| Iron Canyon Reservoir | $10,000,000 |
| Sacramento Flood Control | 10,000,000 |
| Calaveras Reservoir | 10,000,000 |
| San Joaquin River | 10,000,000 |
| Drainage Canal to Bakersfield | 10,000,000 |
| Atchafalaya Controlled Outlet | 10,000,000 |
| Atchafalaya Protection Levees | 10,000,000 |
| Monongahela Reservoirs | 10,000,000 |
| Ohio River Reservoirs | 10,000,000 |
| Mississippi River Reservoirs | 10,000,000 |
| —————— | |
| Total | $100,000,000 |
That amount of money for one year would complete most of the above projects.
Another $100,000,000—the amount an additional 100,000 men added to the regular army would cost for the second year—would provide $1000 for the improvement of every acre of the total 100,000 acres purchased or set apart by the government for subdivision into one acre Homecrofts for the Homecroft Reserves in California, Minnesota, Louisiana, and West Virginia. Of that $1000 an acre, $100 would more than cover its cost, $200 an acre would cover the investment for reclamation and preparation for occupation, and $500 an acre would cover the cost of the house and outbuildings, leaving a surplus to the government of $200 an acre on each of the 100,000 Homecrofts.
Every Homecroft would thereafter return to the government from the rental charge thereon, six per cent on a valuation of $1000 to cover interest and sinking fund, and an additional six per cent for all other expenses of instruction, operation, and maintenance. And perpetually thereafter, for all time, those 100,000 Homecrofts would provide a permanent force of 100,000 Reservists for the national defense, without any cost to the government for their maintenance.
The Homecroft Reserves should be established on the basis of an organization of 1000—ten companies of 100 each—in one organized and united community. These community organizations, which would each furnish a regiment in the Reserve, would be organized primarily as Educational Institutions, with Instructors to train the Homecrofters in every branch of scientific truck-gardening, fruit-growing, berry-culture, poultry raising, preparing products for market and for home consumption, coöperative purchase of supplies and distribution of products, home-handicraft and "housekeeping by the year." The officers of each company and of the regiment would be resident Homecrofters like the rest. They would have received their military training in military schools established and maintained by the War Department for that purpose. No better use could be made of the military posts now in existence and of their equipment and buildings than to use them as military schools for training officers under the exclusive control and management of the War Department. Every company in the Homecroft Reserve should be thoroughly drilled at least once every week for ten months of the year, leaving two months for a long march and an annual encampment and field maneuvers.
The number of regiments in the Homecroft Reserve could be increased just as fast as the necessary Educational and Military Instructors could be developed for the establishment of new Homecroft Reserve Rural Settlements. That would be very rapidly, after the first few years. Once the details had been worked out for one Homecroft Reserve Rural Settlement of 10,000 men, the duplication of the plan would be routine work.
There would be no possibility of enlarging the system fast enough to keep pace with the applications for enlistment. The benefits to the individual who served a five years' enlistment in the Homecroft Reserve would be obvious to the whole people. More than that, the opportunity to combine a soldier's patriotic service to his country with home life and educational instruction for the entire family would appeal to a multitude of industrious families without capital. They would see the opportunity through that channel to establish themselves in homes of their own on the land. That is the ambition and hope of millions of our fast multiplying population.
A charge of Ten Dollars a month as the rental value of each acre Homecroft would be a very low amount to be paid for the use and occupation of the Homecroft and the instruction and training going with it. That charge would provide an annual rental to the government of $120 from each and every Homecroft. That would cover, on a fixed valuation of $1000 on each Homecroft, four per cent interest and two per cent for a sinking fund, and would leave six per cent for cost of operation and maintenance, cost of educational instruction and schools, cost of life insurance, and cost of maintenance of military equipment and organization.
In return for this annual rental of $120, the Homecrofter would get a home that would yield him a comfortable income, instruction in everything he would need to know to produce the desired results from its intensive cultivation, schooling for his children,—in fact every advantage that comes within the compass of a wage earner's life,—and during the five year period of enlistment he would learn what would be to him the most valuable trade he could be taught—the trade of getting his own living by his own labor and that of his family from an acre of ground.
He would be able—and every enlisted Homecrofter would be trained with that end in view—to lay by enough from his sales of surplus products during the five years of his service to buy a Homecroft of his own, at the expiration of that term, in any part of the country where he desired to settle. He should save at least $2000 during the five years.