IV. THE FARM STREAM 



"All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place 

 from whence the rivers come, thither they return again." 



Ecclesiastes 1:7. 



There was a time when the streams of our "well-watered 

 country" were more highly prized than now. They were 

 storehouses of food. They were highways of travel. They 

 were channels of transportation. Several things happened to 

 divert interest landward. The good timber along the valleys 

 was all cut and there were no more logs to be floated down- 

 stream to mill. The American plow was invented, making 

 possible the tillage of vastly increased areas of ground. 

 More cereals could be grown and more forage for cattle. The 

 fishes of the streams became less necessary for food; and 

 with the phenomenally rapid increase of population which 

 followed, the fishing failed. It became easier and cheaper to 

 raise cattle for food than to get it by fishing. Then came the 

 railroads, providing more direct and speedy transportation 

 and travel; and the streams were abandoned. Indeed, 

 what happened to them was worse than neglect. The regu- 

 larity of their supply of water was interfered with as the water- 

 holding forest cover was destroyed and springs dried up. 

 They became dumping places for the refuse of all sorts of 

 establishments along their banks. Not even their beauty was 

 cared for their singular beauty of mirroring surfaces and 

 sinuous banks of broad bordering meadows, backed by 

 wooded headlands. The pioneer was not so blind to the 

 grander beauties of nature. Go through the country and 

 mark where the first settlements were made. You will find 

 them not far from the waterside, but situated where the ample 

 beauties of land and water, hill and vale, are spread out to 

 view. Our predecessors would not have been satisfied with a 



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