Save tKe Woods and 'Waters 53 



them for steam power or giving them back to the 

 people for fuel or fence posts, etc. The mill owner 

 burns as rubbish the sawdust and slabs instead of 

 burying the sawdust and allowing it to turn into 

 loam that would enrich the soil and thereby propagate 

 vegetable food matter and the very tree life the mill- 

 man wastes. He is not only destroying the material 

 on hand but he is doing his best to prevent the growth 

 of future material. Slabs should not be burned as 

 waste matter; they are good fuel and good material 

 for the farmer, et al. 



Nothing should be burned as waste matter; nature 

 tells us to bury, not burn. Fire destroys not alone the 

 valuable ingredient it consumes to make itself, but 

 burns up the earth's vital moisture the life-giving 

 oxygen we breathe, without which no animate thing 

 could survive. 



Before fresh timber is cut for market-cornering 

 purposes, the millmen should be compelled to use up 

 the vast rafts of trees they have allowed to float upon 

 river banks, there to rot while the choppers continue 

 their attack on new trees, half of which will go to 

 waste with the lumberman's already-decaying market- 

 cornering mess in the flooded valley. 



Anyone may personally witness this wanton waste 

 if so inclined: Take a ride on the railroad between 

 Portland, Oregon, and Tacbma, Washington, and note 

 the conditions en route; or glance out of the car window 

 as you ride through the timberland district in the 

 Southern states Alabama, Georgia, etc. 



Oregon and Washington are bragging about what 

 the native biped conceitedly calls enterprise, western 

 spirit, progress, prosperity, etc. Poor fools! They 

 imagine the so-called prosperity is due to the enter- 



