58 The State and the Farmer 



from sources on some man's land. This man 

 has the first use of the water. Every farm 

 supplies something to the rivers. Many of 

 them supply living lakes and streams. There 

 are more than five millions of farms in the 

 United States. Every good farm will in time 

 have its own mechanical power. Much of it 

 will be water-power. When the farmer devel- 

 opes his water-power, he will also protect his 

 stream or spring. It is more important that 

 we develop small power on a million farms 

 than that we organize power companies or 

 harness Niagara. 



Our natural resources are of three kinds: 

 Those of the mining order, the supply of which 

 we can prolong only by saving; those growing 

 directly or indirectly out of the earth and sea, 

 as all forests and other crops and all animals, 

 the supply of which may not only be conserved 

 but may be greatly increased; the streams and 

 lakes, the control of which depends very 

 directly on the crop-cover of the earth. 



In the last analysis, the utilization of the 

 powers of the earth depends on the man who 



