OCR Text |
Show i HOME MAKING. ' We think ex-lVesident Roosevelt hid right to exult when he went to Arizona and saw that great ' dam of which he was the father, and realised that because of that, 250,000 acres of land that before , was but a desert, will bow within a year, bloom with urain and flowers and where 10,000 families j can make fur themselves a good living, because ; twenty-five seres of that land planted in fruits will support sn ordinary family in something akin to - affluence. If fifty acres is given each family, then there is room for 6000 families, or 25,000 people. T And when a man in office through the force of his ... iifluenee and bis power, is able and willing to eon-vert eon-vert that much of the deserts of the earth into a , smiling settlement of 25,000 people, whereon they can make a comfortable living, then such a man : when he has accomplished such a work, has a right - t'i exult. . And because of whst Colonel Roosevelt ; did when president, in the next fifteen years there will be several million acres of desert land thus converted iuto profitable homes . for people, and each individual traet thus transformed ia a monu-i monu-i raent to the sagacity and the industry of he who : waa then preaident and set the work in motion. In tliat way the ex-presideni shows off better than in any other sphere, because the work waa practical, ; and while it was a plain proposition, no other president pres-ident we have, had in the last thirty years would ; have taken the intercut in it that he did, no other : president would have tried to force it through and . if president Tsft was aa wise as he ia learned, he would ses another opportunity equally great, and ' that is to put the machinery to work to have the ' swamp lands of out country drained and by that means, without loss to the government, have the ' area on which men can cultivate the soil vastly in- creased, the process aU the time adding to the hcalthfulness of tha section. The swamp lands in , the United States amount to many milliona of acres; as a rule they are owned by the individual states. Those states have not the aagacity to see how they, by a little present expenditure, eould get their money back in a few years and at the (Mine time increase the value of the property of ' their respective states immensely, and the federal government might intervene, it might intervene , and advance the money on condition that the first ' proceeds of the sales of the reclaimed land should be paid bark to the government with a light interest. inter-est. In thst -.ray nobody would be out, but thousands thou-sands more people would find profitable homes on cheap lands snd it might stop the outflow of young Americans across the border into Canada. Just now we are told that five full trainloada of people, of the young' and strong of the land, move acrons the border iuto Canada every day. It is a great thing for Canada, it is a most unfortunate thing for the United States. Canada ia exulting exceedingly over it, which ia .natural ; but we warn the Canadians Cana-dians that, they need not have any apprehensions that the United States will wsnt to annex their country, but too look out for those Americans that are going over there expatriatinc themselves o make homes under the flag of the north, lest they, one of these days unite and demand union of the two countries. There is the only fear that Canada need have, if she ia opposed to annexation. It will not come from thia side, it will come out of her very midst. I |