ECONOMIC CAUSES OF DEPLETION 75 



Engineering science has made it possible for men to 

 draw rapidly upon all resources; transportation has 

 made it possible to seize the pristine wealth of all con- 

 tinents, and the foolish heir of the ages has not come 

 to his senses in regard to the use of his new domain. 



Men are to-day becoming millionaires through seltish 

 exploitation of forest and stream and field and mine 

 and ocean, and of the toil of their fellow men until not 

 only the blood of the poor innocents, but also the dried- 

 up beds of the brooks, the bared rocks of the hillsides, 

 the weed-covered, scrub-covered fields of our fathers, the 

 shaft-and-tunnel trap-doors of forsaken mines, and the 

 extinct genera of sky and earth and sea cry aloud to 

 God who made all things very good, to the God who 

 " worketh even until now," that He might fashion this 

 earth as a fit habitation for all men of all generations. 



I charge our farmers, who go to the West to exploit 

 the virgin fertility of the prairies and have no thought 

 of making a permanent home for themselves or their 

 children there, with a dastardly crime against society ; 

 — yet it is a crime in which they are but feeble imita- 

 tors of the objects of men's worship to-day, the million- 

 aire exploiters of the world's wealth. 



Our fathers sinned, both in ignorance and wilfully, 

 and we their children are paying the penalty in depleted 

 communities, but even while paying the penalty we are 

 sinners beyond our fathers. 



Yet again, we have other unoccupied farms where 

 substantial buildings, enclosed garden-plots and trim 

 fields, as well as local history, attest the exi8tenc<» of 

 profitable farming carried on in the recent past. Here 

 we reach another error in the realm of conservation — 

 unscientific farming that has depleted flic fertility of 



