F. Marion Crawford - "An American Politician"

Forbes Robinson - "Letters to His Friends"

Anna Harriette Leonowens - "The English Governess At The Siamese Court"

George Durston - "The Boy Scouts on the Trail"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Checking the Waste

M >> Mary Huston Gregory >> Checking the Waste



CHECKING THE WASTE

A STUDY IN CONSERVATION

_By_

MARY HUSTON GREGORY

* * *

_What you would weave into the life of the nation,
put into the public schools._

--EMPEROR WILLIAM I.

* * *

INDIANAPOLIS
THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1911
PRESS OF
BRAUNWORTH & CO.
BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS
BROOKLYN, N. Y.

* * *




CONTENTS


CHAPTER PAGE

I WHAT IS CONSERVATION? 1

II SOIL 10

III FORESTS 42

IV WATER 86

V COAL 124

VI OTHER FUELS 144

VII IRON 164

VIII OTHER MINERALS 181

IX ANIMAL FOODS 198

X INSECTS 217

XI BIRDS 236

XII HEALTH 265

XIII BEAUTY 302

XIV IN CONCLUSION 312




PREFACE


Much has been said and written on the subject of conservation and many
excellent ideas have been advanced, but as yet too little has been
accomplished in the way of practical results. Probably this is due
largely to the fact that most people think of conservation as a problem
for the federal and state governments, mine owners, great lumber
companies, owners of vast tracts of land, and large corporations; and
have not realized how much the responsibility for the care of our
natural resources and the penalty for their waste rest with the whole
people, that every one has a part in this work which has been called
"the greatest question before the American people."

One cause of the failure to realize this personal responsibility is that
while there have been college text-books and scientific treatises on
various branches of the subject, such as Forestry, there has been no
book treating of the entire problem of our natural resources, their
extent, the amount and nature of their use, their waste, and what may be
done to conserve them, prepared in a way that can be readily understood
by the ordinary reader, and dealing with the practical, rather than the
technical, side.

It is to supply the need for such general knowledge, and to show how
such saving may be accomplished, that this book has been written. It is
designed as a short but complete statement of the entire conservation
question, and should be of service for study in teachers' reading
circles, farmers' institutes, women's clubs, the advanced grades in
schools, and for general library purposes.

Every statement of fact bears the weight of authority, for no facts or
figures are given that have not been verified by government reports,
reports of scientific societies, etc.

Information has been gathered from many sources, chief among them being
the Report of the Conference of Governors at the White House, in May,
1908; the Report of the National Conservation Commission, the Report on
National Vitality, the Report of the Inland Waterways Commission, of the
Geological Survey, the Census Reports, and many government departmental
pamphlets.

M. H. G.

Indianapolis, November 24, 1910.

* * *




CHECKING THE WASTE




CHAPTER I

WHAT IS CONSERVATION?


A Nation's Riches lie both in its people and in its natural resources.
Neither can exist in its highest estate without the other. Goldsmith
predicted the certain downfall of lands "where wealth accumulates and
men decay," but, in the truest, broadest definition, there can be no
national wealth unless the men and women of the nation are healthy,
intelligent, educated and right-minded. On the other hand it is equally
true that if the people of a country are to make the most of themselves
in mind and body; if they are to get the most comfort and happiness out
of life and to become in the highest degree useful, they must develop
its natural resources to the greatest possible degree.

The United States is particularly fortunate in its abundant riches of
soil, forest and mine, and in the fact that from the beginning of the
nation these have been the inheritance not of a people slowly learning
the use of tools and materials, and emerging from ignorance and
savagery, but representing the most advanced and enlightened ideas and
spiritual ideals of the time.

The result of these conditions has been inventions and discoveries that
have developed a great nation at home and have done much to better the
condition of the world. But the very magnitude of our natural wealth has
made us careless, even prodigal, in its use, and thoughtful men are
beginning to realize that with the natural increase of population which
is to be expected, we shall, if the present rates of use and waste
continue, find ourselves no longer rich, but facing poverty and even
actual want. But it is not too late to save ourselves from the results
of our past extravagance. We are only beginning to see the danger into
which we have almost plunged, but we see enough to make us realize that
every one must do his part in checking the waste. Before this can be
intelligently accomplished we must understand something of the great
national movement for the conservation of our national resources.

Let us go back for a moment to the beginning of our history as a nation,
the days of Washington.

Invention at that time was little advanced over what it had been three
hundred years before. The same type of slow-sailing vessels carried all
the commerce. Wind and water were the only powers employed in running
the few factories. Only a little iron was used in this country, and in
fact almost its only use anywhere at that time was for tools. There was
little machinery, and that of the simplest description.

Anthracite coal was known in this country only as a hard black rock.
Bituminous coal, gas, and oil were unknown.

The forests stretched away in unbroken miles of wilderness. The wood was
used for the settlers' homes, their fuel, and their scanty furniture,
but they needed so little that it grew much faster than it could be
used. The man who cut down a tree was a public benefactor. The trees,
though so necessary to life, were regarded as a serious hindrance to
civilization, for they must be cleared away before crops could be
planted.

To the pioneers as to us the soil was the most valuable of all
resources. The rivers were necessary to every community for carrying
their commerce, and turning the wheels of their saw and grist mills;
while the fish, game, and birds made a necessary part of their living.

Under these conditions, with every resource to be found in such
abundance that it seemed impossible it could ever be exhausted, and with
a small scattered population to draw on all these riches, careless
habits of using were sure to spring up. Our forefathers took the best
that the land offered, and that which was easiest to get, and gave no
thought to caring for what remained. Their children, and the new
immigrants who came in such numbers, all practised the same wasteful
methods.

In the century and a quarter that has passed since then, a great change
has come over the world. By the magic of the railroad, the telegraph,
and the telephone, all the nations of the earth are bound more closely
to one another now than were the scattered communities of a single
county in those days, or than the states of the Union before the Civil
War.

The forests have been cut away and in place of endless miles of
wilderness there now stretch endless miles of fertile farms, yielding
abundant harvests.

Slow-going sailing vessels have given place to steamboats which now
carry the river and lake commerce. But men are no longer dependent on
the rivers, for swift railway trains penetrate every part of the
country. The stage-coach is replaced by the trolley-car, and the
horseback rider, plodding over corduroy roads with his saddle-bags, is
succeeded by the automobile rider speeding over the most improved
highways.

Farm machinery of all descriptions has revolutionized the old methods of
doing farm work. The fish, game, and birds are largely gone and in
their place are the animal foods raised by man. Modern houses, filled
with countless devices for labor-saving and comfort, have replaced the
simple homes of colonial days.

What has brought about this change? The energy and industry of American
men and women, aided for the most part by American inventions, and made
possible by the wonderful natural resources of America.

No one could wish to have had our country's development checked in any
way. These great results could be obtained only by using the materials
that could be had easiest and cheapest, even if it meant great waste in
the beginning. Labor was scarce and high in this country, abundant and
cheap in Europe. In order to make goods that could be sold at prices
even above those of European countries, it was absolutely necessary to
have cheap lumber, coal and iron.

But the time has come when we can no longer continue this waste without
interfering with future development. Some of the resources have been so
exhausted that a few years will see the end of their use in large
commercial quantities. Others, such as coal and iron, will last much
longer, but when they are gone they can never be replaced; and so far as
we can now foresee, the country will cease to prosper when they can no
longer be had for use in manufacturing. The length of time they will
last at the present rate of use can be easily calculated. It is a long
time for us to look forward, for it is longer than the lifetime of any
man now living, or of his children, but it is within the life of his
grandchildren, and that is a very short time in the history of a nation.

It may be said that while other nations have passed into decay, none has
ever exhausted its resources so early in its history, and surely this
great rich nation can not so soon face actual need. But we must remember
that no other nation has ever used its resources as we have used ours.
We are using in years what other nations have used in centuries.

It is not possible now, it probably never will be possible, to use every
particle of a resource. This would be too expensive, would mean a labor
cost far beyond the value of the thing saved.

In the beginning, as we have shown, the vast wastes were not wanton, but
absolutely necessary, and we have not yet reached the point where we can
afford to use the low-grade ores, to use all lumber waste and to
practise many other economies that may sometime become necessary. But in
the case of the forests we should provide enough trees for use in coming
years, and in the case of all minerals, the refuse should be left in
such condition that it can easily be ready for possible future use.

If conservation meant leaving our resources untouched, and checking
development in order that there might be an abundance for future
generations, it would be both an unwise and unacceptable policy; but it
must be thoroughly understood that this is not what is desired.

Conservation does not mean the locking up of our resources, nor a
hindrance to real progress in any direction. _It means only wise,
careful use._

It does not mean that we shall cease to cut our timber, but it does mean
that we shall not waste two-thirds of all that is cut, as we are doing
at present. It means, too, that we shall take better care of articles
manufactured from it, and most of all, it means that, when a tree is cut
down another shall, whenever possible, be planted in its stead to
provide for the needs of the future.

It means that we shall not allow the farms of our country to lose five
hundred million dollars in value every year by letting the rich top-soil
drain off into our rivers, because we have cut away the trees whose
roots held the soil in place. It also means that we shall not steadily
rob the land of the elements that would produce good crops, and put
nothing back into the soil.

It means that we shall not kill the birds that destroy harmful insects
and thus invite the insects to destroy the crops that we have cultivated
with such care.

It does not mean that we shall let our mines of coal and iron lie
unused, as the miser does his gold, but that we shall, while taking what
we need, leave as little waste in the mine as possible, and shall use
what we take in the most economical way. This means a saving of money to
the user, as well as a conservation of resources. It means, too, that we
shall not allow our water-power to remain unused, while we burn millions
of tons of coal in doing the work that water-power would do better.

It means that we shall not allow enough natural gas to escape into the
air every day to light all the large cities in the United States. It
means that we shall take better care of the life and health of the
people.

This is the true conservation.

In the following chapters we shall take up each of the great resources
in turn, shall see what we have used, what we have wasted, what remains
to us, how long it will continue at the present rate, how it may be used
more wisely, and how it may be replaced, if that be possible, or what
may be used instead of those which can not be renewed.

We shall study how we may make the most of all that nature has given us
and develop our country to the highest possible point, how we may rise
far above our present level in comfort, convenience, and abundance, and
yet do all these things with much less waste than we now permit.




CHAPTER II

THE SOIL


The soil is the greatest of our natural resources. We may almost say
that it is greater than all the others combined, for from it comes all
of our food; a large part of it directly as plants which grow in the
soil and which we eat in the form of roots, leaves, grains, berries,
fruits, and nuts; and a part of it indirectly as animals, which have
received their food supply from the plants.

But this is not all. The soil supplies almost every known need. We build
our homes from the trees of the forest; combined with the iron that
comes from the soil they furnish our fuel, our ships, our cars, our
furniture, and countless other things. Our clothing is made from the
cotton or flax which grows from the soil, the wool from the sheep that
feed on the pastures, or from the silk-worms that feed on leaves.

So it is to the earth that we turn for every need, and Mother Nature
supplies it. But it is of the soil as it gives us our food supply that
we shall speak in this chapter, and we must first learn the nature of
the soil, and the process of its making, in order to understand the need
of extraordinary care in its management, and also how to use it so that
it will not wear out, or become exhausted, but will increase in value
for years and even centuries, as it will if properly cared for.

The earth's surface is constantly being renewed. Although the great
formative movements occurred ages ago, yet earthquakes, volcanic action,
wind, frost and water are working continual changes. Hills and mountains
have been thrown up, and nature has gone to work at once to shave down
the mountains and fill up the valleys. The whole earth is as carefully
adjusted and balanced as the wheels of a watch, but these adjustments
take place in long periods of time. In a lifetime, or even a century,
the changes of the earth's surface seem few and small, but they are none
the less sure.

The soil or humus, that is, the upper layer of the earth's crust which
is used in farming, has an average depth of about four feet, and has
been formed by decay, first and most important of all by rock decay
which is constantly going on under the surface of the earth and in
exposed places everywhere, and is caused by the action of air and water.
This process is very slow. In places where the rock is already partly
ground up, or, disintegrated, as we sometimes say, it is more rapid, but
the average growth of the soil from beneath by rock decay is scarcely
more than a foot in ten thousand years.

Some waste of this upper layer is constantly taking place from above,
caused by wind and floods, and considerable additions are made to it by
the decay of animal and vegetable matter, but in order to keep the soil
at its best, the average soil waste should not amount to more than an
inch every thousand years.

When this humus is once exhausted there is no way to repair the damage
but to wait for the slow rock-decay. In the river valleys there is no
immediate danger of exhausting the entire body of the soil, but on the
hills and in the higher regions the soil-depth is very much less than
four feet, and the danger of waste much more serious. There are parts of
the earth that were once almost as fertile as ours where great cities
once stood, but where now nothing is left but the bare rock.

So we know that the end is sure, even for the life of man upon earth,
unless we learn to conserve our soil.

The value of our farm crops can not be overestimated. In food value they
are the life of the nation; in money value, our greatest national
wealth. For the year 1909 the total value of farm products was the
amazing sum of $8,760,000,000. It may give some idea of this vast amount
to say that if we could have it in the form of twenty-dollar gold
pieces, stacked in one pile, the column would reach seven hundred miles
high. If they were laid flat, edge to edge, they would extend from
Alaska to the Panama Canal, with enough left over to reach from New York
to San Francisco. If the money could be distributed, it would give us
all, every man, woman and child in the United States, one hundred
dollars apiece. The corn crop was worth $1,720,000,000; the cotton
$850,000,000; wheat comes third with a value of $725,000,000; then come
hay, oats, and other crops in vast amounts worth hundreds of millions of
dollars. The cotton alone was worth more than the world's output of gold
and silver combined. The corn would pay for the Panama Canal, for fifty
battleships, and for the irrigation projects in the West, with a hundred
million dollars left over.

And this is all new wealth. If we build a house, we have gained the
house, but the trees of which we build it are gone. The same thing is
true of every article we manufacture. Something is taken from our store
in the making. But after we have taken these wonderful crops from our
farms the land is still there, and the soil is just as ready to produce
a good crop the next year, and the next, and the next, if we treat it
properly.

This matter of soil conservation is of the greatest importance to every
one of us. If you are to own a farm, or rent a farm, or till a garden,
or plant an orchard ten years from now, it will make a great difference
to you whether the man who owns it from now until then knows how to care
for it so as to make it produce well, or whether, by neglect, he allows
it to become poorer each year. It will make a far greater difference if
twenty years elapse.

It makes a difference to the farmer whether he gets twelve bushels of
wheat to the acre, or whether he gets twenty, for the cost of producing
the smaller amount is just as great as the cost of producing the larger,
and the extra bushels are all profit. It makes a difference whether a
garden furnishes all the fruit and vegetables needed by the family, or
whether it does not even pay for cultivation, and the food must be
bought at high prices. It makes even more difference to the dweller in
the city, who must buy all that he eats, whether food is abundant or
not. If food is abundant, prices are low, but when the yield is small
the demand is so great that prices become high.

Not only the men, but the women and children as well, are affected by
these food values, because it is from the extra money left over after
the actual cost of living is taken out that the clothing, the
house-furnishings, books, pictures, music, travel and all the pleasures
of life must come.

Great as are our harvests, we are not raising much more than enough for
our present needs. Each year we are using more of our food at home, and
have less to export to other countries. In a few years more the public
lands will all be taken, and there will be comparatively little more
land than we now cultivate to supply a population that will be many
times as great as at present.

Men who watch the great movements of the world tell us that the time is
coming before many years when there will not be food enough to supply
all our people, when we shall be buying food from other countries
instead of selling to them, when we shall have famine instead of plenty
unless we realize the danger and at once set about to make the most of
every acre of our land.

James J. Hill, the great railroad builder of the Northwest, and one of
the best informed men of the country on food production and the increase
of population, is doing a great work in pointing out these dangers to
the people on every possible occasion.

Watching the great food-producing region of the country, he has noted
that each year the yield per acre is growing less, and the population
steadily more. He tells us that when our first census was taken only
four per cent. of the people lived in cities, that fifty years ago
one-third of the people lived in cities, and two-thirds in the country,
that is, two-thirds of the people were furnishing food to the remainder.
Now conditions are almost exactly reversed. Only one-third remain in the
country, and must supply the food, not only for themselves, but for all
the two-thirds who are not food producers, so that the food supply is
lagging far behind the demand. The price of corn has advanced from
twenty-five cents to sixty-five cents a bushel in ten years, and this in
turn raises the price of live stock. And so all along the line. Prices
are growing higher all the time because not enough food is being
produced to supply the demand.

So we can see that it is absolutely necessary that the soil be properly
cared for if we are to continue to increase and prosper, for as
Secretary Wilson has said, "Upon the fertility of the soil depends the
whole business of agriculture."

The soil is exhausted in two ways: (1) By erosion, or the carrying away
of the entire soil itself. (2) By so using the soil that one or more of
its principal elements are worn out. We shall consider this form of soil
exhaustion first, because it more directly concerns the work of every
farmer.

By a fertile soil is meant one that has an abundance of plant food in
the proper proportions. The soil contains all the elements that are
needed to support life, but they are in an inorganic form, that is, they
are lifeless. Plants alone can take these inorganic substances from the
soil, and change them into starch, sugar, fats, and protein. All
animals, including man, must get these substances through plants, or
through other animals that have already absorbed them from plants.

The soil contains ten elements that are absorbed or assimilated by
plants. These are: (1) lime, (2) magnesia, (3) iron, (4) sulphur, all of
which are found in most plants in very small proportions, and are
present in most soils in quantities far beyond the needs of crops for
ages to come; (5) carbon, which is obtained by plants through their
leaves directly from the air and the sunshine; (6) hydrogen and (7)
oxygen, which are taken from the water in the soil and carried to the
leaves, where they also help to take the carbon from the atmosphere.
With none of these elements, then, does the farmer need to concern
himself in regions where the water supply is abundant, as they are, and
will continue to be, plentifully supplied by nature. But the other
three, (8) nitrogen, (9) potassium, and (10) phosphorus, are needed by
plants in large quantities, and are taken from the soil far more rapidly
than nature can replace them.

All these elements are necessary to plant life, but some plants require
a large amount of one element, others a small proportion of that, but a
large amount of some of the others. No two varieties of plants require
exactly the same proportions, so it is easy to see that the plant that
takes out of the soil any one element makes the soil less capable each
year of producing a good crop of the same kind.

In the early days of farming in this country, it was the custom to grow
a single crop, which had been found to give good results, year after
year in the same field. In Virginia and other near-by states nearly all
the best land was given every year to the cultivation of tobacco, which
exhausts the soil rapidly. In the states farther north other crops were
planted in the same way. As a result, some of the most fertile soil in
Virginia, the Carolinas, Massachusetts, and other eastern states has
been so exhausted that it is no longer worth cultivating. Everywhere
throughout the New England states are to be found these worn-out farms,
and, while they were never so fertile as the lands of the Mississippi
Valley, each one was rich enough to support a family in comfort, with
something left to sell; but because they were required to produce the
same crops, and so take the same element from the soil, year after year,
they have become so lacking in one of the essential elements that they
are unfit for cultivation, and have been abandoned.

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