THE LAND 17 



NATURAL FORCES CONTROLLING LAND USE 



When people talk about nature, they may mean any one of 

 a hundred different things. They may be thinking of forests, 

 wild game, scenery, flowers, the weather, and so on. When we 

 write about nature in this book we mean the forces which con" 

 trol the flow of rivers, the fertility of the soil, the length of the 

 seasons, the amount of rainfall, the growth of plants, the 

 richness of mineral deposits, the development of wild life. In 

 short, we mean the laws that govern the destiny of the land 

 and the plants and animals which live on the land. 



The basic law of nature is balance. No matter what happens, 

 nature will keep that balance. A fertile soil produces grass. A 

 cow eats the grass. The manure produced by the cow restores 

 much of the plant food that was taken from the soil by the 

 grass, and helps to grow more grass. If a farmer sells this 

 manure, or doesn't put it back on his fields, the grass gradually 

 dies out. The cow produces less milk, and if the process goes 

 on long enough, she starves. When this sort of thing happens, 

 people are apt to say, "Nature has been thrown out of balance." 

 That is a mistake. Nature has kept its balance. What has been 

 thrown out of balance is the cow, and the man depending on 

 the cow. 



Nature does not give anything. It lends. It will continue to 

 lend as long as the loan is returned. When nothing is paid 

 back, nothing is lent. Nature keeps a constant balance between 

 its income and loans. When the loans are not repaid, the bor' 

 rower, man, and not the lender, nature, is eliminated. Anyone 

 who ignores the balance of nature does so at his own peril. 

 Nature will maintain its balance by overthrowing him. 



Just such a conflict occurred in the town of Petersham. 

 Three times men came and cut the timber as if it had been 

 a stand of wheat. With their primitive farming methods, they 

 mined the soil. And three times they were defeated. It was a 



