultivation. ”

“ Such techniques are the basis of existing programs of the Soil Conservation Service and the Forest Service that have proved their effectiveness over many years of rural application. Watershed planning with small reservoirs, check dams, and terraces backed up [Pg 57a] by good land treatment and use, soil surveys, wise forestry practices, and such things are stimulated and bolstered in these programs by technical and financial assistance given to private landowners, States, and local organizations. ”

“ The easily available public lands were exhausted and intensive methods of cultivation came into vogue in the Eastern and Central sections with a rapid rise in land values. State and Federal schemes for irrigation and drainage were put through to increase the acreage of arable lands. ”

“ To repair these, the owner takes the soil which he needs from a pit excavated by the side of the road, or more probably from the road itself, which may thus in a single season be lowered a foot or more in depth. All of it is his land, and why should he not take it? If the public wish to use a road, and do not find this one satisfactory, then let the public go somewhere else. ”

“ But in terms of legal machinery, these areas present problems, chief among which is the matter of incentive on the part of those who must cooperate if the programs are to work. In an agricultural watershed, the effect of soil conservation practices and flood control measures on the health and productivity of the land is sharply evident to rural landowners and others in the neighborhood, who all benefit from it and usually are eager to cooperate. ”

“ In the West, several large irrigating systems have been built by the federal government, and at present about ten million acres of land have been converted from worthless farms into fields rich in crops. ”

“ Compensate him, burn the gorse, cut the bracken, and plant larch. There are enough picturesque commons on the top of the hill, where the soil is poor, and land is cheap. We don't want them in the valley. Now I propose to give our minds to the restoration of the house, the drains, the stables, and the home farm. ”

“ Population under normal circumstances settles in the narrow valleys between the ranges and along the borders of their drainage stream. Soon, however, the food supply becomes inadequate for the growing numbers, so that artificial means have to be employed to expand the area of arable land. The soil on the mountain slopes is so thin that it yields only a scanty return to the labor of tillage. ”

“ Mountain streams from the neighboring ranges, they had, however, trained into irrigating ditches, and by these cultivated a considerable breadth of land. They said, they had water sufficient to irrigate thousands of acres more, and needed only capital and population to build up a prosperous and thriving community. ”

“ There are between 70,000,000 and 80,000,000 acres of swamp and overflowed lands in the United States of which about 60,000,000 acres can be reclaimed for agricultural purposes, and there are about 200,000,000 acres of cut-over or logged-off lands which are suitable for agricultural development. ”

“ But renovation pits may be put to an excellent use if employed in their character of water-holes, as they are called by the natives, and whenever land is liable to wash, they are of great service, and, though but small portions of our shaded plantations are ever liable to wash, a line of renovation pits should always be put on the lower sides of roads to catch the water that runs off them, and thus cause it to soak gradually into the soil. ”

“ Sir Oliver Lodge recently presided at an important meeting held in Birmingham to consider the question, and it was agreed that, now that 164 the mineral wealth of the locality had been exhausted, it was only right that the surface of the land should be altered for good by a system of tree-planting, the land itself being rendered useless for mining, agriculture, and habitation. ”

“ Another method of increasing fertility at increased expense deserves notice. The vacant public lands are for the most part desert-like, and their utilization can come about only through irrigation.
This land can be made to produce the finest crops in the world; and the tremendous volumes of water that flow from the mountains to the sea, once harnessed and piped or ditched to this land, will transform it into beautiful gardens and farms. ”

“ A system of forestry which will provide sufficient lumber for the needs of our country and keep our forest land productive must be built on the extension of our public forests. Our National Forests are, at present, the one bright feature of future lumbering. Their tree crops will never be cut faster than they can be grown. A balance between production and consumption will always be maintained. Our needs for more timber, the necessity for protecting the headwaters of streams, the demands for saving wild life, and the playground possibilities of our forests justify their extension. ”

“ During the greater part of the year more than three thousand men are employed by the Congested Districts Board in the counties along the Atlantic coast, roadmaking, draining lands, fencing, building houses, bridges, and other improvements, and in planting larches and other trees that grow in this climate. This has not only kept them busy at good wages, but has made important permanent improvements. The total area of land drained last year was 12,089 acres at a cost of £11,391. ”

“ There remain, however, vast areas of public land which can be made available for homestead settlement, but only by reservoirs and main-line canals impracticable for private enterprise. These irrigation works should be built by the National Government. The lands reclaimed by them should be reserved by the Government for actual settlers, and the cost of construction should so far as possible be repaid by the land reclaimed. ”

“ As one effect of the subdivision of the land, the soil, so far as nature permits, is highly cultivated, its appearance fertile, finished, beautiful, and in striking contrast with the dominating vast, bare mountain rocks and snowbeds. The many towns and cities bear abundant signs of a general prosperity, their roads, bridges, stores, residences, and public buildings betokening in the inhabitants industry and energy, and freedom to employ these qualities. ”

“ Here then is a location destined to attract and support a large population, for which place can be made only by steady encroachment upon the water of both river and sea. Diking is necessitated not only by the demand for more land for the growing population, but also by the constant silting up of the drainage outfalls, which increases the danger of inundation while at the same time contributing to the upbuilding of the land. ”

“ Let our government instead take over all private, state, or federal unproductive lands, whether it is fertile, arid or marsh. Statistics from the United States Department of Agriculture Bureau of Agriculture Economics on federal rural lands, on page 7, shows that the federal lands, swamps and marshes are 3,000,000 acres, barren and brush land 40,000,000 acres, non-forested range land 234,000,000 acres, crop land 4,000,000 acres ”