
FOUNDERS OF THE AUDUBON SOCIETY 

Dr WILLIAM BRUETTE, Editor 

Member of Audit Bureau of Circulation 



THE OBJECT OF THIS JOURNAL WILL BE TO 
studiously promote a healthful interest in outdoor 
recreation, and a refined taste for natural objects. 
August 14, 1873. 
WE HAVE ENOUGH TILLABLE LAND 
N a recent paper published in the Medical Quip, 
Dr. Robert T. Morris reviews a book entitled 
“Mankind at the Crossroads,” by Prof. Edward 
' M. East, who says: “There are some sixty million 
acres of drainable swamps. It will mean much 
toil and a great capital outlay to drain these sixty 
million acres, but it can and will be done as fast 
as necessity sets the machinery in motion.” 
Commenting upon these lines, Dr. Morris says: 
“May God forbid! We need these drainable 
swamps for vast crops of fish, musquash, beaver, 
water fowl, lotus, water chestnuts, basket willow, 
silk fiber and other crops which are to bring larger 
returns per acre than now come from some of the . 
best of our arable land. The drainage of wet 
lands often means a lowering of the water table 
for surrounding uplands to such an extent that 
they are permanently injured. It means that a 
few shrewd drainage promoters will secure capital 
by bonding farmers. They will then turn con- 
tracts over to ditching companies. Drained land 
may produce almost explosive crops for a few 
vears because of the excessive nitrogen in an un- 
balanced soil ration. After photographs of rocket 
crops have been taken for advertising purposes the 
farmer is left with a burnt stick in his hands. 
Other drained lands may give the farmer an acid 
muck soil of stained cellulose which is unproduc- 
tive, excepting for expensive chemical treatment 
with fertilizers. Draining our swamps means the 
despoiling of our natural heritage of wet lands of 
the very sort which are today being constructed 
in older countries of the world for the purpose of 
making better food supply and larger income than 
can be made from uplands.” 
In view of the fact that there are now thousands 
of acres of tillable land being abandoned for want 
of labor to work them, the indiscriminate draining 
of marsh lands where water fowl, fur bearers and 
other forms of wiid life take refuge should cease. 
NATIONAL PARK WORK 
RGANIZATION of a committee of five pub- 
() lic-spirited citizens to conduct a thorough 
study of the southern Appalachian Mountain 
Range, for the purpose of selecting the most typi- 
cally scenic area as a national park, was begun by 
Secretary of the Interior Work. 
Invitations were sent to Congressman Henry W. 
Temple, of Pennsylvania; Major W. A. Welch, 
General Manager of the Palisades Interstate Park 
Commission of New York; and Colonel Glenn 
Smith, of the Geological Survey, asking them to 
serve on the committee, while the Council on Na- 
tional Parks, Forest and Wild Life, with head- 
quarters in New York, through its secretary, Bar- 
rington Moore, was requested to name the two 
other members. In these communications Secre- 
tary Work said: 
‘““As you know, there has been awakened a wide- 
spread interest in the East in the creation of addi- 
tional national parks, and several bills have been 
introduced in the 68th Congress proposing the 
establishment of areas in several of the Southern 
States as national parks. 
“Our national park system is the finest in the 
world, and in making any additions to it sites 
should be chosen that will be in every respect up 
to the standard, dignity and prestige of the ex- 
isting national parks. I feel, therefore, that there 
should be a thorough study of the southern Appa- 
lachian Range made for the purpose of selecting 
an area that will be typical of the scenery, plant 
and animal life of this range for a national park. 
I am confident that when such selection is made 
the various interests urging the creation of na- 
tional parks can be centered in having the selected 
area acquired. As there are no government-owned 
lands in the East, excepting those acquired under 
the Weeks act for the protection of the headwaters 
of navigable streams and which are designated as 
national forest reservations, any area that might 
be selected probably would be privately owned; 
but little doubt exists, however, that when a suit- 
able area is selected it will be found that the own- 
ers, through patriotic motives, will donate at least 
part of the land for national park purposes to 
remain as a memorial to their generosity and in- 
terest in public affairs. In any event, selection 
should be made and the property purchased when 
the ground is cheap. 
“T have in mind asking a committee of five pub- 
lic-spirited persons to undertake such a study, and 
if you can devote the time this summer I would 
like to have you serve as a member.” 
ANGLING AND ANGLERS 
S long as running waters hold the enjoyment 
of angling, so shall live the name of Walton. 
As long as singing brooks slide quietly into 
larger waters and rivers roll seaward, so shall 
there be fishermen, haunters of still places, dream- 
ers of old dreams, for angling is a pastime as old 
as dynasties and hills and yet young as adolescence. 
When the last fish is played in its cold haunt 
and led ashore, struggling, glistening with drops of 
silvery water, men will continue to fish, dreaming, 
wishing things only fishermen wish. This is why 
it makes boys of old men, why age turns back a 
page to the adventure of youth. One feels fishing 
to be that ache of old desire, the long-lost Fountain 
of Youth. Had De Leon been a disciple of the fly, 
the flowing river, the sheen and melody of morning 
waters, he might have found the answer to his 
longings. As it was, he prowled at the foot of the 
rainbow, 
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