16 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



there was no new land. And the belief that one-crop farming, 

 regardless of its effect on the soil or the market, is a profitable 

 kind of agriculture, became equally meaningless when it ended 

 in the universal bankruptcy of agriculture. These points of view 

 in the many years of their supremacy had left a great scar on the 

 face of the country. That scar was eroded, sand-blown, gullied, 

 brush'covered land that had been laid waste on the march to the 

 West. The question is whether that wasted land will shock 

 people into adopting a reasonable policy of land use. Or will 

 it simply be a sample of the fate of the whole American land? 



If the industrial development of the United States indirectly 

 caused a decrease in the fertility of the soil, its effect on other 

 natural resources was even more powerful. It was soon clear 

 that a man would get richer exploiting the resources which 

 supplied industry, such as water-power, timber, and minerals, 

 than he would by cultivating the soil, the resource of agricul 

 ture. The same set of ideas which led men to destroy the fertility 

 of the soil for profit, believing there always would be more soil, 

 was applied to minerals and timberlands. 



The exploitation of mineral resources has been similar to the 

 bleeding of the land. However, the effect on the owners of 

 these resources has been quite different. The profits from the 

 industrial resources were so large that even though a mine 

 might eventually fail, the owner would have made enough 

 money to buy his way into some other business. The farmer, 

 on the other hand, rarely made such profits. He was dependent 

 on his land not only for his fortune, but also for the bare neces 

 sities of life. When the land failed, he failed. 



The beliefs of men and the changes in markets and prices 

 have a great effect on civilisation, but they mean nothing to 

 nature. Nature must be dealt with according to its own rules, 

 and not as men and money decide to deal with it. That brings 

 us to the third force which controls the use of land. 



