96 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



And the Alabama sharecropper, who has to grow cotton 

 up to his doorstep to satisfy the planter for whom he works, 

 and still ends the year in debt, must be helped too. He has been 

 caught in a system of agriculture which was based on slavery, 

 and which has never really adapted itself to any other method. 



And the Tennessee farmer sitting on his hillside looking 

 down on the Tennessee Valley Authority dams maybe he 

 would rather be left alone. But what about the dams that are 

 being filled with the silt that runs off his fields with every rain? 

 And what about the surplus population he produces? If they 

 come to the cities it will mean too many factory workers. A 

 surplus of workers means low wages and unemployment. If 

 they remain in the hills to add to the country population, they 

 will have to adjust themselves to a lower standard of living. 



And what about the farmers in the corn belt with their 

 overflowing corn cribs and eroding fields, and the dairy farm' 

 ers with their milk surplus and eroding fields, and tobacco 

 farmers with their surplus and their eroding fields, and the 

 truck gardeners with their surplus and eroding fields? And so 

 on? Those will still be questions for the voters who determine 

 the future of America to think about a quarter of a century 

 from now. They will require decisions based on a knowledge 

 of the problems of land use. If they are to be answered intelli' 

 gently, the voters will have to be able to recognize the special 

 pleas of groups who are selfishly thinking only of their own 

 development the industrialist who doesn't want any of his 

 taxes wasted on farmers, the farmer who wants the govern' 

 ment to support him while he continues with his soil destroying 

 methods. And in making these decisions and distinctions, there 

 is one fact that must always be remembered. Nature maintains 

 its balance regardless of whether it means the wiping out of 

 a single community, a state, or a nation. 



