It is the flat valleys of the great arid West that will be opened by irrigation. These valleys are small areas compared with the uplands, the hills, and the unirrigable regions. Society is interested also that we be careful of the uplands and hills, for in the arid regions they give small yield in forage and in timber; this forage and timber must be most thoughtfully protected. When the producing-power of the irrigated lands begins to decline, the West cannot fall back on its dry hills. We are everywhere in need of better agriculture, not only that every agriculturist may do a better business, but also that agriculture may contribute its full share to the making of a better civilization. Here and there, as we learn how to adapt ourselves to the order of nature, we begin to see a really good agriculture in the process of making. A good agriculture is one that is self-sustaining and self-perpetuating, not only increasing its yields year after year from the same land, but leaving the land better and richer at each generation. This must come to pass from the land itself and from the animals and crops that one naturally brings to the land, and not merely by the addition of mined fertilizing materials brought from the ends of the earth. Thus far in history, it is only when the virgin fatness begins to be used up, speaking broadly, that we put our wits to work. Then the rebound comes. The best agriculture thus far has developed only after we have struck bottom, and we begin a constructive effort rather than an exploitative effort; and this comes in a mature country. This is why so great part of the European agriculture is so much better than our own, and why in old New England such expert and hopeful farming is now beginning to appear. The East is in the epoch of rebound. The East is in the process of becoming more fertile; the West is in the process of becoming less fertile. In Western North America, the business systems have been developed to great perfection, and the people are possessed of much activity, and are so far escaped from tradition that they are able to do things in new ways and to work together. I hope that this great region also will apply at the outset all the resources of business and of science to develop an agriculture that will propagate itself. _A broad reclamation movement._ When all the lands are taken that can be developed or reclaimed by private resources, there remain vast areas that require the larger powers, and perhaps even the larger funds, of society (or the government) to bring into utilization. One class of lands can be utilized by means of irrigation. This form of land-reclamation is much in the public mind, and great progress has been made in it.