\i.w Fork State 27 



comfortably in such regions are enabled to do bo by makeshifts — 

 such as boarding city dwellers, the mos1 of the food they eat being 

 purchased from outside. Left alone, there must be and is the 

 moral and mental deterioration mentioned. The stronger hinds 

 more favorably located have nowhere near reached their limit of 

 production and are crying for laborers. Here, less effort brings 

 manifold more returns. Instead of the abandonment of these 

 poor lands being an indication of decadence, it is rather a sign of 

 thrift and vision. Thousands of acres of land, which have been 

 and are even now being farmed, were never suited to agriculture. 

 Had the country been settled from the Pacific eastward, most of 

 it would never have been touched by the plow. 



After nature, by her slow but sure processes, has- had a chance, 

 a century or two hence, to restore some of their fertility, when 

 population becomes more dense and prices for food products shall 

 be such as to make it worth while for men, with- a better under- 

 standing of the conservation of nature's resources and with better 

 equipment, again to till these poorer lands with profit, it may be 

 wise to go back to them ; now they would better be reforested or 

 left to the kindly hand of Mother Nature. 



The above should make apparent to the thoughful reader what 

 effects the great forces of nature, operating through the ages to 

 form our soils, have been and are exercising, not only on the 

 agricultural but on the civic life of our people — making us 

 appreciate our immense area of highly productive lands enriched 

 with mineral and organic plant food, the preparation of which 

 began when the morning stars first sang together, and able to 

 sustain, when properly handled, millions yet unborn. Truly, those 

 who are so favored as to possess a share of them — for the lands 

 are always for all the people, we who till them being stewards 

 — have "their lines cast in pleasant places and have a goodly 

 heritage." 



