720 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



became a blackened wilderness. How Our coal lands with their marvelous 



the ruin has spread ! Within the mem- deposits, have been well-nigh given 



ory of man the mighty forests of In- away. I have seen veins of coal eleven 



diana and Ohio were chopped down feet deep which the wise United States 



and burned. If left till to-day, they government sold for $10 per acre, 



would be worth more than all the crops Streams with waterfalls that were gokl 



grown there since their destruction, mines have been parted with for a 



Take Arizona, for instance. The forests song. 



have been cut from the mountains. The Go into Colorado, and vandalism is 

 rubbish invites the fires, and the fires there. The mountains are robbed of 

 never miss an invitation. Great flocks their beauty. The upland pastures are 

 and herds of sheep and cattle were over-grazed, and you have desolation 

 driven in, and they have destroyed the instead of beauty. A pioneer in the 

 herbage which fastened the thin layer 'Rockies once said to me : "I think we 

 of earth to the rocks. The floods came early settlers should have great credit 

 and ripped the earth from the moun- for coming in here and starting things." 

 tain sides and whirled avalanches of I replied : "If you never had seen this 

 mud into the fertile valleys, often plow- country, and had left it to-day as God 

 ing out great gullies twenty and thirty made it, it would be worth five times 

 feet deep through the rich soil, and all as much as it is now." 

 hurried on to fill the river beds. Now, Our railroads are great civilizers, but 

 when the floods come, there is nothing the fires set by the engines leave a track 

 to detain them, and the people of Texas of barbarism behind them. See how 

 must suffer from the vandalism of Ari- it is in Washington and Oregon. The 

 zona. lumber barons who have wrought such 

 There are no richer lands on earth ruin at the north are now at work 

 than the great prairies of the west, and among the grandest forests ever grown, 

 here in God's richest garden there have They seem to concentrate all their en- 

 been two sources of disaster. The first ergies there to complete the work of 

 is cropping lands without remuneration ; ruin. In some instances, every device 

 raising wheat year after year with no is resorted to to get possession of lands 

 manure, till some of the richest farms which belong to the people. Take the 

 of Minnesota are now so reduced they Appalachian Mountains. The forests 

 will hardly raise chicken feed. This are being cut down ; the beautiful rivers 

 system of waste applies to rich, level are filled with rubbish ; sand and stones 

 lands. There is a double system applied are car ried onto fertile valley farms. In 

 to hillside lands robbing the soil and a short timCi eighteen millions of dam- 

 allowing it to wash. [ have known the v^ inflicted, and yet Congress 

 richest soil to be swept away by a single , , . . ,.. /.. ,, , 



, t f c 11 looks on in indifference while the horror 

 heavy ram, so the whole furrow would 



be gone, and you could see the plow g row s- 



marks. Stand by any of our streams When you come to the farm, you see 



after a heavy rain and you will see the also a terrific waste there. In the east 



very cream of our fields going to the the soil is washed away and the rocks 



Gulf of Mexico. and stones are left ; no thought or care 



It is waste, waste, everywhere. Most j s taken to save the soil. Many beauti- 



feeders will have their feed lots perched fu i re gi ons wne re heavy crops were 



on some steep hillside, if they can find n are now deserted> and you can 



such a place, so that the richest fer- farms for half what the buildings 



tihzer the world produces can be ut- } 



terly swept away without any trouble woulc 



on their part, and they keep on growing What wonder, in the midst of all this 



twenty-five bushels of corn to the acre, ruin, that a "Great Heart" should arise 



when, by saving the manure and plow- He looks on the past, and then on the 



ing their land deep, they might have present, and then into the future, and 



100 bushels. he asks himself what will become of 



