202 Fish and Game Warden. [Bull. No. 1. 



FLOOD WATERS. 



To make what has already been said more apparent, during 

 the past few years Kansas has suffered great losses by the 

 destruction of crops, buildings, bridges, live stock, fences, and 

 other visible property by means of uncontrolled flood waters ; 

 and yet if all the damage done in these lines could be figured 

 in dollars and cents it would be but a small item, a drop in the 

 bucket, as compared with the much more serious damage done 

 by the erosion and leaching of rich soils and the consequent loss 

 of their fertility. Thousands of tons of the best soils, rich in 

 fertilizing material, have been carried by the flood waters into 

 the creeks and rivers, to be floated away and forever lost to the 

 state of Kansas. As an evidence of the truth of this statement 

 we would call your attention to certain small protected fields 

 that had flood-water sediment deposited upon them. They 

 were enriched even to a degree beyond their original fertility. 



POOR SOIL THE HOME OF POOR PEOPLE. 



Why so much concern, we are asked, about the conservation 

 of water and soil fertility? Because a study of the history of 

 agricultural conditions in the world, both past and present, 

 goes to show that a poor soil produces a poor people, and both 

 are found in the same localities; and further, because poorly 

 fed, poorly clothed and poorly housed people have always been 

 ruled or dominated over by the well-fed races, and in many 

 cases reduced to conditions that we, as an American people, 

 have always fought against and hope in the future to avoid. 



CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES. 



Thinking men and students of economic conditions tell us 

 that we should immediately take steps to preserve for proper 

 use for the whole people what remains of the billions of tons 

 of coal, the great forests, the waterpower and other natural 

 resources, lest private interests and corporate greed, linked 

 with our extravagant, wasteful and most destructive methods, 

 may produce conditions that will make poverty not a condition 

 but a dire necessity for our descendants. 



WHAT THE RECORDS SHOW. 



Again we ask, Why so much concern about the conservation 

 of soil fertility? We read, and have been reading for some 

 time, in the national and state agricultural reports that the 

 land area in the United States specially adapted to the growing 

 of cereals, and wheat in particular, has rapidly marched from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific; and that the acres adapted to the 

 production of food in our country are well known; and that 

 many of our fields are already showing signs of decreased soil 

 fertility by yielding crops reduced in yield per acreage. On 

 the other hand, recent census tabulations go to show that the 



