PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 199 



make good our boast we are in danger of committing irretrievable dam- 

 age upon what was indeed the most magnificent heritage of this whole 

 Mississippi valley. 



I have left out of view in this argument entirely the aesthetic side 

 of this question, the necessity of streams and lakes and woodlands to 

 the aesthetic side of human nature. The absolute need of the milder 

 healing influences of natural beauty to our eager, anxious, overworked, 

 caret-burdened, gain-seeking people I have elsewhere found occasion to 

 discuss. Nor have I touched at all the sentimental side to the problem. 

 I have said nothing of Iowa as a home, as a land suitable in which to 

 rear generation after generation of wise and happy children who shall 

 grow up to love the place of their nativity and nurture ; I argue now only 

 for Iowa as a field, a great field enclosed by wires from which may 

 still be forwarded train-load after train-load of corn and beef. The drain- 

 age of our prairies, the destruction oif what little woods we have, these 

 two things do, in my judgment threaten our wealth, threaten our hope of 

 gain, and therefore ought to command the attention of our people to any 

 reasonable discussion of the question and to commend any effort made 

 to attain a definite knowledge of the truth. 



But no sermon is complete without the application, and the question 

 now rises what can the academy do in these premises? We can in the 

 first place investigate. Scattered as we are over the broad domain of 

 the state, we can, as we prosecute other lines of inquiry, likewise ob- 

 serve the facts that bear upon the problem here presentd. Perhaps the 

 geological survey has already such a line of investigation well in mind. It 

 would surely very properly supplement the discussion of artesian waters. 

 More than this, as we accumulate information, we may take pains to 

 disseminate the siame. I am of the opinion that this academy might, 

 with advantage to itself and the public, largely increase its membership 

 and so widen its influence, and thus eventually reach our myriad several 

 communities, the ultimate sources of power. 



Possibly the legislature might be induced to hasten such investigation 

 as the situation would seem to demand. A year or two since we peti- 

 tioned the legislature to take steps for the preservation of our lakes. I 

 am not informed that the legislature ever considered the matter at all. 

 But, however willing the legislature, the problem is too far-reaching, too 

 intricate, for their action. What can the legislature do? Shall the state 

 own the rivers and their banks? This might avail in Germany but is not 

 once to be thought of under our democratic system. We must reach 

 the communities. The people interested must own the wooded banks 

 and rocky bluffs. Is it not to the interest of the city of Des Moines 

 to own the sources of the Coon, the wooded banks and hills that pro- 

 tect its streams in summer? If New York City can own large water- 

 sheds of the Croton, and if the state of New York may sustain the Hud- 

 son valley by the magnificent Adirondack forest reserve; if the city of 

 Boston may absolutely govern in all problems topographic, all the sur- 

 rounding country, shall not the towns of Iowa find it to their interest also 

 to protect by every means our meagre streams and scanty woodlands? 

 Nay, may not all the people, locality after locality, be brought to see 

 the true condition of affairs so clearly that the people will themselves, 



