IV. THE FARM STREAM 
“All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place 
from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” 
—Ecclesiastes 1:7. 
There was a time when the streams of our ‘“‘well-watered 
country’? were more highly prized than now. They were 
storehouses of food. They were highways of travel. They 
were channels of transportation. Several things happened to 
divert interest landward. The good timber along the valleys 
was all cut and there were no more logs to be floated: down- 
stream to mill. The American plow was invented, making 
possible the tillage of vastly increased areas of ground. 
More cereals could be grown and more forage for cattle. The 
fishes of the streams became less necessary for food; and 
with the phenomenally rapid increase of population which 
followed, the fishing failed. It became easier and cheaper to 
raise cattle for food than to get it by fishing. Then came the 
railroads, providing more direct and speedy transportation 
and travel; and the streams were abandoned. Indeed, 
what happened to them was worse than neglect. The regu- 
larity of their supply of water was interfered with as the water- 
holding forest cover was destroyed and springs dried up. 
They became dumping places for the refuse of all sorts of 
establishments along their banks. Not even their beauty was 
cared for—their singular beauty of mirroring surfaces and 
sinuous banks of broad bordering meadows, backed by 
wooded headlands. The pioneer was not so blind to the 
grander beauties of nature. Go through the country and 
mark where the first settlements were made. You will find 
them not far from the waterside, but situated where the ample 
beauties of land and water, hill and vale, are spread out to 
view. Our predecessors would not have been satisfied with a 
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