RECLAMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE 349 



faster than we have ever grown them before. I don't think time is 

 going to wait for us. We will have to move faster. 



Mr. COOK. I hope, in order to obtain beauty in a short time, we 

 do not throw away the value that lies in these lands that a little time 

 will enable us to realize. We can reclaim these lands to tremendous 

 value as well as beauty if we are given sufficient time to accomplish it. 



WILLIAM VOIGT, JR. One comment, and then one question, if 

 I may : It was ten years ago, Mr. Pyles, this month, that we spent a 

 month in the Ohio country that Larry Cook just talked about, looking 

 over some well reclaimed land, and some that was not well reclaimed. 



I feel that we should consider soil textures, local soil and climatic 

 conditions, as Dr. Netting was saying, when we go in to do the 

 reclaiming job. But the big problem and the question that I would 

 like to put has to do with the areas that have been disturbed in 

 years past by operators who are long dead or departed. I believe 

 it was a fellow countryman of yours, who some 300-odd years ago 

 in a book called "The Gompleat Angler," wrote, "What is every- 

 body's business is nobody's business." 



What are we going to do about this nonreclaimed land, unre- 

 claimed land that is now everybody's business? 



Mr. MOTT. Our panel has discussed this problem in its work 

 sessions quite extensively, and we recognize that the abandoned 

 or orphaned land presents a special problem. We will make a specific 

 recommendation with regard to action that should be taken in re- 

 habilitating orphan or abandoned coal mine areas. We believe the 

 recommendation makes sense and we will present it at the general 

 session. 



GEORGE SELKE. We have just gone through a series of experiences 

 in two States, and I would like to call your attention to them. They 

 deal with the matter of reclamation. I wonder what we are going to 

 do when nature begins to destroy some of the beauty of the land be- 

 cause of some indirect acts of man. I sometimes think that nature 

 does this without any help of mankind. I am thinking of the floods 

 of the Missouri and the floods of the Willamette and the Columbia 

 as well as the hurricane of 1962, and so on. 



Mr. PYLES. I suggest one solution is to keep the towns and in- 

 dustries out of the flood plains. That would be the easiest way. 



