720 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



became a blackened wilderness. How 

 the ruin has spread ! Within the mem- 

 ory of man the mighty forests of In- 

 diana and Ohio were chopped down 

 and burned. If left till to-day, they 

 would be worth more than all the crops 

 grown there since their destruction. 

 Take Arizona, for instance. The forests 

 have been cut from the mountains. The 

 rubbish invites the fires, and the fires 

 never miss an invitation. Great flocks 

 and herds of sheep and cattle were 

 driven in, and they have destroyed the 

 herbage which fastened the thin layer 

 of earth to the rocks. The floods came 

 and ripped the earth from the moun- 

 tain sides and whirled avalanches of 

 mud into the fertile valleys, often plow- 

 ing out great gullies twenty and thirty 

 feet deep through the rich soil, and all 

 hurried on to fill the river beds. Now, 

 when the floods come, there is nothing 

 to detain them, and the people of Texas 

 must suffer from the vandaHsm of Ari- 

 zona. 



There are no richer lands on earth 

 than the great prairies of the west, and 

 here in God's richest garden there have 

 been two sources of disaster. The first 

 is cropping lands without remuneration ; 

 raising wheat year after year with no 

 manure, till some of the richest farms 

 of Minnesota are now so reduced they 

 will hardly raise chicken feed. This 

 system of waste applies to rich, level 

 lands. There is a double system applied 

 to hillside lands — robbing the soil and 

 allowing it to wash. I have known the 

 richest soil to be swept away by a single 

 heavy rain, so the whole furrow would 

 be gone, and you could see the plow 

 marks. Stand by any of our streams 

 after a heavy rain and you will see the 

 very cream of our fields going to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. 



It is waste, waste, everywhere. Most 

 feeders will have their feed lots perched 

 on some steep hillside, if they can find 

 such a place, so that the richest fer- 

 tilizer the world produces can be ut- 

 terly swept away without any trouble 

 on their part, and they keep on growing 

 twenty-five bushels of corn to the acre, 

 when, by saving the manure and plow- 

 ing their land deep, they might have 

 lOO bushels. 



Our coal lands with their marvelous 

 deposits, have been well-nigh given 

 away. I have seen veins of coal eleven 

 feet deep which the wise United States 

 government sold for $io per acre. 

 Streams with waterfalls that were gold 

 mines have been parted with for a 

 song. 



Go into Colorado, and vandalism is 

 there. The mountains are robbed of 

 their beauty. The upland pastures are 

 over-grazed, and you have desolation 

 instead of beauty. A pioneer in the 

 Rockies once said to me : "I think we 

 early settlers should have great credit 

 for coming in here and starting things." 

 I replied : 'Tf you never had seen this 

 country, and had left it to-day as God 

 made it, it would be worth five times 

 as much as it is now." 



Our railroads are great civilizers, but 

 the fires set by the engines leave a track 

 of barbarism behind them. See how 

 it is in Washington and Oregon. The 

 lumber barons who have wrought such 

 ruin at the north are now at work 

 among the grandest forests ever grown. 

 They seem to concentrate all their en- 

 ergies there to complete the work of 

 ruin. In some instances, every device 

 is resorted to to get possession of lands 

 which belong to the people. Take the 

 Appalachian Mountains. The forests 

 are being cut down ; the beautiful rivers 

 are filled with rubbish ; sand and stones 

 are carried onto fertile valley farms. In 

 a short time, eighteen millions of dam- 

 age was inflicted, and yet Congress 

 looks on in indifiference while the horror 

 grows. 



When you come to the farm, you see 

 also a terrific waste there. In the east 

 the soil is washed away and the rocks 

 and stones are left ; no thought or care 

 is taken to save the soil. Many beauti- 

 ful regions where heavy crops were 

 grown are now deserted, and you can 

 buy farms for half what the buildings 

 would cost. 



What wonder, in the midst of all this 

 ruin, that a "Great Heart" should arise? 

 He looks on the past, and then on the 

 present, and then into the future, and 

 he asks himself what will become of 



