338 LESSONS IN AORTrULTURE 



LESSON XCVTIT 



CONSEEVATION OF NATUEAL RESOURCES 



Study needed. A text-book in agriculture would 

 fail in an essential duty if it did not call attention to the 

 great need of the conservation of our natural resources. 

 In a recent conference, Hon. Gifford Pinchot advised the 

 preparation of text-books on conservation, and strongly 

 urged that the problem be presented to the children of 

 the public schools. 



Americans wasteful. "We have been concerning our- 

 selves about every other subject under the sun, while we 

 ate, drank, and made merry over the abundance of our 

 natural resources. As a nation we have wasted our sub- 

 stance by riotous living, and now we hear our President 

 sounding the alarm by saying, that the question of the 

 conservation of our natural resources is one of the most 

 important problems before the American people. 



The natural resources. Disregarding the question 

 of moral purposes, the prosperity of our people depends 

 directly upon the energy and intelligence with which we 

 use the soil, the forests, the mines, and the waters of the 

 earth. From the sea, the mine, the forest, and the soil, 

 must be gathered everything that can sustain the life of 

 man. How stands the inventory of our property at the 

 beginning of the twentieth century? 



The sea and forests. The sea furnishes 5 per cent 

 of our food products. The forests are fast disappearing. 

 We are consuming wood three times faster than the for- 



