Conservation Reader
by Harold W. Fairbanks · English · Gutenberg #26935 · 312,013 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Conservation Reader
Author: Harold W. Fairbanks
Release date: October 16, 2008 [eBook #26935]
Language: English
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[Illustration: _Nat'l Ass'n Audubon Societies_
The passenger pigeon, an extinct species.]
CONSERVATION SERIES
CONSERVATION READER
BY
HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS
AUTHOR OF "HOME GEOGRAPHY, STORIES OF OUR
MOTHER EARTH," "ROCKS AND MINERALS,"
"THE WESTERN UNITED STATES,"
"PRACTICAL PHYSIOGRAPHY,"
"GEOGRAPHY OF CALIFORNIA,"
ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND
WITH REPRODUCTIONS OF PAINTINGS
IN COLOR
YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
1920
WORLD BOOK COMPANY
THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE
Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson
YONKERS-ON-HUDSON, NEW YORK
2126 PRAIRIE AVENUE, CHICAGO
The need for education in the principles of conservation is imperative.
As Henry Fairfield Osborn states the matter, "We are yet far from the
point where the momentum of conservation is strong enough to arrest and
roll back the tide of destruction." The movement for the preservation of
natural resources can succeed only with the establishment of an
enlightened public sentiment on the subject. To create and maintain such
a sentiment is the proper work of the schools. In making this
_Conservation Reader_ available for school use, author and publishers
have had in mind the great and lasting service that such a text might
render. The publishers believe that this little volume and others
forthcoming in the Conservation Series will rank high among "Books That
Apply the World's Knowledge to the World's Needs"
Copyright, 1920, by World Book Company
Copyright in Great Britain
_All rights reserved_
INTRODUCTION
The wave of enthusiasm for the conservation of our national resources
must reach the children or it will expend much of its force uselessly.
It is from the education of the children in right ways of looking at
Nature that everything is to be expected in the years to come. If they
learn to understand the value of the things about them, as well as to
appreciate their beauties, the carrying on and enlarging of the
conservation program which is now so well under way can be safely left
to their care.
The West, although it has already been ruthlessly exploited, has lost
less of its natural wealth than have the longer-settled Eastern states.
In the newer parts of our country we can reasonably hope to save most of
the forests and most of the wild life, and pass them on down to our
children and grandchildren in something of their primeval beauty and
richness.
In the East we can hope to arouse a stronger sentiment for preserving
what remains of the forests as well as for extending their areas, for
proper forestation will lessen the danger of erosion of the soil and of
floods, and will encourage the return of the wild creatures that are of
so much economic importance and add so much to the joy of life.
A book bringing out in a simple and interesting manner the principles of
conservation has long been needed, for there has been little that could
be placed in the hands of pupils. It is with the earnest hope of
furnishing something which will answer in part the present need that
this _Conservation Reader_ has been prepared.
Acknowledgments are due the publishers of _American Forestry_ and the
_Century Magazine_ for courteous permission to reprint poems taken from
those publications. For their help in supplying photographic subjects to
illustrate the book, thanks are extended to the persons to whom the
various illustrations are accredited in immediate connection with their
use in the text. The reproductions in color of two bird subjects have
been secured through the friendly cooeperation of Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson,
Secretary of the National Association of Audubon Societies.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
1. HOW OUR FIRST ANCESTORS LIVED 1
2. HOW OUR NEEDS DIFFER FROM THOSE OF THE FIRST MEN 9
3. THE EARTH AS IT WAS BEFORE THE COMING OF CIVILIZED MEN 18
4. NATURE'S UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF HER GIFTS 25
5. THE LAND OF THE POOR PEOPLE 32
6. WHAT THE MUDDY RIVULET HAS TO SAY 39
7. HOW FAR WILL NATURE RESTORE HER WASTED GIFTS? 44
8. THE SOIL--THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT OF NATURE 51
9. THINGS OF WHICH SOIL IS MADE 57
10. HOW THE SOIL IS MADE 61
11. HOW VEGETATION HOLDS THE SOIL 67
12. WHAT HAPPENS WHERE THERE IS NO PROTECTING CARPET OF VEGETATION 73
13. THE USE AND CARE OF WATER 81
14. COULD WE GET ALONG WITHOUT THE TREES? 89
15. WHERE HAS NATURE SPREAD THE FOREST? 96
16. WHAT ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE TREES? 104
17. HOW THE FORESTS ARE WASTED 112
18. HOW THE FORESTS SUFFER FROM FIRES 119
19. EVILS THAT FOLLOW THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS 125
20. HOW OUR GOVERNMENT IS HELPING TO SAVE THE FORESTS 130
21. OUR FOREST PLAYGROUNDS 139
22. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WILD FLOWERS 144
23. NATURE'S PENALTY FOR INTERFERING WITH HER ARRANGEMENTS 150
24. WHAT SHALL WE DO WHEN THE COAL, OIL, AND GAS ARE GONE? 155
25. NEED FOR PROTECTION OF CREATURES THAT LIVE IN THE WATER 162
26. MAN MORE DESTRUCTIVE THAN THE OTHER ANIMALS 171
27. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE ANIMALS AND BIRDS 176
28. THE TRAGEDIES OF MILADY'S HAT AND CAPE 183
29. THE COURT OF THE ANIMALS AND BIRDS 188
30. THE BIRDS OUR GOOD FRIENDS AND PLEASANT COMPANIONS 195
31. HOW TO BRING THE WILD CREATURES BACK AGAIN 203
INDEX 213
CONSERVATION READER
CHAPTER ONE
HOW OUR FIRST ANCESTORS LIVED
Before these fields were shorn and tilled
Full to the brim our rivers flowed;
The melody of waters filled
The fresh and boundless woods;
And torrents dashed, and rivulets play'd,
The fountains spouted in the shade.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, quoted in _American Forestry_, XIV. 520
The earth is our home. It is a great treasure house filled with the most
wonderful things. Although people have lived on the earth for many
thousands of years, they have been very slow in learning the secrets of
their treasure house. This is because early men were much like the lower
animals. During all these years their minds have been slowly growing.
Now we can learn and understand many things which our ancestors of long
ago could not.
In habits and appearance the first men that roamed the earth were little
different from the other animals except that they walked upright. When
they had enough to eat and a home safe from enemies, they seemed
perfectly happy and contented.
These early men lived in the same wonderful treasure house as we do, but
they did not know how to make use of its riches. In truth, their wants
were so few that they would have had no use for the things that now seem
so necessary to us. The rich fields about them lay untilled. The gold,
silver, copper, and iron in the earth remained undiscovered; and the
animals and birds that we now use in so many ways then served them
mainly for food.
Since they had no furry coats to keep them warm as do the animals of the
cold regions, and had not learned to make clothing, their homes must
have been in the warm parts of the earth. While they were without
weapons to defend themselves against the lion and tiger, yet they were
sharp witted and very quick in their movements and thus were usually
able to escape their more powerful enemies.
Although these early ancestors of ours seemed so much like the other
animals, they were in reality very different. They had the same keen
senses of sight, hearing, and smell, but they were more intelligent.
When the dog and cat have had enough to eat, they lie down perfectly
happy and contented. But when early men had had enough to eat, they were
often not satisfied. They had other longings which finally led them to
make discoveries about the uses of things around them and how to make
their lives more comfortable.
The little bear cub, for example, as it grows up learns from its mother
just what it should do on all occasions. It learns what its mother knows
and that is all. But among the early people of whom we are speaking the
children not only learned all that their parents knew, but a little
more. In this way each generation of children came to know more about
the world.
Thus after many years had passed people came to understand something of
the wonderful world in which they lived. They were no longer at the
mercy of wild animals, storms, heat, cold, hunger, and disease.
The first people, like the other animals, used only their hands and
teeth in hunting and in fighting their enemies. Finally some of the
brighter ones discovered that a stick or club served better than the
bare hands.
The use of flint knives may have been brought about through some one
cutting himself accidentally upon a piece of flint sticking out of the
ground. If he happened to be very bright, he would at once see the value
of such a piece of stone tied on the end of an arrow or club. By such
means, perhaps, implements of wood, bone, and stone came into use.
We have discovered the sites of many of the villages as well as the
caves in which the ancient inhabitants of the earth lived. The
implements of bone and stone which we have dug up in such places enable
us to learn a great deal about their lives.
There was a time when people did not know the use of fire. What a
fearful thing fire must have seemed to them, at first. Their knowledge
of it probably came from lightning or from hot lava flowing from a
volcano. After they had learned to control fire, and to make it by
rubbing two sticks together, they must have felt rich indeed. The
discovery of fire was one of their greatest triumphs. It kept the cold,
damp cave warm and dry, even though it filled their eyes with smoke. It
was a means of keeping them safe from the dangerous wild beasts when
they had to sleep out in the open. It was useful in cooking their food,
and by and by it was to prove valuable in still other ways, when they
began to _make_ things as well as to _find_ things.
They began, by and by, to build rude shelters,--huts and wigwams, low
houses of dried mud, and dugouts in the hillside. They learned to weave
simple coverings out of the fibers of certain plants, or hair or wool,
to protect their bodies against the cold and the wet. They learned,
somehow, to tan the skins of animals, so that they would not first
stretch and grow slippery. They learned to hold things together by
sewing, using sharp bones for needles and the sinews of animals or
fibers of plants for thread.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
The Laplander of the far North uses the reindeer to pull his sled, its
flesh for food, its skin for clothing, and its horns for various
purposes.]
How did men discover that they could travel on the water? Some one may
at first have made use of a log to cross a river and, afterwards, have
tied several logs together, making a raft. When they had learned how to
make a canoe out of a log, by burning or hewing it out with rude axes,
they could then take long journeys on the water to new lands. Since
paddling was very tiresome, some one, brighter than the rest, probably
thought of making a sail of bark or skins and so letting the wind push
the canoe along.
We do not know how the metals were discovered. Perhaps fire melted some
of the copper in a vein of ore. Perhaps pure copper was found, for
Nature sometimes leaves it in this form. Copper could be easily hammered
into various useful articles, but it was too soft for many needs. After
tin was discovered, it was learned that by melting it and copper
together a new and very hard metal, known as _bronze_, was formed. Next,
we think, came the discovery of iron, which has become so important that
we could not get along without it. Think what this must have meant for
them! To get firewood, to make rude boats and simple houses, to fight
wild animals, now became easier. After iron they discovered gold and
silver, and began to take an interest in making beautiful as well as
useful things.
It is easy to see how, once these new ways of using the earth were
found, men could move into other regions than the belt where it was
always warm. They could store up food for the winter, they could build
warm shelters and get warm clothing, and they could sit by a fire.
Sometimes when the first people were out hunting, instead of killing the
young animals that they caught, they took them home and cared for them.
So the little creatures became quite tame and grew up about the camps.
The wild jungle fowls were the ancestors of the domestic hens which we
find so useful. The wild cow was tamed in like manner, and made to
supply milk in addition to food and clothing. The colts of wild horses
and donkeys were captured and used for carrying loads. Sheep and goats
were tamed in the same manner, and became the most valued possessions of
some of the ancient peoples as they are of some peoples today. When they
had learned to weave the wool of these animals into clothing and
blankets, they had taken another step upon the long road which leads
from ancient times down to us.
Did these early people live entirely upon meat? If they had done so, we
should never have had the wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables
that we now enjoy so much. We must not suppose that Nature grew these
things wild just as they are found in our gardens today. Our ancestors
grew them for many generations, gradually improving their size and
flavor. By selecting the best and carefully cultivating them, we are
still continuing to make them better.
The horse, donkey, cow, and camel proved valuable in another way to the
people who were learning to cultivate the ground. When harnessed to a
crooked and sharpened stick they aided in breaking up the ground in
which the young plants were growing.
And so the long years passed while the early people were discovering and
making use of the things around them. They came to building better and
more permanent homes, because they did not have to move from place to
place in search of food. Where there were forests, wood served for their
buildings. Where there were few trees, stone or mud bricks were used.
The brighter people learned to understand Nature more quickly than those
who were dull. Each discovery of some new way of doing things aided them
in making others, and in this way people finally came to have all the
comforts of today. Those people less quick to learn the secrets of
Nature, or those who lived in countries to which Nature had given
little, gained few comforts and even now remain savage.
After our ancestors had learned to cultivate the soil, to use the
minerals and the forests, and had tamed the animals and birds, they were
still unsatisfied. They attempted to make the forces of Nature work for
them. For a long time people made flour by crushing grain in a mortar.
Next, two flat stones were used, one being made to turn upon the other
by a handle. After that some animal, such as an ox or a horse, was
harnessed to larger stones which, as they slowly turned, ground the
grain. This was a great deal of work, and so some one thought of making
the water tumbling over a ledge of rock grind the grain for them. The
water was made to go over a water wheel. This wheel then made the
millstones go around. It was a great deal easier.
[Illustration: The wild home of early men.
_H. W. Fairbanks_]
Where there was no water power, wind was made to do the same work. A
crude windmill gathered the power of the rapidly moving air. After wind
and water had been forced to serve them, some one who had seen the lid
of a tea kettle dancing up and down, thought of using steam. Then
electricity, which in the form of jagged lightning had seemed so fearful
a thing to the early people, was harnessed and made the greatest servant
of all the forces of Nature.
The discovery of powder led to the making of guns so destructive that
dozens of birds could be killed at one shot.
Some people became greedy and used all these wonderful discoveries to
rob Nature. It seemed as if in some places all the wild life would be
destroyed. Fires were allowed to burn the forest unhindered. The soil
was made to produce crops until it grew poor.
If we become selfish and indifferent and neglect to care for the
treasures which Nature has placed in our hands, very serious things will
happen to us, as they have happened to other people. How to use the
storehouse of Nature without wasting or destroying these treasures is
what we mean by _conservation_.
CHAPTER TWO
HOW OUR NEEDS DIFFER FROM THOSE OF THE FIRST MEN
We have seen that the first men, like the other animals, depended upon
the food that Nature supplied them, and when this was lacking they went
hungry. When men had learned the use of fire they took the first step in
making Nature serve them better than she did the lower animals. Today
she works for us in so many ways that we can hardly name them all.
After the use of fire the next thing that men learned was to make better
homes, to tame some of the wild animals, and to raise a part of their
food supplies, instead of depending entirely upon what they could pick
up here and there.
As the number of people increased, the question of securing food became
more and more important. Would it not seem pretty hard to have to go out
and hunt for your breakfast in the woods, or fields, or along the water?
If you were alone you might find enough to eat, but if there were
thousands of other people doing the same thing, you would probably go
hungry. For this reason people began to cultivate berries, fruits,
roots, and grains, and to take better care of their herds.
Living as they did, in those parts of the world where the climate was
warm, they usually found an abundance of food. But when these places
became too crowded, and some of them had to move to new regions, they
often found less food and a climate not always comfortable.
In this way people spread into the colder and drier parts of the earth.
The need for things which they did not have there sharpened the wits of
these people. It led to one discovery after another. New needs were felt
and new ways of satisfying them were sought. They kept finding out more
about Nature and how she works. After many years they knew much more and
were also far more comfortable than those people who continued to live
where Nature supplied everything.
There are now so many more people on the earth than there were long ago
that to furnish them all with food is a very great task. Besides, there
are now many people engaged in work other than farming, hunting, and
fishing. All such people have to be provided for by those whose business
it is to get food. People of the great cities are dependent upon those
in the country for all that they eat! We can picture to ourselves the
suffering that would follow if for only one week every one had to get
his own food.
We need many things that the first people thought nothing about, because
their manner of life was so much simpler than ours. Let us see now what
they are.
We live in tightly closed houses, and so have less trouble in keeping
warm and dry. But we do not always get the supply of fresh air that we
need. Many of us are sickly and weak because of this. Our ancestors
lived in the open air, which is always pure and fresh. A supply of pure
air, then, is one of the things that we must now provide for.
People once gave no thought to the purity of the water that they drank.
When there were few people, water did not easily become impure. One
could drink water wherever one found it and there was small risk of
harm. Now in many places there are so many thousands of people gathered
together that they have to take the greatest care about drinking water,
in order to keep in good health. To get pure water it is often necessary
to bring it many miles from mountainous regions where no one lives.
Clothing is another thing that concerns us very much. Our ancestors were
not troubled about their clothing. In the warm countries they went
almost naked. Where it was cold the skins of animals served very well.
Changes of fashion did not disturb them and cause them to throw away
warm covering. To supply ourselves now with clothing we call upon Nature
for many things. As she cannot, without our help, furnish what we need,
we have to keep a great number of flocks, for their wool and skins, and
cultivate vast fields of cotton and flax.
When Nature raised in her own way the berries, grains, and roots that
the first men ate, no thought was given to the soil in which these
things grew. In truth, it was not necessary to pay any attention to the
soil. Nature is very careful in her way and never makes the soil poor by
growing more plants than it can support. In her own gardens she always
renews the foods in the soil which the plants require as fast as they
take them away.
The needs of men have increased so fast that the soil has often been
forced to grow more than it ought. Men have been a long time in learning
that they cannot keep on growing the same crops on the same soil year
after year without supplying to the soil extra foods, or _fertilizers_,
as we call them. The care of the soil is another thing to which we have
to give attention, but which did not worry our ancestors.
Nature clothes the earth with a carpet of grasses, bushes, or trees.
When the rain falls on the ground, their roots hold the soil so firmly
that it usually washes away only very slowly. When men first began to
cultivate the soil, they paid no attention to the fact that water washes
away the loose earth very easily. In this loose earth at the top of the
ground is stored most of the food which the plants require. Care of the
surface of the ground is, then, another thing which we have to keep in
mind.
Men at first made shelters for themselves from anything that was at
hand, such as bark, skins, rock, or earth. When they learned to make
sharp-edged tools, they began to use trees. Where it is cold, much wood
is required to build warm houses. As the numbers of men increased, they
used greater and greater quantities of wood. Wood also proved to be most
useful for many other purposes than house building. In order to plant
larger fields the trees were cut down or burned off, without thought of
doing any harm. In time trees became scarce in many parts of the world
and men began to realize that care must be used or the supply of wood
might fail them.
Coal was finally discovered and men said, "Now we have something that
will last always, for there must be an inexhaustible amount in the earth
beneath our feet. All that we shall have to do is to dig it out." When
men grew wiser they learned that coal must not be used carelessly any
more than the other gifts of Nature; otherwise the supply may give out
and leave them with nothing to take its place.
Hunting and fishing continued to be the business of many. They invented
destructive weapons with which they were able to kill such large numbers
of wild creatures that some kinds disappeared entirely. Fish, also, of
which people thought the sea and the rivers contained a never failing
supply, became scarcer. They did not know that fish live mostly in the
shallow waters along shores, and that the great ocean depths contain
very few.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
Sierra junipers above Tuolumne Meadows, near the Yosemite Valley,
showing how roots will force their way in apparently most unfavorable
places.]
Thus, as the earth became thickly settled with men and their wants
increased, they discovered that they had to treat Nature in a very
different way from that of their early ancestors.
Because of our great numbers we have to be careful not to use the earth
in such a way as to lessen its fertility and productiveness. Where
people have been careless, famine has often resulted. Poverty and
suffering have come to many parts of the earth, as we shall learn
farther along in this little book.
THE CITY ON THE PLAIN
Strange indeed were the sounds I heard
One day, on the side of the mountain:
Hushed was the stream and silent the bird,
The restless wind seemed to hold its breath,
And all things there were as still as death,
Save the hoarse-voiced god of the mountain.
Through the tangled growth, with a hurried stride,
I saw him pass on the mountain,
Thrusting the briers and bushes aside,
Crackling the sticks and spurning the stones,
And talking in loud and angry tones
On the side of the ancient mountain.
The tips of his goatlike ears were red,
Though the day was cool on the mountain,
And they lay close-drawn to his horned head;
His bushy brows o'er his small eyes curled,
And he stamped his hoofs,--for all the world
Like Pan in a rage on the mountain.
"Where are my beautiful trees," he cried,
"That grew on the side of the mountain?
The stately pines that were once my pride,
My shadowy, droop-limbed junipers:
And my dewy, softly whispering firs,
'Mid their emerald glooms on the mountain?
"They are all ravished away," he said,
"And torn from the arms of the mountain,
Away from the haunts of cooling shade,
From the cloisters green which flourished here--
My lodging for many a joyous year
On the side of the pleasant mountain.
"The songbird is bereft of its nest,
And voiceless now is the mountain.
My murmurous bees once took their rest,
At shut of day, and knew no fear,
In the trees whose trunks lie rotting here
On the side of the ruined mountain.
"Man has let in the passionate sun
To suck the life-blood of the mountain,
And drink up its fountains one by one:
And out of the immortal freshness made
A thing of barter, and sold in trade
The sons of the mother mountain.
"Down in the valley I see a town,
Built of his spoils from my mountain--
A jewel torn from a monarch's crown,
A grave for the lordly groves of Pan:
And for this, on the head of vandal man,
I hurl a curse from the mountain.
"His palpitant streams shall all go dry
Henceforth on the side of the mountain,
And his verdant plains as a desert lie
Until he plants again the forest fold
And restores to me my kingdom old,
As in former days on the mountain.
"Long shall the spirit of silence brood
On the side of the wasted mountain,
E'er out of the sylvan solitude
To lift the curse from off the plain,
The crystal streams pour forth again
From the gladdened heart of the mountain."
MILLARD F. HUDSON, in _American Forestry_, XIV. 42
[Illustration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._
"'Where are my beautiful trees,' he cried,
'That grew on the side of the mountain?'"]
CHAPTER THREE
THE EARTH AS IT WAS BEFORE THE COMING OF CIVILIZED MEN
For ages, on the silent forest here,
Thy beams did fall before the red man came
To dwell beneath them; in their shade the deer
Fed, and feared not the arrow's deadly aim.
Nor tree was felled, in all that world of woods,
Save by the beaver's tooth, or winds, or rush of floods.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT, _A Walk at Sunset_
The earth has not always been as it is now. Those parts now possessed by
the more civilized peoples have been very greatly changed. If we could
look back and see some of the countries as they were long ago, we should
hardly know them. In certain lands the forests have been cut down, the
wild creatures driven away, and the soil so carelessly cultivated that
it has become poor. In other lands Nature's gifts have been carefully
used; even the barren deserts have been turned into green fields and
blooming gardens for hundreds of miles.
Let us try to picture to ourselves how our own country looked when white
men first found and explored it. A few hundred years ago it was the home
of wild animals and Indians only. We have been given our freedom in one
of the richest of Nature's gardens, and, like so many children, have
tried to see who could gather the most treasures from it. We have given
little attention to keeping up the garden.
If you have been in some part of the country that is still wild and
unsettled, it will help you to form a picture of how the entire land
once looked. If you have been in one of our great natural parks, this
will be a better help. In these parks everything remains just as Nature
made it. There the animals, birds, and plants are free to live their
lives unmolested. Is it not a good thing that our government has been
wise enough to have large tracts of land left in just the condition in
which the whole country was when our ancestors first came?
We will think of our whole land, then, as a great wild park, rich in all
kinds of animal and plant life. It was not an altogether happy family
that lived in this park, for all were struggling for food, drink, and
sunshine. But as none were possessed of such deadly weapons as those of
civilized man, no one kind of animal was able to kill off all of any
other kind.
Neither the Indians in their wigwams, nor the wild animals in their
lairs, nor the birds singing in the trees, nor the ducks quacking in the
marshes dreamed of the change that was coming to their homes. They did
not dream of civilized man with his terrible weapons and his many needs,
who was to change the whole appearance of the country and nearly or
quite exterminate many of them.
The life of the Indians was almost as simple as that of the lower
animals. Their clothing required little care. Their homes were easily
made. Some of them had learned to cultivate the soil, but they depended
mainly upon food obtained by hunting, and such roots, berries, and nuts
as the women could collect. If we could have looked down on our land as
the bird does, we should have seen little sign of human inhabitants.
There were no roads or bridges, and only indistinct trails led from one
village to another.
In the far Southwest there were people quite different from those of
whom we have been speaking. They were called the Pueblo Indians. In
Mexico there were similar people called the Aztecs. All these Indians
still live in permanent stone villages, as they did a thousand years
ago. They learned more about Nature than the wandering Indians, but we
do not believe they would ever become civilized if left to themselves.
The only animal that the Indians had tamed was the wolf. They made
little use of the wolf-dog except in the far North, where it drew their
sleds over the snow.
Some of the Indians of our country once knew of the use of copper, but
it had been forgotten when white men first came.
All about the Indians was the same world that surrounds us. In truth, it
was a richer world in some ways, for since then many of its treasures
have been lost through greed and waste.
The rich soil of the valleys was almost undisturbed. The forests were
uncut save for an occasional tree used in making a canoe or a rude
cabin. The forests suffered only at the hands of the insects, storms,
and fires. The flowers that covered the ground in spring went
ungathered. The vast grassy prairies were disturbed only by the feeding
of such animals as the buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope.
A single great forest spread over all the mountains and valleys of the
eastern part of our country. Now you can travel for many miles in the
more thickly settled portions of this region and see not a single tree
of the original forest.
To the west of the forest came the prairies and plains. Still farther
west came lofty mountains and desert valleys. On these Western mountains
were other forests with trees of wonderful size.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
The elk once roamed the valleys.]
This great natural park, with its long seacoasts, rivers, lakes,
marshes, dense woods, and open plains, was a paradise for wild creatures
of every description, and the Indian was contented to leave it so.
Grizzly and black bears roamed the thickets. Elk wandered through the
mountains and valleys. Deer were abundant everywhere. The antelope raced
over the plains, mountain goats and sheep lived among the rocks, and
moose filled the Northern woods. Great herds of buffalo darkened the
surface of the plains. When the first railroad was built across the
plains, less than fifty years ago, the trains were sometimes stopped by
herds of buffalo crossing the track.
Most of the songbirds that filled the country then are still with us,
for they were of little commercial value to the hunter. No other land
has richer bird music than ours. Many of the birds that are valuable
for food are, however, nearly extinct. Now we have laws for their
protection, but these laws went into effect too late to save some
species. The passenger pigeon is one of our greatest losses.
The cutting down of the vast forests that once covered the Eastern
states, and the cultivation of fields, has helped to drive many of the
wild creatures away. We are just beginning to learn how poor our country
would be if we lost them all. Refuges are being established in many
places, where those birds and animals most in danger of extinction may
live safe from the hunter.
The coast waters, lakes, and streams of our country were once alive with
fish. The Indians made use of them, but their rude traps did not catch
enough to affect the number seriously. We have fished with every kind of
trap that the brightest fisherman could think of. Many important food
fishes are now very much reduced in numbers. The fur seal and sea otter
are so nearly gone that only the most watchful protection will save them
from extinction.
The land, as the Indian knew it, was beautiful, and was filled with
everything that one could wish. But the Indian did not know how to use
it. He lived a poor life, suffering from cold and hunger.
We came into the possession of a land unspoiled by its primitive
inhabitants. It was just as Nature made it. In a few short years we have
almost exterminated the Indian. We have swept away a large part of the
forests. We have almost destroyed many of the species of animals and
birds. We have robbed the soil and injured the flow of the rivers. Some
of this loss we could not help, for when many millions of people occupy
a land there must be many changes. But for the losses that we have
needlessly and carelessly caused we shall sometime be sorry.
[Illustration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._
"Such beautiful things in the heart of the woods! Flowers and ferns and
the soft green moss."]
Do you not think we are wise in seeking how to take better care of this
land of ours?
IN THE HEART OF THE WOODS
Such beautiful things in the heart of the woods!
Flowers and ferns and the soft green moss;
Such love of the birds in the solitudes,
Where the swift winds glance and the treetops toss;
Spaces of silence swept with song,
Which nobody hears but the God above;
Spaces where myriad creatures throng,
Sunning themselves in his guarding love.
Such safety and peace in the heart of the woods!
Far from the city's dust and din,
Where passion nor hate nor man intrudes,
Nor fashion nor folly has entered in.
Deeper than hunter's trail hath gone
Glimmers the tarn where the wild deer drink;
And fearless and free comes the gentle fawn,
To peep at herself o'er the grassy brink.
Such pledges of love in the heart of the woods!
For the Maker of all things keeps the feast,
And over the tiny flowers broods
With care that for ages has never ceased.
If he cares for this, will he not for thee--
Thee, wherever thou art today?
Child of an infinite Father, see;
And safe in such gentlest keeping stay.
MARGARET E. SANGSTER, in _American Forestry_, XIV
CHAPTER FOUR
NATURE'S UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF HER GIFTS
Pure, fresh air is free to all of us, for, like an ocean, it surrounds
the whole earth. We need pure water just as much as we do pure air, but
it is not always easy to get. A large part of the earth is buried
beneath water so salt that we cannot use it. Other parts of the earth
are so dry that if we venture into them we may die of thirst. The solid
land on which we make our homes is not all of the same value. Thousands
of square miles are so rocky or so cold or so dry that they support no
living thing. Other thousands of miles of the earth have been so favored
by Nature that they are fairly alive with every sort of creature.
We say that a country is rich in natural resources when it has an
abundance of those things that men need or can make use of for their
pleasure and comfort. A country is poor when it has few of these things.
The first men were poor, although they lived in a rich part of the
earth. They did not know how to make use of what lay around them. If
civilized men are poor now, it is because they have wasted Nature's
gifts or because they live in a country upon which she has bestowed
little.
When we say that the far North where the Eskimos live is a dreary,
desolate region, we mean that it lacks most of those things necessary to
make men comfortable and happy. When we read of the life of the
wandering Arabs in the desert of Arabia, we think of a country to which
Nature has not given its share.
When we speak of Spain as poor, we have in mind a country once favored
by Nature, but no longer prosperous because its resources have been
wasted. Our own land is now rich and prosperous because of the abundance
of its natural resources. We should guard these well lest we meet a fate
similar to that of the people of Spain.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Where Nature has supplied little rain; desert sand dunes.]
If we journey over our own land, we shall discover that Nature has been
very partial to certain parts, giving them more than they need. Other
parts have been left with little. We shall also discover what wonderful
things men are doing to make up for the failures of Nature, and to make
habitable many of those places which she left uninhabitable.
The forests of the eastern half of the country have been thinned out.
West of the Mississippi River there are thousands of square miles of
prairies where there are almost no trees. In such places the first
settlers had difficulty in getting firewood, and had to build their
houses of earth or stone.
Upon the northwest coast there is fog and rain and little sunshine.
There the forests grow so dense that it is difficult to travel through
them. In the deserts of the Southwest the sun shines out of a cloudless
sky almost every day in the year. The ground becomes very dry and the
living things found there have strange and curious habits.
In the Central and Eastern states there is much coal; and because of
this, millions of people have gathered there to engage in manufacturing.
In California coal is scarce and has to be brought from other parts of
the earth.
The vast prairies of the Mississippi Valley are covered with fields of
waving grain, much of which is shipped to distant regions. In New
England much of the soil is rocky and not enough grain is raised there
to supply the needs of the population.
[Illustration: _U. S. Office of Farm Management (J. S. Cotton)_
A farming scene in the fertile valley of the Missouri River.]
The work that people do in different places is determined by the way in
which Nature has distributed her resources. The farmers are mostly found
in the valleys where the soil is best. Cattle are pastured on those
lands not suited to farming. The miners go to the mountains, where they
can more easily find the minerals they are after. The lumberman finds
his work where the climate favors the growth of forest trees. The
manufacturer seeks the waterfalls, where there is power to turn his
mills.
Now let us try to discover in how far we can change Nature's plan and
make habitable those places which she left uninhabitable. There are some
things which we cannot do. We cannot make the air warmer or colder. We
cannot cause rain to fall even though the fields are parched with
drought. We cannot stop the rain falling, and we cannot stop the winds
blowing.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The prickly pear in its desert home.]
While we cannot stop the water falling from the clouds, we can drain the
lowlands and marshes and so make them fit for the farmer. We can raise
great dikes or embankments along the rivers and so shut out the flood
waters. The people of Holland have saved thousands of acres from the sea
by building dikes and pumping out the water from the inclosed fields.
While we cannot make it rain where not enough rain falls, we can do that
which is just as good or better: we can carry water by ditches and pipes
to the land that needs it. Much of the soil of the great deserts in the
southwestern part of our country is rich in plant food. All that it
lacks is water.
The Indian roamed over the rich lands of the great delta of the Colorado
River. He often went hungry and thirsty. He did not think of taking the
water out of the river in a ditch and allowing it to flow over and wet
the rich soil. The white man came and turned the river out of its
channel and spread the water over hundreds of square miles of the
richest land on the earth. Now, where once you would have died of thirst
and hunger, there are green fields and growing crops as far as you can
see.
[Illustration: The Owens River aqueduct, through which water is carried
to Los Angeles from a source more than two hundred miles distant.]
The city of Los Angeles is situated in a dry region where there is not
water enough for the needs of a great city. There has now been completed
a great aqueduct which brings a river of water through deserts and
mountains from the Sierra Nevada Mountains, over two hundred miles away.
There is now sufficient water for hundreds of thousands of people.
When it rains too much, many rivers rise and overflow their banks. The
farmer's crops are destroyed, his cattle drowned, and his buildings
washed away. We can lessen the danger from these floods, which are very
bad in such river basins as those of the Ohio and Mississippi, by
building reservoirs in the highlands where the rivers take their start.
If when summer comes these rivers are too shallow for safe navigation,
the reservoirs can be opened and the streams supplied with this stored
water.
The lack of trees upon the prairies was once a serious matter for the
settler. We must not think, however, that because Nature placed no trees
on the prairies that trees will not grow there. She may not have had
handy the seed of the kind suitable for such dry lands. Our government
has found in the dry regions of other countries trees that will grow
upon our prairies. In their own home these trees had become used to a
dry climate like that of our prairies.
Steep canons and cliffs of rock once kept people, living on the opposite
sides of mountain ranges, from becoming acquainted with one another. Our
ancestors were afraid to venture out on the boundless oceans with their
small, frail boats. Because of this the continent that we live on long
remained unknown. Those who first found it, the ancestors of the present
Indians, came here by accident. Storms probably blew their boats across
the North Pacific Ocean, and thus they found a new home. Now railroads
enable us to cross the deserts in perfect comfort. Tunnels have been
made through the mountains, so that we can go easily from one valley to
another. Boats of giant size carry us safely and quickly across the
stormy oceans. Nature did not intend us to fly through the air or swim
beneath the water, but we are learning so much about her laws that we
shall soon be almost as much at home in the air and the sea as the birds
and fish are.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE LAND OF THE POOR PEOPLE
My squandered forests, hacked and hewed,
Are gone; my rivers fail;
My stricken hillsides, stark and nude,
Stand shivering in the gale.
Down to the sea my teeming soil
In yellow torrents goes;
The guerdon of the farmer's toil
With each year lesser grows.
ROBERT M. REESE, _The Spendthrift_; quoted in _American Forestry_,
XIV. 269
This is the story of a land of plenty that became almost a desert. Long
ago there dwelt in this land a people wise in all the things that
concerned their home. Through many hard years of toil and struggle they
had learned to take the very best care of what Nature had given them.
Although Nature seemed to them to be wasteful, she punished waste in her
children. As long as they obeyed, they had comfortable homes, fertile
fields, and sleek herds.
The country of which we are speaking was very beautiful. There were
lofty mountains and broad, fertile valleys. Many streams, fed by clear,
cool springs, flowed through the land. There were also green meadows and
deep, dark forests.
The forests contained many wild animals, for in the forests the animals
found both food and protection. Birds of every sort abounded, and their
music filled the air. Trees overhung the streams, shading them from the
hot sun, so that they did not dry up in the summer. The springs never
failed, for the carpet of leaves and decaying vegetation underneath the
trees of the forests held much of the rainwater from running away, so
that it sank into the ground. Instead of making floods in the rivers, it
fed the springs gradually and steadily through the long, dry summers.
The people of this land had learned the secrets of the growing plants
and how these plants could be made better by cultivation. They had also
learned to tame the wild animals and make them useful. The farms were
managed with great care so that they never grew poor. The soil never
refused to grow their crops. The people had learned during their earlier
years of struggle that they must not clear the forests from the
hillsides, for, if they did, the soil would begin to wash away. They had
learned that they must leave the forests on the mountains in order to
save the springs.
Rain did not always come when it was needed for the crops, and at other
times it rained too much. Reservoirs were built to hold the surplus
water for use in time of drought. Canals were dug to carry it to the
fields.
The wild animals and birds bothered the crops, and the first thought of
the people was to kill them. But it was soon discovered that this was
not wise. Those who destroyed the wild creatures about their farms began
to suffer from rats, mice, rabbits, and a multitude of little insects
that all but devoured the crops.
It did not take these people long to learn that Nature was not to be
trifled with. If they took too much from the earth one year, she made
them pay for it the next. They not only became wise enough to take care
of every good thing that Nature had given them, but improved upon many
things that she had left unsuited to their use.
Thus the land was kept beautiful and fertile. The inhabitants became
rich, and, instead of fearing Nature as they once did, they came to love
the rocks, the woods, the streams, and the wild creatures.
Let us now leave this rich and fertile land and come back to it after
hundreds of years have passed. We find a new people living there and the
country so changed that we can hardly believe it is the same land.
Yet it must be the same, for there are the very mountains that were
there long ago. To be sure, they do not look just as they did. When we
last saw them they were covered with forests, but now they are barren
and scarred with many gulches. Here is the same river, but it also looks
different. While it was once overhung with trees and its waters were so
clear that we could see the fish in the bottom, it now has a broad,
sandy bed; the trees are gone, and the water is shallow and muddy.
The new inhabitants of this land have a tired and discouraged
appearance. They have a hard struggle to get enough to eat. The soil is
rocky, and it takes much labor to raise the scanty crops. They never
seem able to gather all the rocks from the fields, for the soil washes
away and new ones are constantly uncovered.
Where are the forests that once grew here? We find in their stead only a
few stunted trees and bushes. There is little grass and almost no
flowers, even in spring. Sheep and cattle wander far for their forage
and do not have the sleek appearance they once did.
There are few wild creatures of any sort, for since there are no woods
there are few hiding places. Neither do we see any birds, and we listen
in vain for a song or note of any kind.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The women carry home the fuel.]
The houses are made of mud or stone and look cold and cheerless. The
people must suffer from cold in winter. The only wood they have is small
brush which the women and children gather upon the far hills and bring
home in huge bundles upon their backs.
In the towns of this country the only fuel now to be had is charcoal.
This is brought upon the backs of burros from the distant mountains,
where the few remaining trees give work to charcoal burners. The
charcoal is peddled through the streets and sold in tiny quantities at
each door. The people are too poor to buy much at a time and are very
careful in its use. It is burned in a metal or earthen dish called a
brazier, and a double handful may last a family a whole day.
Rains still fall in this country of the Poor People, as they did long
ago. But the waters gather quickly upon the unprotected slopes and run
off in muddy torrents, taking along some of the soil. Thus each
succeeding year there is less plant food for the crops.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The rocky land of the poor people.]
How did this country, once rich and fruitful, become so barren? We are
sure from what we know of Nature's ways that she is not the cause of the
trouble. Through greed and ignorance of how to take care of their land
the present inhabitants have wasted and squandered its wealth until it
has become almost a desert.
We can do things with Nature, and direct many of her forces so that they
will work for our good. We cannot, however, as we have learned, change
the amount of rain that falls, nor can we make it warmer or colder.
How, then, are these poor people to blame for the condition of their
country? The troubles which overtook them came from two things. In the
first place they did not know how to take care of their rich land, and
in the second place they were greedy and wanted to become wealthy faster
than they ought.
Why does the rain, which once made this country fruitful, now wash away
the soil and make it barren? It is because in those earlier times much
of the land was covered with cool forests. The rain then fell more
gently because of the forests. More of it soaked into the ground and the
springs were larger. Now the rains are delayed by the hot air of the
thirsty land until, when they finally do come, the water falls in
torrents. Such rains or cloudbursts, as we often call them, carry away
the unprotected soil faster than Nature can renew it.
[Illustration: _Bailey Willis_
The shallow, rock-filled river along whose banks the trees have been
destroyed.]
The strangers in the land, under whose rule it became poor, thought they
knew better than Nature. They did not look upon her as the great wise
mother of them all. Soon after these people came into possession of the
land, they found that in other places there was a demand for their
grain, cattle, and wool. They began to increase their fields and herds.
To do this it was necessary to cut down the forests which had stood so
long. It seemed to them too bad to leave valuable land covered only with
trees.
The people began to look askance at the birds, for they thought they
were eating too much grain. Because they did not know what good the
little creatures were doing, they killed them. Since most of the birds
nested in trees, they got rid of them faster by cutting down the trees.
The steep hillsides were finally cleared of trees and the soil began to
wash, and the rocks soon appeared. No plant food was given to the soil
to replace that taken by the growing plants, and the crops soon began to
show the effect of starvation. The cattle began to suffer for lack of
food. They ate the grass down so closely that much of it was killed.
The rainwater, instead of feeding the springs, now ran swiftly away. The
clear, steady rivers turned to muddy floods during the rainy season.
They swept through the valleys, washing away houses and crops. In the
summer they dried up so that the fish died.
When these people at last discovered their mistake, they strove by hard
labor to repair the damage which they had done through years of
ignorance and greed. This was such slow, difficult work that the land
still remains a dreary place in which to live. It is known as the Land
of the Poor People.
CHAPTER SIX
WHAT THE MUDDY RIVULET HAS TO SAY
Would you like to know something about what I am doing? Would you like
to know why my waters are yellow with mud? I am accused of being a
noisy, roistering fellow, of robbing people of their wealth and of doing
all sorts of wicked deeds. But, worst of all, I am accused of carrying
away the tiny particles of soil in which the plants find their food and
of dropping them in the depths of the sea.
Perhaps, when you really understand my work, you will say that I have no
evil intentions at all. I am only one of Nature's servants. Each one of
us has a work to do. Sometimes we have to do things that seem to be bad,
but that is because some one on the earth has broken Nature's laws.
Nature has many servants. To each one of us is given a different kind of
work. I am the great leveler of the land. No mountain is too great or
too high for me to tear down. I can carry it all away grain by grain and
leave it in the lowlands or in the sea. Many mountains I have destroyed
so completely that you would hardly believe they ever existed. Long
before there were any animals and men on the earth I was busy, and I
shall be busy when they are all gone.
The farmer believes me his enemy, but if I do injure his fields it is
because I cannot help it. The work that has been given me to do is the
carrying away of the loose earth wherever I can find it. If the farmer
does not want his hillsides made poor, he should take care of them.
The farmer does not know that he has me to thank for the richest of his
lands, those lands where the soil is deep and dark, and filled with
plant food. I and my brother rivulets have been thousands of years in
collecting the soil which forms the fertile lowlands in the valleys
through which we flow. We all unite to form the mighty river which
finally ends in the sea.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Because some farmer was careless, a rivulet has nearly destroyed this
rich valley.]
Upon all the slopes which drain toward the river we rivulets are at
work. Other servants of Nature are working here. Some of them are making
the rocks soften and fall apart. Others are bringing seeds of the
grasses and trees that they may take root in the crumbling rock. It is
their business to make a carpet of plants over the earth and thus stop
my work. But wherever the slopes are steep we rivulets have our way. We
pick up and carry away the particles of sand and clay so that only the
bare, hard rocks remain.
When the steep slopes become gentle, and we can no longer carry away all
the particles of crumbled rock, then the carpet of plants spreads over
the surface. Now our waters become clear. We seem like different
beings. Once in a while, when the rains fall very heavily, some of us
break through the protecting carpet and dig great hollows and gullies
into the earth.
Would you like to know how we rivulets get rid of the load we carry from
the mountain slopes? When we are muddy and swollen with the heavy rains,
we turn the river into a flood. The river then breaks its banks and
spreads out over all the lowlands along its course. Now the river flows
more slowly and drops a part of the sand and mud which we rivulets
brought to it. Finally, when the storm is over and the river goes back
into its channel, there is left on the surface of the valleys a layer of
earth rich in plant food. We brought the river the finest of the rock
particles, together with the leaves and stems of plants that lay in our
way.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The rivulets have united to form the broad, shallow river loaded with
the soil from the farms along its upper course.]
As year after year we made the river overflow, the soil of the lowlands
grew deeper and deeper until it became as you see it today. Now the
slopes about the head of the river are not so steep as they were once.
Our waters do not run away so rapidly and the river seldom overflows.
Thus the farmer can use the land for his crops, which grow so
luxuriantly that he is envied by his less fortunate neighbors who live
upon the hills.
[Illustration: _U. S. Office of Farm Management_
The soil of this valley has been washed to its present location by flood
waters.]
Upon the slopes about the valleys we rivulets did not leave so much
soil. The farther one goes up the slopes the thinner one finds the soil,
until at the top the bare rock may appear.
But our work, says the muddy rivulet, was not finished with the making
of the fertile valley lands. We carried a part of our load of sand and
mud on to the mouth of the river. Here in the bay into which the river
empties we began another great task. It seemed hopeless at first to try
to turn the bay into dry land, but year after year we kept at work,
through a time so long that I have forgotten when we began. At last we
succeeded in bringing so much material to the bay that the waters
became shallow. Then the soft mud began to show itself when the water
was low. At last the water was replaced by dry land, which appeared much
like the lowlands which we had made along the river.
Now you who think we muddy rivulets do only harm see what we have
accomplished. We have built a great delta of the richest land that
extends away on every hand as level as a floor and almost as far as you
can see. The soil of the delta is hundreds of feet deep and the richest
to be found on the whole earth. It is on such river deltas that the
first civilized men made their homes, and became rich and powerful.
Now I have told you what Nature has appointed the muddy rivulets to do.
Is not the good that we do far greater than the harm? When we do harm it
is because people have not learned how, or have not tried, to obey
Nature's laws. If we make people poor, it is their own fault.
We still find much to do upon the earth. Nature is still making
mountains which we have to tear down. We are still building deltas which
will sometime be inhabited by rich and prosperous people. We do not
willingly spoil the lands of the farmers on the hills and make them
labor hard for a living.
In those happy lands where people understand Nature we rivulets have a
different kind of work to do. We become pure and clear. We furnish a
home for the fish, drink for the thirsty flocks, and a never-failing
power to turn the mill wheels. Our waters are of service to every living
thing.
CHAPTER SEVEN
HOW FAR WILL NATURE RESTORE HER WASTED GIFTS?
The natural wealth of our country is its soil, water, forests, minerals,
animal and bird life, and, finally, its climate and scenery.
Of all these, _climate_ and _scenery_ are the only ones which we can use
and enjoy as much as we like without any danger of their ever failing
us. The sun will shine through the blue sky, the winds will blow, and
the storms will come just the same, no matter what we may do.
Did you ever think how long a time it has taken to make the wonderful
world in which we live, and place upon it the mountains and valleys,
lakes and oceans? Did you ever think how long a time it has taken to
make the rocks and store away in them gold, silver, copper, and iron?
Did you ever think how long a time it has taken to cover the rocks with
soil, and spread over the surface the flowers and trees and to stock it
with uncounted numbers of animals and birds?
Nature usually works very slowly, but she never rests. The earth and all
things on its surface, have always been changing, but changing so slowly
that we do not ordinarily notice what is going on. When there is an
earthquake, or a slide of rock on a mountain side, or an eruption of a
volcano, we are astonished and often terrified.
Stories that have come down to us from the distant past tell us that the
earth looked then much the same as it does now. If we could look away
back to a time long before the first men lived, when even the animals
and plants were different from those around us, we should discover that
the surface of the earth was quite different from that of today. We
should then see mountains and hills where now we find valleys, and dry
land where now lies the blue ocean.
Nature has been such a long time making the beautiful world in which we
live, that we ought to treat it with great consideration. It is also a
wise thing for us to be heedful of her requests, for, if we will work
with her, the earth with all its treasures will be at our command.
Shall we not now seek to learn which of the natural resources of our
land will never be replaced if we squander them? Let us also learn which
may be made good again by Nature, if we are willing to wait long enough,
as well as to assist her in her slow work.
Each year the growing plants take certain substances from the soil. It
is necessary for us to put back like substances if we would keep up the
fertility of the soil. If we are neglectful of this law, or allow water
to wash the soil away until only the bare rocks remain, poverty will be
our lot for many years.
Nature will, however, if we give her a chance, renew the soil. The rocks
will crumble and, by and by, seeds will sprout and tiny plants obtain a
foothold. But it may take a whole lifetime, or hundreds of years, even,
for a new and fertile soil to come again.
During the early years of placer mining in California thousands of acres
of rich lands in the foothills were destroyed. Only boulders were left.
Now fifty years have passed and a new soil is being formed, but it will
be a long time yet before it will be as good as it was in the first
place.
Upon the Western prairies only grain has been raised for so many years
that in many places the soil will scarcely grow a crop worth gathering.
Many farmers have never thought of this, but the wise ones understand
that they must frequently add plant food to the soil to replace that
taken by crops. They understand also that it is a good thing to change
the crops grown upon any particular field from year to year, since
different plants take different substances from the soil.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The miner in his search for gold ruins the beautiful valley, leaving it
a mass of boulders.]
Water goes through a ceaseless round. It rises from the sea and lakes to
form the clouds, falls as rain or snow, and then flows back down the
slopes to the sea. Although we have learned that we cannot change the
quantity of rain that falls in any place, we can influence the way in
which it runs back to the sea. This in turn affects the lives of people.
We can store water in reservoirs, and by building canals have it to use
on the land during the summer. We can also keep it from flowing back to
the sea as rapidly as it otherwise would, by leaving uninjured the
covering of vegetation which has been spread over the mountain slopes.
The water will run from bare rocks and bare soil much more quickly than
it will from soil that is covered with leaf mold and held by plant
roots. Do you not see, then, that we have almost as much control over
water and its distribution as though we could increase or decrease the
rainfall?
What about the forests? If we cut them down, will they ever come back?
All through the eastern part of our country and in the mountains of the
West are lands once forested which have been cleared and turned into
farms. Many of these farms, when abandoned, have in a few years been
covered with a growth of young trees. The scattering trees that had been
left in the vicinity of the clearings furnished the seed. The winds and
the birds carried the seed to the open fields and so the forests began
again.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
But Nature, after a lapse of fifty years, has spread a new carpet of
soil over the valley.]
It will be hundreds of years before the trees are as large and
valuable as those of the first forest. The "big trees" of the Sierra
Nevada Mountains are found nowhere else in the world, for they are the
last of their race. Some of these trees are more than 4000 years old.
They stood here when our forefathers were still savages and lived in
trees or caves. Much of the region where these trees are found has now
been reserved as a park. If the lumberman had been allowed to get at
them, they would have soon been gone forever.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
Uncle Sam has preserved both forests and water power.]
It is far more difficult to destroy completely most of the species of
forest trees than it is to destroy the species of animals and birds. We
can cut down the trees and in some cases they will grow again from
sprouts. Many will hide away in remote places and furnish seed for new
forests.
The animals as well as the plants have had a long history. They have had
a harder struggle than the plants, because many of them prey upon one
another. We often dig up the skeletons of strange animals unlike any now
living. These must have all been killed long ago. Each species or kind
of animal now living must have come off victorious in the struggle with
its enemies.
Does it not seem a heartless thing for us, who call ourselves civilized,
to destroy so completely any species of animal or plant that not one of
its kind remains alive? No species which we destroy will ever come back
again, and its place will always remain empty. There are a few predatory
animals and birds that destroy vast numbers of useful ones. We should
keep these in check by every means in our power, but for our thoughtless
destruction of the valuable ones the world will always be poorer.
What of the mineral treasures hidden away in the earth? Will these be
replaced when once they have all been used up? It took Nature a very
long time to make coal out of the vegetation which had gathered in some
ancient swamp. It took her fully as long to make the oil and gas from
the bodies of the little organisms that once lived in the sea.
The bodies of the little creatures from which oil is made are still
gathering upon the bottom of the sea, and there are many swamps where we
find vegetation and peat accumulating. But it is a long story from these
substances to oil and coal. I am afraid we should get tired of waiting
for Nature to make a new supply.
Gold, silver, copper, and other minerals, so useful to us, are found in
very small quantities scattered throughout most of the solid rocks of
the earth. It would be impossible for us to obtain these from rocks,
because there is so little in any one place. But Nature has collected a
part of them in veins in the rocks. We sink shafts upon these veins and
mine the ores. It will be a long time before we shall have mined all
there is of these minerals. Because they are so hard to get we are not
likely to waste them. But it is quite certain that there is a limit to
the supply of mineral treasures, and equally certain that they can be
renewed either very, very slowly, or not at all. Shall we cause our
remote descendants to suffer for our carelessness?
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE SOIL--THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT OF NATURE
An ancient story tells us that men were made from the dust of the earth.
This dust under our feet, which soils our shoes, this dust which the
wind sometimes sweeps along in blinding clouds, is indeed precious. The
delicate tissues of our bodies are made from the food we eat. If it be
plant food, it comes directly from the soil. If it be meat or eggs or
milk, it comes from animals which live upon the plants, that in turn got
their nourishment from the soil.
This soft, dark substance which covers the rocky skeleton of the earth
we call the _soil_. How common and cheap it looks when it is placed by
the side of a piece of gold! But how much more wonderful it would seem
if we could know all about it. The soil is far more necessary to our
comfort and prosperity than gold. Gold, silver, or precious stones
cannot keep us alive. They are of little worth to us compared with food
and clothing. The soil, then, is the real wealth of the world. The
farmer, who tills the soil, is the one worker we could not possibly do
without. All the wealth of the world, all the comforts which we have,
all the luxuries brought from far corners of the earth, come in the
first place from the soil.
We do not have to journey far over the earth to learn that there are
many lands where the fields are not fruitful, and yet such lands are
often rich and prosperous. How can this be if the soil is so necessary?
Let us go to New England and ask the people living there if they can
tell us why rich people sometimes inhabit lands which do not raise
enough for them to eat.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
These jagged rocks are formed of once molten lava. By and by they will
crumble and be covered with a layer of soil.]
Much of New England is hilly and has a poor, rocky soil. The farmers who
first settled there toiled hard, working early and late, and yet got few
of the comforts of life. Most of the farmers did not know how to improve
the soil or even to keep it in as good condition as it was when they
first cleared away the forests and began cultivating it; so many left
their farms to seek a living elsewhere. There are now many abandoned
farms that are growing up to forests again.
In spite of this poor land, the New England states form one of the most
wealthy and prosperous parts of our country. There are many great cities
containing hundreds of thousands of people in this territory. The
inhabitants enjoy luxuries of every kind sent from all parts of the
world. The farmers of New England certainly do not produce this wealth
from their rocky soil. Where, then, does it come from?
Industries of almost every sort except farming are carried on in the
cities of New England. All these people have to be fed and the farms of
this region would hardly support them even if the soil were very
productive. So much food is needed every day that if the supply were cut
off for only a short time, there would be great suffering.
Somewhere there must be farmers at work raising food supplies for the
people of the great cities. The many beautiful and wonderful things made
by the workers in the cities must be exchanged with the farmers for the
real necessities of life.
Somewhere there must be vast fertile fields which produce much more than
their owners require. We will journey westward to the prairies of the
Mississippi Valley. Here for hundreds of miles we can see hardly
anything but fields of waving wheat and corn. Here are hundreds of
granaries and flour mills. Upon the rivers and lakes there are many
boats, and upon the land railroads, all carrying flour and other farm
products to feed the people of New England. Here are great stock ranches
with thousands of cattle and hogs, which, when fattened upon the grain,
are also shipped to New England to help feed the people there.
[Illustration: A field of wheat on one of the Western prairies.]
We must conclude, then, that if it were not for the vast fields with
their deep, rich soil, where the farmers are able to grow much more than
they need for themselves, it would not be possible for the people of New
England to become wealthy by working at other things than farming. The
articles which they are making add to their own comfort and pleasure as
well as to that of the farmers, but they have to have the products of
the soil to keep alive.
If the farmers of the Mississippi Valley and of all the other valleys
that help support the city people are careful of their soil and keep up
its fertility, our country will remain prosperous. But we are sorry to
say that the farmers have not always been careful. Many have wanted to
make more than they should from their lands. The plant food with which
Nature has filled the soil has been taken away year after year faster
than she has been able to renew it. Many fields do not produce the crops
they once did. The smaller the yield becomes, the higher the prices the
produce brings. This makes it more difficult for the workers in the
cities to live comfortably. The less abundant the supply of food
becomes, the less prosperous is the country.
There are countries, such as England, that have neglected agriculture
but have, in spite of this, become rich and powerful through devoting
their time to manufacturing articles to sell to other people. But those
who work in the factories of England have to be fed, and so they must
depend upon other countries to supply much of their food. If, for any
reason, they were cut off from trade with these countries, not only
would their manufacturing be ruined, but they would be in danger of
starvation.
To the first men, who lived entirely upon hunting and fishing, the soil
was of little consequence. Now things are different. The wild game has
mostly gone and we have to depend upon the products of the soil.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
At the top of the bank we see a layer of dark, rich soil.]
The people of those lands where the climate is unfavorable and the soil
poor and rocky lack most of the comforts of life, unless they are able
to obtain them through trade. It does not follow, however, that people
living in lands favored by Nature are always happy and prosperous.
You must remember that when the first men increased in numbers over the
earth, the soil was fresh from the hand of Nature. Although they had
everything about them that could be asked for, yet they were poor. There
are men living today on the rich deltas that we have learned about who
have few of the comforts that we have. This is because they are lazy and
ignorant, and do not make proper use of this valuable gift, the rich
soil.
We conclude, then, that the soil forms the real wealth of the world. All
our comforts and luxuries come in the first place, as we have seen, from
the soil. The more crowded people become upon the earth, and the greater
the number that engage in manufacturing and trade, the more important
becomes the care and cultivation of the soil. If we do not take the best
of care of the soil, there may come a time when there will not be food
enough for us all.
CHAPTER NINE
THINGS OF WHICH SOIL IS MADE
Let us take a spadeful of soft, dark earth from the garden and see if we
can find of what it is made.
We will first put the earth in a dish of water and stir it thoroughly.
We notice that the water at once becomes muddy and that little particles
of a dark substance rise to the surface. These particles appear to be
pieces of stems and leaves.
This crumbling vegetation is _peat_, a substance which fills many swamps
and, when cut into blocks and dried, is used for fuel. When scattered
through the earth peat has a very different use. As the leaves and stems
of plants die and slowly mingle with the earth, they give it the dark
color, which usually extends down for two or three feet. As this
vegetation changes, or decays, as we usually say, it furnishes a number
of substances which supply food to the roots of growing plants. One of
the most important of these is _nitrogen_, an invisible gas.
The decaying vegetation which we find mixed with the soil has other
uses. It holds water and so helps to keep the soil moist. It makes the
soil loose and more easy to cultivate. It absorbs heat from the sun and
so helps to warm the soil. This vegetable matter, when it is completely
decayed, we call _humus_. Soils that are rich in humus are usually very
fertile.
We will now turn the muddy water into another dish, pour more clear
water upon the material that remains in the bottom of the dish, and wash
it again, repeating the work until the water is no longer muddied. We
will set aside the dish containing the muddy water and examine what
remains in the bottom of the dish that once contained the earth or soil.
This is mostly sand, but with it are rough fragments of rock which can
be crumbled in the hand. The greater number of the little sand grains
are _quartz_. Some of them are clear like glass, others are reddish. In
this quartz sand are a few grains of _iron_ which the magnet picks out,
and a number of scales of yellow _mica_.
After standing a few hours the muddy water has become clear, and a
deposit of a yellowish substance has collected in the bottom of the
dish. We will carefully pour off the water and examine what remains.
This fine soft mud we call _clay_. As it dries and becomes hard it
shrinks and cracks, and thus breaks up into little pieces. Clay forms a
greater or lesser part of all soil. Clay soil is very sticky when it is
wet, as you will be sure to remember if you have tried to walk over it.
When soil is formed largely of clay we speak of it as a _heavy soil_. In
the West it is called _adobe_ and is sometimes used in making houses.
When adobe soil dries, great cracks form in it. These cracks are
sometimes large enough for small animals to fall into. When there is a
large amount of sand, we speak of the soil as _light_ or _sandy_. A soil
composed of sand and clay is sometimes called _loam_. If it is nearly
all clay it is a _clay loam_; if there is much sand it is a _sandy
loam_.
Soils found in low, swampy places are sometimes formed almost wholly of
decaying vegetable matter. Such soils are known as _peat soils_. They
are usually very fertile.
We have now learned about three things that the soil contains that are
bulky and easy to discover: decaying vegetation, sand, and clay. These
are, however, far from being all that compose the soil. There are still
many other things, some of which are invisible to the unaided eye and
difficult to find.
We will next take the clear water that remained after the mud settled.
We will pour it into a dish, place the dish over a fire, and let the
water boil slowly until it has all evaporated. There will remain in the
bottom of the dish a thin white coating. Moisten this with a drop of
vinegar or other weak acid and it will disappear in a mass of little
bubbles. Such behavior teaches us that the white substance is probably a
mixture of _lime_ and _soda_. Besides these there are tiny particles of
_potash_ and _phosphorus_, which we cannot distinguish by the means we
have used.
Some soils contain a great deal of lime, and because they have been
formed from limestone, are called _limestone soils_. Plants need a
little soda, but when there is much in the soil it will kill them. Soils
rich in soda are known as _alkali soils_. They were formed in the bottom
of lakes the waters of which contained soda. Salt is another harmful
thing found in the soil. You can sometimes see faint whitish deposits of
soda and other salts on the soil in flower pots.
There is one more thing that the soil contains that we must not forget,
for it is one of the most important of them all. This is a living
organism so small that we cannot see it with the unaided eye. Many
thousands of these organisms are contained in a bit of earth such as you
could take up on the point of a small knife blade. We have named them
_bacteria_.
Plants cannot make use of most of the substances in the soil without the
aid of these organisms. The bacteria live upon the materials of the
soil and change them into such form that plants can digest them.
Soil may be supplied with all kinds of plant food in just the right
amount and yet, if it is packed hard and is not watered, no living thing
can take root in it and grow. Plants drink their food and so we must
supply water. They also require oxygen, as do other living things. For
this reason we must leave the soil loose, so that the air can enter it
and the roots get the oxygen which it contains.
Thus we learn how wonderfully the soil is made. We learn that it
contains many things required by plants. In order that the plants may be
thrifty, there must be enough but not too much of these different
things.
CHAPTER TEN
HOW THE SOIL IS MADE
The substances which we found in the soil teach us that it was formed
from the rocks. If we could take the sand, clay, potash, soda, lime, and
iron that we found in the soil and put them together as Nature knows how
to do, we should have rock again.
But if we should take a piece of rock and crush it to a fine sand, that
would not be soil, because soil cannot be made in that way. It takes
Nature many, many years, as the rocks slowly crumble and decay, to
change the materials of which they are composed into true soil with its
swarms of bacteria and its plant food.
If we should dig down through the soft earth under our feet, we would at
last come to solid rock. This is the rough and jagged crust of the earth
on which rests the carpet of soil. In the mountains where the slopes are
steep the rocks stick up through the soil. The outer parts of this solid
rock are, however, always crumbling. Little particles, as soon as they
become loosened, either fall by their own weight or are washed away.
Some of the rock fragments collect upon the gentler slopes and finally
turn to soil. This soil is not rich and it dries out quickly, because it
is shallow. The soil in the valleys, as we have already learned from the
muddy rivulet, is deep and rich.
Nature is slowly spreading her mantle of soil over the earth. In some
parts of the earth one can travel for hundreds of miles and see no
rocks. One might think that in time Nature's work would be finished. But
before the mountains in one place have crumbled and been washed away,
she raises up new ones somewhere else so that the tearing-down work
begins again.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Little by little the great rocks break in pieces and crumble finally to
form soil.]
Let us, in imagination, sit down by the side of a rock, prepared to stay
there many years, that we may learn just how Nature makes the soil. It
will be a long, long time before we can see any change in the rock. Each
bright day the sun warms the cold rock and makes it expand a very
little. At night the rock grows cold and shrinks. In this way minute
crevices are finally formed between the grains of the different minerals
that make up the rock.
When it rains, water creeps into the tiny crevices. The water carries
with it a little carbonic acid which the raindrops took from the air.
This substance aids in dissolving some of the rock materials. If the
nights are very cold, the water in the crevices freezes and opens them a
little wider, for ice, as you know, takes up a little more room than it
did when it was water.
Plants also aid in breaking the rock. Often seeds are dropped by the
wind, and the rootlets of some of these seeds, when they sprout, may
find a crevice large enough and deep enough for them to push their way
into the rock. In these crevices they find a little food and slowly grow
larger and stronger. By and by some of the roots are strong enough to
push apart large pieces of rock.
If the rock which we are studying is granite, we shall after a time be
able to pick out the different minerals of which it is composed. We can
tell the grains of quartz, because they look glassy and remain very
hard. Other grains, which we call _feldspar_, soften and change into
clay, which makes the water muddy as it runs over the rocks. We see also
little scales of yellow mica, sometimes called "fool's gold," and a few
grains of iron. There are tiny quantities of other things which we shall
not be able to see, for the rainwater dissolves them and carries them
away.
As the rock slowly crumbles to sand and clay, the bacteria begin to make
their home in it. Hardy plants, that are not particular about what they
grow in, get a foothold, and when they die their stems and leaves decay
and mix with the rock particles until at last this material begins to
look like soil. It has become dark in color and rich in plant food.
Then, many other plants that require a good soil take root there. The
rock has at last completely disappeared under the layer of soil and its
carpet of vegetation.
Suppose, now, that we dig down and find how deep the soil is and what
lies below it. When we have gone down two feet the soil is harder and of
a lighter color, for there are fewer plant remains in it. This poorer,
lighter-colored soil we call _subsoil_. If we dig a little deeper, we
shall find pieces of rock in the subsoil. Below these we come to soft,
crumbling rock and last of all the solid rock.
The soil that is found resting on the rocks from which it was formed is
known as _residual soil_. This name is given to such soil, because it is
what remains after long years of rock decay during which the rains have
washed away a part of the finer material.
What has become of the soft earth that the water washed away? The muddy
rivulet has already told us its interesting story. We have learned that
a part of this earth (or soil) is borne to the distant ocean. There it
is forever lost unless the sea bottom should some day become dry land.
Stranger things than that have happened on this ancient earth of ours.
The part of the soil which the water carried away to form the rich
valley lands and deltas is known as _alluvial soil_.
[Illustration: _U. S. Department of Agriculture_
A flood plain, where alluvial soil has been deposited by the river.]
Long ago the northern part of our country was covered with a sheet of
ice. This ice crept slowly southward, and as it moved along it tore off
all the soil and loose rocks on the surface of the earth over which it
passed. When it melted it left them spread roughly over the country.
Such material forms _glacial soil_. It is often deep but not very rich.
[Illustration: _U. S. Geological Survey_
Soil brought by a glacier and deposited as the ice melted.]
There is another kind of soil, formed by the wind. If you have ever been
in a dust storm you have seen the fine, powdery substance that settles
over everything and creeps into the smallest cracks. In some countries
where there are strong winds and not much rain there is little
vegetation on the surface to hold the soil. Year after year the winds
pick up particles of the dusty soil, whirl them high in the air, and do
not let them down again until they have been carried many miles. In some
far-off land where the winds go down the dust particles settle again to
the earth. After a long, long time, enough dust collects to form a
thick layer of the richest soil. This is called aeolian soil, from the
word _AEolus_, meaning the "wind."
There is one more kind of soil which we ought to know about; that is
_peat soil_. It is found in marshy or swampy lowlands and is formed
largely of plant remains. When lands with such soil are drained, they
prove very rich.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
HOW VEGETATION HOLDS THE SOIL
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
What the rivulets did to the hillside pastures where the grass was
destroyed.]
A walk up the mountains on a rainy day is not a pleasant one. There are
mud and water under our feet, and overhead are the dripping branches
which, if touched, send down a shower of drops. But if we keep our eyes
open we shall learn something which will be of great value to us. We
shall learn how it is that Nature holds the soil on the slopes--the
wonderful soil which it takes her so long a time to make and which is
the source of all our wealth.
Our way up the mountains is by a winding road. We first pass the
foothills upon which there are scattered oaks. The rain is steadily
pouring down and rivulets loaded with mud are eating little gullies all
over the slopes. Along the roadside, where they have united, the
rivulets form a torrent which is making a deep ditch that threatens to
render the road impassable.
These slopes were once covered with grass and the rivulets ran down them
without doing any harm. But so many sheep were pastured here that the
grass was killed. The roots, which once formed a thick protecting sod,
are now decaying. How quickly the rivulets have taken advantage of the
unprotected slopes!
The road leads still upward until it brings us to where there were once
pine forests. The lumbermen cut off all the trees, and then fire came
and burned the decaying vegetation which once lay spread over the
ground. Now all that remains is bare earth and blackened stumps.
What are the raindrops doing here? They gather in rivulets just as they
do on the once grassy hillside; but because there are so many roots
still remaining in the ground they have not done much work. They are not
loitering, however, and by and by, when the roots have rotted, they will
seize their chance and begin tearing away the soil from the mountain
side.
But this is not the end of the road. Farther up we come to the primeval
forests, where the giant trees stand just as they did before men came.
Here we can see how the slopes are protected, for in making the road the
workmen cut deep into the hillside. They first removed a layer of pine
needles and decaying branches. Then they cut through a layer of soil
about two feet thick which was completely filled with little roots of
trees and bushes. Below this they came to the soft subsoil, which
contained only a few roots, and at the bottom they reached the solid
rock.
The layer of roots and soil at the top of the bank, you can see from the
picture, now overhangs the road, because the raindrops which beat
against the bank have washed away all that they could reach of the
unprotected earth at the bottom. How plainly we can see the network of
roots. What a hard task it must be for the water to get at the soil in
which these roots are growing.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The layer of roots holds the soil on the mountain side.]
We will now leave the road and, although it is still raining hard, we
will walk a distance through the forest and see if there is anything
more that we can learn. We are soon in the deep woods where, perhaps, no
one has ever been before. Around us are trees of all ages and sizes,
from little seedlings to great giants six feet through. Among them are
the crumbling stumps of trees long dead. Their trunks lie on the ground,
and many are so soft and rotten that we can kick them to pieces with our
feet.
As we walk our feet never touch the real earth. It is always on the
soft, yielding leaves and crumbling branches that we step. These leaves
and branches form a thick layer completely hiding the soil. But the
strangest thing is that, although the rain is still falling, we can
discover no rivulets. What, then, becomes of the water? The soft,
decaying vegetation on which we are walking and the rotting stumps and
logs act like a great sponge. As long as this sponge can take up the
falling drops, none have a chance to run away. If it rains a very long
time and the sponge becomes saturated, the drops that creep away and
finally unite in rivulets in the hollows do no harm to the soil, for
they cannot get at it.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The roots of the tree grip the soil like the fingers of a great hand.]
Long after the storm has passed, the earth underneath the trees remains
wet, while the ground out in the open has become dry. A part of the
water held by the decaying vegetation evaporates. Another part creeps
down through the earth to the crevices in the rocks and feeds the
springs.
Let us now put aside our storm clothes and journey, in imagination, far
away to where it seldom rains--to that land which we call the desert.
Here the bare rocks of the mountain slopes are burned brown by the hot
sun. Here there is little soil and only a few little bushes that somehow
manage to live. Why does not the soil gather over the rocks as it does
in other places? The rocks are surely crumbling, for we can crush some
of the pieces in our hands.
Once in a long time it rains in this desert. Then the drops descend
furiously. The water gathers in rivulets and these turn to torrents
which sweep down the slopes. They carry away the particles of sand and
clay which would in time, if there were plant roots to hold them, turn
to soil.
The winds also help keep the desert rocks bare and free of soil. Have
you ever been in a dust storm or have you read of caravans caught in
such storms in the Sahara Desert? The fierce wind picks up the particles
of sand and clay from the bare earth and sweeps them along as it does
the snow in winter, or it whirls them in clouds high in the air. The
dust clouds are often so dense that they hide the sun and all landmarks
by which the traveler can guide his way. But have any of us ever seen
the winds pick up much dust from the green fields where the vegetation
protects the surface?
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The vegetation prevents the wind from blowing the sand away, so that
wherever the roots obtain a hold there a little mound is formed.]
If we turn now to a very wet country, such as that upon our northwest
coast, where often nearly eight feet of rain falls in a year, we shall
find the vegetation so dense that it hides both soil and rocks. Here
water can do little in wearing away the soil, even upon the steepest
slopes, while the wind cannot get a peep at the earth.
Does it not seem strange that where little rain falls the earth washes a
great deal faster than where it rains very heavily? The reason is that
the more it rains the more dense becomes the carpet of vegetation. If we
wish to preserve the soil, we must preserve the natural growth on the
hillsides.
CHAPTER TWELVE
WHAT HAPPENS WHERE THERE IS NO PROTECTING CARPET OF VEGETATION
Not all of the muddy streams are due to the carelessness of men. It is
the business of some of the servants of Nature, as we have already
learned, to tear down the mountains and fill up the hollows in the
earth. It is the business of others to spread a carpet of vegetation
over the surface, and wherever they have already succeeded in their work
the waters run clear most of the time.
Where it is dry so much of the time that few plants can live, the
destructive servants have their own way when the occasional rains come.
Where there is a warm sun and frequent rains, a green carpet is spread
over all the slopes. But when men destroy the carpet and take no care of
the soil underneath, the raindrops are able to do as much damage as they
do during the cloudbursts in the deserts.
The Colorado is one of those rivers in the basin of which few people
live. Much of its journey is through a land in which there is little
vegetation. Here, the waters from the melting snows upon the lofty
mountains about the basin and those of the occasional heavy rains have
things their own way. They are always yellow with mud. The amount of mud
which this river carries has been measured. You will hardly believe me
when I tell you that it amounts to sixty-one million tons every year.
This is enough to cover 164 square miles one foot deep. We might call
this the cream of the soil from all the slopes of the great basin of the
Colorado River.
In other parts of our land, where abundant rains fall, the streams tell
a different story. Before men came the water of these streams was clear
throughout the greater part of the year. It was only when the rains were
very heavy that the soil washed away, for the vegetation held it well.
Now the gullies on the hillsides and along the roads tell us as plainly
as though they could speak that our country is losing wealth here.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The roots of the tree form a wonderful network underground from which
the water cannot tear the soil.]
The soil is our most valuable possession. The people of many lands are
suffering from poverty today because their forefathers did not take care
of the soil as they should. In such lands the people who live on the
mountain sides are poor, because the best of their soil has been washed
away. Those who live in the valleys are often poor because of the sands
and gravels which floods have spread over their fertile fields.
While it is raining, let us fill a bottle from some muddy stream and
allow it to stand until the water settles. In the bottom will then
appear a layer of fine mud, or _silt_ as it is usually called. How much
soil do you suppose the rivulets washed from my garden and from yours
during the last severe storm? How much do you suppose all the rivulets
which make up the rivers of your state washed from all the gardens and
fields during the same storm? Make a guess and then multiply your answer
by the number of storms in one year and that by fifty years, and you
will get a quantity greater than you would believe possible.
This is the way Nature takes her toll for our carelessness. So quietly
does she do it that often the farmer does not have any idea of what is
happening. She is like a thief that comes and steals his goods while he
is sleeping.
[Illustration: _Bailey Willis_
The soil on the hillsides of China is being washed away because of the
thoughtlessness of the people.]
When the farmer finally awakes and begins to wonder why his crops grow
smaller each year, he has already lost the cream of his soil. He must
at once stop plowing the steep hillsides and leaving the ground bare for
the winter rains to wash it away. To save the slopes he can either
terrace them or he can sow grass or clover, which will form a sod and
hold the soil. If the farmer can get peas, beans, alfalfa, or clover to
grow upon his wasted lands, they will make it fertile again, for these
plants have the wonderful power of taking nitrogen from the air and
storing it in the soil.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
The farmer who owns this land will soon be made poor because of his
carelessness in destroying the covering of the soil.]
More earth has been washed from the hillsides of our country during the
last fifty years than during thousands of years before white people
came. The farm lands have been injured, the bays have been made
shallower, and many river channels have been so filled up that it is
more difficult to navigate them now than it was in the early days.
The farmer, the stockman, the lumberman, and the miner has each been
selfishly doing his share in the destruction of the soil. Each one has
thought only of how he could make the most money in the shortest time.
It has not occurred to them that they are making it difficult for their
children and grandchildren to live.
In the Southern states thousands of acres are being gullied by the
rains, and the soil destroyed. The floods of spring have become worse in
late years, because of the destruction of the forest cover in the
Appalachian Mountains. Buildings and bridges are frequently carried
away, and gravel and boulders are washed over the rich bottom lands.
In the mountains of far-away Italy the soil is poor, and so are the
people. They have cut down nearly all the trees and for hundreds of
years the brush and grass have been eaten so closely by the sheep and
goats that few roots remain to hold the soil. It does not need to rain
heavily there to cause the rivers to become muddy and swollen. The soil
which once covered the slopes has been carried to the bays, and now
there is land where ships floated two thousand years ago.
[Illustration: _U. S. Forest Service_
Terraces of rock built by natives of China to aid in holding the soil.]
In Spain so much of the best soil has been lost that the people now do
not raise enough food to support themselves, and much has to be imported
from other lands.
France is a rich country still, in spite of the cutting of so much of
the forest and the careless pasturing of the mountain slopes. The people
are industrious and hard working and thus make a living in spite of the
loss which they are suffering.
The Montenegrins are among the bravest people of Europe, but their land
is barren and they enjoy few luxuries. Their country consists largely of
limestone mountains, from which they have been cutting the trees for
hundreds of years. There is but little soil and that is to be found in
the hollows of the rocks. This soil is so precious that every bit, be it
ever so small, is carefully cultivated.
In the mountains of Palestine and Syria the people have so completely
destroyed the trees and grasses which Nature once planted there that it
is difficult for them to raise enough to live upon. The rivers are muddy
after every rain, and even the water from the melting snows picks up
some of the soil and flows away with a dirty, yellow color.
When we reach China and Korea, we find that there the people have been
most severely punished for their carelessness. The mountain sides have
been torn by the rains and deeply gullied. The once smooth slopes upon
which grew trees and grasses are now a mass of sharp ridges and deep
hollows of bare earth. The water falling upon these mountains runs off
in torrents, carrying even large boulders as it does in our Western
deserts. Here and there the natives have built terraces of rock to aid
in holding the soil, but many parts of the country are almost wholly
deserted. The waters run off the mountains so quickly that they often
form vast floods which spread over the lower valleys and plains. The
floods destroy the crops and drown the people.
Eastward of China there is an arm of the Pacific Ocean known as the
Yellow Sea. Why do you suppose this name was given to the sea? One of
the great rivers of China, the Yangste-kiang, empties into it. The river
rises in the barren mountains of which we have just been speaking, and
it is continually bringing so much mud and sand that a whole sea is
being filled. Long before a ship comes within sight of the land the
waters are seen to be of a muddy, yellow color.
In the smaller valleys of Korea the natives build dikes along the rivers
to keep the mountain floods from spreading sand and gravel over their
rice fields. Every year they have to make the dikes higher as the river
beds fill up.
Thus we see that all over the world people are suffering because they
have not obeyed the laws which Nature has made for the protection of the
soil.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE USE AND CARE OF WATER
The ocean is the home of the water. The water would always remain in the
ocean if it could, but the sun and air are continually at work stealing
little particles away and sending them on long journeys.
The water particles are so small as they rise from the ocean that we
cannot see them. By and by they crowd together and make the clouds that
float across the sky. As soon as the clouds meet colder air, the little
water particles rush together and thus become larger and larger until
they grow so heavy that they can no longer float in the air, but must
fall. Some of them fall into the ocean again, but others drop upon the
land.
The raindrops that reach the land have many sorts of stories to tell
before they again get back to the ocean. Some of them are at once
snatched up again and are started upon another journey. The thirsty air,
whether over the ocean or over the land, is ever in search of water
particles.
If the air is very cold, the clouds turn to snow instead of rain. The
feathery flakes fall slowly through the air and form a soft white mantle
over the earth. Those that fall on lofty mountains form great banks
which may not entirely melt and turn to water until late in the summer.
The raindrops that fall where the slopes are steep, where Nature has
grown little vegetation, or where men have destroyed the earth cover,
have little to detain them and are soon on their way back to their home.
In their hasty journey they do much damage to the unprotected soil.
If the drops fall upon gentle slopes, or where there are marshes and
lakes, or upon the forest with its decaying vegetation, or upon deep
beds of gravel and sand, they are a long time getting back to the ocean.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
The cool and shady stream before men came and cut the trees away so that
the hot sun could get at it.]
We can in no way change the amount of rain that falls upon any part of
the earth. We cannot call up a storm when we wish it, nor can we send it
away when there has been rain enough. But there are many ways in which
we can hasten or delay the return of the water to the ocean. Nature
shows us some of these. The spongelike carpet underneath the forest
holds the water until it has had time to soak into the earth from which
it later emerges as springs. Nature forms basins on the heads of the
rivers where a part of the water, instead of immediately flowing away,
collects in the form of lakes. From these lakes the water runs away
slowly instead of in torrential floods.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The rotting tree trunks take up the rainwater like a sponge.]
Only a few places in our country have more rain than is really needed.
One of these is the region about the mouth of the Mississippi River
upon the Gulf of Mexico. Another is upon the Northwest coast. Throughout
the central part of the country the summer rains are sometimes too light
to afford a full harvest. The rainfall upon the plains and valleys of
the Southwest is so small that the only plants that can live there are
those strange and curious forms that have become used to desert
conditions. The only way in which these lands can be made useful to the
farmer is by means of irrigation. To obtain water for irrigation we have
either to go to the distant mountains and build reservoirs to collect
the rains which fall there and then dig canals to carry the water to the
desert valleys, or to make use of some river flowing through them, if
they are fortunate enough to have such a river. Can you think of any
rivers that are used in this way?
[Illustration: _Brown Brothers_
The great Roosevelt Dam, in the Salt River irrigation project,
Arizona.]
Although water sometimes seems the greatest blessing that we have, yet
it may prove a curse if it is not looked after. If you give the water a
chance to make gullies in your fields, you lose not only the water but
the best of the soil also. If you cultivate your fields with care, most
of the water will soak into the ground. If you are a wise farmer you
know also that cultivation of the soil helps to hold the water, for it
cannot escape through loose soil as it can through compact soil. Thus if
you know how to handle both the water and the soil, you can, with only a
little rain, accomplish a great deal.
[Illustration: Scene below an irrigation reservoir near Richfield,
Idaho, showing a field irrigated by means of canals and ditches.]
We can, then, hold or _conserve_ the water, first, by leaving the
steeper slopes covered with vegetation; second, by keeping the soil
loose; and, third, by building reservoirs to hold the floods. We can
make use of the conserved water by carrying it in pipes or ditches to
those regions where it is needed. We can get rid of too much water by
draining the swamps, and building dikes to protect lowlands from river
floods.
Let us now learn something of the different uses of water. Every one of
our homes has its water supply. In the city the water comes through
pipes from some distant reservoir. In the country the homes are so far
apart that it is difficult to supply them in this way. The water in the
streams is often not suitable for drinking, and if there are no springs
near by it has to be obtained by some other means. Nearly everywhere in
the earth under our feet water can be found by digging or boring a well.
Sometimes we have to go only a few feet, at other times many hundreds of
feet. This water in the earth, or _ground water_, is of very great
importance. It enables us to build our homes where we wish. Spring water
is that which finds its way to the surface through some tiny crack or
fissure in the rocks. How delicious is the pure, cold water that comes
out of the shady hollow in the hills! You can form in your minds a
picture of the rain falling on some distant mountain, of its soaking
into the ground and finally reaching the little crevices in the rocks.
Along these crevices it may have crept for days and perhaps years until
at last it found an outlet in some spring.
The great river flows by so quietly that we often forget in how many
ways it is serving us. It serves not only those upon its banks but those
who live hundreds of miles away and who, perhaps, have never seen it. It
was the first and easiest means of travel used by our forefathers before
there were any roads or railroads through the wilderness. It now aids
in carrying on trade between different regions. If large and deep
enough, it permits boats from all parts of the world to reach the very
heart of our country.
Canals might be called artificial rivers. They serve an important
purpose in nearly level countries where Nature has placed no navigable
river. Although canal boats usually move slowly, yet they can carry
goods cheaper than railroads can. The Erie Canal, in connection with the
Great Lakes and the Hudson River, makes it possible for us to go all the
way by water from the heart of the continent to New York City. The Erie
Canal has helped make New York City the greatest city in our country.
The canal across the Isthmus of Panama saves ships a journey of many
thousand miles around South America.
Rivers serve us in yet another way by affording water for irrigation. A
great river like the Colorado flows through regions of many different
climates. Some rivers become so small in the summer that it is necessary
to build great reservoirs at their headwaters in order to insure a
supply when the crops need it. But in the case of the Colorado this is
not necessary. The headwaters of this river are among lofty mountains,
where the melting snows and summer showers make the waters of the river
higher in the early summer than at any other season of the year. Thus
its great delta, the Colorado Desert, has become the home of many
thousands of people.
Another use which we make of rivers is by putting the water to turning
mill wheels. If you will turn to your geographies, you will find that
nearly all the great manufacturing cities of our country have grown up
around rapids or waterfalls, where some river tumbles over a ledge of
rocks.
Once we had to build our mills close to the rivers to use the water
power, but this is no longer necessary. Now we build electric-power
plants by the rivers and carry electric energy more than a hundred miles
to any place where we wish to use it. Electricity made from the distant
mountain waterfall will do any kind of work for us wherever we carry it.
Thus we see that the river works for us in more than one way. After it
has created power for our factories, it can be turned on to the thirsty
fields, where it will serve us equally well.
[Illustration: _Great Western Power Company of California_
Electric-power plant on north fork of the Feather River, California, for
generating electricity which is carried to distant places.]
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
COULD WE GET ALONG WITHOUT THE TREES?
We have come to depend upon trees to supply so many of our wants that we
could not possibly do without them. We can no more spare the trees than
Nature can. She needs them in her work of protecting the soil on the
steep slopes and of holding back the raindrops that they may keep the
springs alive. She needs them to form nesting places for the birds, and
she needs the dark forest so that the wild creatures may find shelter
and a home.
It would be strange if we did not love the trees; for they are not only
useful, but add so much to the beauty of our homes. Our early ancestors
may at times have made their homes in the trees, as some of the wild
people do now. They certainly lived among the trees, for the myth
stories that they have given us speak of the deep, dark forests and of
the mysterious people supposed to inhabit them.
We feel pity for the people who live in treeless deserts. The few
articles of wood which they possess have to be brought a long distance
at great cost. The Eskimos of the frozen North are more helpless than
the desert people, for before the coming of explorers they had no
communication with forested regions. They were not wholly without wood,
however, for the ocean waves occasionally washed pieces upon their
shores.
From the time when the earliest man found a club a better weapon than
his bare fists, wood has been used for an ever-increasing number of
purposes. Wood fires kept the early people warm. Wood was used in making
their bows and spears; bark and pieces of branches served to make their
rude homes.
The inner bark of the cedar and birch was used by the Indians in weaving
baskets and mats. From the inner bark of the birch tree they made canoes
that were so light that they could be carried from one stream to
another. Where there were no birch trees, great cedars were cut or
burned down and made into canoes, for traveling by water was much easier
than over rocky ground or through dense forests. Some tribes of Indians
learned to split the cedar logs into rude boards which they used in
making their houses. The Indians also learned to boil down the sweet sap
of the maple until it turned to sugar.
The eating of nuts and fruits furnished by certain kinds of trees came
as natural to early men as it does to the other animals. They shared
with the birds the wild fruits, and divided with the squirrels the many
kinds of nuts. So highly do the Italians still value the wild chestnut
that this tree, almost alone of all the forest trees that once covered
their country, has been saved.
The most important uses of trees in our country are for lumber, for
fuel, and for the edible fruits and nuts which they bear. There are
several purposes to which logs are put without being sawed into lumber,
such as for telegraph poles and for piling for the support of great
buildings and for wharves. Long ago nearly all our houses were made of
logs. There was then an abundance of clear, straight trees but very few
sawmills. It was easy to cut the logs, peel and notch them at the ends,
and then lay them up in a house of just the size that was wanted. From
the logs that split easily rough boards and shingles were made, as well
as chairs and tables. Blocks of wood were set in the openings cut for
windows, because of the scarcity of glass.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
A giant sugar pine in a National Forest in the Sierra Nevada
Mountains.]
Our forefathers had all the wood they wanted just for the cutting, and
so they warmed their houses by means of fireplaces large enough to hold
great logs. They made of wood every tool and household convenience for
which this substance could be used. Indeed, they had more wood than they
wanted. Trees covered so much of the land that the ground could not be
cultivated until they had been cut away. Now we wish that we had the
oak, hickory, black walnut, and other kinds of trees, that the pioneers
of our country burned in order to get them out of the way, for they have
become very valuable.
Now, partly because wood is becoming scarce, and partly because our
large buildings must be made very strong and safe from fire, we are
using other materials for them. Stone, brick, and concrete, when tied
together with iron beams, are more suitable material for great
buildings. Our land now contains so many people, and so many new homes
are needed every year, that the lumber required for houses alone is
almost more than we can believe.
The forests are now disappearing so fast that unless we use wood more
carefully we may have to give up our attractive wooden homes and cheery
fireplaces and live in houses of stone or concrete. In many parts of the
world people have so completely destroyed the forests that they have not
only to make their homes of mud bricks or stone, but have little wood
left for fuel and other purposes.
We cannot mention all the purposes to which wood is put in our homes and
in our industries. It would take a whole page in this book merely to
make a list of them. What we ought to remember, however, is that it is
not so much the amount of wood that we actually _use_ as it is the wood
that is _wasted_ that is likely to bring us to want. Two thirds of the
wood of the trees cut throughout our country is wasted in its
manufacture into lumber and other objects. Besides this, as much wood is
burned every year in needless forest fires as is cut by the lumberman.
The waste of trees that are cut merely for their bark which is used in
tanning leather is a wrong for which Nature will sometime call us to
account.
In Switzerland, where the forests are given the care that we bestow upon
a garden, not a particle of wood is allowed to go to waste. The branches
are all picked up and saved. Even the sawdust is made use of in the
manufacture of wood alcohol, which has an important use as fuel.
There are many kinds of trees the sap of which has great value. If care
is used in tapping the trees, they are not greatly injured and will live
for years. Sap of the maple affords delicious maple sugar. The sticky
sap of the coniferous trees is obtained by making a cut in the bark.
Canada balsam, thus obtained, is a clear liquid from a fir tree of the
same name. It is the finest of all the turpentines and is used for many
purposes in the arts. Enormous quantities of turpentine are obtained
from the yellow pines. The pine forests of the Southern states supply
nearly all our turpentine. From this by a process of distillation is
obtained resin and spirits of turpentine.
The rubber tree found in the tropical forests has become one of the most
necessary of trees. Rubber made from the sap of this tree is now used
for many purposes for which we have been able to find no other material.
We sometimes forget how valuable trees are for various substances used
in medicine. Our lives may depend on having such medicines within
reach. Quinine made from the bark of the cinchona tree is perhaps the
most important. Camphor gum is furnished by another tropical tree. The
acacia supplies gum arabic. The poison, strychna, comes from a nut tree.
The eucalyptus, birch, and other trees too numerous to name, supply
various other medicinal products.
[Illustration: _Arthur D. Little, Inc., "The Little Journal"_
When this beautiful long-leaf pine tree is cut we manage to save only
about one third of it. From the wasted two thirds of this and other pine
trees we could obtain many thousand tons of paper, great quantities of
resin, and other products.]
While we are trying to find other substances to replace wood as far as
is possible, so as to keep the forests from being used up, we are
requiring more and more for the manufacture of paper. The spruce forests
are fast disappearing in pulp mills, from which the blocks of wood
emerge as sheets of paper. Perhaps after a time we shall find something
to take the place of wood in the manufacture of paper.
The one use to which we put the trees, which does not destroy or injure
them in the slightest, is growing them for their fruit and nuts. We take
great care of such trees, selecting the best varieties and cultivating,
trimming, and spraying them in order to keep them healthy and strong.
The better the care that we give them, the finer and larger become their
fruits.
Trees are valuable to us in so many ways and appeal so deeply to our
love of the beautiful things in Nature that we should all be interested
in them. If we give the trees a chance, they will do their share toward
making our lives comfortable and happy.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
WHERE HAS NATURE SPREAD THE FOREST?
Our forefathers who came across the water to America found forests
stretching away from the water's edge into an unknown wilderness. The
settlements spread very slowly into the pathless woods, for there lurked
danger from the Indians and wild animals. The Allegheny Mountains also
held the settlers back for a long time.
The pioneers found the country, as far as the Ohio River and beyond,
still forest covered; but by and by openings or _prairies_ began to
appear. By the time they had crossed the Great River the forests had
been left behind, except for fringes of trees upon the lowlands along
the streams.
From this point westward the open prairies stretched away to the
horizon. Antelope, deer, and buffalo were often seen feeding on the rich
grasses. The adventurous pioneers pushed on across the fertile prairies,
coming at last to a drier and higher region which we have called the
_Great Plains_. On these plains the Rocky Mountains came in sight. These
mountains gradually became higher as the travelers approached, until
they rose before them like a mighty wall. Here they again met vast
forests, which covered all the higher slopes.
Beyond the Rocky Mountains they crossed a broad land of deserts where
little rain fell. The vegetation was so scanty and springs so far apart
that many of their horses and cattle died. The dreary and barren deserts
were followed by another lofty range of mountains. Entering these
mountains, the pioneers came upon the most magnificent forest that had
yet been seen upon our continent. After traveling for some days over
rugged mountains, they at last emerged from the forests upon the Great
Valley of California.
[Illustration: A forest of great trees in the Sierras, near the Yosemite
Valley.]
Scattered over portions of the valley were oak trees, giving it the
appearance of a park. When the valley had been passed the pioneers
climbed the last mountain range, and from this range looked down upon
the waters of the Pacific Ocean. Here they found forests again, some of
the trees being of enormous size. Thus we see that the eastern part of
the continent was nearly all forested, but that in the West the forests
grew chiefly on the mountains, because there is not enough rainfall upon
the plains and in the valleys.
The trees that make up most of the forests of our country are of two
very different kinds. There is one kind that has narrow or needle-like
leaves which they keep through the winter. These we commonly call
_narrow-leaved_ trees or _conifers_. The most important of the
narrow-leaved trees are the pines, firs, spruces, and hemlock. Such
trees form the forests of the greater part of the highlands of the
northern and northeastern parts of our country. The pines also find a
congenial home upon the lowlands of the Southern states. Trees of the
second kind have broad leaves, and usually their wood is rather hard.
Hence we call them _broad-leaved_ or _hardwood_ trees. Since most of
these trees drop their leaves in winter, we often speak of them as
_deciduous_ trees. By far the larger part of the lands of the Eastern
states that are now cultivated were found by the first settlers to be
covered with hardwood trees. We are familiar with many of the hardwoods
through their use in furniture and various household utensils and farm
implements. The most important varieties are the walnut, hickory,
chestnut, beech, maple, ash, oak, elm, locust, and linden.
There are not many broad-leaved trees in the forests of the West. The
children of the West miss all the nut trees that the boys and girls of
the East enjoy. But to make up for this lack there are some in the West
that are not found in the East. The sugar pine, the pinon pine, and the
digger pine afford delicious nuts which once formed an important article
of food for the Indians. In the West the broad-leaved trees do not form
dense forests. They are scattered among the pines on the lower mountain
slopes, in the valleys, and along the streams. The most important of
these trees are oaks of many kinds, soft maple, alder, cottonwood,
sycamore, and laurel.
The dense forests of the Western mountains consist almost wholly of
narrow-leaved trees. Among them are the pines and firs of different
kinds, spruce, cedar, redwood, and "big trees." The redwoods and "big
trees" are both known as sequoias; they grow to an immense size upon the
mountains of California. The coniferous forests of which these trees
form a part are among the most wonderful and interesting ones on the
earth.
If you will take a forest map of our country and place it beside a
rainfall map, you will quickly discover why the forests are found where
they are. You will see that the forests are found where there is more
than thirty inches of rain each year, except in the far North, where it
is very cold. You can say, then, that the climate is the chief thing
that determines where the forests shall grow.
If the climate is warm and the rainfall heavy, the forest vegetation
is so dense and rank that you can hardly travel through it. Such forests
are found in the tropical parts of the country. Where little rain falls
there is scanty vegetation, as upon the deserts of the Southwest. But
where it is very cold, even if there is much snow or rain, you will find
no trees.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
Mountain hemlocks, which John Muir considered the most beautiful of all
conifers.]
We must not forget that there is another thing that affects the growth
of trees, and that is the soil. Pines like a sandy soil, while most
other trees do not. Certain cedars and cypresses like swampy places
where no other trees will grow. Many beautiful meadows and prairies have
no trees, because the soil is not well drained.
It is very easy to understand why trees cannot grow where it is dry, but
how shall we learn of the effect of cold upon them? Shall we have to
take a journey of thousands of miles into the far North, until we
finally come to the land called the _Barren Lands_ or _tundras_, where
the trees become stunted and at last disappear--a land where they cannot
longer fight against the cold and live?
Fortunately such a long journey is not necessary. All we have to do is
to climb a great mountain range, like the Sierra Nevadas, to pass
through all the different climates which we would experience on a long
journey to the arctic regions.
It is only a few miles from the hot San Joaquin Valley, at the base of
the Sierras, where it is so dry that irrigation is necessary, to the
summit of the range, where the winter climate is as cold as it is in the
arctic regions.
In going up the mountains we first come to the foothills, where there is
a little more rain than in the valley. Here we find oak trees growing.
Farther up there is still more rain and we come to the pines. Soon we
reach the most wonderful coniferous forest in all the world. Here not
only is there a great variety of trees, but because of the favorable
climate they grow to a great size. As we approach the summit of the
mountains the trees become smaller, and at an elevation of about two
miles they shrink to the size of little bushes and finally disappear.
They can no longer stand the fierce winds and cold storms of this arctic
region.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
East Vidette, King's River Country, California, showing how, as we
approach the summit of the mountains, the trees become smaller.]
We have learned now that the trees do not grow haphazard over our
country, but that the rain, the temperature, and the soil determine
where they can live.
Within the heart of the forest the trees will come again if we cut them
down, but upon its borders, where the air is drier, it is more difficult
for them to spring up anew. If we cut them down carelessly and allow
fires to burn over the surface, and the water to wash away the soil,
they may never come back.
It is important, then, that we understand why trees grow in some places
and not in others, in order that we may know how to take care of them.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
WHAT ARE THE ENEMIES OF THE TREES?
Every living thing is engaged in a struggle for air to breathe and for
something to eat. Those that make their homes on the land also have to
struggle for water. The stronger rob the weaker; for, among all of them
except man, might always makes right. Men are learning that
unselfishness is the better way, although they do not always practice
it.
In this struggle the animals have an advantage over the plants, for if
food fails in one place they can move to another. Among the animals also
the mother tries to protect her children; and, in the case of some,--the
wolf, for example,--a number will hunt together for the common good.
It is quite different with the plants. They must grow where the seeds
take root. If there is little sunlight or water or the soil is poor,
they must make the best of what they have.
The plants have to struggle not only with such enemies as insects,
winds, fire, and browsing animals, but with each other, for every tree
is the real or possible enemy of every other tree. Brother seeds
sprouting under the same parent maple struggle with each other for the
food and moisture in the soil and for the best place in the sunlight.
The one that gets the most of these will grow the faster and choke some
of its weaker brothers.
[Illustration: _Edward S. Curtis_
Trees that struggle with cold and storm.]
In yonder grove of pines there are trees of all ages and sizes. The
older ones have much the advantage and take a part of the food and
sunlight that the smaller ones require. How the little ones stretch
up and grow tall and slender in their attempt to get the sunlight!
But in spite of all their efforts some of them must die.
Some kinds of trees grow faster than others. Where a number are
springing up together, the slow-growing ones will stand less chance of
ever becoming great trees. In this way the yellow pine sometimes chokes
out the cedar, and the fir gets the advantage of the sugar pine.
The bright, warm sun is the enemy of the tree that loves the shady
hillsides. The swamp is the enemy of the tree that must have loose, dry
soil. The cold is the enemy of the tree that is used to a hot climate.
Is it not strange that what is good for one tree is an enemy of another?
Many kinds of trees have their own particular insect enemies which
attack them and no others. Some of these insects live upon the leaves,
others eat the sapwood under the bark, while a few attack the roots.
Certain insects burrow in and eat the heartwood. Although this does not
always kill the tree, it weakens it and makes the wood unfit for use.
The cedar and the hickory are among the trees injured in this manner.
The foliage of the broad-leaved trees is the delight of many insects.
They sometimes eat the leaves so closely that the tree is killed; for
the trees breathe through their leaves and can no more do without them
than they can without their roots.
The gypsy moth, which did no great harm in its European home, was
brought to this country and accidentally set free. It at once began to
attack the leaves of the elm, that beautiful tree of the old New England
villages. Now it is destroying other trees and, notwithstanding the
fight which we have made against it, we have not yet been able to
exterminate it.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
Insects are destroying the trees of this forest.]
The chestnut tree, which every Eastern child loves for its nuts, is now
being destroyed by a fungus which may kill every one of these trees in
the country.
The white-pine blister, also brought over from Europe, is now
threatening all the white pines and the related trees of our country.
This disease has already such a start in the East that we may not be
able to stop it.
The dainty mistletoe, about which there are so many pretty Christmas
legends, is a deadly enemy of many trees. The seed of this fungus is
carried, by the birds or by the wind, from one tree to another. When it
sprouts, tiny roots go down through the bark to the sap, on which it
feeds until the tree is killed.
All our fruit trees have their deadly enemies which cause a loss of
many millions of dollars every year. Among the worst of these is the San
Jose scale, which was carelessly brought into the country from China.
[Illustration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._
A dwarf white pine which has found a foothold in the rocks on a
mountain top.]
The pear blight has destroyed whole orchards of pear trees in the
Western states. The citrus canker is now threatening the orange orchards
of the Southern states.
For years we have been searching over the world for new and better
varieties of fruit trees. With the shipments of such trees we have
brought some of the worst of the diseases that we have just mentioned.
We should have all foreign trees most carefully inspected before
admitting them to the country. We should also be very careful about
shipping fruit or other trees from one part of our country to another.
Diseases are often carried in this way into places which otherwise they
could not reach.
Field mice, gophers, and rabbits eat the bark of young fruit trees and
kill those which are not carefully protected. In some parts of our
country the apple and peach tree borers are a serious menace to young
orchards. Grasshoppers occasionally come in dense swarms and eat the
leaves from every tree or plant in their path.
The valuable sugar pine of the Western mountains is not seeding itself
as rapidly as it should, and we fear it will become extinct. The
beautiful silver-gray squirrel loves the nuts of this pine, and it is
said that he eats so many that few are left to sprout and make new
trees. For this reason some people would like to make it lawful to kill
all the gray squirrels that one wished. This would be too bad, for we do
not believe the gray squirrel is the cause of the trouble. It is more
likely that the lack of young sugar pines is due partly to its struggle
in the forest with more rapidly growing trees and partly to the less
frequent occurrence of forest fires to burn off the humus on the ground.
We know that the seeds of certain trees find difficulty in sending their
roots down through the humus to the soil beneath.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
An avalanche has passed through this forest.]
The narrow-leaved or cone-bearing trees, which are the main source of
our lumber, also have other enemies. The most destructive of these are
the little pine beetles which lay their eggs in the bark of the yellow
pine, sugar pine, and tamarack pine. From these eggs there hatch worms
which burrow under the bark until they cut off the flow of the sap. This
kills the trees. The trees that are young and strong are sometimes able
to pour out enough sap into the wounds to drown the insects, but many
thousands of trees in the Western mountains are destroyed every year by
these insects.
Wind and lightning are both enemies of the forests. Hundreds of forest
fires are set every summer by thunder storms, but the rangers usually
discover such fires soon enough to put them out before they have done
much harm.
The pasturing of forests by stock does great injury, because of the
browsing and trampling underfoot of the young trees. Sheep and goats are
the worst of all the animals and should be kept out of those forests
where the surface particularly needs protection and where the young
trees require all the encouragement that Nature can give them in order
to make a successful start in life.
We have learned something about the many enemies of the trees, but the
worst one has not yet been mentioned. Can you guess what it is? This
terrible enemy is man,--not savage man or Indian, but civilized man.
Although man has more need for forest trees than has any other animal,
he is at the same time more ruthless in his treatment of them. Man
destroys more trees every year, as a result of fires which he sets and
of his wasteful methods of lumbering, than all the other enemies of the
trees put together.
The forest area of the world is constantly growing smaller, and we must
soon learn to treat the trees with more care or they may, like many of
the wild creatures, nearly disappear from parts of the earth where they
are most needed.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
HOW THE FORESTS ARE WASTED
O forest home in which the songbirds dwell!
The squirrel and the stag shall miss the spell
Of thy cool depths when summer's sun assails,
Nor more find shelter in thy shadowed vales.
* * * * *
All will be silent; echo will be dead;
A field will lie where shifting shadows fled
Across the ground. The mattock and the plow
Will take the place of Pan and Satyr now.
The timid deer, the spotted fawns at play,
From thy retreats will all be driven away.
Farewell, old forest; sacred crowns, farewell!
Revered in letters and in art as well;
Thy place becomes the scorn of every one,
Doomed now to burn beneath the summer sun.
All cry out insults as they pass thee by,
Upon the men who caused thee thus to die!
Farewell, old oaks that once were wont to crown
Our deeds of valor and of great renown!
O trees of Jupiter, Dordona's grove,
How ingrate man repays thy treasure trove
That first gave food that humankind might eat,
And furnished shelter from the storm and heat.
PIERRE DE RONSARD, translated by BRISTOW ADAMS; _American Forestry_,
XVI. 244
When our grandfathers came to America they found the country so covered
with forests that they had to cut and burn the trees in order to obtain
the ground on which to raise their crops. The Eastern states could not
have been settled without clearing the land, and we cannot blame the
pioneers for doing under those circumstances that which today would be
very wrong.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The farmer wastes the trees by girdling them and then allowing them to
rot.]
There is now enough land so that it is no longer necessary to destroy
the trees in order to raise our food supplies. The forests constitute
one of the great natural resources of our country and men should not be
allowed to waste them for private gain.
Although the need for more land has long passed, the habit of reckless
tree cutting still continues. There are now parts of the East where none
of the primeval forest remains and very little of the second growth.
Firewood is expensive and many a farmer has to buy coal, who, if he and
his ancestors had been careful, might have a woodlot to supply not only
fuel, but lumber for his buildings.
Many of the lands once cleared were found not suited to farming and have
been left to grow up to brush. If the farmer were wise he would replant
some of these lands with such trees as spruce, hickory, walnut, or
maple. Although his ancestors toiled early and late to get these trees
out of the way, a few acres of them now would be a fortune.
There are parts of our country, particularly in the South and West,
where the settlers are still cutting the trees to get them out of their
way. In distant mountain valleys where there is no market for lumber,
men are chopping down the great pines. They would make fine lumber, for
they are tall and straight, but instead of being put to some useful end
their fate is the bonfire. It makes no difference to these men that they
are wasting what it has taken Nature hundreds of years to produce nor
that in other parts of the country timber is scarce and expensive.
In Germany and Switzerland the forest resources are carefully looked
after. As fast as the grown trees are cut from a field, young trees are
planted in their places. The keeping of a certain part of the land in
forest is held to be of advantage to all the people. For this reason men
are not allowed to cut trees upon their own land without permission from
the forest officer.
Many years ago, when lumbering became an important industry and the
mills began to turn out immense quantities of boards and beams of every
sort needed by the growing population of our new country, it was
believed that the supply would never be used up. Only the best and
clearest logs were sawed into lumber, and a large part of each tree was
left on the ground to rot or to feed the first fire that occurred. Now
lumber is scarce and expensive; and the poorer grades also are in much
demand.
Have you ever seen the giant sugar pines on the slopes of the Western
mountains? Next to the sequoias they are the largest of our American
trees. A single tree has furnished lumber enough for a house. Sugar
pine has now become so valuable that it is used only for such purposes
as window sash, doors, and similar articles. We have taken no care of
these wonderful trees until recently, but have allowed them to be cut
and wasted in the most reckless fashion.
If you could go through the sugar-pine forests, you would find hundreds
and even thousands of these mighty trees lying on the ground rotting.
This is the work of the shake or shingle maker. He has been as
thoughtless in his cutting of these giants which have been hundreds of
years growing as is the farmer of the stalks of grain that springs up
and ripens its seed in one season. The shingle maker must have material
which splits well. He hunts for the straightest and cleanest trees. At
most he does not use over fifty feet of the trunk, and if the tree does
not split to suit him, then all, or nearly all, of the tree is left to
rot.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
In turning this giant sequoia into lumber more than half the tree is
wasted.]
The waste of the lumberman is not so great, but it is enough to open our
eyes to one of the reasons for the rapid disappearance of our forests.
On the average only about one third of the wood of every tree cut is
actually used. The rest is lost in the logging operations and during the
various processes through which it passes before it reaches our hands.
In addition to the waste of the trees actually cut, there is the loss of
the young trees due to careless logging. Too often the lumbermen do not
care in what condition the logs leave the forest. They want only the
trees now fit for lumber, and they want to get them in the easiest way
possible.
Instead of going through the forest and picking out only the ripe or
mature trees and leaving the rest for a later cutting, the lumbermen
usually take everything that has any present worth. Trees that are less
valuable for lumber, such as the firs, are used for skidways and
bridges, and when no longer needed for these purposes are left on the
ground. No care is taken to see that the great trees fall with the least
possible damage to the young growth. Upon the preservation of the young
trees, which almost everywhere occupy the open spaces between the large
ones, rests our hope of a future forest.
When the work of lumbering in any particular region is finished, the
sight is such as must make Nature weep, for it almost brings tears to
our eyes. The young trees are broken and crushed to the ground, branches
and fragments of the trunks lie scattered about, while above the ruin
rise those trees not considered worth cutting. The once beautiful and
majestic forest is now ready for fire. Some passer-by may drop a
lighted match or cigarette, and you can easily form a picture in your
mind of what happens.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The shake maker wastes the larger part of a great sugar pine that has
been a thousand years in growing.]
In the countries of Europe lumbermen are very careful; not a particle of
the cut tree goes to waste. The logs are sawed without removing what we
call "slabs." The sawdust is saved and used in the manufacture of wood
alcohol. If we saved all the present waste in the logging and milling of
our pines, we could make all the turpentine needed in our country. If we
saved what is now wasted of the poplar and spruce, we should have
material enough to make all the paper we use.
There are still large and valuable forests in the Southern Appalachian
Mountains, in the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada-Cascade Range, and
the Coast Ranges. These regions were settled later than the Eastern
states, and parts of them are yet remote from markets.
Our wise lumbermen are beginning to understand that it is better to cut
over the forest carefully, so that by and by there will be another crop.
Nature is doing all she can to keep up the supply of trees, and, if we
give her half a chance, there will be timber enough both for us and for
those that come after us. The forest crop is like any other crop, except
that it cannot be cut every year.
Every one should understand that he has an interest in the forest.
Although he may not own a foot of land, yet his prosperity depends in
part on how the forests are managed.
If the forests are not taken care of, there will sometime be a wood
famine. If the mountain slopes are stripped of their trees, the streams
will no longer run clear and the low streams in summer will lead to a
water famine, which in turn might easily cause a bread famine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
HOW THE FORESTS SUFFER FROM FIRES
He who wantonly kills a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall travel a desert waste
Of pitiless glare, and never a stream,
Nor a blade of grass, nor an inch of shade--
All in a wilderness he has made.
O, forlorn without trees!
He who tenderly saves a tree,
All in a night of God-sent dream,
He shall list to a hermit thrush
Deep in the forest by mountain stream,
With friendly branches that lead and shade,
All in a woodland that he has made.
O, the peace of the trees!
He who passionately loves a tree,
Growth and power shall understand;
Everywhere he shall find a friend.
Listen! They greet him from every land,
English Oak and the Ash and Thorn,
Silvery Olive, and Cypress tall,
Spreading Willow, and gnarled old Pine,
Flowering branches by orchard wall--
Sunshine, shadow, and sweetness of glade--
All in a Paradise he has made.
O, the joy of the trees!
_The Dryad's Message_
Have you ever seen a forest fire? It is a terrible sight to see the
flames sweep up a mountain side. They run along the ground licking up
the leaves and dead branches. They leap from tree to tree, and then with
a roar the sheet of flame goes to the top of a tall pine. The air is
like the breath from an oven and is filled with sparks and with
suffocating smoke. The birds and animals flee away in every direction.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
The forest fire sweeps everything in its path.]
It is no wonder that those whose homes are in the forest gather quickly
to fight the fire, for if they cannot control it, they may lose
everything that they possess. If there is a wind blowing, the fire will
probably sweep over many miles of country. At night, though, when the
air becomes cooler and more quiet, the men can get the advantage of it.
You can understand, of course, that it is impossible to use water
against such a fire, for water is not to be had throughout most parts of
the forests. Instead of using water, the men fight fire with fire.
Taking shovels, hoes, and rakes to a suitable place some distance ahead
of the fire, they rake away the dead litter on the ground, making a
broad, clean path through the forest. Then they set "back-fires" along
that side of this clean path which lies toward the coming fire. These
back-fires burn slowly toward the main fire, and when they meet both
must die out for lack of fuel.
For many years forest fires have caused as much damage as the lumbermen;
but now most of the forests are patrolled by rangers during the summer,
and there are fewer serious fires.
How do the fires start in the forest? It is supposed that long ago the
Indians set many fires to keep the woods open for their hunting.
Lightning has always been a frequent cause of forest fires. As many as a
dozen fires are known to have started during a single thunderstorm. But
such fires are not as serious as they once were, because the rangers are
on the watch for them and put them out before they get well started.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Fires destroyed the forest that once covered this region and its place
is now mostly occupied by small bushes.]
Aside from those due to lightning, most forest fires are now either set
purposely or come from engine sparks or from somebody's carelessness.
Many fires are set purposely by stockmen who think by this means to
clear away the brush and thus obtain better feed for their cattle and
sheep. These men often care nothing for the forests or for the
preservation of the summer water flow. They would, indeed, be pleased to
see all the forests burned away if by that means they could increase
their feed. If you could travel through some of the mountainous portions
of the Southwest, you would see how much harm has been done in this way
to the trees, the streams, and the soil.
It is a hot summer day and two men are riding along a mountain road. One
of them thoughtlessly throws away a lighted cigarette, which falls upon
some dry pine needles. In a few moments the pine needles are ablaze. The
fire spreads with incredible rapidity and a great column of smoke rises
above the treetops. Before any one can reach it, the fire is sweeping up
the mountain side, and it may not be stopped before it has destroyed
thousands of acres of valuable timber. All this terrible loss is due to
one careless man who, in the first place, should not have been smoking
cigarettes, and in the second place should have known better than to
throw a spark into the forest powder magazine.
Some campers, enjoying the summer in the mountains, go away leaving
their fire burning. By and by a stick burns outward until the fire
reaches the leaves, or a gust of wind comes along and carries a spark to
them. In the hot sun the leaves and needles are almost as easy to ignite
as powder, and in a few moments another fire is making headway into the
surrounding forest.
A farmer clearing land thinks he can get rid of the brush and young
trees more easily by burning. But the undergrowth is drier than he
thought, and, the wind coming up unexpectedly, the fire is soon beyond
his control. It may destroy his own fences and buildings and, sweeping
on, ruin those of his neighbors also.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The dead stubs of a once beautiful forest.]
Few people have perished from fires in the West, for there the forest
regions are generally thinly inhabited, but in some of the Eastern and
Northern states there have been terrible fires that have destroyed whole
villages together with their inhabitants.
In many mountain regions of our country there are large areas now
covered with useless brush where there were once valuable forests. In
regions where the lumbermen have not utterly destroyed the forests, but
have left some seed trees, the forests will come back again, but in
these large burned areas conditions are not favorable. The destruction
of the humus as well as the trees has been so complete that the seeding
of a new forest is slow work. It may be hundreds of years before the
trees will spread over and again take possession of the waste land.
A single fire often destroys more timber than would be destroyed by a
whole camp of loggers working for years. In the Northwest there are many
sad and desolate pictures of the destruction caused by forest fires. We
may travel for miles through forests of tall, dead stubs, the remains of
once noble trees. Where they have fallen the trunks lie piled many feet
high and trails had to be cut through an almost solid mass of timber.
Here is wood enough to supply thousands of people with pleasant winter
fires. But there are, alas, no people living near these vast woodpiles
and often no road to them. The logs must lie there and rot.
Now let us see if we can state the chief reasons why we should be
exceedingly careful about setting fires in the woods:
1. Fires destroy an enormous amount of valuable timber every year.
2. Between fires and lumbermen our forests are disappearing faster than
they are growing.
3. Fires destroy the young trees, and if they happen often enough will
keep them from growing up to replace the mature trees.
4. Fires do not permanently help the cattle ranges, but injure them by
burning the humus and grass seeds.
5. Fires leave the ground bare, so that it will dry out quickly.
6. Fires leave the soil unprotected, so that it will wash away quickly.
7. Fires destroy property and endanger lives.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EVILS THAT FOLLOW THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FORESTS
We have already learned something about the poverty of the people in
those lands where the forests have been destroyed. This poverty is due
not so much to lack of wood for fuel and other purposes, but to a whole
series of troubles which the removal of the forests has brought upon
them.
The burning of the humus, when a fire sweeps the forest, is the next
greatest loss to that of the timber itself. Where there has been no
fire, the ground under the trees is covered with decaying leaves and
stems which are slowly mixing with the soil and becoming a part of it.
The more there is of this humus in the soil, the more thriftily plants
will grow.
Many people purposely burn over their pasture lands in the fall,
believing that this will make the grass better the following year. They
should know that every time this is done the soil is made poorer, and
that it kills the seeds lying on the ground ready to sprout when the
warm spring days come. Instead of a better pasture there is more likely
to be a crop of almost worthless weeds. The ground is full of worthless
seeds which are always ready to take the place of the grasses when they
have a chance.
Before the fire came, the roots of trees, bushes, and grasses kept the
earth from washing; and the humus helped to hold the rainwater from
running away rapidly, so that more of it had time to soak into the
ground. How well this is shown on yonder hills which were once covered
with brush. A fire swept over these hills and burned every living thing.
What a barren appearance they presented after the heavy winter storms!
The slopes were completely covered with little furrows and gullies where
the rainwater had done its work. It will be a long time before
vegetation will again gain a foothold there and stop the washing of the
earth.
When a fire occurs in the dense forests of the Cascade Range, all the
trees are killed and the thick layer of decaying vegetation underneath
is burned. The spruce, which is one of the most important lumber trees
of this region, does not at once spring up again. Its seeds may be
scattered there, but the soil is not now in a condition to nourish them.
In its place springs up the tamarack pine, which, because it can grow in
poor soil, has the whole burned area to itself.
If we should return to the same place perhaps one hundred years after
the fire, we should find that the tamarack pines had formed a thick
forest. The lumbermen have little use for the tamarack and so have
passed it by. In looking carefully through the tamarack forest, we find
that other trees are now springing up. They are already struggling for
the food, the moisture, and the sunlight which the tamaracks are making
use of.
During the many years that have passed since the fire swept this region,
decaying vegetation has been slowly accumulating and forming humus
again. Now at last the seeds of the spruce find the soil rich enough
again to sprout and grow. Here and there are thrifty young trees which
will in a few years grow up and choke out the tamarack. Thus the
tamarack, though of so little value itself, has done a great work in
preparing the soil for a new growth of the valuable spruce.
Upon the drier slopes of the Western mountains shrubs, such as the
manzanita and chaparral, spring up and cover the surface after a forest
fire. Nature does not seem to want the surface left bare and usually has
something at hand, even though it be nothing better than brush, with
which to clothe it again. As the years pass humus begins to collect upon
the ground and finally restores it to much the same condition it had
before the fire. Now, if by any means seeds can reach such places,
scattering trees will first spring up in favored spots and, after a
time, the trees will become thick enough and large enough to shade the
ground and the brush will be killed out.
[Illustration: _American Forestry_
The work of the water where the forest has been cut away.]
The cutting of the forests, especially from the steeper mountain slopes,
has in many parts of the world changed water, one of Nature's most
valuable gifts, into an agent of destruction. Throughout the Eastern and
Southern states the floods are higher in spring and lower in summer than
they used to be, because of the removal of so large a part of the
forests that once covered this whole region.
In the West it is even more necessary that the forest cover be disturbed
as little as possible. One reason is that the greater part of the
forests are found upon the lofty mountains in which the streams rise. If
we deforest these steep slopes, water is going to injure them much more
than it would the gentler slopes of the lower lands, if they had been
deforested. Another reason is that since little rain falls in the summer
in this region, we must do nothing to lessen the summer flow of the
streams, which is so much needed for irrigation.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
This beautiful valley in the Southern Appalachian Mountains has been
ruined by the floods due to cutting off of the forests upon the
headwaters of the river.]
The more water that can be held back in the mountains of the West for
summer use, the more prosperous the farmers are. There is nothing that
helps to hold the water better than the forests. They help to equalize
the flow of the streams so that the floods are not so high in the spring
nor the water so low in the summer as they would be if there were no
forests.
One of the first questions asked by a man who is thinking of buying a
farm is about the water supply. He wants to know whether there are
wells, springs, or living streams on the place. Almost everything
depends upon the water supply. If there is an abundance, the farmer is
likely to be prosperous. When he is prosperous all the rest of us are
prosperous, no matter what our business is.
Are you not ready now to say that the Swiss are right in not permitting
tree cutting upon any land except under the supervision of a forester?
The careless removal of the forests from the mountain slopes may affect
the farmer in the valley fifty miles away. Do you not think that this
farmer is very much interested in the management of the forest, although
he does not own a foot of it?
Trouble always follows the destruction of the forests on the headwaters
of the streams.
CHAPTER TWENTY
HOW OUR GOVERNMENT IS HELPING TO SAVE THE FORESTS
As long as the forest shall live,
The streams shall flow onward, still singing
Sweet songs of the woodland, and bringing
The bright, living waters that give
New life to all mortals who thirst.
But the races of men shall be cursed.
Yea, the hour of destruction shall come
To the children of men in that day
When the forest shall pass away;
When the low woodland voices are dumb;
And death's devastation and dearth
Shall be spread o'er the face of the earth.
Avenging the death of the wood,
The turbulent streams shall outpour
Their vials of wrath, and no more
Shall their banks hold back the high flood,
Which shall rush o'er the harvests of men;
As swiftly receding again.
Lo! after the flood shall be dearth,
And the rain no longer shall fall
On the parching fields; and a pall,
As of ashes, shall cover the earth;
And dust-clouds shall darken the sky;
And the deep water wells shall be dry.
And the rivers shall sink in the ground,
And every man cover his mouth
From the thickening dust, in that drouth;
Fierce famine shall come; and no sound
Shall be borne on the desolate air.
But a murmur of death and despair.
ALEXANDER BLAIR THAW, _The Passing of the Forest_; in _Century
Magazine_, June, 1907
For many years it was thought the forests were inexhaustible and needed
no special care. The national government encouraged people to acquire
forest land and practically gave away 160 acres to every one who would
build a cabin upon the land and live there for a short time.
Suddenly some of the wise people among us awoke to a realization of what
was going on. They discovered that the forests were going very fast and
that soon we should have none if something were not done. Between the
fires that swept them every year and the wasteful lumbering, the forests
were in a fair way to leave us as they had the wasteful and careless
peoples of other parts of the world.
How fortunate it is that some of us did look ahead before it was too
late; for, although the Eastern forests have largely disappeared, there
still remain millions of acres of government-owned forests in the West.
These forests have now been withdrawn from sale and are to be held for
the use and benefit of all. They are not to be permitted to pass into
the hands of a few, to be cut and sold for private gain.
Our government is acting like a wise father who is interested in the
welfare of his children, and who understands the need of taking care of
their treasures until they are wise enough to manage them for
themselves.
We are all concerned in many ways in the welfare of the forests. Whether
we own any forest land or not, we are affected by the way in which the
trees are managed. Because we are all dependent more or less upon the
forests, they should be regarded as the property of us all, just as the
air and water are. But because some of us do not yet know how, or do not
care, to protect them, it is best that the government should do so for
us.
[Illustration: _American Forestry Association_
These men are replanting a mountain slope from which fire once swept the
forest.]
It may be that you live in a brick, or stone house and burn coal in your
stoves. You think that it makes no difference to you whether or not
there are any forests. But stop and think a moment. Are you sure that
you are really independent of them? How many things do you use every day
that are made of wood? The list is surely a long one. If wood is rare
and expensive, the articles which are made of it add to your cost of
living and allow you less money for other things.
Let us suppose for a moment that you have no use for wood in any form.
Will this take away all interest that you may have in the forests? In
any event you are dependent upon the fertility of your fields for the
food that you require. Now, if there is a lumber company stripping the
mountains at the head of the river upon which your home is situated, and
as a result of clearing the timber from the slopes the floods become
worse, your garden is buried beneath gravel and sand, and your orchard
washed away, will you not think it _does_ make a difference to you in
what way the forests are treated?
The timbered lands which the government is holding and caring for are
known as National Forests. About two thirds of the forests yet remaining
in the West are included in them. These lands are mostly mountainous and
not suited to agriculture.
In the East the government has no lands except those which it buys.
Because of the great damage which is being done to the streams and
valleys of the Appalachian Mountains by careless lumbering, a great
tract of land is being acquired by purchase. This is called the
Appalachian Forest. The timber in this region will be carefully cut and
those areas from which it has been stripped will be replanted.
In the White Mountains of New Hampshire, with Mt. Washington as the
center, is a remnant of a once beautiful forest, which has been acquired
by the government. This is known as the White Mountain Forest. It will
be enlarged as the years pass and carefully guarded. It will serve for
all time as a beautiful pleasure and camping ground.
It is not the government's plan that the National Forests shall remain
unused, but they are to be used wisely, so as to be of the greatest
permanent good to the greatest number of people. The men who have been
placed in charge of these lands are called "forest rangers," and their
duties are of many kinds.
The rangers supervise the sale and cutting of the mature or ripe trees
as they are needed for lumber, mining timbers, or posts. They see that
the waste parts of the cut trees are piled so as to lessen the danger
from chance fires.
During the long summers the forests become as dry as tinder and the loss
from fire amounts to millions of dollars every year. It is the chief
duty of the rangers at this time to patrol the roads and trails leading
through the forests and keep a sharp lookout for fires.
Stations have been established upon high points from which there is a
view over a wide extent of country. In each of these stations there is a
man constantly on watch for columns of smoke which indicate the
beginning of a forest fire. When smoke is seen a message is telephoned
to the ranger station nearest the fire, and from this station men are
sent as quickly as possible with the object of putting out the fire
before it spreads beyond the power of control. The forests are now
watched so carefully that hundreds of fires are thus stopped before
there has been any serious loss of timber.
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| STOP |
| Forest Fires |
| |
| They are a Curse to the People |
| of Pennsylvania |
| |
| FOREST Existing Forests |
| FIRES Possibility of Future Forests |
| DESTROY Possibility of Labor |
| Beauty of a Region |
| Comfort |
| Homes |
| Lives |
| Prosperity |
| |
| Protected Forests Increase in Value |
| |
| They Furnish Labor, Promote Industry, Afford Recreation and |
| Sport, Make a Region Beautiful, Make Home Safe and Comfortable, |
| Make Life Worth Living, and a Prosperous State |
| Inhabited by a Contented and Industrious People. |
| |
| Which Would You Rather Have |
| |
| FOREST FIRES } { GREEN FORESTS |
| FLOODS } { PURE WATER |
| DISEASE } OR { HEALTH |
| DESTRUCTION } { THRIVING INDUSTRIES |
| DEVASTATION } { PROSPERITY |
| |
| For Information Respecting Pennsylvania Forests and |
| Tree Planting, write to |
| |
| COMMISSIONER OF FORESTRY, |
| |
| Harrisburg, Pennsylvania |
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
[Illustration: This large poster, printed on sheets 14 by 22 inches,
has been of excellent service in Pennsylvania.]
[Illustration: _American Forestry_
The seed trees left by the lumberman are giving rise to a new forest.]
In convenient places the rangers store boxes of tools, which include
axes, picks, shovels, and rakes to be used in fighting any near-by fire.
They also have at hand provisions and camp outfits, so as to be able to
live anywhere in the woods.
In some parts where there is a great deal of small timber and brush,
"fire lines" are cut along the ridges where it is easiest to stop a
fire, should one occur. Our forests are so vast that it is not possible
to remove the dead wood as is done in Europe and thus lessen the danger
of fire.
The forest rangers also wage a warfare against insect pests. In regions
where the bark beetles carry on their destructive work among the pines,
the rangers sometimes cut down and burn thousands of trees. Another duty
of the rangers is that of replanting burned or logged-off areas. In this
way many thousands of acres which would otherwise remain waste land for
years, not being suitable for agriculture, are made in a short time to
produce a new forest.
A limited number of cattle and sheep are allowed in those forests which
can be pastured without doing injury to the young trees or affecting the
flow of the streams. The rangers have charge of this work and collect
the rent. A part of the money derived from the sale of timber and for
pasturage rights is expended in the improvement of the roads and trails
in the forests and in making the forests more safe from fire.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
A beautiful grassy meadow in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.]
The National Forests are open to all for pleasure and recreation, but
under strict regulations about the cutting of trees and the care of camp
fires. Violators of these rules are severely punished. Visitors to the
forests are expected to take care in the selection of places for their
camp fires so that there will be no danger of the fire spreading. When
the camp is left, the fire must be put out with water or covered with
earth.
Many states have forest services of their own, and some have
conservation commissions. It is the business of these organizations to
look after various natural resources, including the forests, water,
soil, minerals, and wild game. All forest rangers as well as state fire
wardens are authorized to aid in the enforcement of the game laws.
We should assist the foresters and wardens in every way possible. Most
of these men love the woods, the birds, and the animals. They are doing
their best to protect the forest and its wild life for the good and
happiness of us all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
OUR FOREST PLAYGROUNDS
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants the friend of sun and sky;
He plants the flag of breezes free;
The shaft of beauty, towering high;
He plants a home to heaven anigh
For song and mother-croon of bird
In hushed and happy twilight heard--
The treble of heaven's harmony--
These things he plants who plants a tree.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,
And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;
He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;
The joy that unborn eyes shall see--
These things he plants who plants a tree.
What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty
And far-cast thought of civic good--
His blessing on the neighborhood
Who in the hollow of His hand
Holds all the growth of all our land--
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.
H. C. BUNNER, _The Heart of the Tree_; in _Century Magazine_, April, 1893
Our National Parks and Forests form the grandest summer playgrounds that
any people have ever had. The National Forests, we have learned, were
set aside for the direct purpose of preserving the timber supply and
regulating the flow of the mountain streams. The National Parks were
created for the purpose of preserving for all time the most beautiful
and attractive scenic features of our country. Among the most important
of these are the Yellowstone, Grand Canon, Yosemite, Rainier, and Crater
Lake parks. They include many thousands of square miles of forested
mountains, cliffs, lakes, waterfalls, and rivers, which are open to all
of us with no restrictions except that we do not injure them.
How delightful it is to have these wild and picturesque parts of our
country left unspoiled and just as Nature made them, and to be able to
wander through them at will! In the parks we can become acquainted with
the flowers, trees, birds, and animals as they were before the country
was discovered and settled by white men. Here the wild creatures are
protected from the hunters. The deer no longer fear the sight of men,
and the mother grouse can raise her brood in safety from them.
When summer comes we feel a strange and mysterious longing to get out of
doors and live in the forests with the wild creatures. The parks offer
just the opportunity to satisfy this longing, for in them we can get
away from the worries and perplexities of our everyday life.
We feel the "call of the wild," perhaps, because long ago our savage
ancestors dwelt in the forests among the hills. They were a part of
Nature and lived much as the animals do in caves in the hillsides, or in
homes of the rudest sort made of the bark of trees or the skins of
animals.
Our ancestors spent nearly all of their time out of doors in the pure,
fresh air. Their eyes and ears were trained to every sign of the forest,
for upon the sharpness of their senses their very lives depended.
[Illustration: _George J. Young_
A forest playground on Virginia Creek in the Yosemite country,
California, in one of Uncle Sam's forest reserves.]
We have lived in houses so long, where the air is often close and impure
and where we have no need of sharp senses for protection, that we have
lost some of the strength and sturdy self-reliance of our wild
ancestors.
We have become partly dulled to the beauty out of doors, because we have
been so constantly employed by the business of making a living. But the
forest playgrounds are calling us to return for a little time each year
to the wilds that were once our home, and to renew our acquaintance with
the trees, the streams and the rocks, and with the wild creatures that
live among them. To be able to make our beds on the leaves under the
trees, and to build a fire of sticks and cook our own food, seems quite
natural and like old and familiar times.
The stories and legends that have come down to us about the forests and
the imaginary people who lived in them were believed to be true by the
people of long ago. The deep, dark woods once covered nearly all Europe
where our ancestors lived. To be lost in the woods was to be in danger
of meeting the strange and mysterious people who were thought to live in
their depths. Among these beings, some of whom were good and others bad,
were fairies, nymphs, gnomes, and ogres. When people ceased to believe
so much in these stories, they began to lose their fear of the woods.
Among some of these people there grew up a love and fascination for the
trees which they believed were the dwelling places of spirits or
divinities.
If in our great forest playgrounds we can lead this out-of-door life for
a few weeks each year, it will make us healthier, stronger, and happier.
We no longer fear any mysterious creatures in the woods or the forces of
Nature as shown in the lightning, the winds, and the waterfalls; but
year by year we are finding more to love and admire in the wild scenery
of the woods and mountains and in their animal and plant inhabitants.
The wild woods call many of us on jaunts and picnics when, if it were
not for them, we should stay at home shut up in stuffy rooms. In time
may not the love of the forest wilds come back to us all? May not the
time come when each one of us shall be able to look at a beautiful tree
and not think only of how much lumber it would make? May not the time
come when we may hear the grouse drumming its call and not feel the
desire to kill and eat it?
If the time does come in which we think as much of our beautiful
mountains as the people of Europe do of the Alps, we shall then guard
them with far more jealous care than we do today. In spite of the fact
that the Alps are wet and cold and that no one thinks of sleeping out of
doors there, yet the people of Europe love their mountains almost
passionately.
Our mountains are much more attractive summer playgrounds than the Alps.
We can wander at will over a far greater number of untrodden ways than
Europeans can in the Alps. We can make our beds under the trees with
rarely a thought of the weather. The air is always balmy and the skies
are almost always blue.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
WHAT IS HAPPENING TO THE WILD FLOWERS
How eagerly we have looked forward to the coming of spring, and now it
is here! The sun is shining brighter and warmer each day. The birds are
returning from their winter home in the South. The buds on the trees are
swelling and, in the warm nooks, some of the wild flowers have already
opened their delicate petals. Who will find the first _spring beauty_ in
the Eastern woods? Who will find the first of the _purple trilliums_
that open their dark flowers in the shady groves, or the _golden
poppies_ on the warm hillsides of the West?
The spring air affects us as it does the plants and wild creatures. We
long to get away from school, and taking our lunches, to spend the
delightful days wandering through the fields and woods. There is no
place like the open country when all Nature is waking. We feel like
running and frisking as the young lambs do.
Can it be wrong to gather all that we wish of the beautiful flowers with
which the earth is carpeted? Has not Nature grown them in her great
garden in such abundance that all we pick will make no difference to
her? Let us go with the children on their rambles after flowers and
learn if Nature does take any account of their innocent raids on her
treasures.
Here is a party of children chasing across the fields. Each one is
searching for the flowers that have bloomed since last they were out,
and each is trying to get more than his companions. The children have
learned that some kinds of flowers grow in the woods, others in the
marshy places, and still others on the dry hillsides. They know where
to go for each kind, and not a spot escapes their sharp search.
Here they find a patch of violets, and all are quickly picked. There are
some baby-blue-eyes, and yonder dry field is brilliant with the colors
of many others. In the gathering of the flowers some of them are pulled
up by the roots, but the children do not think of the harm this does.
They wander on and on until many have more in their hands than they can
carry. Some of those picked first are already wilted, and, to make their
burdens lighter, the children throw these away. At last a tired but
happy band turns toward home.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The wild oxalis loves the moist, shady places.]
What will be done with all the flowers that have been picked? In each
home the vases are filled and the tables decorated. There is no room for
all of them and some are thrown out. These flowers, once so fresh and
bright as they nodded in the breeze, now lie crushed and wilted on the
ground.
Another spring returns and the children are out again looking in the
familiar places for the flowers they know so well. But there seems to be
something wrong, for there are not so many as there used to be. The
children have to go farther and search more carefully to get their arms
full.
Still a third spring comes and the children are just as ready for the
happy excursions and just as anxious to get the flowers. They hunt the
fields over, but in the places where the flowers used to be so thick
there are only a few scattering ones. They cannot understand what is
wrong, but Nature could tell them if they would ask her. The year before
she was short of seed, but this year it is much worse, for she had
hardly any to plant in her garden. She is short of bulbs also, and of
many other plants that grow from year to year, for the children
carelessly pulled these up.
[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Wild asters cover the mountain meadows.]
The children do not want to go home with only a few flowers, and so they
wander farther into the country than they have ever been before. Here
they find them as abundant as they used to be near home.
The children do not stop to think that at the base of the bright,
fragrant blossoms grow the seed that will make the flowers of the next
year. Nature can spare the seed of a part of the blossoms, for she grows
many more than she needs; but if we pick them all, what can she do for
the coming year?
The wild flowers are living things struggling for a place in the world,
just as are the animals and birds. We cannot abuse and destroy too many
of them if we would have them stay and add to the beauty of our homes.
Should we not take just as much pleasure in gathering the flowers if we
did not bring home more than we needed? Would it not be better to be
satisfied with smaller bouquets and leave enough in the fields to go to
seed and gladden us next year?
The reckless gathering of wild flowers has gone on so long and they have
been picked so closely about many of our towns and cities, that they are
disappearing. When there are no longer wild flowers within reach of the
children who live in the cities, they will have lost a great joy out of
their lives.
There are besides the flowers of which we have been speaking other low
plants of beautiful foliage with which we love to decorate our homes. We
must take care that these are not gathered too closely or they also will
become scarce. We cannot go out into the woods and pull up ferns by the
roots year after year and expect Nature to keep up the supply.
The huckleberry is one of the many beautiful shrubs which we admire
for its delicate leaves and colors. It is cut and brought in from the
country in huge bundles to supply the florists. The time will come when
these decorations can no longer be had if the men are allowed to cut all
they can find. Just as in the case of the flowers, seekers for them will
be obliged to go farther each year and by and by the shrubs will be so
scarce and high priced that we shall be obliged to do without them.
[Illustration: _Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc._
Nature has grown flowers in abundance, but we should not pick or destroy
too many of them.]
We hunt far and wide for the beautiful "holly berries" with which to
decorate our homes at Christmas. When we have found a berry-laden bush,
we eagerly break off the branches and bear them home in triumph. The
bush, once so gay with berries, is a sad-looking thing when we are
through with it. The branches are broken so far back that next year it
will bear few berries and we shall have to seek another.
We treat the beautiful earth on which we have been placed in a most
thoughtless manner. We think only of what we want _now_, and forget that
another year is coming in which also we shall want some of the earth's
treasures. If we take only the surplus which each year produces, there
will always be enough for us and for the people who live after us.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
NATURE'S PENALTY FOR INTERFERING WITH HER ARRANGEMENTS
Nature seems very prodigal in her ways. She is continually creating on
the earth a great multitude of living things, far more than there is
room for. Each one of these, if it would live, must have a certain
amount of air, sunshine, and food. As there is not enough of these
things to supply every one, there arises a struggle. Those that are
weakest die, because they are not able to get what they need. To us this
seems hard, but it is Nature's way.
And further, since many of the animals feed on the flesh of other
animals, the latter have, in addition to the struggle for their food, to
watch constantly for their lives. Every organism is in one sense the
enemy of every other one. We do not mean that they often try to kill
each other because of hate, as men do, but that they are after food to
satisfy their hunger. Some of the higher animals as well as men fight
for mastery, in addition to struggling for food. We hope that among men
the unnecessary fighting will sometime cease, and that kindness and
unselfishness will rule.
The struggle for life is ceaselessly going on around us, but so quiet is
it that we are not often aware of the countless tragedies that take
place. This struggle extends from the plants and animals in the pond, so
small that we cannot see them with the unaided eye, upward through all
the larger animals.
The struggle among all living things helps us to understand the
necessity for Nature's prodigality. If the plants and animals that serve
as food for others were not produced in great numbers, they would soon
become extinct. It is seldom that any one kind of plant or animal,
because of its many enemies, has an opportunity to spread and obtain
more than its share of food and sunshine. According to Nature's
arrangements, each organism does its share in keeping down the numbers
of the others. This we call the "balance of Nature."
Sometimes the balance of Nature is disturbed and one particular kind of
animal gets the start of its enemies and increases until it becomes a
_plague_. This may be caused by a favorable season or by the decrease of
its enemies on account of disease among them. We have read of the
plagues of grasshoppers which have sometimes visited the Western states
and eaten up every green thing. Plagues of rats and field mice have been
known to do a great deal of damage. In such cases their natural enemies,
the hawks, owls, and coyotes, may be attracted to the region from far
around, because of the extra food supply. After a time they may succeed
in reducing the numbers of these pests.
This balance among the animals, which comes from one living upon
another, is a strange and wonderful thing. No one kind can long overrun
its fellows. If one does get a start and increases until it becomes a
pest or plague, some enemy is sure sooner or later to spring up to
destroy it. We use this method in fighting some of the insect pests
which are injuring our trees. Men have searched in various parts of the
world from which such pests as the gypsy moth and the San Jose scale
have come to find some of their enemies and bring them to this country
to feed on these insects.
When men came upon the earth, they soon began to upset Nature's
arrangements, and from that time until now matters of this kind have
been growing worse. We have killed large numbers of the beneficial
animals and birds that kept the harmful ones in check. We have carried
others from the homes given them by Nature, where they were doing little
harm, to new homes where they have become terrible plagues.
The killing of large numbers of hawks and owls, all the species of which
many people have wrongfully thought to be harmful, has been followed by
a great increase in the numbers of rats and mice. We have killed off
most of the coyotes, the chief food of which was rabbits and ground
squirrels. The two latter animals have now become a serious pest. They
do enormous damage to the crops, and we spend thousands of dollars
fighting them.
The common rabbit has in most parts of its native country so many
enemies which are always on the lookout for a good meal, that it cannot
increase enough to do much harm. Years ago a number of rabbits were
taken to Australia, where there were none. Here they found a favorable
climate and few enemies. They have now increased so that they overrun
much of the continent and are a terrible pest which the farmers are
unable to control.
Some years ago the gypsy moth and the browntail moth were introduced by
accident into the New England states. Finding there a congenial climate
and few enemies, they increased rapidly. They soon began to strip the
leaves from the beautiful elms which make the streets and parks of this
region so attractive. Now these moths have turned their attention to the
white pine and are doing an ever-increasing amount of damage; and
although they are being fought by every means in our power, we are not
certain that we can ever control them.
The codling moth, whose larva is the little apple worm, causes an
immense loss in our fruit orchards. The cotton-boll weevil, which
destroys so much of the cotton, is, like the codling moth, an insect
imported from another country. The San Jose scale reached California
from China and has now spread throughout our country. It has a special
fondness for the sap of fruit trees, and, being so small, was not
noticed until it had got beyond control. This scale causes more loss
than any other of the tree insects.
The Hessian fly, introduced from Europe more than one hundred years ago,
causes during certain seasons a very great loss to the wheat crop. The
Argentine ant has been brought to us from South America and is proving a
most destructive pest. The Norway rat was brought to our country on
sailing vessels and causes more loss than most of us realize. The
English sparrow has spread over much of the country and is driving many
of the native birds from their homes, because of its quarrelsome
disposition. It makes itself a nuisance on all our city streets.
The mongoose, in its home in India, is a great rat killer, but does not
there increase so as to do much harm. Wherever it has been carried for
the purpose of using it as a rat killer, this little four-footed animal
has become a terrible scourge. After it destroys the rats it goes after
the snakes. Then it attacks the other small animals and birds. Finally
it begins upon the chickens, and even the vegetables in the garden are
not safe from its voracious appetite.
Men are now watching at every port to see that no more dangerous insects
and animals are brought into the country. They are particularly on the
watch for the Mediterranean fruit fly and for the mongoose.
When we upset the balance of Nature, we start a whole chain of troubles.
What can we do to escape the consequences of our ignorance and
carelessness? In the first place we can protect the birds, for they eat
enormous quantities of the harmful insects. In the second place we can
see that no more of these dangerous pests are allowed to land on our
shores. In the third place we shall have to fight, by every means that
we can discover, those that are already here.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WHAT SHALL WE DO WHEN THE COAL, OIL, AND GAS ARE GONE?
If coal, oil, and gas were suddenly taken away, all the nations would
become poor and many of their industries would cease. Just think for a
moment of the amount of work these things do for us and what an effort
there would be made to find something to take their place!
Wood once formed the chief fuel. It was used only to cook our food or to
keep us warm. Now fuel is required for so many different purposes that
with the decrease of the forests wood has been found insufficient.
Peat is one of those substances that has been used in parts of Europe to
take the place of wood, but it is used so little in our own country that
many have never seen it.
Peat is dug from bogs or marshes. We might say that a peat marsh is the
beginning of a coal bed. Peat is the partly decayed vegetation which has
slowly accumulated in wet places. In the colder countries it is formed
largely of moss and similar water-loving plants, but where the climate
is warm other kinds of marsh vegetation, and even trees, aid in forming
peat. Sometimes floods bring earth and deposit it in the marshes, in
which case the peat is less suitable for fuel, but forms a rich and
productive soil instead.
In many of the vast swamps of long ago, when there were no men nor even
the higher animals upon the earth, vegetation grew very rank. It is
believed that at that remote time the air contained more carbonic acid,
a substance which promotes the growth of plants. Thus the plants in the
warm, moist parts of the earth grew more densely and luxuriantly than
they usually do today.
In the decay of this vegetation deposits similar to the peat marshes
were formed, but they differed in being much thicker and more extensive.
If the story of these ancient peat marshes had stopped here, we should
never have had any coal. Fortunately it did not, for some of the swamps
sank beneath the water of a lake or ocean and thick beds of gravel,
sand, or clay were deposited over them. While buried deep in the earth,
the decaying vegetation was heated and pressed together by the great
weight of the earth above, and was finally changed to shining, black
coal.
After the coal was made, but before men came to the earth, parts of the
sea bottom with its buried treasures were raised to form hills and
mountains. Then the rainwater began its work upon the slopes, and after
a time washed away so much of the overlying material that the coal was
exposed at the surface. At last through some accident, such as lightning
perhaps, men learned that this black substance would burn. Coal was
little used, however, as long as there was an abundance of wood and the
needs of people were few.
As manufacturing and the use of the steam engine increased, coal grew in
value. The business of mining coal finally became one of the great
industries. The mining operations were carried on as carelessly as
though the supply in the interior of the earth were inexhaustible. In
the underground working it is customary to leave about one quarter of
the coal in the form of pillars for the purpose of supporting the roof.
At a little more expense other materials could be substituted for these
pillars and all the coal could be taken out.
In using the coal we waste about another quarter. Stoves and furnaces
are usually built so poorly that a large part of the value of the coal
escapes as gas and smoke. In large cities and manufacturing districts
the smoke becomes a great nuisance. In the making of coke from coal,
enormous quantities of coal tar and gas have been lost. Most engines
consume a far greater amount of coal than they should in doing a given
amount of work. Most of us do not know how to use coal economically in
our homes, and thus aid not only in wasting the coal supplies but in
making the cost of living higher than it should be. All together, in the
handling of coal we lose fully half of it. The coal supply of the earth
is disappearing very fast, and at the rate at which its use is now
increasing it may not last more than one hundred years.
If we cannot use coal without wasting so much, would it not be wiser for
us to turn our attention more fully to the sources of power in the
streams which are flowing down all our mountain sides? The use of this
power when turned into electricity would enable us to save a large part
of the coal, oil, and gas that are now used, and so make them last
longer.
It is far easier to waste oil and gas than coal, for, when we have
drilled holes in the earth, unless we are very careful the gas will
escape into the air and the oil will become mixed with water, so that it
will be difficult for us to get it.
Oil and gas are confined under great pressure hundreds and often
thousands of feet below the surface. To make clear how easy it is to
waste them, we might compare them to the compressed air in an
automobile tire. If the tire is punctured by a nail, the air issues
suddenly with a sharp, whistling sound until the pressure inside is gone
and no more will come out.
For many years we have been puncturing the crust of the earth, where oil
has been discovered, and letting the oil and gas escape. We have saved
most of the oil, but nearly all the gas has been wasted. The gas will
finally stop coming out when the pressure is gone, just as the air did
in the automobile tire.
On the opposite page is a picture of a "gusher" in the Sunset oil field,
California, which tells the story of how we are permitting the valuable
substances within the earth to be wasted. In drilling this well the oil
men suddenly struck a deposit of oil and gas under great pressure. The
drilling tools were blown out of the well and a column of oil and gas
shot up 150 feet. For a time the well flowed forty thousand barrels of
oil each day, and an unknown quantity of gas. Much of the oil was
scattered around the surrounding country, and all the gas was lost. Men
worked for weeks making reservoirs of earth in an attempt to save the
river of oil.
Another well a few miles distant struck an enormous quantity of gas. It
blew off for days with a roar like that of the steam from a giant
engine. Then it took fire, and the column of flame at night was a
fearful sight. There was gas enough lost from this one well to light a
city for months.
Gas has been escaping during many years from hundreds of wells in the
Pennsylvania, Ohio Valley, Oklahoma, Texas, and California oil fields.
The gas from all these wells together has been estimated to be equal
in value to a river of oil flowing several hundred thousand barrels each
day. In many districts the gas was nearly gone before people discovered
its great value. It is impossible for us to realize the waste
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