164 Singing Valleys 



country were in the corn belt, now the numbers in those states 

 represent only 60 percent of our national pork supply. 



The horse and the mule are coming back to the farms. 

 Events have proved that these are not so outmoded as the 

 enthusiastic young salesmen for General Motors once said they 

 were. Horses and mules will work on corn. There's a lot of 

 work on a farm that is done more cheaply by animal power 

 than by gasoline. 



The squeals of those eight million pigs woke up the entire 

 nation to the necessity for forest and soil conservation; and 

 for drought and flood control measures in the Great Valley 

 which is America's market basket. Even the unthinking ones 

 who "always bought their food from the A & P" were made 

 aware of the source of supply behind the counters and shelves 

 in the corner groceries. They know now that that source must 

 be protected if Americans are going to have enough to eat. 



Not least of all, those eight million pigs set a lot of us to 

 thinking. They made it fairly apparent that Nature's economics 

 take no account of man's. You can't contract against drought 

 or flood or frost. The laws of natural increase and supply don't 

 respond to factory methods of production, or the theories of 

 the technocrats. From now on, it is safe to say, we are going 

 to be wary of throwing a political monkey wrench into Nature's 

 machinery. 



And if, by the generous laws of Nature, our corn and our 

 swine increase, we'll let 'em. We'll lean on the fence rails and 

 rejoice in the fatness of the land. Some we'll take to market; 

 and the rest we'll eat, thankful for a good dinner table. And 

 if we have enough over to give to the man who has none, the 

 national economy will not be upset. 



Who knows, the time may come when America won't have 

 a single hungry person in it! 



