time the plant could not have told whether it was a plant or an animal, 

 but, anyhow, in time it turned into some green thing which looked 

 tempting to some old Ichthyosaurus, and the latter, of a pleasant 

 spring morning, while tired of eating salt stuff and canned goods, 

 crawled up out of the water and made a meal on the first recorded 

 salad. It looked good to him and he came back. Other members of 

 the Saurus family got on to the snap and also came up out of the 

 water, all sorts of long-tailed and long-billed creatures, which, to 

 make the story short, in time became land animals. All these animals 

 in the original balance of things not only used that land, but helped 

 to extend its total salad-producing acres. They trampled, they spread 



Unhindered erosion over a long period of years in Stewart County. Erosion started 

 with the removal of the forest. Hundreds of acres of valuable soil carried down the 

 streams out to the ocean. Could have been prevented with a little care. 



seeds, they increased the soil products. Vegetable mould increased. 

 The little drops of water fell on it, and plants grew again on the 

 pleasant land. The Saurus family moved in and permanently fre- 

 quented the head lettuce, cabbage and turnip greens of that day. 



All went merry as a marriage bell, until, in time, Man came along. 

 The old ways did not suit him. He began to farm, at first by means 

 of a crooked stick, and at last by means of the Harvester Trust. Inci- 

 dentally, he forgot all about the buried years, and, with skill and 

 speed and malice which would have caused any self-respecting Saurus 

 to blush with shame, did all he could to wreak destruction upon the 

 forests of the earth, on the mines, on the waters, and on the soil itself. 



29 



