[Footnote: Arthur D. Little, "Developing the Estate," ATLANTIC
MONTHLY, March, 1919, p. 388.] It is probably not too much to
expect that when our undeveloped water power is utilized it will
provide electric light and power for every farm in the land. Our
nation has allowed many of the best water power sites of the
country to fall into the hands of private speculators who hold
them undeveloped, as in the case of farmlands, forests, and other
resources.

CONSERVATION OF FLOOD WATERS

Floods are not only immensely destructive of property, causing a
loss of $100,000,000 along the Mississippi River alone in a single
year, but they carry to the sea water that might be used for
irrigation and for industry. Reservoirs, such as are built for
irrigating projects, regulate the flow of water in streams and
prevent floods. In New England and New York reservoirs have been
built for this very purpose, and probably 10 per cent of the flood
waters that originate in these states is saved in this way and
turned to industrial uses. Similar conservation of flood waters
occurs in Minnesota, but it is estimated that for the country as a
whole not more than one per cent of the flood waters is saved.
[Footnote: "Conservation of Water Resources," Water Supply Paper
234, U.S. Geological Survey, 1919.] There are areas in which the
reservoir system is impracticable, as in the lower Mississippi
Valley. Here all that can be done is to protect the adjacent land
by means of levees while controlling the floods farther up the
valley.

FUEL RESOURCES