THE LAND 9 



the fields. And some of those who had left to make their for 

 tunes in the cities returned to the country to scrape together 

 enough food to keep them off the breadlines. 



The long story of the rise and decline of Petersham may 

 seem to be out of place in a book on the use of land in the 

 United States. True, what has happened in one small Massa' 

 chusetts town is of little consequence to a rancher on the 

 Staked Plains of Texas or a wheat farmer in Iowa, or a miner 

 grubbing for copper in the backbone of the continent at Butte. 

 But the story of Petersham illustrates what is happening to that 

 rancher, and farmer, and miner today. Its history is in a small 

 way the history of the land in the United States. It follows 

 closely the pattern of American land use. 



The outline of this pattern has been shaped by three power 

 ful forces. These are, first, the point of view of the people; 

 second, the requirements of economics; third, the laws of na 

 ture. 



THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE PEOPLE 



Men came to America for land. They may have left their 

 native countries for political or economic or religious reasons. 

 Whatever these reasons were, the people who settled America 

 selected it as their home because they knew that here was land 

 for them. Land meant freedom. 



Unfortunately for their great great grandchildren, the early 

 emigrants thought there was so much land in America that it 

 made little difference how it was used. Any one of those emi 

 grants who had ever looked at a map of this vast country could 

 see with his own eyes that there would always be more land 

 for whoever would want it. Had they not just read in Mr. 

 Peck's TSJew; Guide for Emigrants to the West that "There 

 is much fertile land in the Valley of the Missouri, though much 

 of it must be forever the abode of the buffalo and the elk, the 



