TeheVee Aso DaUsBrO Nt Sb rll bela N 7 
was true a few years ago, are 
trees and flowering shrubbery 
planted along the right of way. 
Apparently the object is to 
wipe out all local differences be- 
tween one section of America 
and another. The traveller might 
as well be flying across the coun- 
try at 15,000 feet for all the 
local scenery he can see. No 
trace of the original ground 
cover is allowed to remain. If it 
is a hill, it is cut down; if it is 
a valley, it is built up; no curves ~ 
are left beyond which one can 
hope to be surprised by a pretty 
view. The gravel road-banks 
which have so increased the colo- 
nies of bank swallows in the 
West are not a feature of the 
newest roads. 
Every trace of native vege- 
tation is carefully eliminated so 
that foreign hay plants can be 
sown and mowed right up to the 
bare wire fence, which borders 
fields also without a sign of 
native wild things. One might 
think it had been done by foreign 
invaders who hated every trace 
of American landscape and birds. 
These practices should not be 
ignored by people who consider 
themselves conservationists. 
They are spreading from the primary roads through the secondary ones 
right down to the country lanes which are having their lovely hedgerows 
burned, poisoned and bulldozed out. 
The next day Dean Tanner, who is studying rails for a Ph.D. thesis at 
Iowa State College, showed us around Dewey’s Pasture in the Ruthven 
Area, where George A. Amman studied yellow-headed blackbirds, L. J. 
Bennitt blue-winged teal and Jessop Low the ruddy duck. It was a delight 
to see the gorgeous yellow-heads, black terns and many ducks. We fright- 
ened a teal off her nest with eight eggs and were shown a Virginia rail’s 
nest with eleven eggs. 
At Gitchie Manitou Park, 200 acres in the northwest corner of Iowa, we 
found great pink rocks of Sioux quartzite patched with yellow lichens. 
Here were prairie plants — Carolina anemones, prairie rose and a tiny 
prickly pear, Opuntia fragilis. The same formation and much the same 
plants are present at the spectacular canyon at Dell Rapids, South Dakota. 
2 
SS 
Torch Flower 
