t 



7 WATT fl 



' V \ \ /' / \ 



. W Lr^J> LJ i 



WOODS 

 WATERS 



SO I L S~~ 



Q -AND 



ORES 



Vol. XIV 



SFITEMBER, 1908 



Xo. 



THE CULT OF CONSERVATION 



By W J McGEE, LL.D,, Erosion Expert, U. S. Bureau of Soils 

 Member National Conservation Commission, Secretary of the U. S. Inland Waterways Commission 



A.\K\V Patriotism has appeared. 

 It was born of Enlightenment 

 inspired by International Comity. 

 Fittingly, it first sa\v light in the land 

 in which Enlightenment found birth in 

 the principle of e<|ual rights of all men 

 to litY. liberty, and the pursuit of hap- 

 piness: yet its field of future activity 

 is the world. It-, object is the conser- 

 vation of national resources; its end 

 the perpetration . ,f People and States 

 andthe exaltationot" I lumanity. The ke\ 

 note of it- cry unto the spirits of men 



is TlIK < iRKATF.S'l GOOD TO Mil-. ( iKF.AT- 

 KST Xr.MI'.I.K FOR TI1K LONGESI TlMF. 

 The house of this \ation wa- founded 

 on Land. The Father s >aw no value, 

 no means of enrichment in purse or en- 

 largement of Character in anght else: 

 even their sons and their sons' sons 

 sowed maxims and s.-nig ballads a-sur 

 ing all tin- world that "Incle Sam i- 

 rich enough t" .u'ivr n- all a farm." 

 Iron \\a- a ln\nr\ from Swedi'ii. steel 

 a sybaritic morsel from Sheffield: coal 

 was unknown, except as laboriously 

 burned from willow as a dentifrice, or 

 aspen for the furnace; petroleum and 



rock-gas were beyond dreams; forests 

 were obstructions to settlement, the 

 haunt of savages and beasts, and nigh 

 unto a public evil. Kverv dav \\a- 

 Arbor I )ay on which a youth won praise 

 not by planting hut by felling a tree 

 unless perchance the tree were a chern 

 and the chronicler of its fall a her.. 

 worshipful \Yeenis. Apart from men 

 and their home- and field-, but a single 

 resource \\as note 1. and that merely a- 

 appurtenant to the land i. e.. the estua- 

 ries and streams used mainly \>>r car- 

 riage and over-sea commerce: which 

 appurtenance happily inspired a Water- 

 ways Commission, \iclded a i "ii-titu- 

 tion. and e-tabli-hed a Nation in a i lan- 

 ner none foresaw save po-sjMv \\a-0i- 

 ington. 



To the Fathers the Land, with its in- 

 cidentally appurtenant water. wa- 

 enongli : the\ \\anted little more and 

 none I. H . much of that ! < u-. T^C \< 

 ers l 'lark and lU'iijamin l ; rank!in \\ 

 \ie\\ed askance beean-e the\ hp-ugh; 

 into the infant country nioi'e territ 

 beyond the mountains than the strip for 

 which the l ; athers fought along--ln ire. 



469 



