216, 217.] The volume of forest
legislation in the States is unprecedented, providing for forest service,
forest study, and the prevention of forest-fires, with a prospect of laws
providing for a more rigid public control of private forests.
An increasing public control of waters is another noticeable trend in
legislation, and their increased utilization has already been noticed.
Joliet's canal has been built. Champlain's is at last completed. A
President of the United States has recommended the deepening of La Salle's
river. The valley is coming back to the French paths. These and many
others are conservation projects only indirectly, but they intimate a
thought of the future as do the heavy appropriations for the reclamation
of arid and subarid regions, the government having spent seventy million
dollars [Footnote: To June 1, 1912.] in such undertakings, making "one
hand wash the other," as our saying is; that is, making the well-watered
regions meet the expense of watering the arid.
And, finally, the States are beginning to take most serious and even
radical measures to encourage farmers so to till their fields as to be
able to bequeath them un-impoverished to those who come after.
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