THE CALL OF THE LAND 



have the right of way and multiply. Look- 

 ing over a field thus abused, your "tender- 

 foot" thinks the soil must be worthless, 

 whereas it may be of the richest, having 

 merely been forced by misuse to grow nox- 

 ious instead of useful plants. Hundreds of 

 square miles of invaluable soil have been 

 overrun with the prickly pear, and the stand 

 becomes more formidable yearly. Many 

 counties estimate that the cactus plague has 

 diminished their cattle-carrying capacity a 

 fourth or a third. 



Homesteaders taking up lands too dry for 

 agriculture have added to the mischief by 

 turning over and killing grass-clad sod, 

 ruining good pasturage, and weaving no 

 garment in its stead. Not seldom the dry 

 soil thus denuded blows away, leaving 

 gravel banks where earlier there was a 

 noble covering of succulent herbage. 



In many other places the best soil, bare, 

 destitute of protection, and swept by the 

 wind, has been scattered. At the same time, 

 when no matting of vegetation overspreads 

 a tract, its water-storing capacity is de- 



44 



