OOTOBEB 21, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



531 



makes it clear that the true and safe route 

 for the conservation of the natural re- 

 sources of the soil rests in proper enlighten- 

 ment as to the nature of the resources con- 

 cerned and of the nature of the first causes 

 which tend to destroy or cause deteriora- 

 tion in them. It is better to educate in 

 cleanliness of person and premises than to 

 set np quarantine against infection. It is 

 better through force of education, or if 

 necessary through education by lawful 

 procedure, to force or bring about the 

 cleaning up of underbrush in the spring 

 than to have to fight destructive forest 

 fires in August, or to waste time scolding 

 corporations who as individuals do not 

 know a sick tree from a ripe one. Preven- 

 tion is the most effective force whether we 

 think of controlling criminals or of amelio- 

 ration of crops. So it is that our province 

 as educators, especially with reference to 

 conservation of the cropping powers of the 

 land, is to so go into detail of explanation 

 and demonstration of the causes of im- 

 provement or deterioration in crops that 

 the individual farmer shall be able to 

 understand the processes which are really 

 necessary for his welfare, showing each 

 worker wherein his methods are really ef- 

 fective in satisfying his needs, and wherein 

 detrimental, both to himself and to society. 

 If our methods of conserving the crop-pro- 

 ducing powers of the soil are to be ac- 

 cepted, we must show that the methods 

 proposed meet the needs of the individual 

 farmer as well as of posterity so clearly 

 that he can not be confused. If we can do 

 this each individual worker vnR at once 

 become an enthusiastic soil conservation- 

 ist. If we can not do this, we can not ex- 

 pect it. Even then greed may make .social 

 criminals of some whose work is dependent 

 upon the farmer, but the number of such 

 will lessen rapidly under the educational 

 forces of properly constructed laws. Even 



though seed dealers know that poor qual- 

 ities of diseased seed and seed of mixed 

 variety are very destructive to the inter- 

 ests of the farmer, and hence directly de- 

 structive to their own interests, yet most 

 so-called seedsmen handle seeds much as a 

 lumber yard handles coal or wood. Then 

 there is the elevator man whose whole busi- 

 ness interests are wrapped up in the suc- 

 cesses of the work of the cereal crop pro- 

 ducers, who yet buys seed from several 

 farmers, mixes and spoils the whole lot, 

 then sells it back to a new lot of farmers, 

 making good returns from each transaction. 

 Knowing this, one can understand why it 

 is difficult for an individual operator or a 

 number of them in cooperation to appreci- 

 ate the point that it would be to their di- 

 rect interest to sell, if they are to sell seed 

 at all, only seed of reasonably pure, un- 

 mixed type. In both of which cases a well- 

 worded seed law properly administered 

 should prove of great benefit to all con- 

 cerned and effectively educational. 



The unnecessary waste in the exploita- 

 tion of our mines and the rapid despolia- 

 tion of the forest resources has aroused the 

 nation, the work on the forests especially, 

 because trees are big and beautiful and 

 noticeably necessary to the very life of our 

 nation, and the damage done to society by 

 their destruction is at once apparent. Fui"- 

 ther, those of us who know the great value 

 of phosphates in the production of seed 

 grain can hardly do less than lament the 

 rapidity with which these beds of valuable 

 material are being mined and shipped 

 abroad at hxd a trifle of their real value to 

 the nation. We deplore this sort of loss 

 because readily observable, but the same 

 sort of greed for temporary gain in associa- 

 tion with ignorance is depleting many 

 other natural resources, among which most 

 notable and far reaching is the fii-st rapid 

 depletion of the cereal crop producing ca- 



