Checking the Waste: A Study in Conservation

s to us in the form of rain or snow. We usually think of it as unlimited, but we must come to think o

es in the western part, and in many places not more than ten or twelve inches. One inch of rain would amount to nearly one hundred and one tons per acre, or on a roof twenty feet long by twenty feet wide, one inch of rain would be two hundred and fifty gallons. Wit

y of adding to it, though we may lessen it by allowing it to rush out to sea, givi

titutes our entire water resource, is the source of all our rivers and streams, of the

ugh our streams is sometimes called the run-off. The run-off is increasing every year as we cut our forests and cultivate our land. It is used for navigation, irrigation and power, but the increase is not an advantage for these purposes as might be supposed, because it comes in disastrous floods, tearing away dam

ted to moisten and temper the air, to fall as rain or snow, or to form dews. This is sometimes called

the 3,000,000 square miles of the area of our country. This is equal to about seven years' rainfall and is a very important part of our water resources. In many places it forms into underground streams or lakes. It feeds all the springs and many of the lakes. Our wells are dug or drilled into this underground water system. It carries away the excess of salts and mineral matter from the soil, the trees strike their roots

f production of every acre of farm and forest land and the life of every animal. Every full-grown man of one hundred and fifty pounds take

t falls on every acre. This water is an asset of great value. It should be counted by every land owner as a possible value, saved if tu

rainfall are

o carry away harmful matter, another portion goes up to the surface carrying solutions needed by the plants. A portion goes

e water that can be carried over from the winter. There are many local exceptions, but in general crops are best when the soil can

ches; in the extreme eastern part the fall averages forty-eight inches. In the western part much of the land is unable to produce crops at all except when artificially watered. The eastern part might produce more abundant crops, develop greater industries and support a larger popu

gh forestry and scientific farming and it is very important

possible. It has been found by careful estimate that from eighty-five per cent. to ninety-f

ng how our forests, our fuels and our minerals are disappearing, and our soil being carried out to sea by the rushing waters, it is well to conside

supply, for household and drinking purposes; next, that which is used for navigation and the running of boats to carry commer

es, but as we come to understand more the nature, value and possibilities of this great resource, w

separately we shall see th

to the cities. The better managed systems protect the drained lands from erosion by planting forests or grass and the water is completely controlled, so that all the water, even the

made profitable in other ways. The drainage basins should be heavily planted with trees, which will in time yield a large return, or w

assume this great burden to insure an unending supply of pure water, for they realized that without it their city could not continue to grow. It was not until the plans for piping water to the city were almost completed that the value of the water-power along the route was

becomes loaded with poisonous chemicals, acids, or minerals. If city sewage or barn-yards are allowed to drain into it, the germs of typhoid and other fevers enter the water supply. To insure

est way is to divert it into the nearest water course an

First, in a river, sewage may enter at any point down-stream to add to the germs already present in the water, while nothing is allowed to enter the Drainage Canal after it leaves the city. Second, some germs live for several days and may be carried many miles. Only a microscopic test can prove whether water contains such germs. Usually such tests are not m

be taken to a remote part of the farm, placed in an open shed or vat with cement floor and screened from flies to form a compost heap for fertilizers for the farm. This will amp

s supposed to be worth, in Germany, about $900,000 a year for fertilizer on account of the phosphorus it contains. The city of Berlin operates large sewage farms, using as la

Pittsburg was reckoned at $3,850,000, and in the city of A

ich grew and flourished were all on rivers large enough to carry commerce by boat. Afte

anals were built and put into actual operation and dozens of others had been planned, when the building of railways began. This new system of transport

f hundreds of millions of dollars, until now the railroads form one-seventh of all our national wealth, having 228,000 m

nearly enough cars in the country to handle the volume of business, neither are there enough locomotives to move the necessary cars, nor tracks, nor stations. In short, the railways are entirely unable to handle the vast p

rom five to eight billion dollars. This means a heavy tax on iron and coal and timber as well as on the labor re

terest in the waterways of t

completely to improve the waterways of the country. This is not more than one-tenth of what would be needed to

ld be carried in this way, in order to reduce freight rates and so, indirect

reasing package-freight business, besides the handling of heavy f

o adopt a general plan for waterway improvement and carry it i

organized plan. Work has been begun and not enough money appropriated to finish it. In the course of a few years much of the value of the work is destroyed by the action of the current or by shifting sands, or if a str

s a reason for the decrease, the relations existing between the railways and the waterways. A railway, they consider, has two classes of advantages. First, those that come from

ough irrigation and dry farming, the people are entirely dependent on the railways to develop it, to bri

ctories and warehouses, while boats can reac

ive to load and reload freight from boats and barges on account of the high and low water stages of the river. This difference amounts to as much as sixty feet in the Ohio River at Cincinnati.

raffic for themselves, usually charge lower rates to those points to which boats also carry freight. In many cases they have bought the ste

ing extremely heavy rates for freight hauled a short distance to or from boats, maki

eight are all much better than those of inland steamboat lines, exce

country, the law requires that railroad rates be twenty per cent. higher on all heavy freight than the rates on the same f

before these can become profitable, and before first class warehouses and machinery are installed, there must appear on the part of the people a desire to patronize them. The best results are found in those cases where there i

harves with free use of the service. In other cases this is done by private capital with a charge for use to shippers. Sometimes it is done by the steamboat com

a careful survey of the needs of the whole country be made, then that a systema

work that is begun should be completed as promptly

g to the nation; but the expense of constructing levees or dykes should be borne by the land owners along the banks, be

r part of a state, but it would be impossible in many years to improve all the desirab

ate. Some navigable rivers have been thus improved and many

ken rocks or logs in the channel, making the passage of boats difficult and dangerous. Others are well suited for navigation, except at points where rapids and falls make it impossible for boats to pass. The Ohio, the Tennessee, the Missouri and the upper Mississippi abound in

treams of the United States you will see tha

s emptying into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, such as the Merrimac, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac and Rio Grande, form great highways for all the commerce of the e

ty-seven miles wide, through which a canal was cut that saves a sailing distance of 3,700 miles from England to India. Only the Isthmus of Panama, forty-nine miles in width, divides the Atlantic fro

le and a half long, but it opens up the entire iron, copper, lumber and wheat resources of the N

ffalo to Albany, New York, makes the only water passage from the Grea

s only thirty-seven miles, but Chicago is on Lake Michigan, while Lockport is on the Illinois River, a branch of the Mississippi. This canal, a large part of which is now in opera

and a part of which is already completed, would afford a safe inside passage

hern end of Lake Michigan to the western end of Lake Erie at Toledo, O

tant; five great lakes that have a combined length of 1,410 miles, 2,120 miles of operated canals, and 2,500 miles of sounds, bays and bayous, that might be

are 55,000 to 60,000 miles long, the great

nal which cost $96,000,000. A depth of eight feet was increased to twenty-one feet. The traffic ha

at least, it is not fitted to produce his food, and except on the lofty mountains the

nds must be provided with water for drinking purposes and for agriculture. The diverting of water co

n a year. Thousands of acres of land thus subject to overflow are lost to use. The holding back of these fl

ogs, and when drained, they become the richest of agricultural lands. Irrigation, storage and drainage are the three methods employed to make waste l

ally needed in the West, storage of flood waters in the

gions, formerly unfit to inhabit, have been turned into profitable farms. Three-fourths of one per cent. of

irrigated by allowing the land to remain continually flooded to a depth of several inches. When the irrigation season is over the levees are opened, and the water runs

estern and southwestern states. Mechanical pumps, operated by turbine wheels, pump the water from the rivers if a lift be required.

ight. These are arranged in parallel lines all over the fields about forty feet apart. At intervals of forty feet, a small iron pipe, ending with a fine spray

in canals leading from the streams and intersected by short canals extend in all directions through the fields and orchards, and are distributed in various w

s generally used. One common method is to lay continuous pipes from the we

elow the surface through pipes which are broken

ncrease the yield of vegetable crops. In the arid western region it t

n part of Idaho and saw there a tract that has been recently reclaimed. I had been there before. I had look

ns of alfalfa to the acre, and more than a hundred bushels of oats; when I found that ten thousand people are living on that tract, that in one town that has grown up in that time there a

t desolate and forbidding regions on our continent. Now it is covered with several thousands of acres of alfalfa and other crops, and it bids fair to be a great fruit region. Of southern California it

Here all land values depend directly on ability to obtain a water supply. So precious is the water and so abundant are the rewards t

ccount of the increase in population, men are turning more

uld render fertile an area equal to that of some eastern states. Engineers are grappling with the great problems of conserving the flood waters of these streams, which now are wast

er, contains several million acres of land which only

and, capable of producing immense crops if irrigated, but without irr

oductiveness because they are covered with water. On the lower Mississippi the soil is richer than in any other part of the United States, but much of it is overflowed so frequently t

kes, scorpions and other dangerous animals and insects. The state of Florida has undertaken the work of draining this great swamp, and when the

which will open to navigation a continuous inland waterway six hundred miles in length. In digging these canals through the mars

ained, adding many thousands of acres of ric

o make them produce good farm crops, but which, while now covered only with ma

of 5,000,000 people. It is therefore easy to see how greatly we may add to our

as received little attention, as manufacturing increases and as fuel decreases and becomes hi

gained such marvelous control over the world about him. Wind and water led in the production of power until about 1870, si

ossible to build factories at mines, in forests, in fruit or grain regions, wherever the supply of raw material was plentiful, and to multiply factories of all kinds in cities near the markets for th

power to the user. The source of all electric power is either steam or water, produced by water-wheels, turbines, steam-engines or gas-engines. The economical way to furnish electric power is to establish central power plants, and electricity may be conveyed from them for many miles. An electric railway, telegraph, or telephone

to locate electric power-houses near the market, that is, in cities. But the benefits to be derived from having the electric plant near the sourc

ctric power at the mines yet they can now be used for still other purposes. Coal or other fuel once used can not be replaced, but when electricity is de

s all double themselves every ten years. This means that in ten years we shall require twice as much power as now, but will have far less coal to use. This raises the question,-have we available water-power to conserve our coal supply? Let us see. It is estimated that we are now using 26,000,000 horse-power of energy derived from steam, 3,000,000 horse-power derived from water, a

produce only as much power as it can furnish at its season of lowest water. At other times factories may

ogical Survey believes that by storing the flood waters and regulating the flow of the streams, the large rivers of the United States may be made to furnish 150,000,000 horse-pow

if produced in our most modern electric plants, would require the burning of nearly 225,000,000 tons of coal, and if in the average plant run by steam-engines, more than 650,000,000 tons of coal, which is fifty per cent. more than all the coal that is now produced in this country. At three dollars

,000 horse-power available, which could be incr

le Shoals Falls rapids in the Tennessee River is furnishing 188,000 horse-power. Illinois will greatly increase its possibilities for offering cheap power to factories, when the Lakes to Gulf Canal w

000 horse-power might easily be developed in that state alone, wh

ion of the country. The Merrimac, flowing through New Hampshire and Massachusetts, is the most carefully conserved river in

rings as high as one hundred or even one hundred and fifty dollars a year in a good manu

ot cost more than one-tenth as much to improve all the important waterways as to equip the railways to carry the traffic they will be called on to carry in the next ten years; and also that in the past, for every dollar that has been spent on waterways, almost twenty-five dollars has been spen

s along the upper stretches of the river to hold the overflow waters of the flood season which

stocked with the best varieties of fish to make them profitable. The banks should be planted with forest trees and made as attract

ow places or rapids, so that the whole river will be navigable, and, if necessary, t

r. One of the worst mistakes in the past has been the failure to use the p

fuse and sewage. Soil-wash should be lessened by planting trees and shrubs along the banks; and where overf

between waterways where large benefits will result; overflow and swamp land should be

may be used as are other canals for towing barges. If electric power is produ

ay that shall be safe and practicable at least for vessels of moderate size; the improvement of the Ohio, Missouri, Tennessee and Upper Mississippi Rivers; an inner coast

vigable. Many western rivers have been almost ruined by filling with rocks in hydraulic mining, bu

t systematically planned. The cost of all of it would be about sixty-two and a half cents a

nefits would be a yearly saving in freight handling of $250,000,000, a yearly saving in flood damage of $150,000,000, a saving in forest fires of at least $25,000,000, a benefit through cheapened power of fully $75,000,000 and a yearly saving in farm pr

ERE

the National Conse

nd Waterways C

and Waterway

ter Transportati

tation in Europe.

Progress.

United States. (Johnson.) Re

ces. (H. St. Clair Putnam.)

(Miles.) Report, Go

Lyman Cooley.) Report,

way. (Randolph.) Report

ummel.) Report, Gov

provement. (Austin.) Repo

ittee on European Waterwa

Bill. Senate Docu

Navigation. (Taylor.) Proceeding

Waterways

f Hydrolog

f Water in Semi-ar

States. Dept. Commerce

ts of the U. S. R

on in various state