BROKEN TRADITIONS 



In the North American way of life, most of us are brought up with 

 strong ideas of right and wrong, good and bad. We have been taught, for 

 one thing, that it is not good for the country that water be drained too 

 quickly into the valleys. This lesson, which most school children must still 

 learn, is not taught entirely in the interest of preserving the fish, furbearers, 

 or waterfowl. We learn that the upland waters must be held to protect 

 the land and the people from drought and flood. And yet generation after 

 generation sees the shrinkage of marshland. Having done away with many 

 of the big marshes, the drainage programs now seek to empty the smaller 

 places. The prairie land of eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota is 

 spangled with sloughs and potholes, scattered here, there, and everywhere 

 at the rate of five or six to more than a hundred per square mile, many 

 thousands of them covering only a fraction of an acre. For mile after 

 mile, traveling across this rolling prairie, one is seldom beyond sight of 

 ducks or farmsteads. Here is some of the best farming country in the 

 world; and here, also, is a part of the finest duck -breeding range in the 

 whole of North America. Pintail and Gadwall nest close to main roads, Can- 

 vasback and Redhead in farmyard sloughs, Ruddy Duck and Blue-winged 

 Teal in village ponds. This region produces well of both waterfowl and 

 agricultural crops. 



Drainage of these marshy places has been going on for many years, and 

 by 1935 the loss of waterfowl habitat in some districts was severe. After 

 World War II better machinery and more Federal funds made the drainage 

 programs still more efficient. Conservationists set upon a steady program 

 of protestation and deploration, and the subject has been raised at least 

 ninety-three times before the annual meetings of the North American Wild- 

 life Conference, often by some of our most distinguished citizens; but the 

 argument for water conservation carries no weight with the ditching agen- 

 cies. In 1949 Schoenfeld (1949) found that 1,400 potholes had been drained 

 from Day County, South Dakota, "not simply due to the chance initiative 

 of individual farmers, but also to calculated financial and technical aid from 

 three Federal agencies. What is happening in Day County," said Schoen- 

 feld, "is only a portion of what is going on in the 5,000 square miles of 

 prize duck pothole country in eastern North and South Dakota." By 1952 

 Evans and Nord ( 1952 ) found an annual loss of 7 per cent of Day County's 

 potholes; and from 1946 to 1950, Peterson tells us (1952:126), "at least 

 10,700 potholes were wiped out and habitat for an equal number of ducks 



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