40 Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



THE WASTE IN MUD. 



This article is from The Saturday Evening Post of March 27th. It is a 

 fine example of modern American newspaper English. It tells the story 

 in a deliciously whimsical, humorous way. Yet the grim facts stick out 

 boldly all through it, in spite of its quips and jests. It is by Emerson 

 Hough. 



With the exception of that certain wicked uncle, of whom nothing 

 ever was expected and of whom no good could be predicted, all your 

 family, like the average American family, no doubt regularly went to 

 church. Probably the majority stayed over for Sabbath-school in the 

 little church with white walls and black walnut pews. You could not 

 have been in a better place. At church or Sabbath-school you all stood 

 in a row and sang that easy, lilting old hymn which says : 



Little drops of water, little grains of sand, 

 Make the mighty ocean and the pleasant land. 



You could not have sung a better song. We all used to sing that song 

 with cheerfulness, indeed with enthusiasm Lit-tle drops of wa-a-a-ter, 

 Z^-tle gra-ay-ins of sand, make the mighty o-o-shun, an' the pleh-heh- 

 sent la-a-a-nd ! That was the way it ran. After we had sung it we all 

 went home and forgot all about it. The next Monday morning Dad 

 went back to farming, just the way his Dad had, and the Dad who 

 antedated that one, world without end ; and not one of those Dads was 

 ever wise enough to know the hymn was right, or to figure out what the 

 hymn meant or ought to mean. It is a splendid hymn, full of vast 

 elemental truth, and it has a lot to do with farming. 



Heretofore, your folks and mine hadn't thought that geology had 

 much to do with farming, any more than religion had. As a matter of 

 fact, they both do. The only trouble is, the average American, like you 

 and me, does very little thinking in religion, politics or business. The 

 farmer knows the country immediately around him. The city man does 

 not even know all of the city where he lives, only a little corner of it. It 

 is this carelessness in religion, politics, business and geology which gives 

 the sad-eyed Mr. James J. Hill still further opportunity to grieve over 

 the future of this country. 



What Mr. Hill sees in the time when five hundred millions of Japanese 

 and Chinamen will be making all our manufactured goods under a scale 

 of living so much cheaper than the American standard as to crush out 

 all American competition. This means not only the fiercest struggle 

 ever known for trade, but the fiercest struggle ever known for a mere 

 living. It is the war between the Oriental standard of living and the 

 American standard as we now know it. The decisive battle of that war 

 must be fought on the American farm, not in the California legislature. 

 The American standard of living is based on the theory of an exhaust- 



