Wofife of Nitrogen 30 



direction, restraint or control, this agricultural 

 mining goes on until the sources from which 

 the profits are drawn are so depleted as to 

 be no longer profitable. There is no home or 

 competency for the farm boys in the lumber 

 camp or on the great wheat farm. Here the 

 rule is to take all and return nothing. After 

 the ax and the binder, comes the fire to com- 

 plete the wanton destruction. The shade -giving 

 and moisture -conserving brush, stubble and 

 etraw, and all living plants, are destroyed, and 

 nothing but the mineral matter, unmixed with 

 surface humus, remains. A blackened waste, 

 devoid of animal or vegetable life, is left be- 

 hind. No homes can be reared here, no com- 

 petence secured until nature, assisted by man 

 in the coming years, slowly restores the cover- 

 ing and productivity of the soil. This unwise 

 treatment of the land must soon come to an 

 end ; then the hardy home -builder will have op- 

 portunity to repair, by more rational methods, 

 some of the wanton and unnecessary waste. 



Is it too much to hope that before the close 

 of another decade every state and territory will 

 have a school of forestry, and that all national 

 forest domains will have been brought under 

 rational supervision and control? The future 

 home -builders will need them, and the present 

 owners of homes have a right to a share of 



