THE LAND 21 



be plowed. 17 Not only does erosion leave a rock-ribbed ruin 

 behind, it speeds up run-off of rain water, causing more severe 

 floods, and it sends soil down the rivers, silting up dams, cover 

 ing and ruining the land of other farmers, and filling stream 

 beds so that the spring freshets flood wider and wider areas 

 every year. 



On the gracing lands of the plains, the grass has been 

 cropped heavily by the cattle. As a result, it is not unusual for 

 land to be so poor that it takes two hundred acres to support 

 one cow for one year. Where there is little grass there is little 

 protection from the sudden torrential rains. Arroyos grow 

 deeper and wider with every storm. About 75 per cent of the 

 plains region has had its original dense carpet of nourishing 

 grasses thinned out to a pitiful remnant. 



Many millions of acres once covered with great forests have 

 been changed into barren wastes and other millions of acres 

 support second-growth forests of inferior quality. Of the 

 .original 1,281,250 square miles of virgin timberland, much of 

 course had to be cleared for farms; but of the vast area that was 

 left, only about 154,500 square miles remain today. 18 And still 

 the sawmills are eating into these remaining forests as fast as 

 they can, and mostly by methods that either prevent a new 

 forest from starting or encourage only a poorly-stocked in 

 ferior second-growth. 



Scientists estimate that there is only enough petroleum to 

 last for eleven and one half years at the present rate of con' 

 sumption and with the present methods of production. This 

 does not mean that after eleven years we will have to throw 

 away our gasoline engines. But as supplies grow scarce, our 

 oil will have to come from oil shales and other low yield sources. 



17 The Future of the Great Plains, Report of the Great Plains Committee, 

 United States Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C., December, 1936, 

 p. 5. 



18 Ibid., pp. 244-247. 



