The things we do!

CHAPTER VIII
THE PARCELLING OF THE DOMAIN

The domain of Louis XIV in the midst of America (between the Great Lakes
and the gulf, the Alleghanies and the Rockies) embraced over seven hundred
and fifty million acres. One-half of it, roughly, was covered with giant
forests inhabited by fur-bearing animals with opulence upon their backs.
One-half was covered with vegetation, varying from the luxuriant prairie
grass to the sage-brush of the shadeless plains, plains roamed by beasts
clothed with valuable robes. Two-thirds of this domain was arable, with
only the irrigation of the clouds, and all of it was destined some day to
be cultivated, the clouds having the assistance of man-made irrigation or
dry farming.
The portion east of the Mississippi (about three hundred million acres)
was at one time estimated to be worth not more, politically and
physically, than the island of Guadeloupe-an island represented by a pin-
head on an ordinary map-producing forty thousand tons of sugar and about
two million pounds each of coffee and cocoa.


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