THE CULT OF CONSERVATION 



471 



fornia conquest ratified at Guadalupe 

 Hidalgo, the Gadsden Purchase, and the 

 Texas adhesion, the estate increased 

 tenfold ; and each accession brought its 

 greatest enrichment in strengthened 

 national character, as elsewhere told.^ Of 

 the 2,000,000,000 acres "more or less" 

 of the mainland "lot or parcel," some 

 three-fifths is semi-arid, and arable only 

 in spots ; so a mere billion acres is suita- 

 ble for settlement — of which the most 

 fertile 75,000,000 (a richer heritage 

 than that of the Revolution) is swamp 

 or overflow land, serviceable only after 

 drainage. To-day "Uncle Sam's farm" 

 is virtually gone; no more arable acres 

 remain to be given away. Whenever a 

 vacated parcel is opened to settlement, 

 it is seized in a day by soul-searing 

 gamble or disgraceful rush or paralyz- 

 ing wait-in-line Except as Science 

 bids the desert blossom, or commands 

 the field to yield two ears of grain where 

 a blade of grass grew before, the limit 

 of the land has been reached. 



When the American Constitution 

 was framed on the foundation of inter- 

 state waterways, the rain fell on the 

 just and the unjust alike, little recked 

 by either ; now the interstate rain is the 

 basis of prosperity, and a coming foun- 

 dation for even closer union among the 

 People than that written down in the 

 Constitution. Some 200,000,000,000,000 

 cubic feet of rain descends from the 

 heavens each year on the 2,000,000,000- 

 acre farm of mainland United States ; 

 and with a half or even a third of the 

 acres to receive the boon, were it 

 equably distributed the population anil 

 productivity, the manufacturing and 

 merchandizing, might be great as they 

 are— with an advantage in reduced cost 

 of transportation. Nominally, lands 

 sell by the acre or foot ; actually the 

 price within ten per cent is fixed by the 

 associated water. In verity the 200,- 

 000,000,000,000 cubic feet, or ten Mis- 

 sissippis, of annual rainfall is the sole 

 efifective capital of the country ; without 

 it the land would be desert, devoid of 

 tree or shrub or other living thing. 



More than half (say five-eighths) of 

 all is evaporated to temper climate, 

 form dews, and re-descend elsewhere; 

 a fifth goes down to the sea in rivers ; 

 say an eighth is stored for a time as 

 ground-water ; the remaining twentieth, 

 or half a Mississippi, is stored or used 

 in the ontosphere — in the living struc- 

 tures and functions of animals and 

 plants. The time of storage is short; 

 an animal may survive a week, a humid- 

 land annual plant six weeks or a tree 

 six months, without renewed supply ; 

 springs fail and brooks run dry under 

 a three-months' drought. Were a rain- 

 less year to come, half the lesser rivers 

 of America would dry up ; within seven 

 such years in succession, the Missis- 

 sippi and Colorado would cease to flow, 

 and within ten the lake-fed St. Law- 

 rence and Columbia would be no more. 

 While the witchery of water still ap- 

 peals — and all the more by reason of 

 better knowledge — the days of witch- 

 craft and mystery of waters are num- 

 bered ; for Science has risen to show 

 the sources of spring and well and 

 brook and river, of flowing sap and pul- 

 sing life-blood — and all run back to the 

 life-giving benediction of the clouds. 

 Yet because the grandsires of the 

 Fathers were from riverless islands of 

 ample rains and virtually waterless 

 statutes, they and their sons were slow to 

 see natural wealth in water; and it is 

 the irony of American history that the 

 interstate waters which yielded a Con- 

 stitution were half- forgotten for a cen- 

 tury — before a realization of their value 

 arose, begotten of bitter experience in 

 arid regions. For the deepest impulses 

 of Humanity have been inspired by 

 water in dearth rather than abundance ; 

 the altruism of which Civilization is the 

 fruit bloomed first in the world's des- 

 erts — and necessarily so — as told else- 

 where.- The rivers of America form 

 ways of commerce, virtually abandoned 

 through legislative ineptitude and an 

 administrative apathy now happily 

 ended ; and in their natural head lies 



1 "National Growth and National Character," National Geographic Magazine, Vol. X, 

 p. 186, 1899. 



2 "The Beginning of Agriculture," by W J McGee, The American Anthropologist. Vol. 

 VIII, p. 350, 1895. 



