American has let a few men steal him blind, and now he is stealing 

 himself blind. The soil is the connecting link between organic and 

 inorganic life. It is the foundation of organized society and of all 

 civiJization. It is the place where all the bank accounts come from. 



Any man who touches the soil, and even the city man who does not, 

 ought to understand it. The main truths are simple enough, like most 

 big things. It is easy to see that depth of soil, and therefore richness 

 in product, is inverse as to slope, because the soil washes thin on the 

 hillsides and runs thicker on the flat. Therefore, on the flats it raises 

 more vegetation, which in turn furnishes more mulch, which in turn 

 holds more moisture, which in turn produces more vegetation. The 

 great circle of the conservation of forces is a simple and beautiful 

 thing. Slope, water supply, organic action, all these govern soil as in 

 the days of the Saurus family. That is the Hymn of Life. Good 

 plowing is good religion. Good politics is good religion. Good bus- 

 iness is good religion. Good geology is good religion, too, and the 

 circle runs around and around, beautiful and complete, if only we 

 care to look at it in that way. 



When the Government gets the little drops of water regulated in 

 Wall street, and when we begin to understand the relation of those 

 little drops and little grains on our farm, we shall begin to see in 

 America the arrival of a golden age, one of growth in art, in beauty, 

 in mentality, in altruism. Even at this stage of our development w r e 

 ought to have intelligence equal to that of the average Ichthyosaurus. 

 What Uncle San is trying to show us is, that without water there is 

 no civilization, and that wnthout proper relation of water and soil 

 there is industrial anarchy. Bad handling of water means less crops, 

 less soil, more polluted streams, more choked up channels, more floods, 

 more waste and ruin, the balance of things thrown out of plumb, and 

 the world literally turned upside-down. The Hymn of Life is one 

 which in time the great Teacher of the Universe is going to force us 

 to remember, whether we wish to remember it or not. It is not Wash- 

 ington, but the Universe, which is handing a message to us. 



What, then, ought we to do to get out of the Ichthyosaurus class 

 and to give our beneficent protective tariff something to protect? In 

 the first place, it is not up to Uncle Sam, but up to us. Louis XVI 

 said, "The State, it is myself!" That was in Prance, and some time 

 ago. The State, it is ourselves, here in America. The remedy does 

 not begin with your neighbor, but with yourself, and with you it 

 begins as soon as you realize that no bank account will stand perpetual 

 checking against it. Uncle Sam is willing to help any one of us begin 

 the study of the soil today. 



The soil experts of the Government are no more able to classify 

 farms than the average farmer every farmer knows that there may 

 be heavy, sticky soil! thin, light, sandy soil; clay soil; open and 

 friable mould. Any farmer knows that the great idea is to retain 

 the natural moisture under the soil and not let it run off on the 

 surface. The experts show that deep plowing is a good thing in 

 certain soils, to get the water down 'into the earth. If the land is very 

 flat, deep tilling may be necessary to get this surplus water out, so 

 that the soil may drain dry and disintegrate. Most farmers know 



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