Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 45 



This hymn of the soil is the one great hymn. It sings of the one great 

 heritage of life. We speak of this or that man "owning" thus or so 

 much of the earth 's surface. That, of course, is impossible. He takes it 

 or borrows it, perhaps, but he can own no more than six feet of it, and 

 that only for a short time. The soil belongs to Life. The "buried 

 years" resent any embezzlement of our great heritage. The soil is 

 owned by plants, by animals, by men of this or that nation, this or that 

 age, that past, yonder future. If we sin against the soil, ours will be the 

 Great Punishment which is to say, extinction, oblivion. If you plow 

 badly, it is you for the star-dust ! 



Even before Wall Street was invented there was more water than any- 

 thing else in the world. Finally, on the little crust of land some tiny 

 plant began to grow, no one knows just when. Perhaps at one time the 

 plant could not have told whether it was a plant or an animal, but, any- 

 how, in time it turned into some green thing which looked tempting to 

 some old Ichthyosaurus, and the latter, of a pleasant spring morning, 

 while tired of eating salt stuff and canned goods, crawled up out of the 

 water and made a meal on the first recorded salad. It looked good to , 

 him and he came back. Other members of the Saurus family got on to 

 the snap and also came up out of the water, all sorts of long-tailed and 

 long-billed creatures, which, to make the story short, in time became 

 land animals. All these animals in the original balance of things not 

 only used that land, but helped to extend its total salad-producing acres. 

 They trampled, they spread seeds, they increased the soil products. 

 Vegetable mould increased. The little drops of water fell on it, and 

 plants grew again on the pleasant land. The Saurus family moved in 

 and permanently frequented the head lettuce, cabbage and turnip 

 greens of that day. 



All went merry as a marriage bell, until, in time, Man came along. 

 The old ways did not suit him. He began to farm, at first by means of a 

 crooked stick, and at last by means of the Harvester Trust. Inci- 

 dentally, he forgot all about the buried years, and, with skill and speed 

 and malice which would have caused any self-respecting Saurus to blush 

 with shame, did all he could to wreak destruction upon the forests of 

 the earth, on the mines, on the waters, and on the soil itself. He over- 

 drew his bank account, more in America than ever has been known in 

 all the long, slow history either of the world or of the earth. 



It would not be worth while to make here merely a series of sweeping 

 general statements, or to make statements not definitely understandable. 

 As it happens, the chapter and verse are ready at hand. It is entirely 

 feasible not only to organize the waste in American soil, but to measure 

 it. The late Professor N. S. Shaler estimated the destruction of agri- 

 cultural lands, chiefly through old-field erosion, in the southern Atlantic 



