Sea Farming 3 



tions, have been said, and probably with truth, to be with- 

 out precedent in the history of peoples. 



The best of our forests is gone, and their actual extent 

 reduced by at least three hundred millions of acres. In 

 lumbering and manufacturing, we waste from one-half 

 to two-thirds of each tree. The method of lumbering is 

 responsible for incalculably destructive fires that often de- 

 stroy even the soils on which they occur. Nearly all of 

 the waters of the deforested areas go to the seas in dev- 

 astating floods, while summer brings its droughts. In 

 the South alone, millions of acres of rich agricultural 

 lands have been gullied beyond repair. The wonderful 

 valleys west of the Cascades in Washington and Oregon, 

 now attracting wide attention because of the peculiar fer- 

 tility of their soils, and possessing probably more than a 

 fourth of the available water-power of the nation, are en- 

 dangered by the ruthless destruction of forests. It is 

 estimated that a billion feet of natural gas — an ideal fuel 

 — is every day allowed to escape from the earth unused, 

 and that from one to two tons of coal are wasted in 

 mining each ton that is marketed. Worse than all else, 

 soils are being robbed. Agriculture is now practically im- 

 possible in New England, and farm values in the agricul- 

 tural state of Ohio have suffered a decrease of sixty 

 millions of dollars in a decade. All recall the wanton 

 nature of the extermination of the buffalo and the 

 passenger pigeon. Water-fowl are now rarely seen 

 where, thirty years ago, migrating flocks stretched from 

 horizon to horizon. The wonderful run of the salmon 

 in the rivers of the Pacific slope has until recently been 

 believed to afford an inexhaustible supply of valuable 

 food. Beside being put to this use, millions of pounds of 

 salmon and herring have each year for a quarter of a cen- 



