AlJ 
 
 '"^TCING 
 i WASTE 
 
 iUDY I 
 
 HUSTON 
 GREGORY
 
 CHECKING THE WASTE
 
 Checking the Waste 
 
 A STUDY IN CONSERVATION 
 
 MARY HUSTON GREGORY 
 
 What you would <wea<ve into the life of the nation, 
 put into the public schools. 
 
 EMPEROR WILLIAM I. 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1911 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH <t CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGH 
 
 I WHAT Is CONSERVATION ? . . . . . i 
 
 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 conserva- 
 tion 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 govern- 
 ments, 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 re- 
 sources 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 responsi- 
 bility is that while there have been college text-books and sci- 
 entific treatises on various branches of the subject, such as 
 Forestry, there has been no book treating of the entire prob- 
 lem of our natural resources, their extent, the amount and na- 
 ture of their use, their waste, and what may be done to con- 
 serve 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 state- 
 ment of the entire conservation question, and should be of 
 service for study in teachers' reading circles, farmers' insti- 
 tutes, 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 Geolog- 
 ical Survey, the Census Reports, and many government de- 
 partmental pamphlets. M. H. G, 
 
 Indianapolis, November 24, 1910.
 
 CHECKING THE WASTE
 
 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 pre- 
 dicted 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 com- 
 fort 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 emerg- 
 
 I
 
 2 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 ing from ignorance and savagery, but representing 
 the most advanced and enlightened ideas and spir- 
 itual ideals of the time. 
 
 The result of these conditions has been inven- 
 tions 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 \yealth has made us careless, even 
 prodigal, in its use, and thoughtful men are be- 
 ginning 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 our- 
 selves no longer rich, but facing poverty and even 
 actual want. But it is not too late to save our- 
 selves 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 intelli- 
 gently accomplished we must understand something 
 of the great national movement for the conserva- 
 tion 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
 
 WHAT IS CONSERVATION? 3 
 
 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 hin- 
 drance 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 neces- 
 sary to every community for carrying their com- 
 merce, 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 scat- 
 tered population to draw on all these riches, care- 
 less habits of using were sure to spring up. Our
 
 4 CHECKING THE .WASTE 
 
 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 scat- 
 tered 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 com- 
 merce. 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 im- 
 proved highways. 
 
 Farm machinery of all descriptions has revolution- 
 ized the old methods of doing farm work. The 
 fish, game, and birds are largely gone and in their
 
 WHAT IS CONSERVATION? 5 
 
 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 re- 
 sources of America. 
 
 No one could wish to have had our country's 
 development checked in any way. These great re- 
 sults 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 coun- 
 tries, 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
 
 6 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 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 wjiile other nations have 
 passed into decay, none has ever exhausted its re- 
 sources 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,
 
 WHAT IS CONSERVATION? 7 
 
 the refuse should be left in such condition that it 
 can easily be ready for possible future use. 
 
 If conservation meant leaving our resources un- 
 touched, and checking development in order that 
 there might be an abundance for future genera- 
 tions, 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 ele- 
 ments that would produce good crops, and put noth- 
 ing back into the soil.
 
 8 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 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
 
 WHAT IS CONSERVATION? 9 
 
 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, con- 
 venience, 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 
 
 10
 
 THE SOIL ii 
 
 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 na- 
 ture 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 aver- 
 age 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 sur- 
 face 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
 
 12 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 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 im- 
 mediate 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 con- 
 serve our soil. 
 
 The value of our farm crops can not be over- 
 estimated. 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 

 
 THE SOIL 13 
 
 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 hun- 
 dred 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 mil- 
 lion 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 great-
 
 14 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 est 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 neg- 
 lect, 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 pro- 
 ducing 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
 
 THE SOIL 15 
 
 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 oc- 
 casion. 
 
 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
 
 16 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 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 ex- 
 actly reversed. Only one-third remain in the coun- 
 try, and must supply the food, not only for them- 
 selves, 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 ad- 
 vanced 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 con- 
 tinue 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: (i) By 
 erosion, or the carrying away of the entire soil it- 
 self. (2) By so using the soil that one or more of 
 its principal elements are worn out. We shall con- 
 sider 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 abun- 
 dance of plant food in the proper proportions. The
 
 THE SOIL , 17 
 
 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: (i) 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 be- 
 yond 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 atmos- 
 phere. 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
 
 i8 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 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 Mis- 
 sissippi 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.
 
 THE SOIL 19 
 
 It is wisdom and good business policy for farm- 
 ers to study carefully this question of plant food 
 and to learn what each crop is taking from the soil, 
 so that it may be replaced. It has been found by 
 long and careful experiments, that when land has 
 been " single cropped," as this abuse of the land 
 is called, for a long time, the soil has been almost 
 entirely deprived of its nitrogen. As you know, 
 nitrogen is one of the elements of the air, so that 
 there is a never-ending supply, but most plants are 
 unable to take it from the air, and until the last 
 few years the task of replacing nitrogen in the soil 
 was considered impossible. Recent discoveries, 
 however, have shown that there are two ways in 
 which it may be done. By means of electricity, 
 nitrogen may be directly combined with the other 
 elements of the soil. The other method is nature's 
 own plan, and so is easier and cheaper. It has been 
 found that while most plants exhaust the nitrogen 
 from the soil, one class of plants, the legumes, of 
 which beans, peas, clover, and alfalfa are the best 
 known, have the power of drawing large stores of 
 nitrogen from the air, and, by means of bacteria 
 attached to their roots, restoring it to the ground. 
 
 So farmers have learned that if they plant corn 
 one year, it is wiser not to plant corn in the same 
 field the next year, but to sow wheat, which re- 
 quires less nitrogen, and the following year to sow
 
 20 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 clover, so that the nitrogen which the corn and 
 wheat have taken from the soil, may be put back 
 into it. If the land be naturally fertile, and has 
 been well cared for, the soil is then ready to produce 
 a good crop of corn again. 
 
 If the soil has become worn-out and the farmer 
 is trying to improve its general condition, he can 
 gain better results by keeping the field in clover a 
 second year, when a profitable crop of clover seed 
 may be had from the land. This system of chang- 
 ing each year, and alternating cereal crops, which 
 take the nitrogen from the soil, with leguminous 
 plants, which restore it to the soil again, is called 
 " rotation of crops," and if regularly followed will 
 preserve a proper balance of nitrogen in the soil. 
 
 In some parts of the West there is a lack of de- 
 caying vegetable matter in the soil, because the 
 few plants which naturally grow there have small 
 roots, and leave little vegetable material behind 
 when they decay. For this condition one of the 
 best crops to employ in rotation is sugar-beets, 
 because they strike many small roots deep into the 
 earth. As these decay, each leaves behind a tiny 
 load of vegetable mold deep in the earth, and also 
 makes the soil more porous. As the principal ele- 
 ments of the soil needed by sugar-beets are carbon 
 and oxygen, which are absorbed from the air and 
 sunshine, and as the beets can be sold at a good
 
 THE SOIL 21 
 
 profit, it is an excellent crop to employ in rotation. 
 In the United States records in various states show 
 that where sugar-beets are used in rotation, the 
 wheat and corn yield is increased from two to four 
 times, and in Germany they are largely used to re- 
 store the fertility of the land, even if the sugar- 
 beets themselves are sold at a loss. 
 
 It is most important that farmers should under- 
 stand the principle of rotation of crops, because 
 nothing is taken from the soil so quickly or in such 
 large quantities as nitrogen, and nothing is so 
 easily put back; while, if it is not so replaced, the 
 land becomes worthless. 
 
 A comparison of the results of single cropping 
 and the rotation of crops has been clearly shown 
 at the Experiment Station of the Agricultural Col- 
 lege of the State of Minnesota, where for ten years 
 they have planted corn on one plot of ground. 
 For the first five years it averaged a little more than 
 twenty bushels per acre, and for the last five years, 
 eleven bushels. 
 
 On another plot, where corn was planted in ro- 
 tation, the average yield was more than forty-eight 
 bushels, the difference in average in the two plots 
 being thirty-two bushels, or twice the value of the 
 entire average yield on the exhausted ground. The 
 corn grown at the end of the ten years was only 
 about three feet high, the ears were small, and the
 
 22 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 grains light in weight. But it cost just as much to 
 cultivate the land that produced it as it did to culti- 
 vate the land that produced forty-eight bushels. 
 
 Of the other two elements, potassium is found 
 abundantly in most soils. It is also found in a 
 readily soluble form in various parts of the United 
 States and is sold at a very low price. But even if 
 these deposits were exhausted we could still use 
 the rocks which are very rich in potassium, 
 and are very abundant, in a pulverized form, or 
 potash could be manufactured from them. 
 
 The only remaining element of the soil is phos- 
 phorus. This element was discovered in 1607, the 
 year of the first English settlement at Jamestown 
 and was first noticed because of its property of 
 giving off light from itself. The name which was 
 given it means light-bearer. It was at first thought 
 to be the source of all power, to heal all diseases, 
 and to turn the common minerals into gold. Al- 
 though we have long ago learned that these ideas 
 are absurd, yet we have also learned that its real 
 value to man is far greater than was even dreamed 
 of then. 
 
 It is the most important element in every living 
 thing, for no cell, however small, in either animal 
 or vegetable organisms can grow or even live with- 
 out phosphorus. It is found in the green of the 
 leaves, and helps to make the starch. It enters
 
 THE SOIL 23 
 
 largely into the grain and seeds of plants, and is 
 necessary for their germination, or sprouting, as 
 well as their growth. Three-fourths of all the 
 phosphorus in a crop of cereals is in the grains, 
 giving them size and weight. It will thus be seen 
 how necessary it is that the soil which feeds our 
 plants, which in turn become the food of animals 
 and of man, should contain a sufficient amount of 
 phosphorus. 
 
 Phosphorus is taken from the soil in large 
 quantities by every kind of crop. In parts of Wis- 
 consin which have been farmed a little more than 
 fifty years without fertilizing, it is found that about 
 one-third of the phosphorus has been taken out of 
 the soil, which would mean that in one hundred 
 and fifty years, or a hundred years from now, the 
 soil would be incapable of producing any living 
 thing, and long before that time the crops would 
 not pay for the labor of producing them. Almost 
 every acre of land that has been farmed for ten 
 years without fertilization is deficient in phos- 
 phorus, that is, so much has been used that the soil 
 can no longer produce at its former rate. 
 
 It may be asked, if this be true, why the soil 
 of America, which before it was cultivated had 
 borne rich forests and fields of waving grass, has 
 not become exhausted long ago. We must re- 
 member that nature always adjusts itself; that,
 
 24 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 in the wild state, all plants decay where they grow, 
 and the same elements are returned again to the 
 soil. But when the entire product of vast areas 
 is removed year after year, the soil has nothing ex- 
 cept the slow rock-decay with which to renew 
 itself. 
 
 In tropical regions it is not necessary to feed 
 domestic animals at any season of the year, but in 
 those countries where the natural food can be 
 found only during a part of the year, the need of 
 artificial feeding is seen at once, and it becomes a 
 part of the regular expense of fanning. 
 
 It would be considered the height of folly for a 
 man to allow his valuable animals to starve to 
 death because of the expense of feeding them, but 
 few people recognize the fact, which is also true, 
 that it is equally bad business policy to allow the 
 valuable crops of wheat, oats, and corn to starve 
 for want of plant food. 
 
 The phosphates (that is, phosphorus) are the 
 only large items of expense, and in a large meas- 
 ure this may be lessened by raising live stock, for 
 which high prices can be obtained either as meat 
 or dairy products, and returning the manure, which 
 contains a large amount of phosphate, to the soil. 
 If all the waste animal products could be returned 
 to the land, Professor Van Hise says, three-fourths 
 of the phosphorus would be replaced. All animal
 
 THE SOIL 25 
 
 products are rich in phosphates. The packing 
 mouses manufacture large quantities from the bones 
 and blood of animals. 
 
 The garbage of cities, when reduced to powder, 
 yields large returns in phosphorus. It is said that 
 if the sewage of cities, which in this country is 
 often turned into rivers and streams, polluting them 
 and causing disease, was reduced to commercial 
 fertilizer, it would supply the equivalent of from 
 six to nine pounds of rock phosphate per year for 
 every acre of cultivated land in the United States. 
 And this valuable product is now totally lost, and 
 worse than lost, since it menaces the life and health 
 of great numbers of our people. 
 
 There still remain to be considered the rock phos- 
 phates, the form in which phosphorus is found in 
 separate deposits. The only large deposits that 
 have been used are in Florida, South Carolina, and 
 Tennessee, and from them about two' and a quarter 
 million tons were mined in 1907. Unfortunately, 
 however, there is no law that prevents its export 
 from this country, and almost half of this found 
 its way to Europe, where it is eagerly sought at 
 high prices. 
 
 Within a short time valuable phosphate beds, 
 more extensive than any before known to exist in 
 this country, have been discovered in Utah, Wyom- 
 ing, and Idaho. Professor Van Hise, who is one
 
 26 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 of the highest authorities on the subject, says of 
 these deposits that with the exception of our coal 
 and iron lands, they are our most precious min- 
 eral possession; that every ounce should be saved 
 for the time which is coming when the population 
 will have outgrown the capacity of the land, and 
 means of increasing its fertility in order to pre- 
 vent famine will be sought from every possible 
 source. 
 
 The other great waste of the soil is by erosion, 
 or'lhe wearing away of the soil by stream-flow. 
 We can all see this in a small way by wandering 
 along the shore of any swift-running stream and 
 noticing how the banks are worn away, and what 
 deep gullies and ravines are cut into them by the 
 water running down from the fields above. An- 
 other way in which we can observe the effect of 
 this waste is by noticing the muddy yellow color 
 of streams during floods and after heavy rains, and 
 comparing it with the clear blue of the same stream 
 at ordinary times. 
 
 When we realize that this muddy color always 
 means that the water is filled with soil, all that it 
 will hold in solution, that it is carrying away the 
 top soil, which is best for agriculture, and, finally, 
 that every little streamlet and creek, as well as the 
 mightiest river, is carrying this rich soil-deposit 
 downward toward the sea in its flow, we begin to
 
 THE SOIL 27 
 
 see how great a factor erosion is in the wasting 
 of the land. 
 
 The Missouri River, which drains a large area 
 of wheat and corn land, is notable as a muddy, yel- 
 low river at almost all seasons. Do you under- 
 stand what that means? It means that this great 
 productive region is growing poorer each year, and 
 that as the population increases, and the need of 
 great harvests increases, the land is becoming less 
 able to produce them. The Mississippi River is 
 said to tear down from its banks more soil each 
 year than is to be dredged from the Panama Canal. 
 At the mouth of the river is a delta many miles in 
 extent, formed wholly of land that has been car- 
 ried down the river. The soil in lower Mississippi 
 and Louisiana is almost black, and is in many places 
 seventy feet in depth, and it has all been left 
 there by the river, which took it from the higher 
 lands. 
 
 It is estimated that our rivers carry out to sea 
 one billion tons of our richest soil each year. The 
 ancient Egyptians worshiped the Nile because each 
 year the spring floods left behind the rich soil 
 deposits that fertilized their fields and gave them 
 an abundant harvest. Entire fields and even whole 
 farms along the upper stretches of the Mississippi 
 and Missouri have been carried away, not the top 
 soil only, but the land itself, by the swift current
 
 28 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 of the springtime floods as they cut a new channel 
 for the river. 
 
 Canaan, the " land of promise " of the Bible, 
 was once an abundant region, " flowing with milk 
 and honey " in the language of Moses, with its 
 grapes, its vast forests of cedar, fir, and oak, its 
 treasures of wheat, olive-oil, and other rich 
 agricultural products. Now all are gone. The 
 entire country seen by the traveler in the Holy 
 Land to-day is one of the most desolate regions 
 on the globe, where the few inhabitants are scarcely 
 able to obtain a scanty living. 
 
 We wonder what has brought about this change, 
 and we have not far to seek in answer to our 
 questioning. T,he preservation of the forests means 
 the preservation of the soil, and the destruction of 
 the forests means the destruction of the soil. This 
 is the universal law. First the forests were cut 
 down and the hillsides left bare. Then the streams 
 wore great ravines down the unprotected hillsides. 
 Steadily the work of destruction by erosion has 
 gone on, until time beyond our possibility to com- 
 prehend must pass before the land can be made 
 productive again. The hills and valleys of China 
 have been devastated in the same way, and many 
 of the older regions of the earth that were once 
 the sites of great cities and extensive commerce 
 are now marked only by the ruins of the civiliza-
 
 THE SOIL 29 
 
 tion that has passed away. They have almost 
 ceased to support life. 
 
 In the days of Rome's greatness, Sicily was 
 known as " the granary of Rome " because from 
 this little island came the grains to supply her vast 
 armies. 12,000,000 bushels of grain was the trib- 
 ute that Rome claimed of Sicily each year, and yet 
 Sicily had enough left to make her rich. She built 
 splendid cities and became great. But the same 
 story of destruction is to be read in the history of 
 Sicily. Now the entire island does not raise a mil- 
 lion and a half bushels of wheat altogether. The 
 soil is barren. The cities have nearly all fallen into 
 ruin. The people are scattered. Thousands have 
 come to America, seeking a poor living at the low- 
 est wages because at home there was no chance to 
 earn even the little they require. They allowed 
 the soil to become exhausted by lack of fertilization 
 and by erosion and it long ago ceased to support 
 the people. All the rest followed naturally. 
 
 In many parts of our own country this same 
 danger is coming on us. It is only the beginning, 
 but the end is as sure for us as for those far-off 
 Eastern countries. 
 
 Millions of acres have already been destroyed 
 in the East and South. The Appalachian moun- 
 tain system lies not far from the coast, and the 
 rivers on the eastern slopes are short and swift.
 
 30 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 It is necessary, then, to exercise the greatest care 
 of the forests in order to prevent the floods in this 
 region from carrying away the lands in their 
 swift rush to the sea. North Carolina was one of 
 the richest states in the" Union in natural resources 
 a hundred years ago. Now it is low on the list in 
 agricultural products. The forests on its mountain 
 tops were valuable for their lumber, their turpen- 
 tine, pitch, and other products, and great lumber 
 companies have almost denuded the hillsides, re- 
 gardless of the fate of the lands they cut over. 
 The people of the state are powerless to prevent 
 this except by buying all of these lands and re- 
 planting the forests. They have been pleading with 
 Congress for power to stop the destruction of their 
 forests and the wasting of their lands, but so far 
 have received no assistance and meanwhile the land 
 grows poorer each year. The same conditions are 
 to be found in many other states that now rank 
 high agriculturally, but in North Carolina we are 
 beginning to see resultsT^ 
 
 In order to understand exactly how the damage 
 is done to the land, let us suppose a case which has 
 actually occurred in hundreds of places. A farmer 
 owned a farm on the mountain side. Much of it 
 was good wheat land, but the top was covered with 
 forests. At last he decided to cut and sell the 
 timber, and use the land for raising more wheat.
 
 THE SOIL 31 
 
 He did so, but now there was no spreading foliage 
 to check the dash of the heavy rains as they fell to 
 the ground. As they sank below the surface there 
 were no masses of tangled roots to hold the mois- 
 ture in the soil and to carry it up into the air again 
 through the trees. 
 
 As the water penetrated deeper, the soil became 
 softened, and was carried away down the hillside. 
 It was only a muddy little stream, but it took away 
 some of the richest soil from the fields, and the 
 next year's crop was not quite so good. Every 
 rain that fell carried more of the fertile soil down 
 the hillside, and the next year the farmer wondered 
 that the yield was still less. After a few years he 
 ceased to sow the field because it had never paid 
 for its cultivation, and was constantly growing 
 poorer. But it was too late then to repair the 
 damage that had been done. There were no seeds 
 of forest trees left in the ground and the farmer 
 did not plant them, so the ground lay idle and 
 desolate. The rain wore deep gullies down the hill- 
 side, which, as they grew larger, became more of 
 a menace to the lands below them. The streams 
 soon grew large enough to take the top-soil from 
 the fields lower down, and in a few years more the 
 whole farm had grown so unproductive that the 
 farmer, tired of the struggle, left the farm and 
 went to the city to make a living.
 
 32 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 In the meantime the land in the valley below had 
 been growing more fertile, for each year the spring 
 floods had left a rich soil deposit behind them. The 
 farmer down there had been innocently stealing the 
 land above him, but not all of it, for much had been 
 carried out to sea. 
 
 It is not possible to prevent this entirely, but 
 much of the loss might have been avoided by leav- 
 ing the hilltops, which are never well fitted for culti- 
 vation, covered with forests. In this way the soil- 
 wash from above is prevented and the streams run 
 gently and with only a small amount of muddy de- 
 posit, forming proper drainage for the soil. 
 
 The preserving of the forests on the great moun- 
 tain ranges of the country, where nature has placed 
 them, will mean in the one matter of soil- wash, 
 fruitful lands and bountiful harvests, instead of 
 barren, wasted lands, desolated by floods and 
 seamed by great ravines, carrying desolation to 
 the lands below them. 
 
 But in many cases the trees are already cut away. 
 Here replanting becomes necessary and should be 
 done in every case where soil-wash is beginning 
 on the mountain tops. It is almost equally desir- 
 able to plant small shrubs and bushes as an under- 
 growth, so that the roots may form a thick mat 
 below the ground to hold the water in the soil, 
 and permit it to filter through slowly.
 
 THE SOIL 33 
 
 In Massachusetts, the tracks of the Boston and 
 Albany Railroad are depressed so that trains may 
 pass below the level of the highways. In order to 
 protect the banks from erosion, the sloping sides 
 of this roadway have been planted with trailing 
 rose-bushes and other vines which have thickly 
 matted roots. These serve a double purpose in 
 preventing landslides and washouts on the tracks, 
 and in adding greatly to the attractiveness of the 
 scenery along the railway. 
 
 The poorest land of a farm is always found on 
 the hilltops, because even with the greatest care 
 there is always considerable waste of the top-soil. 
 This land, then, should never be used for field crops. 
 It should constitute the woodland, or if this is not 
 possible, the pasture-land of the farm, for the grass 
 roots protect the soil and prevent it from washing 
 away, and the profits on the hay are at least as great 
 as any other crop which could be grown on hill 
 land. 
 
 But when erosion has been checked and the top- 
 soil preserved, when the soil is thoroughly fertil- 
 ized, and a proper rotation of crops established, 
 there are still other lessons to be learned in order to 
 make our country as productive as it might be, as 
 it will need to be to support the population that we 
 shall have by the end of the century. 
 
 As a nation we undertake to farm too much
 
 34 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 land and do it carelessly. The invention of labor- 
 saving machinery has made it possible to farm 
 hundreds and even thousands of acres together 
 with little physical labor. This has made farmers 
 heedless of small amounts of land wasted. 
 
 A man often only expects to make a comfortable 
 living on one hundred and sixty acres of land, while 
 in Europe he would expect to grow rich on two or 
 three acres. It is often said that a French family 
 would live off of an American farmer's neglected 
 fence-corners. In France, in England, in Holland 
 and Belgium every bit of land is tended and made 
 useful. We have the best natural soil in the world, 
 the most fertile river valleys, watered by abundant 
 rains. The fertility of our lands is the envy of 
 the civilized world, and has drawn thousands to 
 our shores in the hope of finding comfort and plenty, 
 and yet the total value of our farm products was 
 only eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents per culti- 
 vated acre according to the last census, while in 
 the little island of Jersey, just off the English coast, 
 the average annual value of products is over two 
 hundred and fifty dollars per acre. 
 
 Germany has been cultivated nearly eighteen 
 hundred years, the soil is not naturally so pro- 
 ductive nor the climate so favorable as ours, but 
 the wheat yield there averages more than twice as 
 much as in this country.
 
 THE SOIL 35 
 
 I 
 
 When the most fertile land in the world produces 
 
 so much less than poorer lands elsewhere it plainly 
 shows that we are robbing the soil in order to get 
 the largest cash returns in the shortest possible time 
 and with the least possible labor. 
 
 The American farmer needs to cultivate a much 
 smaller amount of land thoroughly, to have a soil 
 analysis made of his land in order to know what 
 crops are best suited to it and what elements are 
 lacking to make it produce the best. In Illinois 
 more than half a million acres had become unfit for 
 cultivation. Analysis showed that the soil was too 
 acid. By mixing lime-stone dust with the soil the 
 trouble was corrected and the land reclaimed. 
 
 Often it is only necessary to find the cause of 
 some deficiency, or lack, in the soil, and the remedy 
 will be found to be simple and cheap, while the re- 
 sult of its use will be to double the crop. Nothing 
 else so quickly and easily responds to proper treat- 
 ment, no other resource is so easily conserved. All 
 the soil needs is proper treatment. 
 
 Every bit of waste land should be cultivated for 
 either use or beauty, or both. If all the lanes and 
 neglected places could be planted with fruit and 
 nut trees, berry vines, and bushes, herbs or flowers 
 which need little cultivation after they are planted, 
 our food, in variety and quantity, would be greatly 
 increased. " The hedge-rows of Old England "
 
 36 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 are famous for their beauty and the air of comfort 
 and prosperity they give. They take the place of 
 the weeds that grow by the country roadsides in 
 America and which constitute one of the greatest 
 nuisances of the farmer. 
 
 Another thing that should be considered is the 
 marketing of farm products. Near a city or near a 
 canning factory the soil can be most profitably used 
 for the raising of vegetables, for which the cost of 
 cultivation is great, but which yield far larger 
 profits than farm crops. 
 
 Within the last few years a new system of farm- 
 ing has been developed in the West, which is of 
 great interest to all of us, both because it is open- 
 ing up for production a large part of our country 
 that has seemed valueless, and because the lessons 
 that have been learned there are of the greatest 
 advantage in every part of the country. 
 
 West of the one-hundredth meridian, which 
 crosses North and South Dakota, the western part 
 of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas, and 
 including the states west of them, lies a vast region 
 that used to be known as the " great American 
 desert." It comprises almost half of the United 
 States. Here the noble forests of the eastern states 
 and the prairie grasses of the plains were replaced 
 by sage-brush and cactus. The soil was light in 
 color and weight, and the rainfall very scanty.
 
 THE SOIL 37 
 
 It seemed impossible that it could ever be fitted 
 for agriculture. But there were a few great rivers, 
 rich mining districts, and excellent grazing lands. 
 These attracted settlers, and to them some culti- 
 vation of the soil became almost a necessity. The 
 waste waters of the rivers were used for irrigation 
 and the land when watered was found to produce 
 remarkably fine fruits and agricultural products. 
 Yet there were hundreds of thousands of acres that 
 could not be irrigated for lack of water, and the 
 problem of finding a use for these barren, semi-arid 
 lands remained unsolved for many years. 
 
 But here and there in different states and under 
 varying conditions, after many experiments and 
 failures, men began without water to grow success- 
 ful crops on these semi-arid lands, where the rain- 
 fall was scarcely more than ten inches per year. 
 Others following this method found success, and 
 it began to seem possible that all this territory 
 might some day become a great farming region. 
 
 By comparing the methods employed in different 
 states, the few general laws have been worked out 
 which must be applied in order to farm success- 
 fully in this region, though the details differ with 
 local differences in altitude, climate, soil, and rain- 
 fall. Here farming is being reduced to a science. 
 In other parts of the country a man sows his seed 
 and nature cares for it, and gives him his harvest;
 
 38 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 but here he must wring from nature all that he 
 gets, so it is only the man who farms according to 
 fixed laws who can hope to succeed. 
 
 This system is usually called " dry farming," 
 though " scientific farming " would perhaps be a 
 better name, for the same principles that are ab- 
 solutely necessary here will greatly increase the 
 yield anywhere. The most important principle is 
 to conserve every particle of moisture in the soil. 
 It is necessary to go deep into the soil to find the 
 underlying moisture. The seed-bed is made very 
 deep. Plowing is from sixteen to nineteen inches 
 deep, while in well-watered regions it is only about 
 six inches. This deep seed-bed is thoroughly culti- 
 vated to make the soil porous, the soil being re- 
 duced to a fine powder. After sowing the seed, 
 the ground is packed as solidly as possible. This 
 is done by especially designed machines. The sur- 
 face of the soil is kept broken all the time to prevent 
 the escape of the moisture. This rule applies equally 
 to all soils in dry weather, and will often save a 
 crop of corn in any part of the country during a 
 drought. 
 
 These are simple rules, but the practice of them is 
 opening up the great semi-arid regions, not of the 
 United States only, but of the whole earth. West- 
 ern Canada, a large part of Australia, the Kalahari 
 Desert of Africa, and many parts of Asia, which
 
 THE SOIL 39 
 
 are all semi-arid, will in time become productive 
 instead of barren. 
 
 It must be remarked that the grains of the East 
 could not withstand the severe winters in a large 
 part of the Northwest, so the Department of Agri- 
 culture sent men all over the world to find drought- 
 and-cold-resisting grains. They found a hard 
 winter wheat, the most nutritious in existence, 
 which is now growing all the way from the Dakotas 
 to the Pacific Ocean, producing crops far above the 
 yield of the eastern states. 50,000,000 bushels of 
 this wheat was raised in 1907. 
 
 The soil is the natural disintegrated rock, rich in 
 the mineral elements, but lacking in decayed vege- 
 table matter. The crops soon exhaust the nitrogen, 
 and as clover and the common alfalfas can not grow 
 there, the problem of finding legumes has been the 
 most serious one facing this new region; but in 
 Siberia the Agricultural Department has recently 
 found a new clover and three varieties of alfalfa 
 that will stand the cold, and Secretary Wilson be- 
 lieves that these will solve the problem. 
 
 Every acre brought under cultivation adds to 
 the world's food supply. Can we even dream of 
 what it will mean when 200,000,000 acres are added 
 to the farm lands of this continent? It means 
 prosperity for the farmers themselves, homes for 
 those who are now crowded in cities, work for
 
 40 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 the idle, and food for the hungry. It means wealth 
 and happiness for thousands now living and millions 
 yet to come. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Lands. Report National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Soil Wastage. Chamberlain. Report White House Confer- 
 ence of Governors. 
 
 Conservation of Soils. Van Hise. (Same.) 
 
 Commercial Fertilizers. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 44.* 
 
 The Liming of Soils. Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 57. 
 
 Renovation of Worn-out Soils. Dept. of Agriculture Bul- 
 letin, 245. 
 
 Soil Fertility. Dept of Agriculture Bulletin, 257. 
 
 Management of Soils to Conserve Moisture. Dept. of Ag- 
 riculture Bulletin, 266. 
 
 Fertilizers for Cotton Soils. Bureau of Soils Bulletin, 62. 
 
 Work of the Bureau of Soils. Bureau of Soils Bulletin. 
 
 Exhaustion and Abandonment of Soils. Bureau of Soils 
 Bulletin. Whitney, 5c. 
 
 Phosphorus. Illinois Agricultural Experiment Station 
 Bulletin. 
 
 The Present Status of the Nitrogen Problem. Yearbook 
 Dept. of Agriculture Reprint, 411. 
 
 The Search for Leguminous Forage Crops. Yearbook Dept. 
 of Agriculture Reprint, 478. 
 
 Leguminous Crops. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bul- 
 letin, 278. 
 
 Progress in Legume Inoculation. Yearbook Dept. of Agri- 
 culture Bulletin, 315. 
 
 * Department of Agriculture bulletins are free unless a price is in- 
 dicated, and may be obtained by application to The Department of Agri- 
 culture. Washington, D. C. Postage is free in the United States. 
 These bulletins contain the latest scientific information and result of 
 research work by the government.
 
 THE SOIL 41 
 
 A Grain for Semi-arid Lands. Yearbook Dept. of Agri- 
 culture Bulletin, 139. 
 
 The Sugar-Beet. Yearbook Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin, 
 52. 
 
 Dry-Land Problems in the Great Plains Area. Yearbook 
 Dept. of Agriculture Reprint, 461. 
 
 Reports of Dry Farming Congress. 
 
 The Natural Wealth of the Land. J. J. Hill, Report Gov- 
 ernor's Conference. 
 
 National Wealth and the Farm. J. J. Hill.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 FORESTS 
 
 ASIDE from the soil itself, which supports all life, 
 there is no other resource so important to man as the 
 forests, with their many uses covering so wide a 
 range. 
 
 The beauty and rest fulness of a forest, the grace 
 and dignity of single trees, the shade for man and 
 animals, the shelter from storms all these things 
 appeal to our love for the beautiful, and touch our 
 higher nature. The person who loves trees is a 
 better person than the one who does not As the 
 poet expresses it: 
 
 " Ah, bare must be the shadeless ways, and bleak 
 
 the path must be, 
 Of him, who, having open eyes, has never learned 
 
 to see, 
 And so has never learned to love the beauty of a 
 
 tree. 
 
 " Who loves a tree, he loves the life that springs in 
 star and clod, 
 
 42
 
 FORESTS 43 
 
 He loves the love that gilds the clouds, and greens 
 
 the April sod, 
 He loves the wide Beneficence ; his soul takes hold 
 
 on God." 
 
 Trees have played an important part in the his- 
 tory of our country : The " Charter Oak," in the 
 hollow of which the original charter of Connecticut 
 remained hidden from the agents of the king; 
 " Eliot's Oak," under which the gospel was first 
 preached to the Indians; the wide-spreading elm 
 under which William Penn signed his treaty of 
 peace with the Indians. 
 
 But no tree has held so dear a place in the hearts 
 of the people, or been so watchfully cared for as 
 the old " Washington Elm " still standing in Cam- 
 bridge, Massachusetts. Under it Washington took 
 command of the continental army. It is visited 
 every year by hundreds of persons, who stand with 
 uncovered heads beneath its spreading branches. 
 Many years ago it was struck by lightning and the 
 upper part torn off, but all the broken edges have 
 been sealed with pitch to stop decay. It has been 
 covered with fine wire netting to prevent the bark 
 being chipped off by relic hunters. It is carefully 
 guarded from damage by insects, and the boughs 
 are stayed by strong wires. 
 
 And so we might name many instances of trees
 
 44 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 that are loved and cared for on account of their 
 beauty, stateliness or some event connected with 
 them, but it is the usefulness of trees that we shall 
 mention in this chapter. 
 
 In the larger use of forests is included their ef- 
 fect on climate and rainfall. It is generally be- 
 lieved that clouds, passing over the damp, cool air 
 that rises from a forest, are more likely to be con- 
 densed into rain, and so we can establish the general 
 rule that the country which is well wooded will 
 probably have a larger rainfall than the one which 
 has few trees. 
 
 Twenty-five years ago Kansas was a prairie state 
 with few trees, and the semi-arid plains extended 
 half-way across the state, but thousands of acres 
 of trees have been planted, and crops have been 
 v cultivated, and the more forests and crops the 
 j farmer plants the more rain comes to water them. 
 The great droughts which used to ruin their crops 
 year after year no longer disturb them. The hot 
 winds which could undo a whole season's hard 
 work in a day are seldom heard of now. Kansas 
 is no longer in the semi-arid region. It is one of 
 the most productive states in the Union, and this 
 has come, not by dry- farming, but by the cultivation 
 of the soil and by the planting of trees. 
 
 Though rainfall increases, destructive floods be- 
 come fewer, for the humus and the leaves on the
 
 FORESTS 45 
 
 ground in the forests hold the water as in a vast 
 sponge, and, as we have seen in the preceding 
 chapter, they keep the waters in check and dis- 
 tribute the rainfall gently and evenly on the lands 
 below. They thus prevent erosion of the hillsides 
 and balance the water supply of rivers. 
 
 Trees supply us with food and medicine, and 
 greatest of all their direct uses, they furnish lumber 
 for all kinds of manufacturing. 
 
 We can not think of life without the comforts 
 and conveniences that we get from wood; but in- 
 terior China affords a striking example of what it 
 means for a nation to have a very small supply. 
 There is no wood for manufacturing and the natives 
 search the hillsides for even the tiniest shrubs 
 to burn and even for grass scratched from the soil. 
 Once this part of China was a great forest region, 
 but century by century the forests have been used, 
 not rapidly, as in this country, for China is not a 
 great industrial nation, but surely, until there is 
 hardly a twig left. 
 
 China is not the only nation that has suffered in 
 this way. Many of the ancient peoples have en- 
 tirely passed away; and the destruction of their 
 forests, as we have seen in the previous chapter, 
 was the first cause leading to their extinction. 
 
 Denmark was originally almost covered with 
 forests. These were cut down for fuel, for lumber,
 
 46 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 and to make way for agriculture. For a long time 
 there was no attempt to restore them, and now a 
 large area, once productive, has become a sandy 
 desert. In the same way, large parts of Austria 
 and Italy have become valueless because the grow- 
 ing forests were cut down. 
 
 In France the forests at the head- waters of the 
 Rhone and the Seine were cut down and fierce 
 floods began to pour down the valleys each year, 
 bringing destruction to property and crops all along 
 their way. But France has long ago learned the 
 lesson of forestry, and as soon as the danger was 
 seen, the mountain sides were replanted with trees, 
 and since then conditions have been gradually 
 changing for the better. 
 
 France has had another experience in forestry 
 that has taught her what can be done to save her 
 waste lands. Near the coast were great sand-dunes. 
 The winds drove them each year farther inland, and 
 the sand was gradually driving out the vineyards 
 and farm crops. In 1793 the planting of forests 
 on these dunes was begun. Of 350,000 acres, 
 275,000 have been planted in valuable pine forests. 
 More than half of these belong to private owners 
 and there is no record of their value, but the por- 
 tion belonging to the government has yielded a 
 large income above all expenses, and is worth 
 $10,000,000 as land; and this was not only value-
 
 FORESTS 47 
 
 less but was a menace to the surrounding country. 
 In the interior of France a sandy marsh covering 
 2,000,000 acres has been changed into a profitable 
 forest valued at $100,000,000. 
 
 A hundred years ago all the eastern part of the 
 United States and the Rocky Mountains and the 
 Pacific coast region were covered with thick for- 
 ests hundreds and hundreds of miles in extent. 
 Evergreens the pines, hemlocks, cedars and 
 spruces grew near the coast in great abundance, 
 while farther inland were found the most magnifi- 
 cent hardwood forests in the world. 
 
 Unfortunately, the first needs of the early settlers 
 required them to cut down these mighty forests. 
 The soil, which was very fertile, could not, of course, 
 be used for farming purposes until the land was 
 cleared, and so this was the first necessity. 
 
 The wood was used to build the cabins, to make 
 the rude furniture, the wagons and ox-carts, and 
 for fuel, but this disposed of only a small amount 
 of the wood that came from the clearing of a farm. 
 No man could give it to his neighbor when all had 
 more than they could use, and there was no market 
 for its sale. The trees were burned in large quanti- 
 ties to clear the land for the planting of crops. 
 
 Wood was of the greatest value to the first set- 
 tlers, but it was also the greatest hindrance to their 
 making homes, so they took no care whatever of
 
 48 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 what they could not use. It was burned or left on 
 the ground to decay. As towns sprang up, there 
 began to be a demand for lumber for houses, for 
 furniture, for vehicles and for fuel from those who 
 had no trees of their own. This made a market 
 for the best grades of lumber at a low price, but 
 almost every farmer would give away trees of the 
 best hardwood to any person who would cut and 
 haul them away. 
 
 Conditions have changed very slowly, but very 
 surely. In every state, in every county and in 
 every township there has been a steady clearing 
 of the land as it fills with new home-makers. At 
 the same time the demand has grown enormously 
 each year from the dwellers in cities. 
 
 The opening up of railroads and telegraph lines 
 in the middle and latter part of the century made 
 a great demand for wood. The building of ships 
 and steamboats, the opening of mines, the establish- 
 ing of telephone and trolley systems, the building 
 of great cities, all these have called steadily and 
 increasingly for wood. 
 
 The time has long passed when wood was a 
 hindrance to progress. For a long time there has 
 been a ready market at high prices and it is rapidly 
 reaching the point where we shall face an actual 
 shortage of timber. This is not true of all parts 
 of the country, of course. Maine, Washington,
 
 FORESTS 49 
 
 and parts of Oregon, Alabama, Arkansas, and 
 Mississippi, Wisconsin and some other states, still 
 have vast quantities of lumber, but trains and ships 
 carry it to all parts of the world so there is no lack 
 of a market. 
 
 The change from plenty, even great excess, to 
 need, has come so gradually that few persons, even 
 those living in the forest regions, have realized until 
 within a very few years how general is their de- 
 struction. Those who, riding about a small por- 
 tion of the country familiar to them, have been 
 struck with the disappearance of the woods and 
 the cultivation of the lands, have looked upon it 
 wholly as a sign of progress, and have not realized 
 that the same thing is going on in every part of the 
 country. , 
 
 The wholesale destruction of the forests, with- 
 out replanting, has come mostly from ignorance. 
 We have had all our resources in such great abun- 
 dance that we have not hitherto needed to learn 
 the lessons that the Old World has learned, some- 
 times at the cost of whole nations, but the time 
 has come when we do need to learn them. 
 
 The first lesson is to study the various uses of 
 the forests, to find how they are being affected by 
 present use, their wastes, and the best means of 
 preserving them. When all the people have learned 
 these lessons, they will, undoubtedly, gladly set
 
 50 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 about righting the wrongs that have been done in 
 the past. 
 
 The original forests of this country covered an 
 area of about 850,000,000 acres, with nearly five 
 and a half trillion board feet of " merchantable," 
 that is, salable, timber according to present stand- 
 ards. (A board foot is one foot long, one foot 
 wide and one inch in thickness.) Considerably 
 more than half the original number of acres are 
 still forested, but most of the land has been cut or 
 burned over, some of it several times, and the 
 amount remaining of salable timber, which includes 
 only the best part of the trunk, is from two to two 
 and a half trillion, that is from 1,400 to 2,000 
 billion, feet. The yearly cut for all purposes, in- 
 cluding waste, is now over two hundred billion 
 board feet ; some authorities place the amount as 
 high as two hundred and seventy-five billion feet. 
 This, however, probably includes firewood, one of 
 the largest uses of wood, but taken very largely 
 from worm-eaten wood that could not be cut into 
 lumber. It also probably includes boughs, and 
 other unsalable parts of the tree. 
 
 The timber cut doubled from 1880 to 1905, is 
 still increasing at almost the same rate, and, if we 
 had the timber, it would doubtless double again by 
 1930. But even at the present rate, the forests 
 now standing, without allowance for growth, would
 
 FORESTS 51 
 
 be exhausted in from ten to sixteen years. The 
 yearly growth of timber in our present forests is esti- 
 mated at from forty-two to sixty billion feet, and 
 the yearly cut at from three to three and a Half 
 times the amount added for growth. 
 
 That is, we are using in four months at least as 
 much wood as will naturally grow in a year. The 
 other eight months we shall be using our forest 
 reserves, and each year there will be less forest 
 land to produce new growth, as well as less old 
 wood to cut 
 
 Mr. R. A. Long, an expert lumberman who 
 spoke before the first Conservation Congress, esti- 
 mated then that the forests, making allowance for 
 growth, would not last over thirty-five years. The 
 government figures indicate that they will last about 
 thirty-three years, at the present rate, but as the 
 rate has been doubling every twenty-five years, 
 many persons who have studied the situation be- 
 lieve that the supply will not continue in commercial 
 quantities for manufacturing more than twenty-five 
 years. 
 
 We must understand, must think, what the de- 
 struction of our forests would mean to us. It 
 would mean fierce droughts and fiercer floods. It 
 would mean the gradual drying up of our streams, a 
 scarcity of water to drink, as in China to-day. It 
 would mean that the manufacture of wooden arti-
 
 52 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 cles would practically cease. The thousand con- 
 veniences that we enjoy as a matter of course would 
 become rare and costly. It would mean that only 
 the rich could build houses of wood, and this would 
 force the masses of people into crowded quarters, 
 not only the poor, but the well-to-do also. These 
 are only a few of the many disasters that would 
 follow the loss of our forests, and all these 
 things might come to pass before we ourselves are 
 old! 
 
 If we knew that at a certain time a tidal wave 
 would engulf our homes, how we should work to 
 save all that we could before the calamity over- 
 took us! And we should set about the saving of 
 our forests with equal care, for their destruction 
 means distress for every one of us. 
 
 Fortunately, this is only the dark possibility. 
 The methods of prevention are well known to those 
 who have studied the history of the nations that 
 have fallen, and the nations that have risen to 
 power. It is only necessary that all the people 
 should know these things and realize their impor- 
 tance, in order to keep conditions as they are at 
 present or even to better them. 
 
 The methods of prevention are five. They are: 
 
 (i) To use the trees in the most careful and 
 conservative way without the great wastes now 
 common.
 
 FORESTS 53 
 
 (2) To save the vast areas of forests that are 
 now burned each year. 
 
 (3) To prevent loss from insects. 
 
 (4) To use substitutes: that is, to use other and 
 cheaper materials to take the place of wood when- 
 ever possible. 
 
 (5) To plant trees and to replant where old ones 
 have been cut, until all land that is not fitted for 
 agriculture is covered with forests. 
 
 These are only the rules that good sense and good 
 business would teach us to follow, but we have not 
 followed any of them in the past, and now it will 
 be necessary to do all these things if we are to 
 continue to have enough wood to use to keep pace 
 with our progress in other directions. 
 
 As an example of the rapid rate at which we are 
 consuming our forests, we use nine times as much 
 lumber for every man, woman and child as the 
 people of Germany use, and twenty-five times as 
 much as the people of England use. This is due to 
 several causes, many of which we would not wish 
 changed. 
 
 To begin with, this was a new and undeveloped 
 country, a large part of which had never been in- 
 habited, and all the land, as fast as it was occupied, 
 must be built up with entirely new homes; and be- 
 cause wood is the cheapest building material it is 
 the one generally used.
 
 54 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The growth of all European countries is mostly 
 by the increase of their own people, while this is 
 only a small percentage of our growth, which comes 
 largely from immigration from other countries, so 
 the increase of population is much greater here 
 and the proportion of new homes needed is far 
 greater. Improvements of all kinds, public build- 
 ings, churches and bridges were built in almost 
 every European community long ago, while in this 
 country these things are being done each year in 
 thousands of places. 
 
 Wages are higher in this country, and more peo- 
 ple are able to afford the luxuries of life, vehicles, 
 musical instruments, and the large variety of small 
 conveniences to be found in almost every American 
 home but seen in few homes of the poorer class in 
 Europe. 
 
 These are a few of the reasons why we use such 
 a large amount of lumber each year. They are all 
 conditions that mean a larger, better nation than 
 we could otherwise have, with a higher standard 
 of living, and while in some particulars, as we shall 
 show, there should be changes that would conserve 
 our forests, the great wastes do not lie in the use, 
 but in the abuse of the forests. 
 
 Now let us see what use is made of all the wood 
 that is cut every year. The greatest use of all is 
 for fire-wood, but this is largely the decaying or
 
 FORESTS 55 
 
 faulty trees from farmers' wood-lots, or the waste 
 product of a lumber region, so this does not con- 
 stitute so heavy a drain on the forests as the fact 
 that 100,000,000 cords a year are used, would in- 
 dicate. 
 
 Twenty times as much of the salable timber is 
 sawed into lumber as is used in any other way. 
 Neary 40,000,000,000 board feet are thus used, but 
 lumber is used in a variety of ways, while the other 
 cuts are confined to a single use. 
 
 The first and greatest use of lumber is for build- 
 ing purposes, for houses, barns, sheds, out-build- 
 ings, fences, and for window-sashes, doors and in- 
 side finishings of all buildings, even those made 
 of other materials. 
 
 Next comes furniture of all kinds, chairs, 
 tables, beds, and all other house, office, and school 
 furniture ; musical instruments, pianos, etc., vehicles 
 of all kinds, farm wagons, delivery wagons, car- 
 riages and other pleasure vehicles, including parts 
 of automobile bodies, agricultural implements, 
 plows, harrows, harvesters, threshing machines and 
 other farm implements. Though these are built 
 largely of iron, yet one-fourth of the implement 
 factories report a use of 215,000,000 feet of lumber 
 a year, so the entire output of these factories calls 
 for a large amount of wood from our forests. 
 
 Car building is the other really great use for
 
 56 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 lumber. Freight cars, passenger cars, and trolley 
 cars use each year an increasingly large proportion 
 of the product of our saw-mills. 
 
 After these come the various smaller articles, 
 which, though themselves small, are used in every 
 home and are turned out in such vast quantities as 
 to require a very large amount of lumber each year. 
 
 An empty spool seems a trifle, but the making 
 of all the spools requires the cutting of hundreds 
 of acres of New England's best birch woods. 
 Butter dishes, fruit crates, baskets, wooden boxes 
 of all kinds, tools and handles, kitchen utensils, toys 
 and sporting goods, picture molding and frames, 
 grille and fretwork, excelsior, clothes-pins, matches, 
 tooth-picks, all these are mowing down our for- 
 ests by the thousands of acres. 
 
 The lumber cut includes all kinds of both hard 
 and soft woods. A very large percentage of this 
 is of yellow or southern hard pine, of which several 
 billion feet a year are used. 
 
 An almost equal amount is used for hewn cross- 
 ties for railroads and trolley lines. Many sawed 
 cross-ties are included in the item of lumber. The 
 hewed cross-ties are made from young oak-trees, 
 or from hard-pine, cedar and chestnut. Without 
 them no more railroad or trolley lines could be 
 built, and the present systems could not be kept in 
 repair. Many other materials have been tried, but
 
 FORESTS 57 
 
 wood is the only one that has ever proved satis- 
 factory and safe for this purpose. 
 
 The next largest use of lumber is the grinding 
 of it into pulp to be used in making paper for our 
 books, magazines and newspapers, wrapping papers, 
 etc. The woods used for this purpose are mostly 
 spruce and hemlock. The great sources of supply 
 of pulp-wood are Maine and Wisconsin, and large 
 amounts are imported from Canada, which greatly 
 lessens the drain on our own forests. 
 
 Next in importance comes cooperage stock for 
 the making of barrels. When we consider the 
 many uses of barrels, that vinegar, oil, and liquors 
 are all shipped in tight barrels, which are mostly 
 made of the best white oak, and that flour, starch, 
 sugar, crackers, fruits and vegetables, glassware, 
 chemicals, and cement are shipped in what are called 
 slack barrels, made of various hardwoods, the hoops 
 being always of soft elm, a wood which is rapidly 
 disappearing, we can see the size and necessity of 
 this industry. 
 
 Round mine timbers, largely made of young 
 hardwood trees, are used to support the mines un- 
 derground. Mining engineers say that on an 
 average three feet of lumber are used in mining 
 every ton of coal taken out. Assuming that 450,- 
 000,000 tons of coal are mined each year, this 
 would mean that almost a billion and a half feet a
 
 58 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 year are used in the coal mines, and this is about the 
 amount shown by the government report. 
 
 After this comes wood for lath used in building. 
 This product is usually taken from lower class 
 wood or logging camp waste. Then comes the 
 wood for distillation into wood-alcohol for use in 
 manufacture and to furnish power in engines. 
 
 Next in quantity used comes veneer, which has 
 two entirely different uses. The highest grade 
 woods are cut to about one-twentieth of an inch 
 and glued to cheaper woods as an outside finish in 
 the making of furniture. The other use is for ve- 
 neer used alone, when a very thin wood is desired. 
 This is employed for butter dishes, berry baskets, 
 crates, boxes and barrels. 
 
 Next on the list come poles electric railway, 
 electric light, telegraph, and telephone poles. Every 
 pole that is erected for any of these purposes, every 
 extension of the service, and all replacing caused 
 by wind or decay, means the cutting of a tall, 
 straight, perfect tree, usually cedar or chestnut. 
 If we think of each pole of the net-work that covers 
 the entire continent, as a tree, we shall better real- 
 ize what our forests have done in binding the na- 
 tion together. 
 
 Leather is stained by soaking the hides in a solu- 
 tion containing the bark of oak or hemlock. Some- 
 times an extract is made from chestnut wood.
 
 FORESTS 59 
 
 This has caused one of the most criminal wastes 
 of trees, for a great deal of timber was cut down 
 solely for the bark, and the wood left to decay in 
 the forest. But now, as the price of lumber ad- 
 vances, more of it is used each year and less left to 
 waste. 
 
 The bark and extract of the quebracho, a South 
 American tree, are being imported for use in tan- 
 ning, and are still further reducing the drain on our 
 own forests. 
 
 Turpentine and rosin do not in themselves destroy 
 the forests any more than does tapping the maple 
 trees for their sap, but in the making of turpentine 
 trees that are too small are often " boxed " and 
 the trees are easily blown down by heavy winds or 
 are attacked by insects and fungi. Many destruc- 
 tive fires also follow turpentining, so that on the 
 whole the turpentine industry is responsible for 
 the destruction each year of large areas of the 
 southern pine forests. The methods of turpentin- 
 ing introduced by the government result in the sav- 
 ing of thirty per cent, more turpentine, and also 
 protect the trees so that they may be used fifteen or 
 twenty years and still be almost as valuable as ever 
 for timber. 
 
 Twenty millions of posts are cut each year in 
 the Lake States alone, and the entire number used 
 is probably two or three times as great.
 
 60 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 These constitute the greater uses of wood, not a 
 full and detailed list; but it plainly shows that all 
 the uses are not only desirable, but necessary for 
 our comfort and happiness, and that we would not 
 willingly sacrifice one of them, and in order that 
 this shall not become necessary, let us see what 
 abuses we can find in the management of our for- 
 ests. And here we find the most startling figures of 
 all. 
 
 Great and important as is our list of products 
 made from wood, we are surprised to learn that of 
 all wood cut fully two-thirds is wasted in the for- 
 ests, left to decay or burned. The largest forests are 
 now all located far from the great manufacturing 
 regions, and that means far from the lumber 
 market. The cost of transportation must be added 
 to every car of lumber sold. The freight on a car- 
 load of lumber from the South to Chicago or other 
 points in the middle West is not less than a hundred 
 dollars, and from the Pacific coast it is very much 
 higher. 
 
 It does not pay to send low-grade lumber when 
 the cost is so great, and as there is no local market 
 a large part of each tree is burned. All the upper 
 end of the trunk and all branches are thus de- 
 stroyed, although much valuable timber is contained 
 in them. 
 
 At one mill in Alabama a pile of waste wood and
 
 FORESTS 61 
 
 branches as high as a two-story house burns night 
 and day throughout the year, and that is probably 
 true of all the larger mills. 
 
 If the timber could be conservatively managed 
 as are live-stock products, so that all the waste 
 could be utilized, all the small articles, shingles, 
 lath, posts, tan-bark and extract, pulp- wood, wood 
 for distillation and small manufactured articles 
 would be made by-products of the larger cuts. 
 
 Much has been said of the greed of large lumber 
 companies in causing wholesale and reckless de- 
 struction of the forests, and much of it is doubtless 
 true, but the lumber companies cite the fact that 
 no farmer will gather a crop of corn which will not 
 pay for the labor cost of gathering, and say that 
 at the present prices of lumber they can not pay 
 the present freight rates to the factories. It seems 
 therefore that a certain amount of waste is un- 
 avoidable unless wood-working plants are estab- 
 lished near the forest regions. 
 
 The first great step in conserving our forests is 
 to stop the unnecessary wastes in use. The next 
 step is to take measures to prevent the great de- 
 struction of our forests by fire. 
 
 Those who have never lived in a great forest 
 region can have little idea of the extent of the 
 damage caused by these great forest fires. The 
 loss of life of both man and animals, the sweeping
 
 62 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 away of houses and crops, the homelessness and 
 misery of those who have lost everything they had 
 saved, are not to be taken into account here, but 
 only the loss of the forests themselves. 
 
 It is estimated that the loss by fire is as great as 
 the entire amount cut for use in the entire United 
 States. The National Conservation Committee 
 reports that 50,000,000 acres of woodland are 
 burned over yearly. This probably includes all 
 burned-over lands, in much of which the standing 
 timber is not destroyed, but the saplings and seed- 
 lings are killed as well as the grass for grazing 
 and for the protection of the roots. Much land 
 is burned over in this way year after year until 
 hope of future growth is gone, though the damage 
 to the large trees has not been great. In one way 
 this loss is even more serious, as it shuts off the 
 hope of future forests, but the loss of our full- 
 grown standing forests is grave. 
 
 In 1891 this loss amounted to 15,000,000 acres, 
 or nearly forty thousand acres every day in the 
 year. Since then the work of the Forest Service 
 in fighting fires and the great clearing of the for- 
 ests, has reduced this somewhat, but it still amounts 
 to no less than 30,000 acres of our best salable 
 timber a day. This is the really great and serious 
 loss of the forests. 
 
 All the wood that is used goes to make our coun-
 
 FORESTS 63 
 
 try a better place to live in, to make its people more 
 comfortable and happy, but all that is lost by fire 
 is a loss to all the nation in comforts for the future, 
 and in the present it means high prices for lumber 
 because our forests are disappearing so rapidly. 
 
 And we are letting them burn at the rate of thirty 
 thousand acres every day! More than enough to 
 supply all our needs. If any one could gather to- 
 gether in one vast pile our houses and barns, our 
 furniture, our wagons and carriages, our farm im- 
 plements, all our home conveniences, our railroad 
 cross-ties, our trolley and telephone poles, our 
 papers and magazines, and burn them all, the whole 
 world would be roused by the fearfulness of the 
 loss. But we sit idly by and see the materials of 
 which all these things are made and must be made 
 in the future, and with them our shade, our water- 
 sheds, the soil of the forest-lands itself destroyed, 
 with never a word of protest. 
 
 In a paper prepared for the National Conserva- 
 tion Congress, it was stated that in some years 
 government survey parties were unable to work in 
 the Rocky Mountains for whole seasons on ac- 
 count of the dense smoke, and the fires were al- 
 lowed to burn till the snows of winter put them 
 out. The writer further stated that he believed 
 from observation that the Forest Service, by check- 
 ing fires in their beginning, has in the last few
 
 64 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 years saved more timber than has been used for 
 T commercial purposes. 
 
 Private owners of large tracts should be com- 
 pelled to use the same care in preventing fires that 
 is exercised by the government. This care, and 
 the breaking up of the forests into smaller tracts 
 by clearing the land in alternate sections would 
 soon reduce the fire loss so greatly as almost to 
 save us from anxiety for the future of our timber 
 lands. 
 
 The next great loss to the forests is from in- 
 sects. When insects have bored into wood it be- 
 comes honey-combed by the canals cut by the little 
 insects and is utterly valueless. The loss to fruit 
 and forest trees will be taken up more fully in the 
 chapter on insects. At present it is only necessary, 
 in order to show how much our forests suffer in 
 this way, to state that the yearly loss from this 
 cause is placed at no less than $100,000,000 a year, 
 and the loss to fruits is counted at one-fifth of the 
 entire crop. Some slight idea of the danger to 
 our forests will be seen by the simple statement 
 that forty-one different species of insects infest the 
 locust tree, eighty the elm, one hundred and five the 
 birch, one hundred and sixty-five the pine, one 
 hundred and seventy the hickory, one hundred and 
 eighty-six the willow, while oak trees are at- 
 tacked by over five hundred !
 
 FORESTS 65 
 
 This is exceedingly difficult to control and can 
 perhaps never be entirely checked. Some remedies 
 will be suggested later, and by having smaller for- 
 ests, more carefully watched, some personal care 
 can be given to the trees. In Germany the trees 
 are as closely watched as are other crops, and the 
 saving in value well repays this extra care and ex- 
 pense. 
 
 A much smaller loss comes from the winds that 
 sometimes level all the trees over many square 
 miles. This can not, of course, be prevented, ex- 
 cept possibly in the turpentine forests, but care 
 should be taken to use all the wood, never allowing 
 it to decay where it fell, and also to replant the land 
 with trees, unless it is fitted for agriculture. 
 
 A great saving of the forests may be effected by 
 what is called preservative treatment, which con- 
 sists of treating railroad ties, piling, mine timbers, 
 poles, and posts with creosote or zinc chlorid to 
 prevent decay from the moisture of the ground 
 or from injury by salt-water borers. The use of 
 creosote is almost double the cost of zinc chlorid, 
 but it is much more effective and durable. A fence 
 post can be treated with creosote for about ten 
 cents, a railroad tie for twenty cents, and a tele- 
 phone pole for from seventy-five cents to a dollar. 
 In every case the timber treated will last twice as 
 long as it would without such treatment and in
 
 66 
 
 view of the present high prices it is bad business 
 policy to use timber in such a way that it will need 
 replacing soon. It is estimated that if all timbers 
 which could be profitably treated were so cared for, 
 it would mean a money saving to the owners of 
 $47,000,000, and an annual saving in wood equal to 
 4,000,000,000 board feet of lumber. 
 
 The next point in the conservation of the for- 
 ests is to seek substitutes to take the place of wood. 
 There are many uses of wood which nothing else 
 will satisfactorily supply. For example, no rail- 
 road cross-tie has ever been designed of other ma- 
 terial that does not increase the danger of railway 
 accidents, though over two hundred kinds have 
 been patented. 
 
 There is nothing that will take the place of wood 
 in furniture, and in many small articles. Some 
 articles might be replaced in metal, but it makes 
 them too heavy or too expensive. But in certain 
 lines there is an excellent opportunity to use other 
 materials to great advantage. 
 
 Cars are now being built of steel, and of com- 
 binations of metal with asbestos. These are not 
 yet entirely satisfactory, but it is hoped that they 
 can be perfected soon. Cement and concrete are 
 taking the place of wood to a great extent in build- 
 ing, and their use will doubtless increase rapidly. 
 
 When veneer is used for barrels and boxes it af-
 
 FORESTS 67 
 
 fords a saving of nearly two-thirds in the amount 
 of wood required. This is a line of use where 
 cheaper substitutes should always be used if pos- 
 sible, because a package is usually used only once, 
 never more than twice, and then discarded, so that 
 the wood is put to little real service compared with 
 other wooden articles. 
 
 When possible, small articles of wood should be 
 made only in a forest region or near saw-mills to 
 use the scraps and save an unnecessary drain on the 
 more valuable grades of lumber. 
 
 One of the most important lines in which sub- 
 stitutes are practicable is in the making of paper 
 and box-board or pasteboard. The latter is some- 
 times called strawboard, because it is made from 
 wheat straw, and where it is manufactured, uses a 
 large amount of straw that would otherwise be 
 wasted, but the great wheat fields of the West still 
 have immense quantities of unused straw, which, 
 if made into strawboard, would not only bring 
 more prosperity to that region but would lessen the 
 drain on the forests. 
 
 A box bound with wire and made of corrugated 
 paper now takes the place for many light articles of 
 the wooden packing-case. The strawboard also 
 takes the place of wood-pulp for smaller paper 
 boxes. Rice-straw, hemp, flax-straw, cotton fiber 
 and peat have all been tested in a small way and
 
 68 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 found to make excellent paper, and it is thought 
 corn-stalks can also be used, but none of these is 
 now manufactured in the United States on a large 
 scale. This is largely because the price of pulp- 
 wood is low, and the cost of experimenting with 
 new materials is great with the results uncertain. 
 
 This brings us to the last one of our preventive 
 measures for the decline of our forests, the one 
 which needs the most careful attention of all the 
 replanting of the lands that are not fitted for agri- 
 culture, and planting trees about houses and unoc- 
 cupied spaces. 
 
 Many farmers have planted orchards on a part 
 of their farm-lands and many trees have been 
 planted in town and country, but until a few years 
 ago there was no organized effort to plant trees. 
 
 Now many states have set apart a day which is 
 called Arbor Day, for this purpose, but in no state 
 does it hold so important a place as it should. It 
 is observed by the schools but not by the general 
 public. 
 
 In Germany there are regular tree-planting days 
 in which all the people take part. Every one who 
 is not too poor and he must be poor indeed 
 plants a tree in his own garden, or in front of his 
 home, in the forest or in the highway; for himself 
 or for the general good. 
 
 Each child plants a tree on his or her birthday
 
 FORESTS 69 
 
 every year, and watches and cares for it as it grows. 
 The roadsides are lined with fruit or nut or flower- 
 ing trees which have been planted in neat, orderly 
 rows. These things are in striking contrast to 
 the observance of Arbor Day in this country, 
 where one tree suffices for an entire school, or at 
 best each class has a tree of its own. It is all a 
 matter of enthusiasm and education. 
 
 In considering the best trees for planting we 
 come to the last great use of trees of which we 
 have not spoken. Fruit and nut trees supply us 
 with large quantities of the most wholesome and 
 delicious food. The apple, pear, peach, plum, and 
 cherry grow in the central part of the United States, 
 and oranges, lemons, figs, olives and apricots in 
 the warmer parts. 
 
 By planting these trees in suitable places one may 
 have a rich harvest for many years to come. If 
 a small fraction of the seeds of fruit trees which 
 are wasted each year were planted, the general food 
 supply would be greatly increased, and many bene- 
 fits would be derived from the trees themselves. 
 
 Have you ever heard the story of " Apple-seed 
 John," the man who, according to tradition, went 
 through what is now western Pennsylvania, Ohio 
 and Indiana while the country was still a wilderness 
 and planted orchards for the settlers who, he was 
 sure, would come later?
 
 70 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 So many stories have been told of him that it is 
 hard to discover how much of the tale is really 
 true. At least one poem has been written about 
 him, and the Reverend Newell Dwight Hillis has 
 woven the facts and fancies of his career into a 
 charming book, The Quest of John Chapman. 
 
 The story is that he spent his winters in the set- 
 tlements near the Atlantic coast teaching the chil- 
 dren or working at small tasks about the farms, 
 and taking his pay always in the seeds of apples, 
 peaches, pears, plums, and grapes. The farmers 
 and their families saved all their seeds for him and 
 when spring came he filled his boat with seeds and 
 started down the Ohio River. When he reached 
 a suitable landing-place he took his bags of seeds 
 on his back and trudged through the forest. 
 
 Whenever he came to an open space he planted 
 an orchard, built a fence of boughs about it, and 
 started on again. And so he traveled on and on, 
 through all the spring and summer months, year 
 after year, planting his seeds for those who would 
 come after him, until he grew too old to work. 
 
 The first settlers in those states found the orchards 
 and vineyards awaiting them, and a few trees are 
 still standing that are said to have been planted by 
 Apple-Seed John. The story of this man who in 
 his humble way devoted his life to others is one 
 that may well be told and imitated, for while none
 
 FORESTS 71 
 
 of us can do the work he did, it may inspire us with 
 a wish to make some spot on earth better by plant- 
 ing our few seeds or plants. 
 
 In carrying on this work in the schools as well 
 as by the general public, a regular plan should be 
 followed. Much can be accomplished with no ex- 
 pense at all, even in cities. In all cases the expense 
 will be very small compared to the good accom- 
 plished. 
 
 Seeds may be planted and later transplanted. 
 This will require no expense and little labor. Every 
 child, large and small, in city and country, can 
 learn to do this work and can thus perform a real 
 service. Small saplings which are growing close 
 together, where they can never develop, may each 
 be planted in a place where it will have a chance to 
 grow into a thrifty tree. Most farmers would be 
 entirely willing to allow the pupils to take such sap- 
 lings from their wood-lots if the work were properly 
 done. This is an excellent work for country 
 schools to undertake, both for the good it will ac- 
 complish and for the training of the pupils them- 
 selves in practical work. 
 
 Fruit trees of suitable size for planting may be 
 had for about twenty cents each. Most American 
 children could easily save that amount from money 
 spent on candy, sweetmeats or toys so as to have 
 a tree ready for planting on Arbor Day which would
 
 72 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 yield them fruit as they grow older, and be a source 
 of pride and pleasure. Such trees will of course 
 usually be planted at the children's own homes, but 
 it would be an excellent idea to follow the German 
 plan of planting public orchards just outside the 
 town. When the trees are old enough to bear, 
 the children are allowed on certain days to go and 
 gather and eat the fruit and carry it home in 
 baskets. 
 
 The older boys in every school, whether city or 
 country, should be taught to plant and transplant 
 trees in the best way. The following directions 
 for the work are sent out by the Department of 
 Agriculture at Washington: 
 
 " The proper season for planting is not every- 
 where the same. When the planting is done in 
 the spring, the right time is when the frost is out 
 of the ground and before budding begins. 
 
 "The day to plant is almost as important as the 
 season. Sunny, windy weather is to be avoided. 
 Cool, damp days are the best. Trees can not be 
 thrust carelessly into a rough soil and then be ex- 
 pected to flourish. They should be planted in 
 properly worked soil, well enriched. If they can 
 not be planted immediately after they are taken up 
 the first step is to prevent their roots drying out in 
 the air. This may be done by piling fresh dirt deep 
 about the roots or setting the roots in mud.
 
 FORESTS 73 
 
 " In planting they should be placed from two to 
 three inches deeper than they stood originally. 
 Fine soil should always be pressed firmly not 
 made hard about the roots, and two inches of 
 dry soil at the top should be left very loose to re- 
 tain the moisture." 
 
 The reading of such poems as Lucy Larcom's 
 " He who plants a tree plants a hope," or William 
 Cullen Bryant's, " Come, let us plant the apple 
 tree," and suitable talks or papers on trees, dealing 
 with their kinds and uses, on the benefits of for- 
 ests, and on practical forestry, should be a part of 
 the Arbor Day exercises. 
 
 In many communities a tract of land which is 
 not well suited for general agriculture may be ob- 
 tained for the benefit of the school, and some simple 
 work in forestry may be undertaken by the pupils. 
 Sometimes a farmer may be induced to give a 
 small bit of waste land where the experiment may 
 be tried. Sometimes such land can be bought by 
 the school in one of the following ways: 
 
 A series of entertainments may be given by the 
 pupils, the proceeds to be applied to the buying 
 of the land, and the pupils may also obtain money 
 in other outside ways to bring to the general fund. 
 If only one acre can be bought and cleared by the 
 pupils, and properly planted, a little at a time, 
 a tree for each child's birthday, or by obtaining
 
 74 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 small seedlings and saplings from the forest, it 
 will be a source of keen interest, and will give 
 an added pleasure to the school work. Watching 
 the growth of the trees and caring for them will 
 keep this interest alive year after year, and in time 
 it will become a valuable property belonging to the 
 school. Sometimes the school officials will set aside 
 a sum from the public money to purchase the land. 
 In one High School, one acre is thus bought each 
 year, and every pupil in the senior year gives and 
 plants a tree. Sometimes the farmers or the mer- 
 chants of a community may unite in buying the land, 
 which will, of course, become public property, and 
 set it aside for improvement after the manner of a 
 city park. 
 
 Sometimes women's clubs become interested in 
 such a movement and will raise the funds neces- 
 sary for beginning it. It then becomes the duty 
 of the school, year after year, to plant and care 
 for the land. After a time the school will have 
 a valuable property to sell, or can have a yearly 
 income from the sale of timber. 
 
 Such plans may be carried out in many schools. 
 Every school can and should do something to for- 
 ward this great work. All school yards should be 
 well planted and care taken that the boy with a 
 new knife does not try it on the bark or that the 
 bark is not rubbed from the trees in careless play.
 
 FORESTS 75 
 
 Many trees planted in school yards have been de- 
 stroyed in this way. 
 
 But we shall not be safe if only the schools plant 
 trees. Farmers and lot owners should take up the 
 work in earnest, adding as many trees as possible 
 each year. In this way they could insure an 
 abundant supply of fruit, nuts and timber for the 
 future, could increase the value of their property, 
 and provide a steady income besides. 
 
 Farmers' institutes would find this a most 
 important work to undertake, arranging for a 
 common plan to be carried out in an entire neigh- 
 borhood, and setting aside days in which all the 
 members may work together to set out trees by the 
 roadsides. This brings us to the question of what 
 kinds of trees are best to plant. 
 
 For town or city lots, fruit trees should always 
 be chosen, because they bear in a short time and 
 will add to the family food supply, and so lessen 
 the cost of living and increase the variety of food. 
 Every farm should have a good assortment of fruit. 
 Any nurseryman's catalogue will furnish lists of 
 kinds so that a wise choice may be made. In se- 
 lecting fruit trees, great care should be taken to 
 choose the best varieties. 
 
 For streets and roadsides, nut or wild fruit trees 
 are best, for the trees are generally graceful in 
 appearance and will yield some return, as the more
 
 76 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 popular maples and poplars will not. The chest- 
 nut is one of the best trees for such planting, though 
 it is of a rather slow growth. English or Ameri- 
 can walnuts, pecans, mulberry and persimmon trees 
 can be grown in most parts of the United States. 
 
 One town in Kansas is planting fruit trees on 
 all its streets, so that in a few years there will be 
 an abundance of fruit free to every passer-by. 
 This is a most excellent plan, but individuals would 
 be likely to find the fruit molested if only a few 
 trees are planted in a community. 
 
 Barn-lots and lanes should be planted with wild 
 cherry, haws, elder, dogwood, mountain-ash, and 
 other wild fruits to serve as food for birds, poultry, 
 and hogs. 
 
 Where the banks of streams need to be protected 
 from erosion, probably the best tree for planting 
 is the basket willow, which thrives well near the 
 water, has a heavy network of roots, and is val- 
 uable for weaving into baskets and furniture. 
 
 For all hillsides and rocky places, as well as 
 wood-lots, the hardwoods which sell best for tim- 
 ber should be planted in the North and West, and 
 the evergreens near the sea-coasts and in the South. 
 Forests of oak, hickory, walnut, maple (especially 
 the sugar maple, which yields a steady return dur- 
 ing the lifetime of the tree), elm, chestnut, and 
 locust will sell for a good price, and are always
 
 FORESTS 77 
 
 salable. It requires many years to grow large tim- 
 ber, but by proper management several years can 
 be gained in its growth, and it is always a valuable 
 investment for a farmer to make for his children. 
 
 Not individuals only, but states and the national 
 government as well, should provide forests for the 
 future, and this is the greatest duty of all, for much 
 of the most important work can only be done by 
 a power that can control the entire watershed at 
 the head-waters of a river-system. 
 
 For example, the Appalachian Mountains are the 
 source of hundreds of streams which flow east, 
 west and south, and pass through many states. 
 These mountains were originally covered with a 
 heavy forest growth, but they belong largely to 
 private companies who are cutting the forests at 
 a rapid rate. 
 
 The effect of this is seen in bare hillsides, washed 
 by mountain torrents which are causing disastrous 
 floods on the lowlands, filling up the streams, and 
 carrying away much of the most fertile soil of 
 some of the southeastern states, and in the drying 
 up of the small tributaries. 
 
 This can not be remedied by single companies 
 nor by the states that suffer most. The only rem- 
 edy is for the government to buy the land at the 
 head-waters of the rivers and reforest it. The 
 same conditions on a smaller scale are to be found
 
 78 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 in every mountainous region where the forests are 
 cut away. 
 
 The United States owns a large amount of for- 
 est but not nearly enough to insure a supply of 
 wood for the future. The public forest lands are 
 nearly all in the West. They consist of national 
 forests, national parks, Indian and military reserva- 
 tions and land open to entry as timber claims. _ In.,, 
 all they contain nearly 100,000,000 acres, or about 
 half as much as is contained in farmers' wood-lots 
 and about one-fourth as much as the amount owned 
 by large lumber companies. 
 
 The United States, on its public domain, is set- 
 ting about a careful system of cutting and replant- 
 ing. This system is known as forestry. It has 
 been worked out by some of the more advanced 
 nations of Europe who saw that destruction was 
 coming on them through the cutting away of their 
 forests. Now forestry is practised by every nation 
 except Turkey and China. The principles have 
 been well proved and the results of scientific care 
 of the forests are known to be even more sure than 
 in farming or live-stock raising. 
 
 The Department of Agriculture will send com- 
 plete directions for planting trees in rows at proper 
 distances, will tell what kinds are best suited to 
 each region and condition, how to make them grow 
 rapidly, and when to cut. All these things should
 
 FORESTS 79 
 
 be thoroughly understood by every land owner, 
 large or small, but at present forestry is practised 
 on only one per cent, of all land in this country, 
 owned by private persons or companies, though it 
 is practised on seventy per cent, of all public lands. 
 
 The countries that show the best results in for- 
 estry are some of the German states, particularly 
 Prussia and Saxony, and France. In Prussia the 
 rate of production is three times as great as it was 
 seventy-five years ago. There is three times as 
 much saw timber in a tree as there was at that 
 time, and the money returns from an average acre 
 of forest are now nearly ten times what they were 
 sixty years ago. In Saxony the state forests are 
 receiving two dollars and thirty cents per acre a 
 year above all expenses from forests on land not 
 fitted for agriculture, and the profit is increasing 
 every year. 
 
 France and Germany together spend $11,000,000 
 a year on their public forests and receive from them 
 an income of $30,000,000, or nearly three times as 
 much, while the United States spends for its pub- 
 lic forests more than ten times as much as it re- 
 ceives. 
 
 Many of our states are taking an active interest 
 in forestry and are buying tracts of land of low 
 value for state forests. .New York is taking the 
 lead in the work of planting forests, but even here
 
 8o CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 the amount done is much less than it should be. 
 The state forester says that one million trees are 
 planted each year while twenty millions should be 
 planted. 
 
 The National Conservation Commission reported 
 that the entire United States should plant an area 
 larger than the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and 
 West Virginia, in order to supply our future needs, 
 but that we have actually planted an area less than 
 the state of Rhode Island. 
 
 This, then, is the lesson we should learn in re- 
 gard to our forests: To guard against waste in 
 cutting and use, fire, and insects, and to plant trees 
 until our future supply of timber is assured, till 
 the head-waters of our streams are protected and 
 our waste lands made into valuable forest tracts; 
 till every farm has its wood-lot, and every com- 
 munity its fruit and shade. It is a work in which 
 every one of us may take some part and from 
 which good results are certain to come. 
 
 ORCHARDS 
 
 Another phase of tree-culture that does not, 
 strictly speaking, come under the head of forestry, 
 but which should be considered here, is the cultiva- 
 tion of orchards, either for home use or for com- 
 mercial purposes. 
 
 In a few sections, fruit is the most valuable of
 
 FORESTS 81 
 
 all crops. Oranges in Florida and California, 
 peaches in some of the southern states, and apples 
 in the northwest, are more profitable than any field 
 crops, and their cultivation is made the subject of 
 careful scientific study. But there are many other 
 states where the raising of fruit in commercial quan- 
 tities is almost altogether neglected, and to which 
 almost all fruit is shipped from other sections. 
 This is particularly true in the rich corn and wheat 
 producing states of the Mississippi Valley. 
 
 The early settlers each planted an orchard for 
 home use, and these produced the finest quality of 
 fruit in abundance; but usually, after being planted, 
 the trees were left to take care of themselves, while 
 the farmer's time and attention were given to his 
 fields of grain. 
 
 As time passed, plant diseases and insect pests 
 increased, winds broke down many of the unpruned 
 trees, frosts often blighted the entire crop of fruit, 
 and the uncultivated, sod-choked trees produced 
 fruit that was less in quantity and poorer in quality 
 each year. 
 
 In recent years the highest grade of apples have 
 all been shipped from the West. These are grown 
 on irrigated land; a high price being paid both for 
 the land itself and for the water-privilege, and the 
 orchards are seldom more than ten acres in extent. 
 Wind and frost may cause as much damage here
 
 82 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 as in the eastern states and plant diseases and insect 
 enemies are equally liable to injure the crop. 
 
 But here orcharding is carried on in a scientific 
 manner. The small size of the orchard makes it 
 possible for the owner properly to care for every 
 tree, and each one must be made a source of profit. 
 Every condition that tends to affect the crop is 
 carefully studied, and the remedy found and ap- 
 plied. 
 
 There is no reason why the same care and labor 
 should not produce equally good results with far 
 less expense in the well-watered regions of the 
 eastern and central part of the United States. The 
 neglected orchard will prove a failure anywhere, 
 as surely as will a neglected garden, and success 
 will come only by giving to fruit the same intelli- 
 gent care that would be bestowed upon any other 
 crop. 
 
 The cultivation of apples should receive particu- 
 lar attention in the north central states, because they 
 have great food value, are not perishable, can be 
 shipped long distances, and the demand, both at 
 home and abroad, is always greater than the supply. 
 The home orchard, however, should contain many 
 kinds of fruit, and the same general rules in regard 
 to the care of the orchard apply to all of them. 
 
 First, the orchard should not be located on land 
 that is fitted to produce the best farm crops, but it
 
 FORESTS 83 
 
 must not be too steep and hilly to be cultivated. A 
 sunny sloping hillside is best suited to orchard 
 crops. 
 
 In most cases little fertilization is needed except 
 the planting of clover or some other leguminous 
 crop. If corn be planted in young orchards, as is 
 often the case, potash should be used as a fertilizer 
 after the crop is gathered, since both corn and 
 fruit trees draw very heavily on the potash in the 
 soil. 
 
 Old orchards sometimes need a single application 
 of a general fertilizer containing all the principal 
 soil elements. All fertilizers should be applied not 
 merely around the base of the trunk, but as far 
 from it as the tree spreads its branches in all di- 
 rections. 
 
 The trees should be carefully pruned and special 
 attention paid to trimming the tops low to prevent 
 damage from winds, and also to make spraying 
 easy. 
 
 The soil should be deeply cultivated the first few 
 years in order to make the roots strike deep into 
 the ground, and afterward the soil should receive 
 some surface cultivation every year. 
 
 When there is danger of frost after the trees 
 have bloomed, brushwood fires are lighted and a 
 dense smoke is raised over the orchard by burning 
 pots of crude oil. This smoke is helpful in pre-
 
 84 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 venting the formation of frost, and will often be 
 the means of saving the crop. 
 
 The other great causes of failure to grow large 
 quantities of perfect fruit, if the varieties are well 
 chosen, are plant diseases and damage by insects. 
 The methods of their control are given in the chap- 
 ter on Insects, and include principally the disposal 
 of all decayed fruit, the raking up and burning of 
 all leaves in infected orchards, arsenical and lime 
 sprays, and, above all, such attention to pruning 
 and cultivation as will keep the trees in good condi- 
 tion. 
 
 Lastly, the keeping of bees in the orchard will pay 
 well, not only for the honey they produce, but be- 
 cause they assist greatly in carrying the pollen from 
 flower to flower, and so increasing the crop of fruit. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Forests. Report National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Forest Conservation, Papers and Discussions, Report Gov- 
 ernor's Conference. 
 
 Arbor Day, Forest Service Department of Agriculture Cir- 
 cular, 96. 
 
 Tree Planting on Rural School Grounds. Forest Service 
 Department of Agriculture Circular, 134. 
 
 Practical Assistance to Tree Planters. Forest Service De- 
 partment of Agriculture Circular, 22. 
 
 How to Transplant Forest Trees. Forest Service Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture Circular, 61. 
 
 Forest Planting on Coal Lands. Forest Service Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture Circular, 41.
 
 FORESTS 85 
 
 Forestry in the Public Schools. Forest Service Department 
 of Agriculture Circular, 130. 
 
 Primer of Forestry. (Pinchot). Forest Service Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture Circular, 173. 
 
 The Use of the National Forests. (Pinchot.) 
 
 What Forestry Has Done. Forest Service Department of 
 Agriculture Circular, 140. 
 
 Forest Preservation and National Prosperity. Forest Serv- 
 ice Department of Agriculture Circular, 35. 
 
 Forest Planting and Farm Management. Forest Service 
 Department of Agriculture Circular, 228. 
 
 Facts and Figures Regarding our Forest Resources. Forest 
 Service Department of Agriculture Circular, n. 
 
 Drain Upon the Forests. Forest Service Department of 
 Agriculture Circular, 129. 
 
 The Waning Hardwood Supply. Forest Service Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture Circular, 129. 
 
 Timber Supply of the United States. Forest Service De- 
 partment of Agriculture Circular, 116. 
 
 Forestry and the Lumber Supply. Forest Service Depart- 
 ment of Agriculture Circular, 97. 
 
 How to Cultivate and Care for Forests in Semi-arid Re- 
 gions. 
 
 Forest Service Department of Agriculture Circular, 54. 
 
 Paper-making Materials and their Conservation. Bureau of 
 Chemistry, 41.
 
 WATER 
 
 WATER is an absolute necessity to man, as much 
 as the air he breathes or the food he eats. Water 
 comes to us in the form of rain or snow. We 
 usually think of it as unlimited, but we must come 
 to think of it as a resource that can be abused and 
 wasted or made useful and profitable as is the soil 
 itself. 
 
 The amount of water is fixed and passes in an 
 endless round from cloud to river or land and 
 back to the clouds again. The average yearly rain- 
 fall of the United States is estimated at thirty 
 inches, about forty inches in the eastern half, an 
 average of eighteen inches in the western part, and 
 in many places not more than ten or twelve inches. 
 One inch of rain would amount to nearly one hun- 
 dred and one tons per acre, or on a roof twenty 
 feet long by twenty feet wide, one inch of rain 
 would be two hundred and fifty gallons. With a 
 rainfall of forty inches, this would amount to 
 10,000 gallons in a year, or an average, over every 
 bit of land twenty feet square, of twenty-seven 
 
 86
 
 WATER 87 
 
 gallons for every day in the year. This is about 
 the quantity that falls in the eastern part of the 
 United States. 
 
 It varies slightly from year to year, but there 
 is no more there is no possible way of adding 
 to it, though we may lessen it by allowing it to 
 rush out to sea, giving no service to the land. As 
 the land waters diminish the rainfall also grows 
 less. 
 
 This two hundred trillions cubic feet of water 
 which falls on our land every year constitutes our 
 entire water resource, is the source of all our rivers 
 and streams, of the moisture in the air, of our 
 rains and snows, and our water for plant and ani- 
 mal growth. 
 
 To understand how much this is, we may say 
 that it is about equal to ten times the amount of 
 water that flows through the Mississippi River sys- 
 tem. The water of the Mississippi and its branches 
 is nearly half of all the water in the United States 
 that flows through waterways to the sea. This 
 water that flows through our streams is sometimes 
 called the run-off. The run-off is increasing every 
 year as we cut our forests and cultivate our land. 
 It is used for navigation, irrigation and power, but 
 the increase is not an advantage for these purposes 
 as might be supposed, because it comes in disastrous
 
 88 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 floods, tearing away dams, ruining power sites, and 
 not only preventing navigation during the flood 
 season, but by filling up the rivers and changing 
 the channels, making navigation difficult and dan- 
 gerous throughout the year. The run-off is con- 
 trolled to some extent and may be brought under 
 almost as complete control as may be desired. 
 
 As much as the water of five or six Mississippis, 
 or a little more than half of our supply, is evapo- 
 rated to moisten and temper the air, to fall as rain 
 or snow, or to form dews. This is sometimes 
 called the fly-off, and except for some changes 
 caused by management of the land, is entirely be- 
 yond control. 
 
 A part of the remainder sinks into the soil below 
 the surface. A large portion of this helps to cause 
 the slow rock-decay that forms the soil, and which 
 is known as ground water. It is estimated that 
 within the first hundred feet below the surface of 
 the earth there is a quantity of water that has 
 seeped down; and that would form, if it were col- 
 lected, a vast reservoir sixteen or seventeen feet in 
 depth spreading over all the 3,000,000 square miles 
 of the area of our country. This is equal to about 
 seven years' rainfall and is a very important part 
 of our water resources. In many places it forms 
 into underground streams or lakes. It feeds all 
 the springs and many of the lakes. Our wells are
 
 WATER 89 
 
 dug or drilled into this underground water system. 
 It carries away the excess of salts and mineral 
 matter from the soil, the trees strike their roots 
 deep into the earth and draw from it, and last and 
 most important of all, that which sinks immediately 
 below the surface supplies all our plant growth. 
 So that it is this last portion, that which sinks be- 
 low the ground, and which is sometimes termed 
 the cut-off, amounting to about one-tenth of all 
 our water resource, or about the quantity that flows 
 through the Mississippi River system, that forms 
 the really important part. 
 
 On this depends all that makes a land habitable, 
 the water for drinking purposes and for plant and 
 animal growth. On it depends the rate of produc- 
 tion of every acre of farm and forest land and the 
 life of every animal. Every full-grown man of 
 one hundred and fifty pounds takes into his sys- 
 tem not less than a ton of water each year, and 
 every bushel of corn requires for its making fifteen 
 or twenty tons of water. 
 
 Of the importance of this Professor Chamber- 
 lain says : " The key to the problem of soil con- 
 servation lies in due control of the water that falls 
 on every acre. This water is an asset of great 
 value. It should be counted by every land owner 
 as a possible value, saved if turned where it will 
 do good, lost if permitted to run away, doubly lost
 
 90 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 if it also carries away the soil and does destructive 
 work below." 
 
 The uses of rainfall are given thus: 
 
 A due portion should go through the soil to its 
 bottom to promote rock decay. Some of it should 
 go into the underdrainage to carry away harmful 
 matter, another portion goes up to the surface car- 
 rying solutions needed by the plants. A portion 
 goes into the plants to nourish them, and still an- 
 other part runs off the surface, carrying away the 
 worn-out parts of the soil. 
 
 Crops can use to advantage all the rain that falls 
 during the growing season ; and in most cases crops 
 are all the better for all the water that can be 
 carried over from the winter. There are many 
 local exceptions, but in general crops are best when 
 the soil can be made to absorb as much of the rain- 
 fall and snowfall as possible. This also causes the 
 least possible amount of wash from the land. 
 
 Doctor N. J. McGee says : " Scarcely anywhere 
 in the United States is the rainfall excessive, that 
 is, greater than is needed by growing plants, liv- 
 ing animals and men. Nearly everywhere it falls 
 below this standard. In the western part the aver- 
 age rainfall is only about eighteen inches; in the 
 extreme eastern part the fall averages forty-eight 
 inches. In the western part much of the land is 
 unable to produce crops at all except when arti-
 
 WATER 91 
 
 ficially watered. The eastern part might produce 
 more abundant crops, develop greater industries 
 and support a larger population with a rainfall of 
 sixty inches than it is able to do with a rainfall of 
 forty-eight inches." As may readily be seen, the 
 fly-off can be controlled only in a very small de- 
 gree, by conserving the moisture that is in the soil, 
 and so preventing it from evaporating too rapidly. 
 
 The cut-off can be controlled to a considerable 
 extent through forestry and scientific farming and 
 it is very important that the supply should be as 
 carefully conserved as possible. 
 
 But it is in the run-off that the great waste of 
 water occurs, and also that great saving is possible. 
 It has been found by careful estimate that from 
 eighty-five per cent, to ninety-five per cent, of the 
 water that flows to the sea is wasted in freshets or 
 destructive floods. 
 
 We are not accustomed to think of the water as 
 wasted, since it seems beyond our control, but as 
 we are taking a careful account of stock, and seeing 
 how our forests, our fuels and our minerals are 
 disappearing, and our soil being carried out to sea 
 by the rushing waters, it is well to consider, also, 
 whether this great resource may not be so used as 
 to benefit mankind in many ways and at the same 
 time lessen the drain on other resources. 
 
 The water of streams may be divided as to use
 
 92 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 into four great classes. The most important is that 
 used by cities for general supply, for household and 
 drinking purposes; next, that which is used for 
 navigation and the running of boats to carry com- 
 merce; third, that which is used for artificial water- 
 ing or irrigation, and lastly, that which is used for 
 power in manufacturing. 
 
 In the past, when water has been used it has 
 seldom been employed for more than one of these 
 purposes, but as we come to understand more the 
 nature, value and possibilities of this great resource, 
 we shall learn to make the money spent for one 
 of these lines of activity supply several other needs. 
 
 As we study each of these separately we shall 
 see this interrelation among them. 
 
 The cities of the United States have expended 
 $250,000,000 in waterworks and nearly as much 
 more in land for reservoirs, and for canals for 
 conveying the water from these reservoirs to the 
 cities. The better managed systems protect the 
 drained lands from erosion by planting forests or 
 grass and the water is completely controlled, so that 
 all the water, even the storm overflow, is saved. 
 There is very little waste in these city water sys- 
 tems until it comes to the consumer, where, except 
 when it is sold through meters, the waste is often 
 great. 
 
 The failure to provide the greatest good lies in
 
 WATER 93 
 
 the fact that the water systems have been used for 
 water supply only and have not been made profitable 
 in other ways. The drainage basins should be heav- 
 ily planted with trees, which will in time yield a 
 large return, or with hay, which can be marketed 
 each year. Whenever possible, the canals carrying 
 the water supply should also be used to furnish 
 power. 
 
 The city of Los Angeles, when it had a popula- 
 tion of only 150,000, undertook to provide pure 
 water from a point two hundred and fifty miles dis- 
 tant. To do so it must take on itself a debt of 
 $23,000,000, a large sum for a city ten times its 
 size. Yet the people were ready to assume this 
 great burden to insure an unending supply of pure 
 water, for they realized that without it their city 
 could not continue to grow. It was not until the 
 plans for piping water to the city were almost com- 
 pleted that the value of the water-power along the 
 route was realized. It has been disposed of at a 
 rate that pays ten per cent, interest on the debt 
 each year, and has made what seemed a dangerous 
 risk, a profitable business arrangement. All these 
 other uses of water which are profitable, help to 
 lower the price of water to the users. 
 
 The matter of supreme importance in the water 
 supply, however, is not whether the water is cheap, 
 but whether it is pure. If refuse from factories
 
 94 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 is allowed to drain into a stream, the water becomes 
 loaded with poisonous chemicals, acids, or min- 
 erals. If city sewage or barn-yards are allowed to 
 drain into it, the germs of typhoid and other fevers 
 enter the water supply. To insure the purity of 
 water supply from a stream, no factory waste, city 
 sewage or country refuse should be allowed to enter 
 any part of the stream. In addition to this it 
 should be carefully filtered. 
 
 The disposal of waste is a serious problem, and 
 the easiest way is to divert it into the nearest water 
 course and trust to the old maxim, " Running water 
 purifies itself." 
 
 This, while true as a general fact, has so many 
 exceptions that it is not safe to trust to it. The 
 Sanitary District Canal of Chicago has proved 
 positively that even the most heavily germ-laden 
 water becomes pure by running many miles at a 
 regulated speed through the open country, but the 
 conditions are altogether different from those of an 
 ordinary river. First, in a river, sewage may enter 
 at any point down-stream to add to the germs al- 
 ready present in the water, while nothing is allowed 
 to enter the Drainage Canal after it leaves the city. 
 Second, some germs live for several days and may 
 be carried many miles. Only a microscopic test 
 can prove whether water contains such germs.
 
 WATER 95 
 
 Usually such tests are not made and water is used 
 without people knowing whether it is pure or not, 
 but the water of the Sanitary Canal is tested at 
 many points to determine its purity. Each hour 
 and each mile of its journey it grows purer. This 
 proves that although running water does purify it- 
 self, a stream that is drained into all along its course 
 is not a fit source of water supply. 
 
 Factory refuse, instead of being allowed to pol- 
 lute the waters, should be turned to good use by 
 extracting the chemicals, which form valuable by- 
 products. All farm waste should be taken to a 
 remote part of the farm, placed in an open shed or 
 vat with cement floor and screened from flies to 
 form a compost heap for fertilizers for the farm. 
 This will amply repay the extra trouble and ex- 
 pense by increasing the farm crops. The sooner 
 such refuse, especially manure, is returned to the 
 land, the more valuable it is as a fertilizer. 
 
 In cities the sewage should be disposed of in 
 such a way as to yield a profit to the city, and also 
 promote the health of the people. The sewage of a 
 city of 100,000 people is supposed to be worth, in 
 Germany, about $900,000 a year for fertilizer on 
 account of the phosphorus it contains. The city of 
 Berlin operates large sewage farms, using as labor- 
 ers men condemned to the workhouse. The ex-
 
 96 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 pense for land and sewer system was $13,000,000, 
 but it pays for the money invested, with $60,000 
 yearly profit over all expenses. 
 
 On the other hand the cost of impure water to 
 the city of Pittsburg was reckoned at $3,850,000, 
 and in the city of Albany, New York, the annual 
 loss was estimated at $475,000. 
 
 In the early settlement of our country all towns 
 were built on streams, and the ones which grew and 
 flourished were all on rivers large enough to carry 
 commerce by boat. After the invention of steam- 
 boats, daily packet lines were run on all the prin- 
 cipal rivers. 
 
 Albert Gallatin planned a complete system of im- 
 proved waterways, including many canals, that was 
 intended to establish a great commercial route. 
 Many canals were built and put into actual opera- 
 tion and dozens of others had been planned, when 
 the building of railways began. This new system 
 of transportation at once became popular. Not 
 only were no more canals dug and no more steam- 
 boat lines built, but many of those actually in oper- 
 ation were abandoned. 
 
 In order to encourage railroad building and de- 
 velop new regions, the government has given land 
 and money to the extent of hundreds of millions of 
 dollars, until now the railroads form one-seventh 
 of all our national wealth, having 228,000 miles of
 
 WATER 97 
 
 tracks and earning $2,500,000,000 each year, while 
 the waterways owned by the government have fallen 
 into disuse. 
 
 Within the last four or five years another change 
 has come about in the general attitude toward the 
 waterways. At the time that the crops are moved 
 in the fall, and when coal is needed for the winter 
 supply, there are not nearly enough cars in the 
 country to handle the volume of business, neither 
 are there enough locomotives to move the necessary 
 cars, nor tracks, nor stations. In short, the rail- 
 ways are entirely unable to handle the vast products 
 of the country during the busiest seasons. Many 
 persons in the West have suffered for fuel, and 
 commerce has been greatly checked by the short- 
 age; and the situation is growing worse each year 
 as production increases. 
 
 James J. Hill estimates that the cost of equip- 
 ping the railroads to carry the commerce of the 
 country would be from five to eight billion dollars. 
 This means a heavy tax on iron and coal and tim- 
 ber as well as on the labor resources of the coun- 
 try, and it would then be only a question of time 
 until still further extensions were needed. 
 
 With these facts in view, interest in the water- 
 ways of the country has been revived. 
 
 It is estimated that it will require five hundred 
 million dollars, or fifty million dollars a year for
 
 98 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 ten years completely to improve the waterways of 
 the country. This is not more than one-tenth of 
 what would be needed to equip the railroads. The 
 cost of carrying freight by rail is from four to five 
 times that of carrying it by water. 
 
 Much of the heavy freight of the country, coal, 
 iron, grain and lumber, should be carried in this 
 way, in order to reduce freight rates and so, indi- 
 rectly, the cost to the people, and further to relieve 
 the burden on the railways. 
 
 The railways, it might be added, would still have 
 a large and increasing package-freight business, be- 
 sides the handling of heavy freight in parts of the 
 country where there are no navigable rivers. 
 
 For these reasons it would seem clearly the only 
 wise policy to adopt a general plan for waterway 
 improvement and carry it into effect at once. But 
 there are many things to be considered. 
 
 Millions of dollars (in all about five hundred and 
 fifty-two millions) have been spent for the im- 
 provement of waterways. Some of it has resulted 
 in great gain, but a large part of it has been wasted 
 through lack of an organized plan. Work has been 
 begun and not enough money appropriated to finish 
 it. In the course of a few years much of the value 
 of the work is destroyed by the action of the cur- 
 rent or by shifting sands, or if a stretch of river 
 is finished in the most approved manner, often it
 
 WATER 99 
 
 is not used much, in some cases actually less after 
 than before the work was begun, and these things 
 have created a prejudice against waterway improve- 
 ments. 
 
 The other reason is that in spite of the over- 
 crowding of the railroads, the traffic on many of 
 our large rivers is steadily growing less. The In- 
 land Waterways Commission finds as a reason for 
 the decrease, the relations existing between the rail- 
 ways and the waterways. A railway, they consider, 
 has two classes of advantages. First, those that 
 come from natural conditions. A railroad line can 
 be built in any direction to any part of the coun- 
 try except the extremely mountainous parts, while 
 a river runs only in a single direction. 
 
 If a new region distant from a large water course 
 is opened up, as is being done rapidly in the West 
 through irrigation and dry farming, the people are 
 entirely dependent on the railways to develop it, to 
 bring them all the conveniences of the outside world, 
 and to carry the products of their land to the market. 
 
 Branch lines and switches can be built to fac- 
 tories and warehouses, while boats can reach only 
 those situated along the water-front. 
 
 Another advantage of the railroads is that they 
 bill freight all the way through, and that freight is 
 much more easily transferred from one road to 
 another. It is much more difficult and expensive
 
 ioo CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 to load and reload freight from boats and barges 
 on account of the high and low water stages of the 
 river. This difference amounts to as much as sixty 
 feet in the Ohio River at Cincinnati. Railways 
 make faster time, and the distance between two 
 points is usually shorter, though sometimes during 
 the busy season of the railways the river freight 
 reaches its destination much sooner. 
 
 The other class of reasons relates to the railways 
 themselves, which have always been in open com- 
 petition with the waterways, and to gain traffic for 
 themselves, usually charge lower rates to those 
 points to which boats also carry freight. In many 
 cases they have bought the steamboat lines so that 
 rates might be kept up, and then, unable to operate 
 the two lines as cheaply as one, have abandoned the 
 steamboat lines. 
 
 Another method by which the railroads have 
 driven out the water traffic, is by charging extremely 
 heavy rates for freight hauled a short distance to or 
 from boats, making it quite as cheap as well as 
 more convenient to send freight all the way by rail. 
 
 Lastly, railroad warehouses, terminals and ma- 
 chinery for handling freight are all much better 
 than those of inland steamboat lines, except at some 
 points on the Great Lakes where the traffic is very 
 heavy. 
 
 Some of these disadvantages might be overcome
 
 WATER 101 
 
 by law. In France, where the waterways are man- 
 aged better than in any other country, the law 
 requires that railroad rates be twenty per cent, 
 higher on all heavy freight than the rates on the 
 same freight if carried by water, and in several 
 countries railroad companies are not permitted to 
 own or manage a steamboat line. 
 
 These measures are suggestive of what may be 
 done by law to correct abuses, but laws alone can 
 not accomplish everything. The rivers belong to 
 all the people, and every one who wishes may oper- 
 ate steamboat or barge lines, but before these can 
 become profitable, and before first class warehouses 
 and machinery are installed, there must appear on 
 the part of the people a desire to patronize them. 
 The best results are found in those cases where 
 there is harmony between the railways and the 
 steamboat lines; those in which the steamboat lines 
 relieve the railways of much of the heavy freight 
 which they are not able to handle without greatly 
 increasing their present equipment. 
 
 There should be cooperation on the part of the 
 people. The towns and cities along the banks of 
 many European rivers provide suitable terminals, 
 warehouses and wharves with free use of the serv- 
 ice. In other cases this is done by private capital 
 with a charge for use to shippers. Sometimes it 
 is done by the steamboat companies themselves, but
 
 102 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 unless one or the other method is assured all along 
 the river it is not wise for the government to under- 
 take the improvement of a stream. 
 
 Intelligent improvement of the waterways of the 
 United States demands first that a careful survey 
 of the needs of the whole country be made, then 
 that a systematic plan be carried out providing for 
 the improvement of important streams first. 
 
 The state and nation should work together, and 
 any work that is begun should be completed as 
 promptly as possible so that its full benefit may be 
 realized. 
 
 Certain work, such as the improvement of the 
 channel, should be done by the national government, 
 since the waters belong to the nation; but the ex- 
 pense of constructing levees or dykes should be 
 borne by the land owners along the banks, because 
 the land thus protected is greatly increased in value ; 
 or by the state, which gets the return in increased 
 taxes. 
 
 In many instances, the improvement of a stream 
 would be a great benefit to one state or part of a 
 state, but it would be impossible in many years to 
 improve all the desirable streams, so that the larger 
 ones of most general importance must be consid- 
 ered first. 
 
 In such cases the improvement is often under- 
 taken by the state. Some navigable rivers have
 
 WATER 103 
 
 been thus improved and many canals are the prop- 
 erty of states or of private companies. 
 
 Only a few rivers have a steady flow throughout 
 the year at a depth sufficient to carry large boats. 
 On most streams destructive floods at certain sea- 
 sons and low waters at others interfere with navi- 
 gation during a considerable part of the year. 
 Most rivers have sand-bars, sunken rocks or logs 
 in the channel, making the passage of boats difficult 
 and dangerous. Others are well suited for naviga- 
 tion, except at points where rapids and falls make 
 it impossible for boats to pass. The Ohio, the 
 Tennessee, the Missouri and the upper Mississippi 
 abound in such dangerous places and these should 
 be canalized. It is the improving of rivers in these 
 ways, dredging harbors to make them safer, and 
 digging canals to provide a short passage between 
 two bodies of water, that constitute what is known 
 as the Improvement of Inland Waters. 
 
 If you look at a map showing the navigable 
 streams of the United States you will see that nearly 
 all of them lie in the eastern part. 
 
 The Mississippi is like a great artery with 
 branches extending in all directions, east and west. 
 The Great Lakes, with their outlet, the St. Law- 
 rence River, and the many important rivers empty- 
 ing into the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, 
 such as the Merrimac, Hudson, Delaware, Susque-
 
 104 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 hanna, Potomac and Rio Grande, form great high- 
 ways for all the commerce of the eastern part of 
 the country, while the Columbia, Sacramento and 
 Colorado Rivers, with their branches, are the only, 
 navigable streams of any importance west of the 
 Mississippi River system. 
 
 In some places a small portion of land divides 
 two important water areas, and canals dug through 
 this neck of land change the commercial routes of 
 the whole world. Such are the Isthmus of Suez, 
 eighty-seven miles wide, through which a canal was 
 cut that saves a sailing distance of 3,700 miles from 
 England to India. Only the Isthmus of Panama, 
 forty-nine miles in width, divides the Atlantic from 
 the Pacific Ocean, When the canal across this 
 narrow strip is completed, the sailing distance from 
 New York to San Francisco will be shortened 8,000 
 miles, the entire distance around South America. 
 
 The Sault Ste. Marie Canal, connecting Lakes 
 Superior and Huron, is only a little more than a 
 mile and a half long, but it opens up the entire 
 iron, copper, lumber and wheat resources of the 
 Northwest to cheap water passage through the 
 other lakes to the manufacturing region of the 
 East. 
 
 The Erie Canal, by connecting Lake Erie with the 
 Hudson River from Buffalo to Albany, New York, 
 makes the only water passage from the Great Lakes
 
 WATER 105 
 
 to the ocean that lies within the borders of the 
 United States. 
 
 If you will turn to the map again, you will see 
 still other places where a short canal may open up 
 an entirely new and important water route. From 
 Chicago to Lockport, Illinois, is only thirty-seven 
 miles, but Chicago is on Lake Michigan, while Lock- 
 port is on the Illinois River, a branch of the Missis- 
 sippi. This canal, a large part of which is now in 
 operation, is a part of the Lakes to Gulf waterway. 
 One plan is to broaden and deepen the channel so 
 that large vessels may pass, without unloading, from 
 the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 Another proposed canal which would be under- 
 taken largely by individual states and a part of 
 which is already completed, would afford a safe 
 inside passage connecting the many bays, channels 
 and navigable rivers of the Atlantic coast. 
 
 Still another proposed measure is the cutting of 
 a canal from the southern end of Lake Michigan 
 to the western end of Lake Erie at Toledo, Ohio, 
 to avoid the long haul up Lake Michigan and down 
 Lake Huron again. 
 
 The United States now has 25,000 miles of nav- 
 igable rivers and a nearly equal mileage of rivers 
 not now navigable but which might be made com- 
 mercially important; five great lakes that have a 
 combined length of 1,410 miles, 2,120 miles of
 
 io6 CHECKING THE .WASTE 
 
 operated canals, and 2,500 miles of sounds, bays 
 and bayous, that might be joined by tidewater 
 canals easily constructed, less than 1,000 miles long 
 altogether, and making a continuous passage from 
 New England to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 In all, our waterways at the present time are 
 55,000 to 60,000 miles long, the greatest system 
 in the world, but almost unused. 
 
 The most important waterway improvement so 
 far completed, is the Sault Ste. Marie, or the " Soo " 
 canal which cost $96,000,000. A depth of eight 
 feet was increased to twenty-one feet The traffic 
 has risen in sixteen years from a million and a quar- 
 ter tons to forty-one and a quarter million tons. 
 
 A large proportion of the United States is not 
 naturally fitted to be the home of man; at least, it 
 is not fitted to produce his food, and except on the 
 lofty mountains the reason for this will almost al- 
 ways be found to be either a lack or an excess of 
 water. 
 
 In some parts of the country, there is, as we have 
 seen, little rainfall. These arid or semi-arid lands 
 must be provided with water for drinking purposes 
 and for agriculture. The diverting of water 
 courses into canals and ditches so that water can 
 be carried to these waste lands is called irrigation. 
 
 In other parts of the country where rains are 
 abundant, serious floods occur every year, often
 
 WATER 107 
 
 many times in a year. Thousands of acres of land 
 thus subject to overflow are lost to use. The hold- 
 ing back of these flood waters in the upper part of 
 the rivers, and so preventing these overflows, is 
 termed storage of waters. 
 
 In still other regions the rainfall is abundant, 
 and the land low-lying. Large areas are always 
 covered with water. Such lands are called swamps 
 or bogs, and when drained, they become the richest 
 of agricultural lands. Irrigation, storage and 
 drainage are the three methods employed to make 
 waste lands valuable and useful. The land is 
 saved or reclaimed, so all these methods of balancing 
 and distributing the water supply are called reclama- 
 tion. 
 
 In general it may be said that irrigation is more 
 generally needed in the West, storage of flood waters 
 in the central and eastern states, and drainage in 
 the South. 
 
 By thus distributing the rainfall, hundreds of 
 millions of acres have been or may be reclaimed, 
 and large regions, formerly unfit to inhabit, have 
 been turned into profitable farms. Three-fourths 
 of one per cent, of our total rainfall, or two per 
 cent, of all that falls in the West, is used for irrigat- 
 ing 13,000,000 acres. 
 
 There are several methods of irrigation which 
 are adapted to different regions and different crops.
 
 io8 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The rice fields of South Carolina, Georgia, Louisi- 
 ana and Texas are irrigated by allowing the land 
 to remain continually flooded to a depth of several 
 inches. When the irrigation season is over the 
 levees are opened, and the water runs off rapidly, 
 and the crop is soon ready to be harvested. Tidal 
 rivers are used to supply water in most cases, but 
 in Texas many flowing wells are employed for irri- 
 gation. 
 
 In Florida, where irrigation is used largely for 
 intensive farming, various means are employed, 
 some of which are also used in the western and 
 southwestern states. Mechanical pumps, operated 
 by turbine wheels, pump the water from the rivers if 
 a lift be required. Sometimes the water is pumped 
 direct to the fields in iron pipes and applied by 
 means of hydrants and hose, as in a city water sys- 
 tem. 
 
 Overhead pipe lines are now recognized as the 
 most perfect and satisfactory form of artificial 
 watering. Two-inch pipes are run over frames sev- 
 eral feet in height. These are arranged in parallel 
 lines all over the fields about forty feet apart. At 
 intervals of forty feet, a small iron pipe, ending 
 with a fine spraying attachment, extends upward. 
 The water is turned on in the evening and comes 
 out of the sprayer in a fine mist and falls upon the 
 plants like a gentle rain.
 
 WATER 109 
 
 By another form of irrigation, the fields are di- 
 vided at regular intervals by wide wooden troughs 
 from which water is directed between the rows of 
 plants. Main canals leading from the streams and 
 intersected by short canals extend in all directions 
 through the fields and orchards, and are distributed 
 in various ways. This system is in general use 
 throughout the arid portions of the West. The 
 methods are said to be the most scientific and varied 
 in southern California. 
 
 When water for irrigation is supplied from wells 
 some underground system is generally used. One 
 common method is to lay continuous pipes from the 
 wells all over the fields and distribute from hydrants, 
 plugs and standpipes. 
 
 By still another system, the water is carried be- 
 low the surface through pipes which are broken 
 every few inches and laid in beds of charcoal. 
 
 In the eastern states irrigation is only employed 
 in dry weather to increase the yield of vegetable 
 crops. In the arid w r estern region it transforms 
 what would otherwise be a dreary desert into fer- 
 tile valleys. 
 
 William J. Bryan, speaking at the first Conserva- 
 tion Congress, said, " Last September, I visited the 
 southern part of Idaho and saw there a tract that 
 has been recently reclaimed. I had been there be- 
 fore. I had looked upon these lands as so barren
 
 I io CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 that it seemed as if it were impossible that they 
 could ever be made useful. 
 
 " When I went back this time and found that in 
 three years 1,700,000 acres of land had been re- 
 claimed, that where three years ago nothing but 
 sage-brush grew, they are now raising seven tons 
 of alfalfa to the acre, and more than a hundred 
 bushels of oats; when I found that ten thousand 
 people are living on that tract, that in one town that 
 has grown up in that time there are more than 
 1,900 inhabitants, and in three banks they had de- 
 posits of over half a million dollars, I had some 
 realization of the magic power of water when ap- 
 plied to these desert lands." 
 
 The same thing might be said of other regions 
 throughout the West. In the Salton district of Cal- 
 ifornia a marvelous change has been brought about 
 by irrigation. A few years ago that was one of 
 the most desolate and forbidding regions on our 
 continent. Now it is covered with several thou- 
 sands of acres of alfalfa and other crops, and it 
 bids fair to be a great fruit region. Of southern 
 California it is said, " The irrigation systems of 
 this part of the state are known all over the world, 
 and have created a prosperous commonwealth in a 
 region which would be a scene of utter desolation 
 without them/* 
 
 This locality presents a better opportunity for
 
 WATER in 
 
 the scientific study of farming by irrigation than 
 exists anywhere else in the world. Here all land 
 values depend directly on ability to obtain a water 
 supply. So precious is the water and so abundant 
 are the rewards that follow its application to the 
 soil that the most careful consideration is given 
 to the various sources of supply and distribution. 
 
 As land becomes scarcer and the cost of living 
 greater on account of the increase in population, 
 men are turning more and more to irrigation to 
 solve the problem of food supply. 
 
 As showing what may be accomplished by irriga- 
 tion, the report of the last census says : " The con- 
 struction of large irrigation works on the Platte, 
 Yellowstone and Arkansas Rivers would render fer- 
 tile an area equal to that of some eastern states. 
 Engineers are grappling with the great problems of 
 conserving the flood waters of these streams, which 
 now are wasted and help to increase the destructive 
 floods of the Mississippi. The solving of these 
 problems will change a vast area of country, now 
 practically worthless, into valuable farms." 
 
 The " Great Bend " country, drained by the Co- 
 lumbia River, contains several million acres of land 
 which only requires .water to make it of great agri- 
 cultural value. 
 
 The Gila River basin contains more than 10,000,- 
 ooo acres of fertile land, capable of producing im-
 
 H2 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 mense crops if irrigated, but without irrigation it 
 is a desert land where only sage-brush and cactus 
 flourish. 
 
 From arid lands capable of producing excellent 
 crops but lacking in the magical element of water, 
 we pass to the consideration of lands where the 
 richest of soils are shut off from productiveness 
 because they are covered with water. On the lower 
 Mississippi the soil is richer than in any other part 
 of the United States, but much of it is overflowed 
 so frequently that it is unfit for cultivation. Dykes 
 and levees have reclaimed thousands of acres of 
 such overflow land. Many states control large 
 marshy sections that have been or may be reclaimed. 
 
 In southern Florida lie the Everglades, a vast 
 country which has been worse than valueless; a 
 malarial region abounding in alligators, rattlesnakes, 
 scorpions and other dangerous animals and insects. 
 The state of Florida has undertaken the work of 
 draining this great swamp, and when the task is 
 completed, Florida will have added to its resources 
 3,000,000 acres of the richest soil for the raising 
 of winter vegetables and fruits. 
 
 Florida is engaged in another great project 
 the digging of an inside passage connecting its in- 
 land tidal waters by a canal system which will open 
 to navigation a continuous inland waterway six 
 hundred miles in length. In digging these canals
 
 WATER 113 
 
 through the marshes bordering the coast, thousands 
 of acres of exceedingly fertile land have been re- 
 claimed and are now producing valuable crops. 
 
 The Kankakee marshes in Indiana have been 
 drained, adding many thousands of acres of rich 
 soil to the agricultural area of the state. 
 
 In all, about 80,000,000 acres are so wet that 
 they must be drained in order to make them pro- 
 duce good farm crops, but which, while now cov- 
 ered only with marsh grass or undergrowth, is 
 capable of being made the most fertile of all land. 
 
 This swamp land is ten times the area of Holland, 
 which supports a population of 5,000,000 people. 
 It is therefore easy to see how greatly we may add 
 to our productive territory and our national wealth 
 by reclamation through drainage. 
 
 We now come to the use of water as power; and 
 although in the last fifty years this subject has re- 
 ceived little attention, as manufacturing increases 
 and as fuel decreases and becomes higher, the value 
 of water becomes more evident, and water-power 
 sites are being eagerly sought. 
 
 Our age may come to be known in the future as 
 the age of power, because through the application 
 of mechanical power man has gained such mar- 
 velous control over the world about him. Wind 
 and water led in the production of power until 
 about 1870, since which time they have scarcely
 
 ii 4 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 increased at all, the greater advantages of steam 
 and electricity having driven them out. 
 
 As long as all factories had to be built by the side 
 of streams having suitable water-power, the num- 
 ber and size of factories were always extremely lim- 
 ited. .With the introduction of steam it became 
 possible to build factories at mines, in forests, in 
 fruit or grain regions, wherever the supply of raw 
 material was plentiful, and to multiply factories 
 of all kinds in cities near the markets for their 
 product, or where labor was cheap and abundant. 
 But power could only be used where it was de- 
 veloped, and the size of the power plant depended 
 on the amount of business done by each individual 
 user. 
 
 Now a new era of power has again enlarged the 
 possibilities of manufacturing. By means of elec- 
 tricity the work, not only of factories, but also of 
 the home and the farm may be done in any place 
 where electricity can be installed. We must bear 
 in mind that electricity is never a source of power, 
 but is only the agent that carries power to the user. 
 The source of all electric power is either steam or 
 water, produced by water-wheels, turbines, steam- 
 engines or gas-engines. The economical way to 
 furnish electric power is to establish central power 
 plants, and electricity may be conveyed from them 
 for many miles. An electric railway, telegraph, or
 
 WATER 115 
 
 telephone system many miles in length is operated 
 from a single power plant. Electric light and power 
 are transmitted all over the largest cities. It is no 
 longer necessary that a factory be of any specified 
 size nor that it have any waste power. If it be 
 within reach of the electrical current it may use as 
 much or as little as is needed. 
 
 The cheapness of electric power must always de- 
 pend on nearness to the source of supply or to the 
 market. Until a short time ago it was customary 
 to locate electric power-houses near the market, 
 that is, in cities. But the benefits to be derived 
 from having the electric plant near the source of 
 power, so that the cost of production is greatly 
 lessened, are becoming better recognized. This 
 will make water-power increasingly valuable. 
 
 It is even now practicable to develop water-power, 
 wherever located, for the production of electricity. 
 Although the lowest grade coals are used for elec- 
 tric power at the mines yet they can now be used 
 for still other purposes. Coal or other fuel once 
 used can not be replaced, but when electricity is 
 derived from water-power only energy otherwise 
 wasted is used. This energy, if derived from water- 
 power, is all added to our assets instead of being lost. 
 
 For many years the amount of power used for 
 manufacturing and other purposes has doubled 
 about once in ten years, and the steady pace kept
 
 n6 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 by different lines of development shows how closely 
 they are related. Our power, our forest cut, the 
 use of our iron and other minerals, our coal and 
 petroleum, the railroad earnings, freight and pas- 
 senger traffic, and our agricultural products all 
 double themselves every ten years. This means that 
 in ten years we shall require twice as much power 
 as now, but will have far less coal to use. This 
 raises the question, have we available water-power 
 to conserve our coal supply? Let us see. It is 
 estimated that we are now using 26,000,000 horse- 
 power of energy derived from steam, 3,000,000 
 horse-power derived from water, and 800,000 from 
 gas or oil, a total of 29,800,000 horse-power. It 
 is also estimated that there is now running idly over 
 dams, falls, and rapids 30,000,000 horse-power of 
 energy. In other words, we are wasting every day 
 enough water to run every factory and mill, and 
 to turn every wheel, to move every electric car and 
 to supply every electric light or power-station in 
 the country. 
 
 The amount of water-power is gauged solely by 
 the low-water stage of the stream. A river is con- 
 sidered to produce only as much power as it can 
 furnish at its season of lowest water. At other 
 times factories may be operated more actively, but 
 usually most of the extra power is wasted during a 
 large part of the year.
 
 WATER 117 
 
 If these storm or flood waters can be stored in 
 reservoirs, the stream-flow throughout the year can 
 be made fairly uniform and the power possibilities 
 greatly increased. The Geological Survey believes 
 that by storing the flood waters and regulating the 
 flow of the streams, the large rivers of the United 
 States may be made to furnish 150,000,000 horse- 
 power, enough, if it could be utilized, to supply 
 every power need of our country for many years 
 to come without using a ton of our coal, and without 
 in any way decreasing the water. 
 
 Of course this can never be practicable. Much 
 power will always be needed where no stream for 
 power is available. But the lesson is plain that 
 where water can be used it should be, both in order 
 to save the coal and because it can be produced 
 more cheaply. The 30,000,000 horse-power now 
 available, if produced in our most modern electric 
 plants, would require the burning of nearly 225,- 
 000,000 tons of coal, and if in the average plant run 
 by steam-engines, more than 650,000,000 tons of 
 coal, which is fifty per cent, more than all the coal 
 that is now produced in this country. At three dol- 
 lars per ton it would cost $2,000,000,000 a year to 
 supply the coal to furnish the power that we might 
 have, one might almost say, as a by-product from 
 the improving of the rivers for navigation. The 
 development of the water-power possibilities of the
 
 n8 CHECKING THE .WASTE 
 
 country is now going forward at a rapid rate, how- 
 ever. 
 
 Dams on the Susquehanna River will soon make 
 30,000 horse-power available, which could be in- 
 creased to 200,000 by building storage reservoirs. 
 
 A dam just begun at the rapids of the Mississippi 
 River at Keokuk, Iowa, will, when completed, fur- 
 nish 200,000 horse-power. Niagara is producing 
 56,000 horse-power on the United States side. 
 The Muscle Shoals Falls rapids in the Tennessee 
 River is furnishing 188,000 horse-power. Illinois 
 will greatly increase its possibilities for offering 
 cheap power to factories, when the Lakes to Gulf 
 Canal with 173,000,000 horse-power worth $12,- 
 750,000 yearly, and the Chicago Drainage or San- 
 itary Canal, which has nearly 60,000 horse-power, 
 are complete. Both of these projects were under- 
 taken by the state. 
 
 In California 250,000 horse-power is now in oper- 
 ation, and 5,000,000 horse-power might easily be 
 developed in that state alone, which at the price of 
 coal would be worth a billion dollars a year. 
 
 New England has the oldest system of water- 
 power control, because before the era of steam it 
 was the chief manufacturing region of the country. 
 The Merrimac, flowing through New Hampshire 
 and Massachusetts, is the most carefully conserved 
 river in the world, and Governor Dingley of Maine
 
 WATER 119 
 
 said that the water-power of Maine is equal to the 
 working energy of 13,000,000 men. 
 
 The money value is counted at twenty dollars a 
 year per horse power, but it frequently brings as 
 high as one hundred or even one hundred and fifty 
 dollars a year in a good manufacturing region, so 
 that the value of our water-power facilities can 
 hardly be computed. 
 
 An ideal picture of the harmonious development 
 of our water resources for all purposes is one that 
 is not too difficult to realize. It is the ideal that 
 should be always before us in the improvement of 
 our waterways, and we should bear in mind that 
 although the expense will be heavy, it will not cost 
 more than one-tenth as much to improve all the 
 important waterways as to equip the railways to 
 carry the traffic they will be called on to carry in 
 the next ten years; and also that in the past, for 
 every dollar that has been spent on waterways, 
 almost twenty-five dollars has been spent on rail- 
 ways. The railways are a great and important 
 part of our national development, but the waterways 
 should not be neglected. Rather, the two should 
 be so harmonized and adjusted as to make one great 
 commercial system that will furnish cheap and abun- 
 dant transportation for all our commerce. 
 
 The most complete plan for conserving our 
 waters is as follows: First, build storage reser-
 
 120 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 voirs along the upper stretches of the river to hold 
 the overflow waters of the flood season which are 
 to be turned into the main channel when the water 
 becomes too low for ordinary navigation. 
 
 These storage reservoirs should be on the low- 
 est grade of land, that which would be least pro- 
 ductive. The reservoirs should be well stocked 
 with the best varieties of fish to make them profit- 
 able. The banks should be planted with forest trees 
 and made as attractive as they can be made to 
 form public parks and pleasure grounds for the 
 people, where boating, fishing and bathing may be 
 enjoyed. 
 
 The next point is to remove all obstructions from 
 the river, to canalize it at shallow places or rapids, 
 so that the whole river will be navigable, and, if 
 necessary, to deepen the channel so that it will carry 
 large vessels between two important points. 
 
 Dams should be built to take advantage of every 
 opportunity for water-power. One of the worst 
 mistakes in the past has been the failure to use 
 the power that might have been developed in im- 
 proving the streams for navigation. 
 
 Rivers should be made profitable still further 
 by stocking w r ith fish and should be kept clear of 
 factory refuse and sewage. Soil-wash should be 
 lessened by planting trees and shrubs along the
 
 WATER 121 
 
 banks; and where overflow or erosion lowers the 
 value of the land or repeatedly ruins the crops, dykes 
 and levees should be built. 
 
 The rivers most important commercially should 
 be improved first. Canals should be cut between 
 waterways where large benefits will result; over- 
 flow and swamp land should be drained, and in arid 
 regions every particle of water conserved for irri- 
 gation purposes. 
 
 The irrigation canals may also be used to supply 
 water-power, and the canals may be used as are 
 other canals for towing barges. If electric power 
 is produced, electric towing is cheap and very de- 
 sirable as a means of transportation. 
 
 In short, our water supply should be as care- 
 fully used and with as little waste as the land of 
 forests. The most important improvements needed 
 are, a Lakes to Gulf Waterway that shall be safe 
 and practicable at least for vessels of moderate 
 size; the improvement of the Ohio, Missouri, Ten- 
 nessee and Upper Mississippi Rivers; an inner 
 coast passage from New England to Florida, and 
 in navigable rivers dredging and deepening if nec- 
 essary, to make many outlets to the sea which will 
 afford cheap transportation. 
 
 In the West, the Columbia, San Joaquin and 
 Sacramento Rivers with their branches should be
 
 123 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 made navigable. Many western rivers have been 
 almost ruined by filling with rocks in hydraulic 
 mining, but this is now prohibited by law and if the 
 channels were cleared they would again become 
 navigable. 
 
 Appropriations for much of this work have 
 already been made by Congress, but the work is 
 not systematically planned. The cost of all of it 
 would be about sixty-two and a half cents a year 
 for each man, woman and child in the country and 
 every one would receive some benefit. 
 
 The National Conservation Commission on Wa- 
 terways found that the average family pays for 
 transportation or freight on all its food and clothing 
 and the necessities of life, nearly or quite one-third 
 their actual cost. " It is estimated that the direct 
 benefits would be a yearly saving in freight han- 
 dling of $250,000,000, a yearly saving in flood dam- 
 age of $150,000,000, a saving in forest fires of at 
 least $25,000,000, a benefit through cheapened 
 power of fully $75,000,000 and a yearly saving in 
 farm production of $500,000,000; a total of 
 $1,000,000,000, or twelve dollars and fifty cents 
 for each person twenty times the cost ! And this 
 does not take into account the benefits from irriga- 
 tion, drainage, and the lessening of disease by a 
 pure water supply."
 
 WATER 123 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Waters. Report of the National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Report of Inland Waterways Commission, 1908. 
 
 American Inland Waterways. H. Quick. 
 
 Waterways and Water Transportation. J. S. Jeans. 
 
 Waterway Transportation in Europe. L. G. McPherson. 
 
 Highways of Progress. J. J. Hill. 
 
 Navigation Resources of the United States. (Johnson.) 
 Report, Governor's Conference. 
 
 Conservation of Power Resources. (H. St. Clair Putnam.) 
 Report, Governor's Conference. 
 
 Florida's Waterways. (Miles.) Report, Governor's Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Our Water Resources. (Lyman Cooley.) Report, Gov- 
 ernor's Conference. 
 
 The Lakes-to-Gulf Waterway. (Randolph.) Report, Gov- 
 ernor's Conference. 
 
 Water Resources. (Kummel.) Report, Governor's Con- 
 ference. 
 
 Necessity for Waterway Improvement. (Austin.) Report, 
 Governor's Conference. 
 
 Report Congressional Committee on European Waterways. 
 Senate Document, 1910. 
 
 River and Harbor Bill. Senate Document. Burton, 1910. 
 
 Forests, Water Storage, Power and Navigation. (Taylor.) 
 Proceedings of the Am. Hydrochemical Society. 
 
 Our Inland Waterways. (McGee.) 
 
 Outlines of Hydrology. (McGee.) 
 
 Natural Movement of Water in Semi-arid Regions. (Mc- 
 Gee.) 
 
 Irrigation in the United States. Dept. Commerce and Labor 
 Census Bureau. 
 
 Irrigation Projects of the U. S. Reclamation Service. 
 
 Reports of Irrigation in various states. Apply to Gov- 
 ernor.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 COAL 
 
 WHEN we begin to study the mineral resources 
 of the country we pass to conditions altogether dif- 
 ferent from those which we have been considering. 
 Heretofore we have been dealing with resources 
 that can be renewed, the soil by proper manage- 
 ment, the forests by replanting, the waters by na- 
 ture's own processes; but the fuels, the iron and 
 many other mineral resources once used are gone 
 for ever. 
 
 As to their importance Andrew Carnegie says: 
 " Of all the world's metals iron is in our day the 
 most useful. The opening of the iron age marked 
 the beginning of real industrial development To- 
 day the position of nations may almost be measured 
 by its production and use. Iron and coal form the 
 foundation of our prosperity. The value of each 
 depends upon the amount and nearness of the other. 
 In modern times the manufacturing and transpor- 
 tation industries rest upon them, and with suffi- 
 cient land and a fertile soil, these determine the 
 progress of any people." 
 
 124
 
 COAL 125 
 
 We are sometimes told that we need have no 
 anxiety about the future, that new discoveries and 
 inventions will take the place of the present fuels, 
 and even substitutes for minerals will be devised 
 long before the supply is exhausted. This may be 
 true, and in a way the future must take care of 
 itself, but until new inventions have actually been 
 made it is criminal to waste present resources and 
 blindly trust that time will make our folly appear 
 good judgment and foresight. 
 
 We have vast mineral resources unused ; the pres- 
 ent generation, even its children and its children's 
 children need have no fear of a shortage. But in 
 the use of those resources that are steadily and 
 for ever diminishing we must look a long way into 
 the future. We are under the most solemn obliga- 
 tion to take only our part of the store, and leave 
 the rest untouched and unspoiled for those who 
 are to come after us. When we consider what 
 these mineral resources have done for our country 
 in the last fifty years, when we realize that it is 
 only by having cheap and abundant coal, iron, and 
 copper that our railroads, our various electric sys- 
 tems, and our great manufactories have been devel- 
 oped, we can realize our duty to give the coming 
 generations an equal opportunity to develop their 
 ideas. 
 
 The yearly products of the mines of the United
 
 126 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 States are now valued at more than $2,000,000,000. 
 Sixty-five car-loads of freight out of every hun- 
 dred carried by our railroads are made up of min- 
 eral products. More than a million men are em- 
 ployed at the mines, and more than twice that 
 number in handling and transporting mine prod- 
 ucts. 
 
 Of every one hundred tons of coal mined in the 
 whole world, the United States produces forty- 
 three tons. We supply forty-five tons out of every 
 hundred of iron ore, twenty-two tons of gold, thirty 
 tons of silver, thirty-three tons of lead, nearly 
 twenty-eight tons of the zinc, about fifty-five tons 
 of the copper, and sixty-three tons of the petroleum 
 consumed by all civilized countries. 
 
 This would be a cause for great national pride 
 if we did not need also to consider the shameful 
 fact that our wastes or losses in the mining, hand- 
 dling, and use of our mineral products are estimated 
 at more than $1,500,000 per day, or, for the year, 
 the gigantic sum of $547,500,000. That is, more 
 than one- fourth of the entire output is wasted ! 
 
 Of all our minerals, the fuels which supply heat, 
 light, and power for domestic and manufacturing 
 purposes, are the most necessary and important. 
 Other materials can not be manufactured without 
 their aid. Almost every particular of modern life 
 would be changed if we no longer had plenty of
 
 COAL 127 
 
 fuel. Its use means its immediate and complete 
 destruction, which is true of no other resource, and 
 the use of fuels is increasing and will increase so 
 rapidly that their conservation is becoming a serious 
 problem. 
 
 The principal fuels are coal, gas, oil, peat, alco- 
 hol, and wood, and of these, coal is at present by 
 far the most important. The first record of coal 
 mined in this country was in 1814, when twenty- 
 two tons of anthracite, or hard coal, were mined 
 in Pennsylvania. An increasing amount was mined 
 each year, but until 1821 the production was less 
 than five hundred tons per year. In 1822 the pro- 
 duction advanced to nearly 60,000 tons, and since 
 that time has increased by leaps and bounds. 
 
 During the seventy-five years from 1820 to 1895, 
 nearly 4,000,000,000 tons were mined by methods 
 so wasteful that 6,000,000,000 tons were destroyed 
 or allowed to remain in the ground so that it could 
 never be recovered. Within the next ten years as 
 much was produced as in the entire seventy-five pre- 
 ceding years, and in this period 3,000,000,000 tons 
 were destroyed or left in the ground beyond the 
 reach of future use. Up to this time the actual 
 amount of coal used has been over 7,500,000,000 
 tons ; the waste 9,000,000,000 tons. 
 
 Experts estimate that in the beginning there were 
 somewhere about 2,000,000,000,000 tons of avail-
 
 128 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 able coal, so that we have now, with all our waste- 
 fulness, used less than two per cent, of our original 
 inheritance. But we must remember that in the 
 ten years closing with 1905, we used as much as 
 during the entire history of our country up to that 
 time, and the rate of consumption is still increas- 
 ing. In 1907 the amount mined was about 450,- 
 000,000 tons. Counting on a continuance of the 
 same rate of increase, in 1917 it will be 900,000,000 
 tons a year, and if the same conditions should con- 
 tinue for twenty years we should be using and wast- 
 ing in one year as much as we have used in all our 
 history up to the present time. By that time more 
 than one-eighth of our original supply will be gone, 
 and in less than two hundred years nearly all of it 
 will have for ever disappeared. 
 
 That is a long time to look forward, but a short 
 time in looking backward. It carries us back only 
 to the childhood of Benjamin Franklin and others 
 prominent in our early history; and if this nation 
 could look forward to only an equal period of pros- 
 perous development in the future the time would 
 seem short indeed. 
 
 But the danger of our coal supply becoming ex- 
 hausted lies not so much in its present use as in the 
 rapid increase in its consumption. Fifty years ago 
 (about the time of the Civil War) we were using 
 an amount equal to a little more than a quarter of
 
 COAL 129 
 
 a ton for every man, woman and child then in the 
 country. Now the rate is five tons, or twenty times 
 that amount, for each person of all our greatly in- 
 creased population. 
 
 The Pittsburg Coal Company owns about one- 
 seventh of the great Pennsylvania anthracite fields. 
 From the amount it is now mining each year and 
 judging from the amount of coal it is able, w r ith 
 present methods, to reclaim from an acre of coal 
 land, the estimate is made that this Pittsburg field 
 will be exhausted in ninety-three years. A like com- 
 parison of all the eastern fields indicates that by the 
 beginning of the next century there will be prac- 
 tically no cheap fuel left in the entire Appalachian 
 basin. 
 
 The Geological Survey reports that, taking into 
 account the available coal which can be reached and 
 mined by present methods, and supposing the pres- 
 ent conditions of use, waste, and increase to con- 
 tinue, the coal supply will be exhausted by the year 
 20 1 5 A. D., but taking into account the probable 
 improvements in its use, the year 2027 A. D. is 
 estimated as the time when the present coal fields 
 will be exhausted, and the middle of that century 
 as the time when all coal fields in the United States 
 will be gone. 
 
 This true story well illustrates the need of con- 
 servation and the folly of careless waste. High in
 
 130 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 the hills of the Pittsburg region a thick bed of ex- 
 cellent coal was found by the early settlers. It was 
 impossible for them to build roads up the steep 
 cliffs, so some method of getting the coal down to 
 the valleys had to be devised. Buffaloes roamed 
 the western plains in countless millions, and were 
 so abundant about Pittsburg that the supply 
 seemed inexhaustible. So the pioneers killed the 
 buffaloes, filled each skin with a few bushels of 
 coal, sewed it up, and tumbled it down the moun- 
 tain side. 
 
 This was the way they marketed their coal by 
 destroying their buffaloes. For many years no one 
 dreamed that there was any end to the supply of 
 buffaloes. And so both east and west they were 
 killed for their skins, which sold for a few cents, 
 for their horns, for a supply of steak, or for mere 
 sport; and then one day people woke up to find 
 that the buffalo had disappeared, not in one settle- 
 ment only, as they had supposed, but everywhere. 
 There are a few remaining, carefully cared for by 
 the government. They are among our most valued 
 possessions, and yet only a few years ago they were 
 destroyed, wasted, by millions. 
 
 This passing of the buffalo, the skins of which, 
 as common then as burlap bags are now, were used 
 to market our first coal, carries with it a deep lesson 
 as to what will happen to the coal itself, even
 
 COAL 131 
 
 within the present century, unless our people awake 
 to the consequence of what they are doing and 
 make a determined effort to stop all unnecessary 
 waste. 
 
 Let us see where and how these wastes occur. 
 The first serious loss of our coal occurs at the 
 mines. There are three great wastes in mining, 
 (i) A coal bed is not made up entirely of pure 
 coal, especially if it be very thick. Sometimes there 
 are layers of shale or clay, which makes a large 
 amount of ash. This can never be sold as regular 
 marketable coal; but it is rich in carbon, and much 
 of it might be used if it could be marketed near the 
 mines and sold as low-grade coal. In the past 
 there has been almost no market for it, and if it 
 were either in the roof or bottom of the coal bed, 
 it has been left unmined. If mixed with pure coal, 
 the low-grade coal was thrown into great heaps at 
 the mouth of the mine. This refuse coal is called 
 culm. The amount varies from one-tenth to one- 
 half of the coal in nearly every coal bed, and would 
 probably average one-fourth in all the mines of the 
 country. 
 
 This material is rich in carbon, and when used 
 in gas-engines will furnish more power than the 
 best Pocahontas coal when steam-engines are used. 
 Thus one- fourth of all our coal is wasted at the 
 mines simply because steam-engines instead of gas-
 
 i 3 2 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 producer engines have been employed. If in the 
 future instalation of power this fact is taken into 
 consideration, it will make the cost less to the user, 
 and at the same time utilize a large proportion of 
 our impure coal and save the higher grades for 
 other purposes. 
 
 (2) In the mining of coal it was formerly the 
 unfailing custom to leave supporting pillars of 
 coal for the over-lying rocks to rest upon, to make 
 suitable working-rooms, etc. These pillars, twelve 
 to eighteen inches square, and higher than a man's 
 head, are scattered throughout the entire mines and 
 are usually of the highest grade coal. In many 
 mines, also, a roof of coal a foot or more in thick- 
 ness must be left because the material above the 
 coal is not solid enough to prevent cave-ins. When 
 the mine is abandoned and closed these pillars and 
 roofings remain untouched, because removing them 
 constitutes one of the greatest dangers to life, and 
 is one of the frequent causes of mine accidents. It 
 is improbable that the coal thus left in abandoned 
 mines will ever be reclaimed, because not enough 
 is left to make it profitable at present prices to re- 
 open the mines; and frequently the rocks cave in 
 about these pillars and make the task almost im- 
 possible. 
 
 (3) By careless blasting an unnecessarily large 
 amount of coal is blown into powder, the slack
 
 COAL 133 
 
 which has not been marketed at all until within the 
 last few years. Much of this slack, which is the 
 best grade of coal in a pulverized form, is left in- 
 side the mines. These wastes in abandoned roof- 
 ing, pillars, and small-sized coal, together make a 
 total which for all the mines in the country will 
 average fully one-fourth more of the coal that is in 
 the ground. 
 
 It is to be noted, however, that conditions are 
 changing for the better. The most modern mines 
 use fewer supporting pillars of coal, and these are 
 of larger size, so that there is less danger of acci- 
 dents. Wherever possible they use timbers of wood 
 instead of these smaller pillars of coal. They also 
 mine as near the top of the seam of coal as can 
 be done safely, and so regulate the blasting that 
 much less slack is made than by the heavy dis- 
 charges. These changes in mining methods save a 
 far larger proportion of coal, and also prevent many 
 accidents, which are the most unfortunate feature 
 of coal mining, and the one which should receive 
 most careful consideration. (See chapter on 
 Health.) 
 
 One large mining company in Kentucky raises its 
 own timbers by planting trees in straight, close 
 rows on its coal land, thus making the land pro- 
 duce its own mine timbers to conserve the coal 
 below. This company claims to have lost but one
 
 I 3 4 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 life in ten years, and to save seventy-five per cent, 
 of its coal. This is a striking illustration of what 
 better mining methods will do for both the miner 
 and the mine owner and of how forestry may be 
 an aid to the conservation of coal and also of human 
 life in the mines. 
 
 We have already shown how half of the coal is 
 wasted, but there still remains another source of 
 waste at the mines. This is a large but unknown 
 quantity. Coal usually exists in beds or layers with 
 shale or rock between, much as a " layer-cake " is 
 made, the layers of cake being represented by the 
 coal and the icing between by these " rock-partings," 
 as they are called. In rich fields, there are from 
 three to ten of these rich layers or beds of coal, one 
 above another. It often happens that the thickest 
 and best layer is the lowest, and when this is the 
 case, it is usually mined first, regardless of the fact 
 that some, and possibly all, of the higher beds are 
 dislocated and broken or filled with deadly gases. 
 Nearly all this loss could be avoided by simply 
 mining the upper stratum first. 
 
 So much for waste at the mines. This is serious 
 enough if it were all, but it is not all, it is only the 
 beginning. Let us see now what becomes of the 
 coal that is marketed. The railroads are the largest 
 single users of coal, and here we are confronted 
 with the surprising statement that our locomotives
 
 COAL 135 
 
 consume three tons of coal in doing the same work 
 that is performed by English locomotives with one 
 ton. This difference is said to be due to different 
 construction of the engines themselves, and to more 
 careful stoking, or firing. Our locomotives use 
 100,000,000 tons per year, and by even the best 
 methods known a large proportion of the heat units 
 is wasted. Great effort should be made to improve 
 the locomotives so that they will consume less coal ; 
 but as long as the railroad companies own the coal 
 mines, as they do in many instances, they can obtain 
 coal so cheaply that the cost of the improved form 
 of engine is greater than the amount saved. 
 
 Another great use lies in the manufacture of coke, 
 which is used in the making of steel, and here, too, 
 we see where great wastes have existed. The old 
 form of coke-oven was called the bee-hive on ac- 
 count of its shape. These old style ovens consume 
 all the coal with the exception of the fixed carbon 
 which is left behind as coke. At the prices which 
 prevailed in 1907, the value of the by-products 
 wasted in bee-hive coke-ovens was a little over $55,- 
 000,000 surely a loss worth considering. A dif- 
 ferent form of coke-ovens is much used abroad 
 and is coming into use in this country. This is 
 the retort or by-product oven, sometimes called the 
 recovery oven. 
 
 The bee-hive ovens are usually located near the
 
 136 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 mines where the cost of coal is low, with small ex- 
 pense for transporting it. On the other hand, the 
 by-product ovens are established near the larger 
 cities in order to dispose of their gas and other by- 
 products. Here the cost of transportation must be 
 added to that of the coal, but the products are 
 marketed near by instead of at a distance, as in the 
 case of the bee-hive ovens. The most improved 
 by-product ovens produce not only coke and gas, but 
 coal-tar, pitch, ammonia, and creosoting oils, all ex- 
 tremely valuable and adding greatly to the value of 
 the output of the ovens. 
 
 Electricity is another form of light and power 
 which involves a large waste of the energy of coal; 
 only one-fifth of one per cent., that is, one-five hun- 
 dredth of the value of the coal is used in electricity, 
 and there is at present no known remedy for this. 
 
 There are methods, however, of lessening even 
 this waste, and these are constantly receiving more 
 attention. One is for the electric plants located in 
 cities to sell their exhaust steam or water heated 
 by the coal as it is converted into electric power, as 
 a by-product. The electric power-house thus be- 
 comes a central heating plant to supply stores, of- 
 fices, and residences. Another system being tried 
 abroad, though scarcely past the experimental 
 stage in this country, establishes great electric 
 power-houses at the coal mines to use the culm,
 
 COAL 137 
 
 low-grade slack, and lignites, the lowest form of 
 coal, in short, all the waste of the mines. Still 
 another plan is the manufacturing of electricity by 
 water-power, as we have seen in a previous chapter. 
 
 The manufacturing industries of the country 
 waste a large amount of fuel annually, but here the 
 waste is mostly due to expensive methods of pro- 
 ducing power, and to careless stoking, and is largely 
 preventable. As we have shown, gas-engines are 
 a far more economical form of producing power 
 than are steam-engines. Steam uses from five to 
 ten per cent, of the heat-units of coal, gas-producer 
 engines use fifty per cent, and burn a lower grade 
 of coal. 
 
 One of the great problems of cities is the 
 heavy volume of bituminous or soft coal smoke 
 that hangs over the entire surrounding region, 
 levying a heavy tax in cleaning and laundry work, 
 making the air difficult to breathe, and shutting out 
 the daylight itself. Every residence adds its mite, 
 but the factories and public buildings are the worst 
 offenders. There are several good smoke-consum- 
 ing devices on the market that have been thoroughly 
 tested by the government, which will furnish their 
 names on application. 
 
 If factory owners who use steam power could 
 realize that the gases, the highest heat-producing 
 part of the coal, escape with the smoke, and that
 
 138 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 by using smoke consumers they not only prevent 
 all the evils of the smoke nuisance but save fully 
 half of the value of their coal, they would gladly 
 put in this equipment. What manufacturer would 
 not eagerly welcome any device that would cut his 
 fuel bills in half? 
 
 The other cause of waste of coal in the manu- 
 facturing industries is recklessness in the use of 
 fuel, filling the furnaces with the drafts so dis- 
 posed that much of the heat is wasted. Every fac- 
 tory owner should learn (from the government 
 reports if he has no other means of learning) the 
 best methods of firing furnaces, and should employ 
 them in his factory. 
 
 The last great waste of coal is in households. 
 In stoves and furnaces, and to a certain extent in 
 kitchen ranges, this waste is through carelessness 
 in firing, as it is in factories. There still remains 
 a large amount of wasted energy in cooking that 
 is unavoidable. The amount of coal consumed be- 
 fore certain articles can be cooked, the heat re- 
 maining after the meal is prepared, are wastes that 
 it seems impossible to prevent, though wise man- 
 agement will prevent undue waste even here. Fire- 
 less cookers, an invention of recent years, go far 
 toward solving the problem of waste by long hours 
 of cooking single articles, and each year we see 
 more prepared food bought in order to save the
 
 COAL 139 
 
 cost of heat. Housekeepers find that it does not 
 pay to bake their bread themselves, since a dozen 
 loaves can be baked in a large oven with the fuel 
 used in baking one at home. 
 
 Briquettes are a new form of fuel made from 
 coal, principally for household use. They are 
 made from the low-grade coals, culm, slack and 
 lignites, blended with coal-tar pitch. They are 
 commonly used not only in households, but for lo- 
 comotives and ships, in several European countries, 
 especially Germany ; but in this country the cost of 
 making them about a dollar per ton makes the 
 retail price higher than the cheaper grades of coal, 
 and their general introduction at the price of the 
 higher grades is rather slow. 
 
 Let it always be kept in mind that we must not 
 check the careful use, only the waste, and the best 
 way to avoid an unnecessary drain on the coal and 
 at the same time increase our manufactures is to 
 substitute other power. Coal is only a form of 
 energy that came originally from the sun. The 
 same causes that produced coal still exist. Scien- 
 tists tell us that coal is still being made, but it will 
 take thousands of years to perfect it. If we could 
 only learn to take the sun's heat directly and use it 
 for our heat, light, and power, it would be one of 
 the greatest discoveries in the history of the world, 
 greater even than the discovery of electricity.
 
 i 4 o CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Many attempts have been made to produce power 
 directly from the sun through solar engines, or 
 by concentrating it in furnaces. At the St. Louis 
 Exposition a few years ago, a Portuguese priest ex- 
 hibited a solar engine called a heliophore, in which, 
 by means of the sun's rays, the temperature was 
 raised to 6000 degrees F., and a cube of iron 
 placed in it melted like a snowball. The sun helps 
 to raise the tides and some day they may be used 
 to produce power. Many experiments are being 
 made with both solar and tidal energy, some of 
 them successful in a small way, but nothing that 
 is ready to stand the test of every-day use has been 
 devised. 
 
 Doctor Pritchell says that on a clear day when 
 the sun is high, it delivers upon each acre of the 
 earth's surface exposed to its rays, the equal of 
 7,500 horse-power working continually. If the ex- 
 tra energy not needed for the growth of plants and 
 animals could be used, all the work of the world 
 could be done and the problem of fuel supply would 
 be solved for ever. 
 
 But the greatest conservation of coal possible at 
 present lies in the use of the water-power which now 
 goes to waste, and which, if employed, would, as 
 we have seen, give us 30,000,000 horse-power, or 
 more than all that is now produced from fuel by 
 all our engines combined.
 
 COAL 141 
 
 Alabama offers a striking illustration of this 
 failure to take advantage of our opportunities, for 
 Alabama has both coal and water-power. Engi- 
 neers estimate that the three principal rivers have 
 power equal to 436,000 horse-power. At Muscle 
 Shoals, on the Tennessee River, there is now de- 
 veloped 188,000 horse-power, second only to Ni- 
 agara and if the waters were conserved, the 
 figures would reach 1,084,000 horse-power on the 
 three rivers. This means that, according to the 
 amount of coal required to produce each horse- 
 power of energy, it would require 11,201,000 tons 
 of coal each year to produce by steam as much 
 power as these streams might easily be made to 
 produce. 
 
 Alabama, as we have said, is also a great coal 
 state. It is now mining about 14,000,000 tons per 
 year and only four states produce a larger amount. 
 It will be seen that four tons out of five mined in 
 this state will be needed to produce by steam the 
 power that is going to waste in its rivers. The 
 Honorable W. P. Lay, of the Alabama Conserva- 
 tion Commission, in calling attention to this fact, 
 says: 
 
 " Suppose for a moment that the coal fields of 
 Alabama were sliding down an incline and pouring 
 off over a precipice at the rate of 11,201,000 tons 
 per year, how long would it take the people of the
 
 i 4 2 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 United States to do something to try to stop such 
 a waste ? Yet what else are we doing when we sit 
 idly by and let the water of these streams go to 
 waste over a precipice while we ourselves burn up 
 the coal?" 
 
 And what is true in Alabama is true to a lesser 
 extent in most of the states. Wherever water- 
 power is going to waste, coal is being used to take 
 its place, and that coal is needed in some place where 
 there is no water-power. 
 
 On a certain stream in one of the central states 
 was a fine waterfall. The early settlers built a mill 
 there. The water turned the mill-wheel and then 
 passed on to water the valley and turn other mill- 
 wheels. But one night the old mill was destroyed 
 by fire. It was not rebuilt, but some distance from 
 the stream a new steam mill was built, the motive 
 power of which was natural gas. When, after a few 
 years, the natural gas was all gone, the miller began 
 to use coal, and he still uses coal hundreds of tons 
 of it while the water which once turned the 
 wheels, runs idly over the falls. This is an example 
 of wholly useless waste of coal, and just such waste 
 is to be found in hundreds of places in our country. 
 
 If wise mining methods be put into operation, if 
 proper care be taken in its use, particularly in man- 
 ufacturing, if the low-grade coals be utilized, and 
 if other power be substituted wherever practicable,
 
 COAL 143 
 
 there need be no question of shortage. There is 
 enough coal in the ground, if used rightly, to last 
 for ages to come. But because we have wasted 
 vast quantities of it in the past, and are still wast- 
 ing it, so that if the same conditions continue we 
 can distinctly see the end in sight, it is important 
 that every one understands what these conditions of 
 use and waste are, and how the abuse may be cor- 
 rected, so that mine owners and consumers may all 
 work together to preserve this most necessary re- 
 source. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Coal is King. Hewette. 
 
 Economical Burning of Coal Without Smoke. Bement. 
 Coal and Coal Mines. H. Green. 
 
 International Library of Technology. Vols. 37 and 38. 
 Reports of Geological Survey. 
 Report National Conservation Commission. 
 Conservation of Mineral Resources. (U. S. Report.) 
 Production of Coals in the U. S. in 1908. Advance chap- 
 ters available.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 OTHER FUELS 
 WOOD 
 
 WOOD, which was formerly the only fuel used 
 in this country, has now largely given place to 
 other fuels. In rural districts and in lumber re- 
 gions it is still used -extensively; but in the cities, 
 larger towns, and manufacturing regions, it is not 
 used in commercial quantities. Its use for power 
 production is limited to the wood-working factories 
 which have a large amount of waste lumber and 
 which employ this by-product to furnish heat for 
 steam boilers. 
 
 The wood used for fuel or for power usually 
 represents what would otherwise be lost, the dead 
 trees and the unmarketable timber of the farmer's 
 wood-lot, the refuse of lumber regions or the waste 
 of wood-working factories. So that the use of 
 wood as fuel now generally means the conservation 
 of our coal supply, and a use for the low-grade parts 
 of the forest. 
 
 In some cases, however, farmers cut for fuel 
 144
 
 OTHER FUELS 145 
 
 fine young trees that would grow into excellent tim- 
 ber. Liberal planting of trees so that wood shall 
 become plentiful in all parts of the country will tend 
 to bring about again a larger use of wood as fuel, 
 which will thus once more become a factor in the 
 saving of our coal. Every farmer should learn to 
 save all valuable trees for lumber, and to use only 
 undesirable ones for fuel. 
 
 PEAT 
 
 Peat is said by geologists to be only " coal in the 
 making," carbon that is in the state of changing 
 from vegetable matter to coal. It is probable that 
 in the course of centuries this would become coal, 
 and in its present state it has many of the proper- 
 ties of coal, though it has not nearly so high a heat- 
 ing value. 
 
 In this country we have had such a wealth of fuel 
 resources coal, wood, oil, and gas that up to 
 the present time we have done little to develop our 
 peat beds, although in European countries ten 
 million tons are used annually for fuel, as well as 
 large quantities for other purposes. From the 
 earliest times peat has been the principal fuel of 
 the common people of Ireland and some of the 
 countries of northern Europe. 
 
 Now, however, people are trying to make the 
 best of many resources not heretofore developed,
 
 i 4 6 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 coal prices are steadily advancing and the two 
 causes combine to turn people's attention to the peat 
 beds of America. One point that is worthy of 
 notice is that peat is found mostly in regions where 
 there is no coal, oil, or natural gas. The develop- 
 ment of peat beds in those regions, it will be seen, 
 would give them a great advantage in the matter 
 of cheap fuel. 
 
 Large peat beds are found in Minnesota, Wis- 
 consin, Michigan, New York, New England, New 
 Jersey, Florida, the Dakotas, northern Iowa, Illi- 
 nois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, eastern Vir- 
 ginia, the Carolinas and Georgia; and near 
 the coast in the gulf states, and a narrow 
 strip along the Pacific coast, from southern 
 California to the Canadian border. They cover 
 an area of about 11,000 square miles and are 
 supposed to contain not less than 14,000,000,000 
 tons of air-dried peat. At the rate of three dollars 
 per ton, which is a reasonable price in the states 
 having no coal, this peat would have a value of more 
 than $40,000,000,000. 
 
 Peat is prepared for use as common fuel in two 
 ways: (i) By cutting it into blocks or bricks, 
 which are air-dried by exposure to sun and wind 
 for a few weeks. This is called " cut peat," is bulky 
 and easily breakable, and can be used only for local 
 consumption. (2) By digging either by hand or
 
 OTHER FUELS 147 
 
 machine, and grinding it in a mill. It is put in 
 wet, ground, cut with rapidly turning knives, and 
 passed out of the machine as a thick pulp that is 
 cut into bricks as it comes out. It is then stored 
 several weeks until thoroughly dried. This is called 
 " machine peat," " pressed peat," or " condensed 
 peat." 
 
 Peat is being used in many ways, (i) Air- 
 dried peat is used for fuel only. (2) Dry peat 
 without a binder, or mixed with coal dust and tar 
 or pitch is used for the same purpose. (3) Ma- 
 chine peat is used for many purposes, among them 
 making into briquettes, peat charcoal, and peat coke. 
 
 It has been found practical to make illuminating 
 gas of peat, but a far more general use is for run- 
 ning gas-engines and producer-gas furnaces. This 
 is a practical use for it, since it will conserve the 
 coal now used for that purpose, furnish satisfactory 
 power without smoke or dirt, provide cheap power 
 in regions that have no coal mines, and lastly may 
 be made to yield valuable by-products: ammonia, 
 acetic acid, paraffin, tar, creosote, and wood-alcohol. 
 If all the peat in the United States could be used in 
 producer-gas engines the ammonia yielded would 
 alone have a value of $36,000,000,000. 
 
 Peat is also used for packing material, as a fer- 
 tilizer, for manufacturing paper, for coarse cloth and 
 mattress filling. By mixing wet machine peat with
 
 148 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 cement it may be made into blocks for paving and 
 other construction work. The most promising 
 uses are for fuel, as bedding for stock, as a disin- 
 fectant, in briquettes for burning lime, brick, and 
 pottery, in which it is rinding a large use, and for 
 which it is said to be particularly well fitted; and 
 most satisfactory of all, its use in gas-producer 
 engines. In Florida an immense plant is being 
 built to manufacture electric power, using air-dried 
 peat as fuel, the power to be transmitted to Jack- 
 sonville. 
 
 Machine peat is supposed to have sixty-five per 
 cent, the value of the same weight of Pocahontas 
 coal, but on account of the lack of waste in peat its 
 real value is higher than would appear from the 
 comparison. From two to two and a half pounds 
 will produce one horse-power per hour in gas-pro- 
 ducer engines. By this estimate, we can see that 
 the peat beds of this country, if properly used, may 
 be largely employed, either now or in the future, as 
 a substitute for the vanishing coal. 
 
 NATURAL GAS 
 
 Of all the fuels, natural gas may be said to be 
 the ideal one. Coming from the ground, it is piped a 
 greater or less distance and distributed to the home 
 or factory for light, heat, or power; for all of 
 which it is equally desirable. It is ready for our
 
 OTHER FUELS 149 
 
 use at the turn of a key, is absolutely clean, having 
 neither dust, ash, nor unconsumed portions. It re- 
 quires no kindling other than a lighted match. 
 
 Natural gas is found over an area which, if com- 
 bined, would cover almost 10,000 square miles. It 
 exists in twenty-two states Alabama, California, 
 Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, 
 Montana, New York, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, 
 Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Da- 
 kota, Texas, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, 
 Wyoming. In some of them the area has been 
 large and the production very heavy, in others the 
 field is small and unproductive. Until the last two 
 or three years there have been no statistics as to the 
 quantity of gas piped, but an account of its value has 
 been kept for many years. For the twenty years 
 beginning with 1888 the value is given at nearly 
 $500,000,000. 
 
 It must be remembered that much of this repre- 
 sents extremely low prices, only the amount ac- 
 tually paid for its use. When gas is newly dis- 
 covered in a region it is not considered an 
 opportunity for the residents of the community to 
 have cheap light, power and fuel for themselves, 
 but instead as an opportunity to develop the coun- 
 try, to increase the population and attract new fac- 
 tories. In order to advertise and boom their com- 
 munities free gas is usually offered to factories.
 
 ISO CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 So in dozens of instances large factories have been 
 operated for years without a cent having been paid 
 for fuel. For this reason no proper estimate can 
 be made of the quantity of gas consumed, nor of its 
 value even at a nominal price. In 1907, (the last 
 year for which complete returns have been pub- 
 lished in government reports) the amount of gas 
 consumed was given at 404,000,000 cubic feet, 
 which at present prices is valued at $63,000,000. 
 
 It is impossible to determine in any way the future 
 production of natural gas, or to guess at the quan- 
 tity remaining in the earth. It may be much less 
 or much more than present conditions would in- 
 dicate; but the present known fields are limited, 
 and the pressure is growing steadily less in all of 
 them. 
 
 The Conservation Commission reports, " It is 
 safe to predict that the known fields will be ex- 
 hausted in twenty-five years." The decrease of 
 natural gas is strikingly illustrated in Indiana. 
 This state, perhaps more than any other, profited 
 directly by the discovery of its natural gas about 
 twenty years ago. Here, the mineral maps show, 
 is by far the greatest natural gas region in the 
 United States. With the discovery of natural gas, 
 established towns grew to ten times their former 
 size and new ones sprang up everywhere. Indiana, 
 which had been chiefly an agricultural state, bade
 
 OTHER FUELS 151 
 
 fair to become one of the foremost manufacturing 
 states on account of its cheap and abundant fuel. 
 In 1902 Indiana produced nearly $8,000,000 worth 
 of natural gas, but for 1908 the State Geologist's 
 report contained no figures for this product. It 
 had ceased to be a prominent factor in the wealth of 
 the state! There is no resource that has been so 
 shamefully, so hopelessly wasted as our natural 
 gas. 
 
 With even more recklessness than characterizes 
 the waste of our forests and our coal, we have 
 allowed this perfect fuel to escape. To the dwell- 
 ers in each region where natural gas is found, it 
 seems that the supply is inexhaustible. The roar 
 of the wells, which makes the very earth tremble; 
 the flames springing high into the air; the undi- 
 minished pressure after months of use, appearing 
 to indicate a boundless reservoir below; the oppor- 
 tunity for whole communities to grow rich by its 
 use; all these things tend to promote recklessness 
 on the part of all who handle it. In the beginning 
 the wells are usually not tightly cased, and there is 
 a considerable quantity of gas escaping about every 
 well. New wells are frequently lighted to show 
 the volume of gas. In some cases the well has 
 become uncapped on account of heavy pressure and 
 to prevent the escape of unconsumed gas into the 
 air it is kept burning night and day. The strongest
 
 152 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 wells are often kept burning for months in order to 
 advertise a new gas field. In this way immense 
 quantities of the most perfect fuel in the world 
 have been wantonly wasted. From a single well 
 in eastern Kentucky there flowed a steady stream 
 of gas for twenty years which at present prices 
 would be worth $3,000,000, and the same story of 
 waste from burning wells comes from every natural 
 gas field. 
 
 In a new region where gas is abundant there is 
 also a great waste from leaking pipe lines laid on 
 the surface of the ground, from open flambeaux, 
 and from careless home and factory consumption. 
 In many communities the open flambeaux have been 
 employed to light the streets, and allowed to burn 
 day and night to avoid the expense of a man to care 
 for them. Where natural gas is abundant, meters 
 are not usually installed ; instead, gas is sold by the 
 month. The consumer is under no obligation to 
 save the gas, in fact, he usually acts on the common 
 American principle of wanting to get all he can 
 for the money and so burns his open tip lights, 
 and open burner stoves day and night. The fac- 
 tories waste in the same way, using open furnaces 
 which are never banked during the season because 
 it is easier and costs no more. 
 
 This, it seems, should be the whole history of 
 natural gas waste, but the greatest source of loss
 
 OTHER FUELS 153 
 
 still remains to be spoken of. In every gas region 
 of any importance oil is found sooner or later, us- 
 ually after the heaviest gas pressure has been ex- 
 hausted; and the oil driller is the greatest of all 
 foes to the life of a natural gas region. He finds 
 that the gas interferes with the flow of oil, spray- 
 ing it into the air and causing loss, and that the 
 danger of fire is much increased by its presence. 
 This frequently causes explosions, tearing out the 
 side of the well or blowing out the casing, and mak- 
 ing the oil-well useless. The surplus gas is usually 
 piped to one side out of the reach of danger, and 
 then burned to get rid of it. Drillers often try to 
 force the gas out in the hope that it will be followed 
 by a rush of oil. 
 
 This is the heaviest drain on the gas. In the 
 Caddo field in Louisiana alone the loss is seventy 
 million cubic feet per day, enough to light ten cities 
 the size of Washington, D. C, and equal to ten 
 thousand barrels of petroleum per day. In Indiana 
 a few years ago fourteen wells, all within a space 
 of a few acres in extent, were burned by oil drillers 
 continuously for six months, the light being visible 
 twenty miles away. 
 
 Greater care in the management of the wells and 
 slight additional expense for casing are all that is 
 required to stop the waste of gas from oil wells and 
 heavy pressure gas wells.
 
 154 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 All of these wastes taken together constitute a 
 fearful loss. In 1907, more than 400,000,000 
 cubic feet were used and an almost equal number 
 wasted. In other words, the daily waste is over 
 a billion cubic feet, or enough to supply every city 
 in the United States of over one hundred thousand 
 population. 
 
 The heating value of a billion feet of gas is equal 
 to a million bushels of coal. If some great con- 
 flagration were sweeping away our coal fields stead- 
 ily every day in the year, and destroying our best 
 coal at the rate of a million bushels per day, how 
 quickly we should all arise to aid in checking it! 
 And yet this imaginary case is actually true in 
 regard to the best fuel in this country, which is 
 burning uselessly an equal value in coal, and our 
 coal must some day be used to supply the loss. 
 
 We are apt to ignore the greatness of this loss 
 because the gas escapes into the air and we can not 
 see it, or it burns and we see only its effect, not 
 the loss of fuel, but if we could see it in the form 
 of oil we should find that a billion feet of gas is 
 equal to more than a hundred and sixty thousand 
 barrels of petroleum. Think of it, the equivalent 
 of one hundred and sixty thousand barrels of oil, 
 for which no price is paid and of which no use is 
 made, for ever destroyed every day in every year! 
 Would the oil companies permit it? Would we
 
 OTHER FUELS 155 
 
 not all assist them in saving their property from de- 
 struction, and shall we not ask of them equal help 
 in saving the fuel that in turn conserves our coal 
 supply? Little objection can be made to the pres- 
 ent method of using gas in the older regions. The 
 waste in domestic use is comparatively small. 
 Much is used for lighting with incandescent burn- 
 ers, and asbestos grates and gas ranges have re- 
 placed the open-burner stoves and grates. These 
 are all efficient methods of use, and but little could 
 be done in the way of further conservation. In fac- 
 tories the gas-engine is in many instances replacing 
 the open furnace, which requires many times as 
 much gas to produce an equal amount of power. 
 They should be used in every factory, and gas 
 companies should also require the use of the best 
 devices for saving gas in places where meters are 
 not used. 
 
 Until last year but one state Indiana had 
 an effective law preventing the waste of natural 
 gas by oil companies. This law says in substance 
 that a man can not take the oil from the ground 
 where nature has safely stored it, unless he also 
 provide a market for the gas which accompanies it. 
 It also says that neither the producer nor the con- 
 sumer shall be allowed to waste this valuable fuel, 
 as such waste is against public policy. 
 
 Mr. I. C. White, of West Virginia, in discussing
 
 156 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 this question at the Conservation Congress said, 
 " This Indiana statute should be enacted into law 
 in every state where these fuels exist." Since that 
 time Pennsylvania and Ohio have passed laws, which 
 are said to be effective, for the conservation of nat- 
 ural gas. 
 
 Much has been accomplished by gas companies, 
 who, since they became alive to the danger of loss 
 of their investment, have been extremely watchful 
 of their property. In West Virginia the gas com- 
 panies buy the gas which has been obtained in the 
 drilling of oil wells, thus providing a market for the 
 waste gas and making it possible to continue the oil 
 business and at the same time to furnish cheap gas. 
 
 Another hopeful sign is the pumping of all of the 
 product of a well. Formerly as soon as a well 
 dropped greatly in production it was abandoned, 
 but now it is pumped until dry. 
 
 One method by which the gas from oil wells may 
 be utilized consists in compressing it in steel cylin- 
 ders for shipping. This in a small way has been 
 found to be successful. 
 
 Experiments are being tried on a large scale in 
 Ohio to prove that gas may be returned to reser- 
 voirs within the earth which are tight enough to 
 hold it under heavy pressure. 
 
 Fuel gas made from low-grade coal is a satis- 
 factory substitute for natural gas. Like the natural
 
 OTHER FUELS 157 
 
 product it may be piped for long distances. Some 
 natural gas companies have bought up the culm 
 banks and heaps of refuse coal, so that if the natural 
 gas becomes exhausted they can manufacture cheap 
 gas at the mines and pipe it to the cities they now 
 serve. 
 
 PETROLEUM 
 
 Petroleum, or rock oil, is a dark greenish 
 brown liquid which when refined yields gasolene, 
 naphtha, benzine, kerosene, lubricating oils, and 
 paraffin. The name petroleum applies only to the 
 crude petroleum as it comes from the ground, and 
 the word oil is applied to the products obtained by 
 refining. 
 
 The early history of the petroleum industry in 
 this country is interesting as showing what great 
 results spring from small beginnings. From salt 
 wells in Pennsylvania there was an occasional flow 
 of petroleum, but it had had no commercial value. 
 Samuel Kier, of Pittsburg, had salt wells at Tar- 
 antum from which he had accumulated so much 
 petroleum (fifty barrels) that he decided to try to 
 dispose of it, but there was no market No one 
 knew what to do with it. He then partly refined it, 
 making a poor quality of kerosene, and intro- 
 duced a lamp with a chimney. This proved so 
 popular that A. C. Ferris, also of Pittsburg, under-
 
 158 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 took to sell this in other cities, and these two men 
 not only sold the fifty barrels and the other petro- 
 leum that accumulated from the salt wells, but they 
 had created such a demand for the new light that 
 they could not supply enough oil, and in 1859 
 Colonel Drake drilled at Titusville the first well 
 solely for petroleum. In the half-century since that 
 time nearly two billion barrels, or almost two hun- 
 dred and fifty million tons, worth one and three- 
 quarter billion dollars, have been produced. 
 
 Petroleum is now mined, or drilled, in many 
 countries besides the United States, but the United 
 States furnishes sixty-three barrels out of every 
 hundred produced in the world. Russia produces 
 twenty-one barrels, Austria four, and the East Indies 
 three barrels, Roumania two, India and Mexico one 
 each, Canada, Japan, Germany, Peru, and Italy each 
 less than one barrel; so we can see that the United 
 States is the one great producer of petroleum, and 
 that it is to this country that we must look for the 
 principal world supply for the present, and as far 
 as known, for the future. Let us see, then, what 
 we may expect the United States to do to supply 
 this demand. 
 
 The known petroleum lands cover an area of 
 about 8,500 square miles and are in six large fields 
 and several smaller ones. The largest and best 
 is the Appalachian, of which the best known is the
 
 OTHER FUELS 159 
 
 Pennsylvania field. It has a grade of petroleum 
 that differs from any other thus far found in the 
 world. It is most easily converted into kerosene or 
 lamp oil, and contains a larger proportion of such oil. 
 It is the finest petroleum in the world, except that 
 found in Indiana and Ohio, and that costs more to 
 refine. 
 
 The Appalachian field includes, besides Pennsyl- 
 vania, western New York, West Virginia, a narrow 
 strip in eastern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee. 
 These southern oils are of a much lower grade, 
 but are better than the Russian or other foreign oils. 
 
 The next great field is called the Lima-Indiana, 
 and covers a considerable portion of northwestern 
 Ohio and eastern Indiana. This petroleum con- 
 tains less gasolene and less lamp oils, and more 
 sulphur, which makes refining difficult. The Illinois 
 field lies next. Here, in a strip about thirty miles 
 long and six miles wide on an average, an enor- 
 mous quantity of petroleum is produced. This oil 
 is slightly lower in quality and contains consider- 
 able asphalt. 
 
 The mid-continent field lies in Kansas and Okla- 
 homa. This petroleum also contains asphalt and 
 other chemical products. Such immense amounts 
 are produced here that it has not been possible to 
 care for all of it, either in the matter of storage 
 tanks or cars for transporting it, and as a result
 
 160 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 large amounts have been wasted. In Oklahoma 
 within a space of less than two square miles one 
 million barrels of forty-two gallons each of petro- 
 leum were wasted in the year 1906. 
 
 The Gulf field lying in Texas and Louisiana has 
 been developed entirely since 1901. The first well 
 was drilled near Beaumont, Texas, as an experiment 
 to determine whether oil could be found. Small 
 storage tanks were provided and it was hoped to 
 find oil enough to make drilling profitable. The 
 well proved to be a " gusher " of such magnitude 
 that before sufficient tanks could be provided, or 
 the flow checked, more than half a million barrels 
 were wasted on the ground. 
 
 The Gulf petroleum contains a large amount of 
 asphalt and a small amount of gasolene and lamp 
 oil. It has been used principally for burning as 
 crude oil in locomotives and has sold as low as ten 
 cents per barrel ; but lately methods of refining have 
 been perfected which produce good lubricating oil 
 and a gasolene of high value from these low-grade 
 oils. 
 
 The last great field is found in California. The 
 oil is similar to the Gulf oil, and investigation has 
 shown that the quantity is greater in this field than 
 in any other. It is used largely for fuel and power 
 on account of lack of other fuels in that region. 
 
 In addition to these fields there are small ones
 
 OTHER FUELS 161 
 
 in Colorado and Wyoming, and promises of fields 
 in New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Oregon 
 and Washington. 
 
 Estimates of the amounts of petroleum yielded 
 are made by computing the amount usually produced 
 per acre, which varies from eight hundred barrels 
 produced in Pennsylvania, to eight thousand barrels 
 per acre produced in Illinois. In most of the fields 
 it is about a thousand barrels per acre. Even then 
 the amount is extremely difficult to estimate. The 
 Geological Survey concludes that the lowest prob- 
 able calculation of the entire amount stored in the 
 rocks of the United States is ten billion, and the 
 highest a little less than twenty-five billion barrels. 
 The last report officially published shows that we 
 are producing one hundred and seventy million 
 barrels per year. If the same rate of production 
 continues, we might expect our petroleum to last 
 from fifty-five to one hundred and thirty-five years, 
 according to the amount found; but tables of sta- 
 tistics show that throughout the life of the petro- 
 leum industry, as much has been produced each 
 nine years as the entire product before that time. 
 For example, up to the present, we have produced 
 one billion eight hundred million barrels and if the 
 present rate continues, in the next nine years alone 
 we shall produce an equal quantity again. The 
 causes of such rapid growth are many. One is the
 
 162 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 great increase in the use of some of the products, 
 such as gasolene, which has increased many fold 
 since the automobile became popular. Another, and 
 the greatest cause, is the ease with which any quan- 
 tity of oil can be sold for cash at any time, and at 
 prices much above the cost of production. 
 
 Another reason is based upon the nature of the 
 product. In pumping from one well oil is apt to 
 flow in from other leases, under other farms, and 
 exhaust them without the holders of those leases 
 having received any compensating benefit. It is 
 therefore necessary for each lessee to get his share 
 before it flows away. Under these circumstances, it 
 is impossible to prevent an entire field from being 
 drilled over very rapidly, unless there is a combi- 
 nation of all the interests; or unless the law limits 
 the amount that each producer shall extract per 
 acre within a given time. 
 
 Pennsylvania and New York have declined to 
 one-third their former value and yet it is only seven- 
 teen years since they reached their highest point. 
 This would seem to indicate that the life of that 
 field will not exceed ten years. West Virginia is 
 producing only a little more than half its former 
 yield and is rapidly declining. Ohio and Indiana 
 are declining more rapidly than Pennsylvania. 
 Texas is also in the rapidly declining class, and in
 
 OTHER FUELS 163 
 
 Kansas the production is only a fraction of what 
 it was formerly. On the other hand, Illinois, Ok- 
 lahoma, and California can be expected to increase 
 steadily for several years. 
 
 Taking into account all these factors, it is esti- 
 mated that the entire supply now known to exist 
 would be exhausted before the middle of the pres- 
 ent century. It appears more probable, however, 
 that increasing prices long before that time will 
 help to conserve the supply ; and that petroleum will 
 be produced for a long time to come, though not 
 in sufficient quantities for industrial and general 
 use. 
 
 The principal uses of petroleum are for burning 
 as crude oil in furnaces and under boilers, particu- 
 larly in locomotives. The refined products have 
 various uses. Probably the most important is the 
 lubricating oil. This is necessary in the develop- 
 ment of all kinds of power. At least one-half pint 
 of lubricating oil is used for every ton of coal con- 
 sumed for power. All engines, all street and 
 steam railways, steamships, sewing-machines, clocks, 
 watches, and automobiles, in fact all operating ma- 
 chinery requires its use; so that a large amount 
 of oil must always be conserved for lubricating pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Coal oil, or kerosene, may be regarded as abso-
 
 164 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 lutely necessary for the lighting of houses or other 
 establishments not connected with gas or electric 
 supply. 
 
 Gasolene is sometimes used for lighting, though 
 such use is' not common. It is largely used for 
 cooking, and still more largely used in the various 
 types of gasolene engines. 
 
 Naphtha is used for power, especially for motor- 
 boats, and for cleaning, in which it is very valuable 
 by reason of its power to dissolve dirt. 
 
 Paraffin is used in polishing, in laundry work, 
 for waxing floors, and as a covering to exclude air in 
 preserving articles. 
 
 Waste has been markedly absent in the petro- 
 leum industry. It is necessary that oil drilling out- 
 fits shall contain steel storage tanks for holding 
 the oil when it is reached. Usually the supply is 
 large enough, but sometimes, as in the case of the 
 big well at Beaumont, Texas, the oil gushes forth in 
 such volume that the drillers are not prepared to take 
 care of the overflow, and much is wasted before 
 the well can be capped. In general there is no 
 waste in storage in this country. In European 
 countries where there is oil, the loss through lack 
 of tanks and by using wooden tanks which leak, 
 is very great. 
 
 Another form of waste which is common in for- 
 eign countries, but which has been avoided in the
 
 OTHER FUELS 165 
 
 United States, is evaporation of gasolene and 
 similar light products when the petroleum is 
 exposed to the air in open tanks. This is the 
 most valuable part of petroleum, and if it be ex- 
 posed to the sun a single day it loses greatly in 
 value. 
 
 The refining processes of the petroleum industry 
 are probably carried out with better system and less 
 waste than in any other resource, owing to the fact 
 that the business is controlled by large companies. 
 There is no waste material in its manufacture, ex- 
 cept some slight residue that might be used for 
 oiling roads, instead of using the crude oil. The 
 principal waste lies in its use. In view of the fact 
 that the supply is not unending, is, indeed, rapidly 
 disappearing, the uses should be confined only to 
 the necessary lines for which there are no substi- 
 tutes at similar prices. These are for lubricating 
 oils and for the lighting of homes. The unnec- 
 essary uses are for burning in locomotives and for 
 the development of power. 
 
 Whenever new petroleum fields are opened up, 
 there is a corresponding drop in price. In order 
 to dispose of it quickly such petroleum is usually 
 sold for the lowest grade uses, and the price for 
 this crude petroleum is not more than one hun- 
 dredth as much as for high grade petroleum 
 products. The report of the National Conserva-
 
 166 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 tion Commission is so excellent that it is quoted 
 almost word for word. 
 
 " At present more petroleum is being produced 
 than is necessary for the demands of the industry. 
 Within ten years the present fields will be unable 
 profitably to produce enough for these require- 
 ments. The only direction in which production can 
 be checked is with the petroleum contained in public 
 lands. 
 
 " Offering such public lands for entry at a low 
 price is nothing more than temptation to the private 
 citizen to waste petroleum by over production, since 
 lands yielding hundreds of dollars per acre in this 
 product can be obtained for a small sum. Every 
 acre of public land, believed to contain petroleum 
 or natural gas, should be withdrawn from public 
 sale and leased under conditions that regulate pro- 
 duction. 
 
 " Its use for power is justified on the Pacific 
 coast, if used in gas-producer engines." 
 
 ALCOHOL 
 
 As a substitute for other fuels, wood, or de- 
 naturated alcohol, will probably come into greater 
 use each year, and is regarded by many as the great 
 fuel of the future, because the materials of which 
 it is made are waste vegetable products and will al- 
 ways be plentiful.
 
 OTHER FUELS 167 
 
 It is made from cellulose, the woody part of 
 plants, and may be manufactured from sawdust 
 when freshly cut from live trees, from small and 
 refuse potatoes, from inferior grain that is not 
 worth marketing, and from low-grade fruits and 
 vegetables of all kinds. It is even said that the 
 hundreds of acres of sage-brush in the West that 
 have always been considered worse than useless 
 can be made into wood-alcohol and thus become a 
 valuable product 
 
 It can be used for any purpose that gasolene can, 
 although a different style burner is required. It 
 must be made much hotter before it is changed into 
 vapor, and on account of this it has been difficult to 
 make satisfactory burners for all the kinds of heat- 
 ing, lighting, and power work; the machinery being 
 far from perfect as yet. Wood-alcohol can not yet 
 be made cheaper than gasolene, and is not so easy 
 to burn, so that it is slow in reaching an important 
 place in the industrial world; but gas and gasolene 
 prices will advance, and better methods of manu- 
 facturing and burning alcohol will be found, and 
 then we shall have a fuel that can take the place of 
 either coal or petroleum for lighting or power. 
 
 It is thought that wood-alcohol will be of especial 
 use to the farmer, since he has so many waste vege- 
 table products, has so much need of power in small 
 quantities and is far from the sources of public
 
 1 68 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 service power, such as electric and gas plants. Al- 
 cohol-driven motors can be used to take the place 
 of the labor of both horses and men on the farm. 
 On level farms they can run the heavy machines, 
 such as mowers, reapers, and binders, plows and 
 cultivators. On any farm they may be used to 
 run stationary engines, to chop and grind food for 
 live stock, to pump water, churn, run sewing-ma- 
 chines, operate fans, drive carriages and wagons 
 and do many other things. 
 
 Wood-alcohol produces ammonia as a by-prod- 
 uct, is used in the manufacture of dyes and coal- 
 tar products, of smokeless powder, of varnishes, 
 and of imitation silks made from cotton. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Report National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Reports of Geological Survey. 
 
 Conservation of Ores and Related Minerals. (Carnegie.) 
 Report Governor's Conference. 
 
 Conservation of Mineral Resources. (U. S. Government 
 Report.) 
 
 Industrial Alcohol and Its Uses. W. H. Wiley. Bulletin, 
 269. 
 
 Production of Peat in the U. S. in 1908. U. S. Government 
 Reports. 
 
 Production of Oil in the U. S. in 1908. 
 
 Production of Gas in the U. S. in 1008. 
 
 Waste of Our Fuel Resources. (White.) Report Gov- 
 ernor's Conference.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IRON 
 
 WE have already stated the importance of iron 
 in our modern life. It can not be overestimated. 
 All the many articles of iron and steel, our tools, 
 our machinery, our vehicles, our bridges, our steel 
 buildings, and a thousand and one other things are 
 dependent on our iron supply. 
 
 Of all the elements that make up the earth's sur- 
 face only three are more plentiful than iron, so 
 that we might think that we should always have 
 an abundant supply of it; but when it occurs in 
 small quantities, as is usually the case, it can not 
 of course be profitably mined. It is only when 
 enough of it is found together to permit it to be 
 mined to advantage that it is called iron ore. 
 
 Iron ore is found in only twenty-nine states of 
 the Union, and eighty per cent, of the present pro- 
 duction is in two states, Minnesota and Michigan. 
 We can see that iron is very unevenly distributed, 
 and it is on a few regions that we must depend 
 for all the future. 
 
 Before we can calculate how much iron we have 
 169
 
 1 70 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 we must understand that it is not found in pure 
 form, but mixed with various other substances: 
 clay, shale, slate, quartz, sulphur, phosphorus, etc. 
 These must all be removed, some by washing, but 
 most of them by roasting, or " smelting," in blast 
 furnaces, after which it is called pig iron. This 
 of course requires large quantities of fuel. 
 
 It is these things and also the position of the 
 ore that must be taken into consideration in esti- 
 mating the amount of iron in the country. If ore 
 yields a large per cent, of iron in smelting, with a 
 small amount of waste, it is, of course, far more 
 valuable than if the amount of iron in every ton 
 of material taken from the ground is small. 
 
 In all minerals, the relation of supply to price is 
 marked. The cost of labor and of power is ex- 
 actly the same whether ore yields fifty-five tons of 
 pure iron to the hundred, or whether it yields only 
 thirty tons, but the price received is little more than 
 half. 
 
 So if the price is low, it may cost more to mine 
 and smelt the one hundred tons of earth than will 
 be paid for the thirty tons of iron that the low- 
 grade ore would yield. So the lands that produce 
 only thirty tons to the hundred will never be mined 
 till the price of iron is so high that it is above 
 the cost of producing that is, till it can be worked 
 at a profit.
 
 IRON 171 
 
 The Lake Superior iron found in Minnesota is 
 usually more than fifty-five per cent, pure iron. 
 That is, if a hundred tons of earth be mined, more 
 than fifty-five tons of pure iron would be obtained 
 from it. This is the highest grade of ore. Some ore 
 is mined that yields only forty tons or less. There 
 are vast quantities, billions of tons, of iron ore in 
 the United States, that would yield less than thirty 
 tons of iron to the hundred. These low-grade ores 
 and the ones known to lie so deep in the earth that 
 the cost of mining them is more than the finished 
 products of iron, are classed as " not available," 
 that is, they can never be profitably mined under 
 present conditions. But we must remember that 
 as the higher grade ores are exhausted it will be- 
 come necessary to use the lower grades, and that 
 prices will steadily advance as a result. 
 
 Iron is sometimes found almost directly under 
 the ground, at other times deep in the earth. That 
 which is found just below the surface is, of course, 
 mined much more easily, more safely, more cheaply, 
 and with far less loss than that which requires deep 
 mining. Such conditions are found in the Lake 
 Superior region, and there is almost no loss at all, 
 the low-grade ores being piled up at one side where 
 they can be easily reached in case of need. 
 
 On the other hand some iron mines now in oper- 
 ation are as much as two thousand feet in depth.
 
 172 CHECKING THE .WASTE 
 
 In these mines, as in coal mines, pillars are left to 
 support the rock above. A roof of the iron ore 
 is often left also. The low-grade ore is left in the 
 ground and no effort is made to preserve it for 
 future use. These constitute the principal waste 
 in iron mining. 
 
 The pure iron of the ore is separated by wash- 
 ing out the clays and soft elements, but the harder 
 substances must be smelted by means of heat. In 
 the beginning this was done by charcoal, which is 
 still used in Sweden. The latest method is to em- 
 ploy electricity manufactured by water-power, but 
 most of the iron smelting in this country has been 
 done by coal. Every ton of iron smelted requires 
 its portion of coal for firing. If low-grade fuels in 
 gas-producer engines, or water-power can be used 
 it will be a great aid in conserving coal. 
 
 If a limited supply of rather low-grade iron exists 
 near a coal region, it can often be mined profitably, 
 when, if it be far from an abundant fuel supply, it 
 must be shipped to distant blast furnaces. The 
 cost of shipping causes ore containing a small 
 percentage of iron to be classed as " not avail- 
 able." 
 
 Sometimes a large company with many mines has 
 several varieties of ore of different strength and 
 hardness. If these can be mixed to produce a 
 medium grade by adding a small amount of high-
 
 IRON 173 
 
 grade ore to a large amount of lower grade, the 
 value of the product will be doubled. 
 
 Sometimes, too, the by-products can be made ex- 
 tremely profitable by manufacturing large amounts 
 when the expense of undertaking the work is too 
 great to be attempted with a small amount. So 
 if iron mines are owned by a small company much 
 ore may be classed as " not available " that could 
 be used by a large company. All these things must 
 be considered in estimating the iron resources. 
 
 The first smelting of iron ore in this country 
 was done at Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1645, using 
 the low-grade bog-ores and smelting with charcoal 
 from the surrounding forest. 
 
 Now if we look over an iron map of the United 
 States we shall find that there are four hundred and 
 eighty blast furnaces, but that only nine of them 
 are west of the Mississippi River and most of these 
 are in Missouri. The greatest of all the iron re- 
 gions now lies in upper Michigan and Minnesota. 
 This furnishes eighty tons out of every one hun- 
 dred mined in the United States, but the smelting 
 is done along the southern shores of Lake Michigan. 
 The reason for this is that the iron region itself 
 is far distant from a cheap fuel supply. Pittsburg, 
 Pennsylvania, has been the great iron city of the 
 United States on account of its nearness to great 
 supplies of both coal and iron. Birmingham,
 
 174 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Alabama, is the heart of the great smelting region 
 of the South. 
 
 The iron is divided into districts as follows: 
 
 (1) The Northeastern, comprising the states 
 of Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New 
 York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and 
 Ohio, supplies a little more than five per cent, of the 
 iron mined in the United States. 
 
 (2) The Southeastern, containing Virginia, 
 West Virginia, eastern Kentucky, and Tennessee, 
 North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, 
 gives us twelve per cent, of our iron. 
 
 (3) The Lake Superior district, containing the 
 northern parts of Michigan, Minnesota and Wis- 
 consin, supplies more than eighty per cent. 
 
 (4) The Mississippi Valley district contains 
 western Kentucky, and Tennessee, Iowa, Missouri, 
 Arkansas and Texas. This region furnishes less 
 than half of one per cent, of the total supply. 
 
 (5) The Rocky Mountain district contains Mon- 
 tana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, 
 New Mexico, Arizona, western Texas, Washington, 
 Oregon and California; and all this great region 
 now supplies but a little more than one per cent. 
 
 The official report, which is as thorough as can 
 be made but is naturally subject to mistakes, gives 
 the amount of available iron, that is, that which can
 
 IRON 175 
 
 be mined under present conditions, as nearly five 
 billion tons. 
 
 Let us see how long this may be expected to 
 supply the demand. 
 
 Before 1810 the amount of iron ore produced 
 was so small as to be scarcely worth considering. 
 From 1810 to 1870 a little less than fifty million 
 tons were mined, from 1870 to 1889 nearly 154,- 
 000,000 tons, and from 1889 to 1907, 475,000,000 
 tons, or altogether nearly 680,000,000 tons. The 
 production has been found to double itself about 
 every nine years. In 1907 alone it was 52,000,000 
 tons or about one-thirteenth of all that has been 
 mined. 
 
 In 1880 we used 200 pounds of pig-iron for 
 every man, woman, and child in the country; in 
 1890, 320 pounds; in 1900, 390 pounds, and in 1907, 
 696 pounds. According to the rule of increase, by 
 1916 we shall be using 104,000,000 tons a year; by 
 1925, 208,000,000, and by 1934, 416,000,000 tons, 
 and if the same rate of increase should continue, by 
 1940 we should have required for our use in the 
 meantime, six billion tons. But we have less than 
 five billion tons of what is now classed as available 
 ore, which means that before that time (when the 
 school-boys of to-day are business men) we should 
 have exhausted all our good and cheap ore, and be
 
 176 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 obliged to depend only on the low-grade ores, the 
 cost of which will be very great. 
 
 Unlike coal, the forests, and the soil, there is no 
 great and entirely useless waste of iron. But the 
 uses of iron are so many and so varied, and the 
 supply of high-grade ores which can be cheaply 
 mined is so small in proportion to the needs of the 
 future, that we should in all ways lessen the drain 
 on it by substituting other cheaper and more plenti- 
 ful materials when possible. 
 
 The chief use of iron is for the carrying of 
 freight. Here are some figures given by Mr. Car- 
 negie. Moving one thousand tons of freight by 
 rail requires an eighty-ton locomotive and twenty- 
 five twenty-ton steel cars, or five hundred and eighty 
 tons of iron and steel to draw it over say an 
 average of ten miles of double track with switches, 
 frogs, spikes, etc., which will weigh more than four 
 hundred tons. Thus we see that to move a thou- 
 sand tons of freight requires the use of an equal 
 weight of iron. The same freight may be moved 
 by water by means of from one hundred to two 
 hundred and fifty tons of metal, so that if freight 
 were sent by water instead of by rail the amount 
 of iron needed for this service would be reduced at 
 least three- fourths, the amount of coal would be 
 reduced not less than half, and at the same time
 
 IRON 177 
 
 the coal used in extra smelting would be saved. 
 No single step open to us to-day would do more 
 to check the drain on both iron and coal than the 
 use of our rivers for carrying heavy freight. 
 
 The next great use of iron is for buildings and 
 bridges. The greatly increasing use of cement and 
 concrete is reducing this and will reduce it still 
 further. Cement is made from slag, or the refuse 
 of iron ore the clays and shales and the cost 
 of this valuable product is little more than the 
 former cost of piling it away. By making the use- 
 less slag into cement the cost of iron production is 
 lowered and at the same time the drain on the iron 
 is lessened. 
 
 A large use of steel of the highest quality is for 
 battleships, cannon, and war supplies. If the great 
 nations of the world would agree to reduce their 
 armament, one of the great drains on the world's 
 iron, coal, and wood supply would cease, and these 
 materials be put to improving the world. 
 
 The worst feature of it is that these war supplies 
 are continually changing. They must be of the 
 latest pattern, or they are of small value for fight- 
 ing purposes. The construction of battleships dif- 
 fers greatly year by year, and the older ships are 
 discarded to make place for newer and larger ones. 
 It is said that our newest battleship alone could
 
 178 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 with a few shots destroy all of Admiral Dewey's 
 fleet. The following is from a recent magazine 
 article : 
 
 " It is admitted by naval officers that the ships 
 of ten years ago are of obsolete type and would be 
 useless against the new vessels. It is admitted that 
 within ten years or less the new types will in turn 
 become obsolete, and will be useless against the type 
 of vessel certain to be evolved. That is, as soon as 
 a vessel costing millions of dollars leaves the docks, 
 she enters into active competition for a place on the 
 junk pile." 
 
 The greatest improvement that can be imagined 
 in the iron situation will be in the discovery and 
 use of alloys or mixtures of iron with other ma- 
 terials. Steel, the strongest of all forms of iron, 
 is an alloy of iron and carbon, and for various 
 purposes these are further mixed with nickel and 
 silicas. Many other alloys have been discovered 
 within the last few years, and each makes possible 
 new uses for iron requiring greater strength. One 
 of the best of these is a mixture of iron and silicon, 
 called ferro-silicon. Silica is one of the cheapest 
 and most abundant materials of all the earth's 
 products, so its combination with iron will greatly 
 lengthen the life of the iron supply; and it is prob- 
 able that in the future combinations of other ma-
 
 IRON 179 
 
 terials will yield better and cheaper metals than 
 any thus far produced. 
 
 The amount of metal which can be reworked is 
 constantly increasing. Most of the iron factories 
 remelt large quantities of old iron, to be used with 
 the new, and this will lessen each year the demand 
 on the ores. It is also possible that new deposits 
 of iron ore will be found and these will greatly 
 increase the supply. But from the whole iron situ- 
 ation we may draw the following conclusions : 
 
 First, the amount of iron remaining in the 
 ground is very uncertain. It may be more, or 
 it may be less, than the present estimate. 
 
 Second, if the estimates are nearly correct, and if 
 the present rate of increase continues, all the high- 
 grade ores will be exhausted by the time the small 
 boys of to-day are the business men of the nation. 
 
 Third, the best methods of reducing the drain 
 on the supply are, (a) The use of old iron as a 
 mixture; (b) Carrying a part of the freight by 
 water to reduce the amount of iron required by the 
 railroads; (c) The larger use of concrete and ce- 
 ment to take the place of steel in buildings; (d) 
 Lessening the amount used for war; (e) The use of 
 alloys. This opens a large and promising field for 
 invention, (f) More care in preserving articles 
 made of iron. This is a practical thing for every
 
 i8o CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 person in our country to do. Every farm imple- 
 ment, or tool, that stands out in the rain or is left 
 without shelter during the winter, every article care- 
 lessly lost or broken, has its part in making condi- 
 tions worse. All that are well cared for help to 
 make the iron supply last a little longer. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Iron and Steel at Home and Abroad. (Andrew Carnegie.) 
 
 Conservation of Ores and Related Minerals. (Carnegie.) 
 Report Governor's Conference. 
 
 Report National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Reports Geological Survey. 
 
 Mineral Resources of the U. S. in 1908. Advance chapters 
 available.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 OTHER MINERALS 
 GOLD 
 
 IRON, in its usefulness to man, stands in a class 
 to itself; but there are dozens of other minerals 
 that have their part in the comfort and convenience 
 of our daily life. Most of these, however, are 
 found in comparatively small quantities and have 
 few uses. 
 
 The minerals which are in constant use by nearly 
 all people and that are found abundantly in the 
 United States, are gold, silver, copper, lead, zinc, 
 and the elements used in manufacturing building 
 materials. 
 
 Gold is valuable chiefly because it has been made 
 the standard of money value of the world. Africa 
 produces one-third of the world's supply, next come 
 the United States and Australia, producing almost 
 equal amounts, Russia and Canada each produce a 
 limited amount, and various other countries to- 
 gether produce about one-sixteenth of the whole. 
 (In the statements of the gold supply of the United 
 States the territory of Alaska is included.) 
 
 181
 
 182 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Gold is not found alone but contained in quartz 
 rock or sand. The method of taking gold from 
 the rock is first by blasting, and afterward grinding 
 the rock in a stamp mill, which reduces it to powder, 
 after which the gold is separated by refining pro- 
 cesses. The gold which occurs in the sand, gravel, 
 or clay soil, is washed out. When done on a small 
 scale this is called " panning." The larger oper- 
 ations of this kind are called " placer " and 
 " dredge " mining. There is also a considerable 
 amount of gold obtained as a by-product from cop- 
 per mining. 
 
 Generally speaking, quartz mines are in the moun- 
 tains and placer mines in the river valleys. Placer 
 mining by powerful water pressure, called hydraulic 
 mining, destroys the banks, and also fills up the 
 river beds with masses of rock and gravel. Some 
 of the large rivers of California have been made 
 unfit for steamboat traffic, and serious damage has 
 been done to the harbor of San Francisco. For 
 this reason hydraulic placer mining has been stopped 
 by law. This has greatly lessened the gold pro- 
 duction of California. 
 
 In 1907, the United States produced $94,000,000 
 worth of gold. Of this, Colorado produced more 
 than any other state. Next in their order come 
 Alaska, California and Nevada. Each produced
 
 OTHER MINERALS 183 
 
 from $15,000,000 to $20,000,000 worth. Together 
 they furnished nearly four-fifths of the entire sup- 
 ply. The remaining one-fifth comes from Utah, 
 South Dakota, Montana, Arizona, Idaho, and Ore- 
 gon, with very small amounts from the southeastern 
 states, the two Carolinas and Georgia, New Mexico, 
 Washington, and Wyoming. South Dakota has the 
 most profitable single gold mine in the United States. 
 It has produced nearly $60,000,000 in gold, and 
 is now turning out about $5,000,000 worth a year. 
 
 The United States has many unworked gold' 
 mines, " gold reserves " they are called, whose value 
 can not in any way be exactly estimated. The value 
 of the placer mines can be better judged than that 
 of the lode or quartz mines. The placer mines are 
 chiefly in Alaska and California. These mines 
 may yield gold to the amount of a billion dollars. 
 There are lesser, but important resources of placer 
 gold in Montana, Idaho, and Oregon. 
 
 The placer gold mined in 1907 was valued at 
 $24,000,000, and it is thought that about this quan- 
 tity can be supplied for a long time. 
 
 The amount of gold yielded in the reduction of 
 copper ores was about $5,500,000. It is probable 
 that this amount will be gradually increased, and 
 can be relied on to last many years. From the lead 
 ores a little over $2,000,000 worth of gold was
 
 184 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 taken. This will probably slowly decrease for the 
 next ten or twenty years. From gold and silver- 
 bearing quartz mines $55,000,000 was taken. 
 
 No calculation can be made as to the amount of 
 gold contained in quartz mines. New discoveries 
 are always probable and many new mines are opened 
 up each year, but their value can only be estimated 
 as the work in them progresses. 
 
 Just how long they will last nobody knows, but 
 it would seem that their decline is far off. The 
 government report says, " Unless very important 
 new discoveries are made it is thought unlikely 
 that the production of gold in the United States 
 will rise much above $110,000,000; nor is it likely 
 that it will sink below $60,000,000 within a long 
 period of years." 
 
 The amount of gold used in the United States is 
 about equal to the production. Nearly $80,000,000 
 is coined into money, and about half as much is 
 used in the arts, that is, for jewelry, tableware, 
 in dentistry, in bookbinding, and various chemical 
 processes. The quantity used in the arts has 
 doubled since 1900. In 1907 the stock of gold 
 coin in the United States, according to the Director 
 of the Mint, was $1,600,000,000, which is almost 
 exactly one-fifth of the gold coin of the world. 
 
 The production of gold is rapidly increasing. 
 Since 1850 we have mined three times as much
 
 OTHER MINERALS 185 
 
 gold as in all the previous time since the discovery 
 of America. Such rapid production greatly 
 shortens the life of the gold supply. When the 
 gold fields of southern Africa were first opened 
 they were said to be inexhaustible; but they have 
 been mined so rapidly, and the supply has proved 
 so far short of the first excited estimates that ex- 
 perts say that the entire region will be almost ex- 
 hausted within twenty years. The loss of gold in 
 mining and refining is comparatively small. In ex- 
 tracting gold from the cheaper ores the percentage 
 of loss is large ; but as only a small part of the gold 
 is gained in this way the total loss is relatively 
 small. By other methods ninety-five per cent or 
 more is saved. In many cases the loss is too small 
 to be considered. 
 
 Unlike other minerals little gold is destroyed by 
 use. It is melted and remelted, all scraps are used, 
 even the sweepings from the mint and from man- 
 ufacturing goldsmiths' shops are saved and the 
 gold used. The waste of the world's gold and sil- 
 ver would be much greater but for the use of paper 
 money, bank checks, and notes. Their very gen- 
 eral use keeps the gold as a reserve, held in banks 
 and storage vaults much of the time. If it were in 
 constant use, the continual rubbing together of the 
 coins would mean a no less steady, though slight, 
 wearing away of their surface. This is very no-
 
 1 86 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 ticeable in old silver coins, which are kept in more 
 constant circulation. 
 
 SILVER 
 
 The conditions in regard to silver are entirely dif- 
 ferent from those of the other resources. The pro- 
 duction of silver is not increasing, in fact, the min- 
 ing of silver alone is decreasing and the reason is 
 not because the supply is lessening, but because the 
 price is too low to make a larger working of the 
 mines profitable, and the supply is kept down to the 
 level of the demand. A great number of silver 
 mines have been closed for the last few years. The 
 production could be greatly increased at any time 
 to meet an increased demand. 
 
 The highest production was in 1902, but there 
 have been only slight changes since 1895 ; the pro- 
 duction being a little less than 60,000,000 ounces, 
 or about one-third of the world's supply Mexico 
 being the only other great producer. In many 
 countries with a small supply the output is growing 
 less each year on account of the low price, and the 
 difficulty of competing with the United States. 
 
 The states now producing the most silver are 
 Colorado, Montana, and Utah; each of these pro- 
 duces about one ounce out of every five ounces 
 mined. Most of the remainder was produced by 
 Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, and California.
 
 OTHER MINERALS 187 
 
 Although nearly 60,000,000 ounces were mined 
 in 1907 only one and a half million ounces were 
 mined for the sake of the silver alone. The rest 
 was obtained as a by-product in the mining of gold, 
 lead, copper and zinc, or, as is often the case, it 
 was distinctively silver ore, but could not be profit- 
 ably mined unless some other ore could be obtained 
 at the same time. 
 
 The richer regions seem to have been exhausted, 
 and as the process of extracting the ore is expen- 
 sive the lower grade ores will probably be held for 
 several years till prices advance. A great silver 
 region has recently been opened in northern Can- 
 ada. This contains immense quantities of very rich 
 ore, and will probably keep the price down for many 
 years. 
 
 So the care and conservation of silver is not an 
 important issue for the people of the present gener- 
 ation. As silver is now obtained largely as a by- 
 product, there is almost no waste. 
 
 The United States sends considerably more than 
 half of its silver to other countries, principally to 
 India and China, which use much silver coin, but 
 have little in the way of silver resources. The 
 amount used at home is divided between coinage 
 and manufacture. The quantity coined varies 
 greatly from year to year, eight million ounces be- 
 ing about the average. For manufacturing, jewelry,
 
 1 88 CHECKING^THE WASTE 
 
 tableware, chemicals, etc., about twenty million 
 ounces, of which one-fifth is remelted silver, are 
 used. The demand for silver in manufacturing has 
 doubled since 1898, and may lead before many years 
 to the reopening of the silver mines. 
 
 COPPER 
 
 The conditions of copper mining are exactly op- 
 posite from those of silver. The Indians used 
 almost no metal except copper, and for three hun- 
 dred years white men used the old Indian mines 
 and refined the copper by Indian methods. Better 
 methods of mining copper and extracting it from 
 the ores have been employed for the last fifty years, 
 but within a dozen years the refining of copper has 
 been revolutionized by electric methods. An enor- 
 mous amount has been produced, but production has 
 been kept down on account of the high prices. It 
 is said that if the price could be reduced one-half, 
 ten times as much copper would be used. Most of 
 the uses of copper have arisen in the last twenty- 
 five years. Its greatest use is for electric wiring. 
 Nothing can take its place, and the use is increasing 
 astonishingly. 
 
 Copper is used largely in alloys. Bronze is an 
 alloy of copper and tin, and its use has greatly in- 
 creased in castings, fittings for buildings, tablets, 
 and statues.
 
 OTHER MINERALS 189 
 
 A much more useful alloy is brass, made from 
 copper and zinc. Brass is very extensively used 
 for parts of machinery, engines, automobiles, and 
 also for fittings for buildings. Sheet copper is used 
 for sheathing for ships, for boilers, and for various 
 chemical processes carried on by electricity or by 
 acids. Very many of these processes have been 
 discovered within ten or fifteen years, and have 
 largely increased the uses for copper. One of the 
 older uses of copper which is less common now was 
 for cooking utensils. Copper is used by the gov- 
 ernment for coining one-cent pieces. 
 
 No single country compares at present with the 
 United States in the production of copper, but if 
 reports be correct there is enough copper in central 
 Africa to supply the world for years to come. Next 
 to the United States, Spain mines the largest amount 
 at present, and Japan ranks next. 
 
 For many years the rate of increase was enor- 
 mous. In 1845, 224,000 pounds were mined; in 
 1888, 226,000,000 pounds. Eight years later, in 
 1896, it had doubled; after another ten years, in 
 1906, it had doubled that quantity, and reached 
 918,000,000 pounds. In 1890 we were using three 
 pounds of copper for every man, woman and child in 
 the country. And in 1907, six and one-half pounds. 
 
 Michigan, Montana, and Arizona produce the 
 bulk of the copper. Utah, California, Colorado,
 
 190 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 New Mexico, Wyoming, and Nevada each produce 
 copper in amounts ranging from the 66,000,000 
 pounds mined in Utah to the 2,000,000 pounds 
 mined in Nevada. It is probable that the use will 
 not increase so rapidly in the near future. Much 
 old copper will be remelted. 
 
 There are large areas of copper lands which are 
 now classed as " available " with copper at about 
 its present price of thirteen cents a pound. If the 
 world production should grow so great as to cause 
 a decided drop in the price, much that is now con- 
 sidered available could not be mined at a profit, and 
 the copper supply from this country would be greatly 
 reduced. If, on the other hand, copper should rise 
 to fifteen or twenty cents or higher, the amount 
 of available copper land would be vastly increased. 
 The report on the Conservation of Mineral Re- 
 sources says in effect : " The copper resources of 
 the United States are believed to be large enough to 
 allow for a number of years for a demand increas- 
 ing at the rate of 30,000,000 pounds a year. Should 
 this demand continue for a long period the scarcity 
 would be felt and result in a rising price, which 
 would open up a market for these low-grade ores 
 and also cause the use of other metals, like alum- 
 inum, to take the place of copper whenever possible." 
 
 There is no great waste in the mining of copper, 
 but in the extraction of copper from the ore the
 
 OTHER MINERALS 191 
 
 waste is often as much as thirty per cent., and it is 
 not easy to avoid this on account of the chemical 
 changes that take place. 
 
 LEAD 
 
 The United States produces about one-third of 
 the lead in the world. The remainder comes from 
 Spain, where the production remains about the 
 same from year to year; from Germany, where in 
 spite of higher prices production is growing less; 
 and from Australia and Mexico, in both of which 
 the supply is rapidly decreasing. 
 
 These facts show that the lead resources of the 
 United States will be drawn on heavily in the future. 
 The production of the United States increased from 
 about 70,000 tons in 1880 to 365,000 tons seven- 
 teen years later, and if continued the yearly pro- 
 duction by 1920 will amount to 580,000 tons, or 
 more than a billion pounds. 
 
 The principal lead-producing states are Missouri, 
 Idaho, Utah, and Colorado. In Missouri it is prob- 
 able that the present rate of increase could be kept 
 up for at least fifty years. The other states could 
 keep up the present production for many years but 
 could not greatly increase it without exhausting the 
 supply. 
 
 As with most mineral resources in the United 
 States, it is only the richest ores that are now drawn
 
 192 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 upon (except where lead is a by-product extracted 
 with some other ore). If prices would advance, so 
 as to make the low-grade ores profitable, the 
 amount of our resources would be greatly increased. 
 
 There is little waste in the mining or smelt- 
 ing of lead ores, and the slag, the waste, is always 
 ready to be used again. In the refining and con- 
 centrating of lead the loss often amounts to as much 
 as fifteen per cent, or twenty per cent. The best 
 way to prevent final loss is to store all refuse until 
 such time as the reworking becomes profitable. 
 Improvement in methods has been great in the last 
 fifteen years but more economical methods every- 
 where will be one of the necessities of the future. 
 We can see that the lead resources of the United 
 States are not large and that when our own supply 
 is exhausted we can not turn to the rest of the 
 world. 
 
 The waste in mining is not large, and most of it 
 can not be avoided at present prices; so that for 
 the conservation, which we see is so important, we 
 must turn to the uses of lead. The most necessary 
 of these is for lead pipes in plumbing. Another use 
 is for war supplies, which not only makes heavy 
 drains on our stores of coal and iron, but also on 
 lead, which is much less plentiful. 
 
 One ton out of every three produced in the United 
 States is used in the manufacture of white lead and
 
 OTHER MINERALS 193 
 
 consumed as paint. This, of course, is entirely 
 lost, and it seems that some other material might be 
 used, instead of so valuable a mineral, especially 
 when the resource is not abundant. White lead is 
 used more than any other substance for paint, al- 
 though zinc white has come into considerable use in 
 the last few years. No other nation uses lead 
 paint to such an extent as does the United States, 
 partly because no other nation could afford so gen- 
 eral a use of such an expensive material, and partly 
 because so many wooden buildings are erected. By 
 using brick, stone, or cement, of which we have 
 practically an unending supply, to take the place of 
 wood, our store of which is rapidly disappearing, 
 we could avoid much of the drain on our mineral 
 resources which are used for paint. 
 
 As production and price advance a greater quan- 
 tity of lead is remelted. About 25,000 tons are 
 returned to use each year. 
 
 ZINC 
 
 Zinc is a whitish metal. It is used in gal- 
 vanizing iron to prevent its rusting. It is used also 
 in the manufacture of white paint, which consumes 
 about one ton out of every six tons mined. This, 
 of course, is permanently lost, but the price and its 
 value as a resource is much lower than lead. This 
 takes more than half of the entire product. The
 
 194 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 remainder of the output is about equally divided 
 between brass and sheet zinc. All these uses are 
 extremely necessary and it is believed that the pro- 
 duction of zinc will rapidly increase for many years. 
 
 The United States is the largest producer, Ger- 
 many ranks second. Large amounts are mined in 
 Australia, and very large deposits, entirely unde- 
 veloped, are said to exist in Africa. In 1880, the 
 United States produced 23,000 tons of zinc; in 1907, 
 280,000 tons. This indicates the rapid rate at which 
 we are increasing our use of zinc. 
 
 If the same rate should continue, in 1920 we 
 should be using 475,000 tons, or almost a billion 
 pounds, and if zinc oxide should take the place of 
 white lead in painting to the extent that now seems 
 probable, the quantity would be still further in- 
 creased. 
 
 Missouri is by far the heaviest producer of zinc, 
 having a little more than half of the output. New 
 Jersey ranks next, then Colorado, Wisconsin and 
 Kansas. Some of the other western states each pro- 
 duce small amounts. Most of the pure zinc ore is 
 mined at a depth of from one hundred and fifty to 
 two hundred and fifty feet and occurs in sheets, but 
 a large part of the ore is a by-product obtained from 
 the reduction of other ores. In New Jersey the 
 zinc alone is found in a single region, where it was 
 estimated a few years ago that there were eight
 
 OTHER MINERALS 195 
 
 million tons, of which two and a half million tons 
 have been mined since 1904. The zinc in Missouri, 
 Wisconsin and Kansas is found alone or underly- 
 ing lead deposits, while that of the western states is 
 almost always found in limestone, and is mixed with 
 silver, copper, lead, and, more rarely, gold. In 
 these states there has been little attempt to discover 
 zinc; in fact, ores containing zinc have been rather 
 shunned because of the difficulty in extracting them. 
 
 It is thought that our resources of zinc, especially 
 in the West, have just begun to be developed, and 
 that the supply, even at the present rate of increase 
 and at present prices, will last many years. How- 
 ever, with increasing use for the product, we can 
 not be sure of supplies for more than a generation; 
 and in view of the importance of zinc it becomes 
 necessary to inquire into its wastes. 
 
 In no mineral is the waste more startling than in 
 zinc. In Missouri it is necessary to leave support- 
 ing pillars as in coal mining. This can not be rem- 
 edied, as the use of timbers is too expensive, but 
 it causes a heavy loss. In the West, owing to the 
 expensive treatment and shipment, much of the 
 low-grade ore is left in the ground. In refining 
 the loss is enormous, often as much as forty per 
 cent. In order to produce zinc at a low cost there 
 must be a heavy loss of metal. Better plants and 
 equipment for refining, and the saving of all refuse
 
 196 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 for later use will be necessary if we are to conserve 
 the zinc supply for future generations. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS 
 
 The supplies of many of the materials used in 
 buildings and bridges, such as stone, gravel, clay, 
 cement and lime are so great that they appear inex- 
 haustible, and need of care in their use is not so 
 much to be considered as is their development to 
 take the place of other resources. 
 
 In the past they have not been used freely because 
 wooden buildings have been so much cheaper; but 
 cement, concrete and brick are now manufactured 
 much more cheaply, on account of improved meth- 
 ods, while the price of lumber has been increasing 
 rapidly. Within the last ten years, the value of 
 cement manufactures has increased nearly six times. 
 In 1900 we used seventy pounds of cement for each 
 person; in 1907, two hundred and twenty-eight 
 pounds. The value of brick and other products 
 made from clay has doubled in the same period and 
 is now $160,000,000, while the value of building- 
 stone quarries is three times as great as it was ten 
 years ago. There are many reasons why these ma- 
 terials should take the place of wood; as they are 
 stronger, more durable, do not require paint, and are 
 so much less liable to loss by fire. 
 
 The waste of minerals used in building is due to
 
 OTHER MINERALS 197 
 
 improper and reckless methods of taking them from 
 the ground and preparing them for market and in 
 careless methods in manufacturing. 
 
 Of such minerals as quartz, grindstone, mill- 
 stone, emery stone, mineral paints, talc and salt, 
 there seems to be enough to meet the needs of the 
 future as well as the present. Such supplies as 
 sulphur, asphalt, magnesia, borax, and asbestos, as 
 well as coal and iron, are not very plentiful. If 
 used carelessly, they will be exhausted in a few years ; 
 if wisely, they may be expected to last beyond the 
 limits of the present century. 
 
 Our supplies of quicksilver, antimony, graphite, 
 mica, tin, nickel, platinum, and many minerals less 
 well known, as well as our petroleum, natural gas, 
 copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, and phosphate rock 
 will be almost exhausted well within the present cen- 
 tury unless large new deposits are discovered. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Report of National Conservation Commission. 
 The Conservation of Mineral Resources. U. S. Govern- 
 ment Reports. 
 
 Report of the U. S. Geological Survey. 
 Production of Gold in 1908. U. S. Government Reports. 
 Production of Silver in 1908. 
 Production of Lead in 1908. 
 Production of Zinc in 1908. 
 Production of Structural Materials. 
 About twenty pamphlets on other minerals.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 
 GRAZING 
 
 FOOD is of two classes: vegetable, which comes 
 directly from the earth, and animal, which has fed 
 on vegetable life. This is, of course, a more con- 
 centrated form of food, and much less of it is needed 
 to sustain life. 
 
 For the plentiful supply of vegetable food we 
 must depend upon the fertility of the soil, as we 
 have seen. Our animal food can not be classed 
 among our natural resources, but as a product of 
 them, and requires the same care and wise use. 
 
 In the early history of our country natural animal 
 food was abundant. Fishes swarmed in the sea, 
 lakes, and streams. Wild turkeys and other game 
 birds, deer, and bison formed a large part of the 
 food of our forefathers. But these have been grad- 
 ually disappearing. We have caught and destroyed 
 so many fish that we have only a fraction of our 
 former number. The game birds have disappeared 
 either because they have been killed in great num- 
 
 198
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 199 
 
 bers or because their nesting-places have been de- 
 stroyed. Of the big game nothing is now left ex- 
 cept in a few remote regions, and it is growing less 
 plentiful each year. 
 
 Although large quantities of fish and game are 
 marketed every year at certain seasons, they form 
 a small fraction of the animal food required in the 
 country, and we must now depend for most of our 
 animal food, not on that which was at first given us 
 for a natural resource but on that raised by man. 
 
 The poultry the chickens, ducks, geese and tur- 
 keys; the cattle, beef and dairy, the hogs and the 
 sheep that are raised in such vast numbers have 
 taken the place of wild game. The cultivated va- 
 rieties have higher food value, and are far more 
 satisfactory, since they are ready for use at any 
 time. 
 
 The conservation of our animal food resources 
 presents a different problem from any other. It is 
 true that we have wasted and exhausted our natural 
 food supplies, but we must remember that to a cer- 
 tain extent their preservation was neither possible 
 nor desirable. They have been driven out by ad- 
 vancing civilization. 
 
 Wild birds and animals leave as the forests are 
 cut out, destroying their natural homes. Many of 
 them can not be kept in captivity, so this supply 
 never could have been regulated. It was necessary
 
 200 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 to destroy some of them to insure man's safety, and 
 others were needed for his use. But we can take 
 their places with other animals which are better 
 fitted for our food, and it is the task of keeping up 
 a sufficient supply of these on the most suitable land 
 and under conditions that will yield the best re- 
 sults, that constitutes the problem of the conserva- 
 tion of our animal food resources. 
 
 The raising of poultry and live stock on a large 
 scale is a separate occupation, usually followed in a 
 scientific manner and it is not of that industry that 
 we need to speak, but rather of the benefit to every 
 farmer and to the dwellers in small communities, 
 of raising at least a part of the animal food used by 
 the family. 
 
 Every farm has some bits of unoccupied land that 
 can be fenced off for poultry. The gleanings from 
 the fields will supply their food, and they will fur- 
 nish meat and eggs for the family throughout the 
 year, with enough left to sell to provide other com- 
 forts. 
 
 Live stock, cattle, sheep and hogs, as well as goats, 
 horses and mules, are profitable to every farmer. 
 Many farms have woodland ; land that overflows at 
 some seasons, and so is unfit for raising crops; or 
 some rocky unproductive land where stock can be 
 raised more profitably than anything else, and if 
 every farmer would use all the land not suitable for
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 201 
 
 farm crops for pasture land the problem of an abun- 
 dant meat supply, of dairy products and of fer- 
 tilizers to enrich the soil would be largely solved. 
 Some farming experts advocate letting each field 
 in turn be used for pasture every five years, because 
 the stock raised on it is equal in value to any other 
 farm crop, and because the rest and fertilization al- 
 most double the value of the succeeding year's crop. 
 
 In the West and Southwest there are large tracts 
 of public land untilled. Much of the land can never 
 be used for agricultural purposes, because it is arid 
 or mountainous. 
 
 This land is well adapted to grazing and the gov- 
 ernment has allowed free use of it to stockmen as 
 pasture lands. 
 
 These public pasture lands are called " ranges." 
 In the early years when this part of the country be- 
 longed to Mexico, the ranges were traversed by 
 Indians and Mexicans who tended the herds of wild 
 cattle and horses, raised mostly for their hides. 
 But in the last quarter of a century the business has 
 fallen into the hands of Americans who have 
 introduced better breeds of higher value. In Cal- 
 ifornia, Arizona, and New Mexico there are now 
 on the open ranges eight million sheep, nearly three 
 million cattle and nearly a million horses, worth 
 much more than one hundred million dollars. Wy- 
 oming and Utah have great sheep ranges and do
 
 202 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 much to keep up the wool supply. On Texas, with 
 its great cattle ranges, we depend for a large part of 
 our beef and leather. In all these states where stock 
 is fed on public land, there are many questions as 
 to ownership of animals, rights of rival rangers, and 
 other points to settle. 
 
 In some of these states the government has 
 set aside national forest reserves. Within these is 
 much good grazing land. In order that the gov- 
 ernment may have some revenue from the land, a 
 regular price has been set on these forest lands. 
 The charge is forty cents a year each for 
 horses, thirty-five cents a year for cattle, and 
 twelve cents for sheep. The land is properly di- 
 vided, so that each kind of stock has suitable past- 
 ure. Each person who pays this tax is given a 
 certain range and no one else is allowed to use it. 
 There is sufficient pasture for each so that it need 
 not be too closely cropped. A man may lease the 
 same range year after year, may put down wells to 
 supply his stock, live on it, and do many things to 
 improve it. 
 
 The forest rangers who patrol the forest to watch 
 for fires or for timber thieves also protect these 
 stockmen in their rights and prevent trouble about 
 grazing privileges. 
 
 Outside the forest reserves the grazing is free, 
 but the advantages offered by this system are so
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 203 
 
 great that nearly all rangers now wish to use the 
 forest reserves. 
 
 As each ranger has his land assigned to him and 
 no one else can use it, the grass is not overcropped 
 as it often is in regions outside the forests. If 
 pasture is good, so many herds are pastured there 
 that soon the grass is all trampled down and eaten 
 off. Large areas are so badly injured that it will not 
 naturally resod itself. 
 
 Cattle men are asking that the same rules that 
 apply to the national forests be applied to other pub- 
 lic lands, so that the pasturage may be improved and 
 each man may have protection in his rights. 
 
 If all grazing lands could be thus leased, it would 
 give the business a far more permanent character, 
 better breeds of stock would be raised, and indi- 
 vidual owners would direct their efforts to improv- 
 ing both stock and pasture, after the manner of 
 stock raisers on private lands. 
 
 So large a part of our animal food, our wool, our 
 leather and many smaller needs depend on this in- 
 dustry, that every effort should be made to en- 
 courage it, and to provide the wisest laws and best 
 methods both for conserving and developing it. 
 
 In conclusion it is interesting to note that the 
 Department of Agriculture is making a study of 
 food birds and animals in various parts of the 
 world, and trying to domesticate them, to add to the
 
 204 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 variety of our food supply. The quail, the golden 
 pheasant and some species of grouse among birds, 
 and two or three species of deer, including the rein- 
 deer, appear to be adapted to domestic life in this 
 country, and may, before many years, become a part 
 of the animal industry of the United States. 
 
 FISHERIES 
 
 One who has never seen the big catches of fish 
 brought in by a mackerel fleet or visited a wholesale 
 fish market can have little idea of the importance of 
 that industry, nor of the immense amount of food 
 that is taken from the waters of the United States 
 every year. 
 
 The word fish is made to include not only fish 
 proper, but oysters, clams, scallops, lobsters, crabs, 
 shrimps, and turtles. Fish is liked by most per- 
 sons, is more easily digested than meat and is nour- 
 ishing. As a food resource, it is different in many 
 respects from any other. It does not exhaust the 
 soil, nor take from the earth anything of value, the 
 food of fishes consisting of water plants and ani- 
 mals that are not used by man in any other way. 
 Fish also purify the water in which they live, and so 
 cause a great, though indirect, benefit. 
 
 It is so plainly the wise thing, then, to keep our 
 rivers stocked with fish and to use them for food 
 only, that it seems that this valuable resource has
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 205 
 
 been more seriously and unnecessarily wasted than 
 any other. 
 
 Fish are wasted on inland streams in the follow- 
 ing ways: (i) By dynamiting. If a charge of 
 dynamite be exploded on the bed of the river, great 
 numbers of fish, killed by the shock, rise to the 
 top of the water and can be taken. This practice 
 was quite common at one time, but is now pro- 
 hibited by law in several states. 
 
 (2) By seining. A seine or net is placed en- 
 tirely across the stream, and all the fish which come 
 down the stream are caught. In several states sein- 
 ing is not allowed at all. In others it is allowed 
 only at certain seasons. And in still others the 
 meshes of the seine must be large enough to allow 
 all fish below a certain size to slip through. 
 
 (3) By catching with a hook, (angling) more 
 fish than can be used or catching small fish and 
 then throwing them away. This is a very com- 
 mon custom among sportsmen, but should be pro- 
 hibited by law. From a certain small inland lake, 
 it is said that during the entire season an average 
 of five thousand fish a day is taken. These are 
 almost all caught by summer residents, and it is 
 unlikely that a large per cent, of them are eaten. 
 In a few years the lake will be exhausted, and will 
 cease to furnish fish for the people of the commu- 
 nity, and there will, of course, be no more fishing
 
 206 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 for the sportsmen. Equal waste is going on all 
 through the summer at every resort where good 
 fishing is to be had. Some states have laws regu- 
 lating the size of the fish that may be caught and 
 the number that one person may take in one day, 
 and all states should have such laws. 
 
 (4) The worst waste of our fish is caused by 
 turning large quantities of sewage or refuse from 
 factories into streams. All the fish for miles up 
 and down a river are often destroyed in this way. 
 As we have seen, this is only one of the bad results 
 of allowing such refuse to drain into streams; every 
 state should have strict laws prohibiting it. 
 
 From the waters of the New England states more 
 than five hundred and twenty-eight millions of fish 
 are taken each year. Here are the great cod, mack- 
 erel, and herring fisheries. From the Middle At- 
 lantic states, the great region for oysters, lobsters 
 and other sea food, come eight hundred and twenty 
 million more; one hundred and six million come 
 from the South Atlantic states; one hundred and 
 thirteen million, including the much sought tarpon 
 and red snappers, come from the Gulf states; two 
 hundred and seventeen million are caught in the 
 Pacific states, including the great salmon catches; 
 ninety-six millions are taken from the Mississippi 
 River and its tributaries, and one hundred and sixty- 
 six millions, largely salmon, from Alaska. The
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 207 
 
 Great Lakes, with their pickerel, and other fine 
 fresh-water fish furnish one hundred and thirteen 
 millions and the small inland waters at least five 
 millions more. 
 
 When they are taken from the waters the 2,169,- 
 000,000 pounds of fish caught in the United States 
 are worth $58,000,000, but by canning, salting, and 
 other processes of preserving, the value is greatly 
 increased. 
 
 Fortunately, there is a method of conserving our 
 supply of fish and not only preventing it from grow- 
 ing less, but of greatly increasing the number and 
 improving the quality. The United States govern- 
 ment has a thoroughly well organized fish commis- 
 sion, and many states and counties and even private 
 clubs carry on the same work, which is a general 
 supervision of the fish supply. 
 
 The government maintains stations which are 
 regularly engaged in hatching fish, keeping them 
 until the greatest danger of their being destroyed 
 is past, and then placing them in various streams 
 all over the country. These fish are always of good 
 food varieties, and are carefully selected to insure 
 the kind best suited to the stream, as to whether it 
 is warm or cold, deep or shallow, clear or muddy, 
 fresh or salt, slow and placid, or swift and turbulent, 
 for each kind of stream has certain varieties of fish 
 that are especially adapted to it,
 
 2o8 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 With all these things taken into account, stocking 
 only with the best food varieties, if a state has laws 
 which require that a stream be kept free from sew- 
 age and refuse, that no tiny fish be taken from the 
 water, and that only a stated number can be taken in 
 a day by a single person, hundreds of small streams, 
 ponds and reservoirs all over the country may be 
 made to yield food supplies for the entire commu- 
 nity near by. 
 
 Governor Deneen, of Illinois, in urging that 
 streams be improved for navigation, says, " No es- 
 timate of the benefits to flow from stream develop- 
 ment would be complete without allusion to the fish- 
 eries which have been established on the Illinois 
 River, largely by restocking with fish from hatch- 
 eries. The fisheries located on that stream are sec- 
 ond in value only to those of the Columbia River. 
 
 " Our experience thus far indicates that the food 
 resources of the water may be brought up in value to 
 those of the land. The Illinois valley contains 80,000 
 acres of water area and yields a fish product worth 
 ten dollars an acre each year, very nearly all profit. 
 The average value of the land product near by is a 
 little less than twelve dollars an acre, and the labor, 
 cost of seeding, and exhaustion of fertilization of 
 the land must all be counted before there can be a 
 profit." 
 
 In 1908 the United States Fish Commission dis-
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 209 
 
 tributed nearly two and a half billion of young fish 
 and half a million fish eggs. These were such ex- 
 cellent varieties as salmon, shad, trout, bass, white 
 fish, perch, cod, flat fish and lobsters. 
 
 The Bureau of Fisheries has its fish-hatching 
 stations, its boats for catching fish in nets and its 
 tank cars for carrying the young fish and eggs to 
 the streams that are to be stocked. 
 
 Some of the most important work is interest- 
 ingly described in a history of the Bureau of Fish- 
 eries issued in 1908. Among other things it tells 
 of the lobster industry in both the Atlantic and Pa- 
 cific Oceans. Lobsters are not found naturally in 
 the Pacific, but shipments of lobsters have been 
 made from the Atlantic coast. At the last ship- 
 ment, after carrying them across the continent 
 packed in seaweed, more than a thousand lobsters 
 were safely placed on the bed of the Pacific Ocean. 
 
 On the Atlantic coast the lobsters were rapidly 
 disappearing when the work of artificial " plant- 
 ing " of young lobsters and eggs began. The re- 
 sults can be seen now, for more lobsters are being 
 caught each year, and the price to users is growing 
 less as the supply becomes more plentiful. 
 
 The shad and the salmon are considered the finest 
 of all fish for eating. Both are salt-water fish and 
 both have the habit of going some distance up fresh- 
 water rivers to lay their eggs. No eggs are ever
 
 210 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 laid in salt water. The mother fish goes up beyond 
 where the tide comes in, so that the baby fish may 
 have fresh water, which is necessary for them. Sal- 
 mon and shad are never caught in the sea, but in the 
 rivers, where they go in large numbers to lay their 
 eggs in the spring. This, of course, means the 
 destruction of both fish and eggs, the present and 
 future supply. 
 
 Shad eggs, or roe are sold in large quantities. 
 The Bureau of Fisheries has planted three thou- 
 sand millions of young shad in streams along the 
 coast, and the eggs from which these fish were 
 hatched were all taken from fish that had been 
 caught for market, and would have been totally lost 
 if the Bureau had not collected them from the fish- 
 ermen. 
 
 Shad have been planted in the Sacramento and 
 Columbia Rivers flowing into the Pacific Ocean. 
 From these two sources they have spread until now 
 they are found as far south as Los Angeles, and as 
 far north as Alaska, a coast line of 4,000 miles, and 
 it is said that more shad could now be caught in 
 the Sacramento and Columbia Rivers than in any 
 other water courses. 
 
 In addition to supplying the streams with young 
 fish, it is necessary to leave a part of each river clear 
 so that some of the fish may find their way up- 
 stream to deposit their eggs. The salmon have
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 211 
 
 been almost driven out from the waters of New 
 England, except in the Penobscot River, where they 
 have been kept by the watchfulness of the Fisher- 
 ies Bureau. It is believed that the entire salmon 
 industry in Maine would be wiped out in five years 
 if fish culture should cease, and in the West, where 
 the drain on the salmon for canning purposes is so 
 heavy, artificial planting is used very largely to keep 
 up the supply. 
 
 The experiments with oysters are full of inter- 
 est. In Chesapeake Bay, where the best natural 
 oyster beds were found, the demands on them were 
 so great that the supply began to fail. In 1904 only 
 a little more than one- fourth as many were pro- 
 duced as in 1880. The natural oyster beds were 
 then marked and set aside as public fishing grounds. 
 
 These are to be used by whoever wishes but un- 
 der strict protective rules. All other ocean beds 
 may be planted with oysters by any one who leases 
 the privilege from the state, and the right to collect 
 the oysters from a certain bed belongs to the person 
 who leases it as fully as does property on land. 
 
 Louisiana had a small number of natural beds. 
 About ten years ago the planting of oyster beds 
 began, and soon 20,000 acres had been planted. 
 Conditions were particularly favorable, and within 
 two years after the eggs or spawn were placed it 
 was found that oysters three and a half to four
 
 212 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 inches in size had grown in quantities of 1,000 to 
 2,000 bushels per acre. For a long time it has been 
 the custom of fishermen to fatten their oysters by 
 transplanting them to new beds where the food is 
 abundant, and in a short time the oysters are much 
 plumper, it takes fewer of them to make a quart 
 and they also sell at a higher price, because they are 
 of the finest quality. 
 
 These rich food beds are not plentiful, and many 
 dealers are compelled to put small oysters on the 
 market. The Bureau of Fisheries has made a study 
 of these food beds, and by using fertilizer, such as 
 farmers use on their land, have been able to make 
 such beds of sea-plants grow where they do not 
 naturally exist. These experiments have been tried 
 only a short time, but the results have been entirely 
 satisfactory, and it is hoped that before long, rich 
 oyster beds may be made to grow in any part of 
 the ocean where oysters will thrive. 
 
 In the Great Lakes the fishing is so heavy that 
 it is probable that the supply of perch and white 
 fish would be very low by this time if fish-culture 
 had not been carried on to so great an extent. White 
 fish, lake trout, pike and perch may be hatched in 
 such large numbers as to keep the fisheries up to 
 their present yield. 
 
 Another important work of the Fisheries Bureau 
 is to keep up the supply of cod for the great fish-
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 213 
 
 cries on the New England coast. For the last 
 twenty years profitable shore cod fishery has been 
 kept up on grounds that had been entirely exhausted 
 before and also where cod had never been found 
 before. At the wharves, government officers from 
 the Fisheries Bureau board the fishing boats when 
 they come in and take the eggs from the fish. These 
 are taken to the government hatchery and either the 
 eggs or the young fish are put back into the sea, and 
 so keep up an unending supply. 
 
 Alaska is one of the most important fishing re- 
 gions of the world. For this entire Territory, the 
 United States paid Russia $7,200,000 and many 
 thought that the money was practically thrown 
 away, since it apparently bought for us nothing but 
 barren, ice-bound shores. But since it became a part 
 of the United States, Alaska has yielded fishery 
 products alone amounting in value to $158,000,000 
 twenty-two and a half times the price paid. Of 
 this, $49,000,000 came from the fur seal fishery, 
 $86,000,000 from salmon and $23,000,000 from 
 other fish. 
 
 About $1,500,000 worth of sponges are now taken 
 from Florida waters each year. Naturally the fail- 
 ure of the industry would be a serious loss to the 
 state. But the natural sponge beds are being rap- 
 idly exhausted, and the Bureau of Fisheries is con- 
 vinced that the continuation of the sponge fisheries
 
 214 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 must depend on artificial planting. Sponges can be 
 produced from cuttings at a cost much less than that 
 of taking them from the natural beds. 
 
 Rhode Island has been successful in cultivating 
 soft-shell clams and in increasing the area of its 
 clam beds. 
 
 The Mississippi and its branches are subject to 
 great floods in the early spring and occasionally in 
 summer. After these floods millions of fishes are 
 left in small pools some distance back from the 
 river. These pools gradually dry up; the larger 
 fishes are caught and the smaller ones die. The 
 state and National Fish Commissions are now col- 
 lecting these fishes in large numbers, and using them 
 to stock ponds and rivers in other parts of the coun- 
 try. 
 
 They are used to supply many parts of the West 
 and South and there is much greater demand for 
 them than the Commissions can meet. Not that 
 there is a lack of fish, for millions are left to waste 
 because the Commissions can not distribute them 
 rapidly enough to save them. If large storage 
 ponds could be established to collect and keep the 
 fish during the flood season, so that all the time 
 might be spent in collecting fish during the overflow, 
 and they could be sent out later, the amount of fish 
 saved would be increased many fold.
 
 ANIMAL FOODS 215 
 
 The fish thus saved are being made to serve an- 
 other useful purpose. Pearl buttons are made from 
 the shells of mussels or fresh-water clams. This 
 business, which is now worth $5,000,000, can not 
 last many years unless some means of increasing 
 the supply of mussels can be devised. 
 
 Now these men, who are always studying new 
 plans, have thought of a wonderful way in which 
 to let the fish help in carrying on this work. They 
 obtain the mussel eggs, and when they are hatched 
 place them in the pools with the fish from the over- 
 flowed lands. The tiny mussel larvae attach them- 
 selves to the fish and are carried to the rivers and 
 ponds with the fish. Soon they are ready to drop 
 to the bottom and find food for themselves. 
 
 In this way 25,000,000 mussels were carried last 
 year to streams where mussels are known to thrive. 
 If these mussel-bearing fish can be obtained by 
 farmers having private fish ponds, the ponds can be 
 drained each year and the mussels gathered, thus 
 adding considerably to the owner's income, and also 
 keeping up the pearl button industry, in addition to 
 the food supply which he gains from the fish. 
 
 Enough has been said to show clearly how desir- 
 able and how possible it is to conserve and increase 
 our fish supplies. With the cooperation of all who 
 waste the fish at present, and those who might aid
 
 216 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 in stocking the streams, we could add greatly to the 
 food supply of the nation at a less cost than in any 
 other way. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Grazing Lands. Report National Conservation Commission. 
 
 Grazing on the Public Lands. (Jastro.) Report Governor's 
 Conference. 
 
 The Grazing Lands and Public Forests of Arizona. 
 (Heard.) Report Governor's Conference. 
 
 Grazing Problems in the Southwest and How to Meet 
 Them. Bulletin, Dept. of Agriculture, 5c. 
 
 Reports of the Bureau of Animal Industry. Dept. of Agri- 
 culture. 
 
 Distribution of Fish and Fish Eggs. Dept. Commerce and 
 Labor.* 
 
 Reports of the Commission of Fisheries. 
 
 National Fisheries Congress. 
 
 * All Bureau and Commission reports are free.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 INSECTS 
 
 IF WE look at a watch, we see that one wheel can 
 not move until the one next in order to it moves, and 
 that, in turn, must be set in motion by another wheel. 
 In the same way nature adjusts itself in its various 
 parts. Before man enters a region, the balance is 
 perfect. Plants crowd each other out of the way, 
 the weaker giving place to the stronger ; then insects 
 come to destroy them. These insects are destroyed 
 by birds, small mammals or other insects. The 
 birds are killed by animals and other birds, which in 
 turn are the food of larger animals. And so 
 through all nature runs this law of balance; nothing 
 increases in too great a proportion. 
 
 But when man comes, he thinks only of his own 
 needs and wishes and begins at once to upset the 
 delicate balance. Year after year, he plants large 
 fields of a single crop, and, calling other plants 
 weeds, because they hinder the growth of his grain, 
 he drives them out entirely. The insects that feed 
 on these plants, finding no food, soon disappear, 
 
 217
 
 218 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 while the ones which feed on the farmers' crops, 
 finding food so plentiful, are able to increase in great 
 numbers. They increase all the more rapidly be- 
 cause man, not knowing or not caring to know who 
 his real helpers are, has killed and driven away the 
 birds that would feed on them. 
 
 In order to readjust matters, he must learn how 
 to destroy the insects, or he can not have crops. 
 Both the plant enemies, the weeds, and the insects 
 are always trying to bring about nature's balance 
 again by driving out the over-abundant field crop, so 
 he must constantly fight them in order to secure his 
 harvest. 
 
 In no country is more harm done by insects than 
 in the United States. The losses to live stock and 
 to plants, both growing and stored, resulting from 
 insects are greater than all the expenses of the Na- 
 tional Government, including the pension roll and 
 the yearly maintenance of the army and navy. 
 
 Immense as is the value of our farm products, 
 it would be much greater if it were not for the work 
 of these insects. Careful calculations indicate that 
 this loss will amount to not less than the enormous 
 sum of $1,100,000,000 annually and probably far 
 more. The loss is usually estimated at ten per cent, 
 of the crop, but often is much heavier than this, and 
 many indirect losses are not taken into account in 
 this table, though we shall speak of them later.
 
 INSECTS 219 
 
 Most insects pass through four stages: (i) the 
 egg; (2) the worm or larvae; (3) the chrysalis, 
 cocoon, or pupa; (4) the full-grown insect or 
 imago. Butterflies, moths and beetles are examples 
 of insects in this last stage. 
 
 As eggs, they are, of course, harmless, and during 
 the chrysalis state they lie perfectly inactive and 
 are harmless, but many of them are very destructive 
 when they are worms or larvae, others do most in- 
 jury in the full-grown state. 
 
 The insects that man has most reason to dread 
 are: (i) Plant-lice, tiny insects with soft bodies, 
 usually green. They attach themselves to the 
 stems and leaves of plants and suck their juices, 
 leaving them to wilt and die. They are found on 
 many kinds of plants on corn, wheat and other 
 grains. They also flourish on garden vegetables 
 and flowers. 
 
 (2) Scale insects. These are flat and appear to 
 be only a scale on the stem or fruit. They are 
 usually covered with a hard crust-like covering and 
 are found on trees and bushes. They are usually 
 the color of the bark on which they are found. 
 
 (3) Worms and caterpillars are soft-bodied, the 
 bodies being in segments, and either smooth or cov- 
 ered with short bristly hair. They spend nearly 
 all their time in eating, and do immense damage 
 to the foliage of trees and vegetables and to fruit
 
 220 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The adult is a moth or caterpillar. This class is 
 among the farmer's worst insect enemies. 
 
 (4) Borers attack trees and tough-stemmed 
 plants. The eggs are laid on the stems, and after 
 hatching, the larvae bore into the stem or under 
 the bark, causing the foliage to wilt and die. We 
 are all familiar with what we call " worm-eaten " 
 wood, with canals that have been eaten by these 
 borers running through it in all directions. This 
 completely ruins some of the best forest trees for 
 lumber, and makes one of the greatest losses of the 
 forests. 
 
 (5) Beetles are insects in the adult state. They 
 have hard, shiny wing-covers. Many of the bor- 
 ers are beetles, and there are other varieties which 
 do great damage, though other kinds are useful to 
 man in destroying harmful insects. 
 
 (6) Bugs have their mouth parts prolonged into 
 a sharp beak with which they puncture the skin or 
 bark, instead of chewing the leaves, as do beetles. 
 Flies, gnats, and other similar insects do not usu- 
 ally injure vegetation so much as do some other 
 classes of insects, the principal damage being done 
 to fruits; but they have been found to be the cause 
 of some of the most serious diseases in both man 
 and the lower animals. 
 
 The Department of Agriculture divides the in- 
 juries done by insects into classes according to the
 
 INSECTS 221 
 
 products injured, and in the list they place first the 
 injury done to cereal crops. 
 
 The insects which damage the corn crop most 
 seriously are the corn-root worm, which feeds on 
 the roots of young corn, causing it to fall over and 
 die, and which sometimes takes the whole corn crop 
 of a large region. The next most important is the 
 boll-worm or ear-worm. Most persons have seen 
 this worm in the ears of sweet corn; ninety ears 
 out of every hundred contain a worm which de- 
 stroys from one-tenth to one-half the corn. Some 
 years every ear in large regions is infested. In 
 the South the field corn is attacked as badly as the 
 sweet corn, but in the great corn states the injury 
 is much less. Even here, however, the total loss is 
 very great. 
 
 Almost equally important is the damage wrought 
 by the chinch-bug, which is also one of the greatest 
 pests in wheat and oats. 
 
 Every year in different sections of the country, 
 bill-bugs, wire-worms, cutworms, cornstalk borers, 
 locusts, grasshoppers, corn plant-lice and other in- 
 sects, destroy millions of bushels of corn. 
 
 Of the cereal crops, wheat suffers most from 
 insects. Of the large number of insects that attack 
 wheat, the three important species are the Hessian 
 fly, the chinch-bug and the grain plant-louse or 
 green-bug.
 
 222 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The Hessian fly has been known to destroy as 
 much as sixty per cent, of all the wheat acreage of 
 a state. Fortunately, this damage is done early in 
 the year, so that when whole fields are destroyed 
 they can be replanted with other crops and only the 
 cost of seed and labor is to be counted as a loss. 
 But more often the field is only partly destroyed 
 by the fly; it is not necessary to replant, but the 
 yield is small, often not more than one-third. Some 
 years the loss from the Hessian fly is very heavy, 
 at other times comparatively light, yet there are 
 few years when the loss is less than ten per cent, of 
 the total crop from this insect alone, which meant 
 last year a loss of 72,500,000 bushels. 
 
 The chinch-bug is responsible for the loss of five 
 per cent, or one bushel out of every twenty. It 
 attacks the straw, causing the heads of wheat to 
 fall over and wither away. 
 
 The injury done by the green-bug comes just as 
 the wheat begins to ripen, the tiny green creatures 
 attaching themselves in great numbers to the heads 
 of the wheat. Other insects which prey on the 
 wheat crop are grasshoppers, the wheat midge, cut- 
 worms and army-worms. 
 
 If it were not for the attacks of these various 
 pests the wheat crop would be at least one-fifth 
 larger than it is. Instead of 725,000,000 bushels, 
 it would be 870,000,000; which, with wheat at a
 
 INSECTS 223 
 
 dollar a bushel, amounts to a loss of nearly $150,- 
 000,000. Further, the world loses all this valuable 
 bread-stuff. 
 
 Oats, rye and barley suffer far less than wheat 
 from insect ravages but they are all attacked by the 
 same insects, and on the whole, much damage is 
 done to them each year. 
 
 Hay, clover, and alfalfa have their enemies which 
 destroy a considerable part of the crops. The lo- 
 custs and caterpillars, the army-worms and cut- 
 worms are the best known, but the tiny leaf -hop- 
 pers, which spring up at every step as we walk 
 across the path or lawn, and the web-worms and 
 grass-worms and grubs which work about the roots 
 of the plants all do their part in lowering the produc- 
 tion. 
 
 The principal insect enemies of cotton are the 
 cotton boll-weevil, the boll-worm, the cotton red 
 spider, and the cotton-leaf worm. The control of 
 the boll-weevil is considered one of the most serious 
 problems confronting the agricultural men of the 
 country. In the first years after its introduction, 
 it reduced the cotton crop fully fifty per cent, and 
 was the cause, not only of serious loss to the farm- 
 ers, but of the closing of the cotton mills in New 
 England, of a scarcity of cotton cloth and a decided 
 rise in its price. The boll-weevil is a beetle about 
 a quarter of an inch in length. This little beetle
 
 224 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 eats into the heart of each boll, which soon falls to 
 the ground. 
 
 The cotton-leaf worm formerly caused heavy 
 damage, as much as $20,000,000 to $30,000,000 a 
 year, but the loss has been greatly reduced by the 
 war which farmers have waged against it. It is 
 still estimated at from $5,000,000 to $10,000,000. 
 
 The boll-worm is chiefly destructive in the South- 
 west and does damage to the extent of $12,000,- 
 ooo. 
 
 All in all no article of commerce is more seriously 
 affected by insect ravages than cotton, on account of 
 its necessity, and the fact that it can be raised only 
 in certain regions. 
 
 Tobacco is one of the principal crops in several 
 states and it suffers heavily from insect damage. 
 The large, showy tobacco-worm and the tiny to- 
 bacco-thrips cause serious injury to the leaves. 
 
 Sugar-cane has its insect enemies which take on 
 an average one stalk out of every ten raised in this 
 country, and reduce the crop in the same propor- 
 tion. 
 
 The cranberry is another valuable commercial 
 plant that has been greatly affected by an insect 
 known as the cranberry fruit worm, but by 
 spraying, growers have been able to reduce the 
 damage from sixty per cent, down to fourteen per 
 cent.
 
 INSECTS 225 
 
 Garden vegetables suffer more than anything 
 else from insects. Potatoes are attacked by two 
 species of insects, both destructive unless held in 
 check. One is the reddish brown blister-beetle. 
 The eggs are laid on the ground, and do not be- 
 come adult insects until the second year. The 
 other is the striped Colorado beetle, the eggs of 
 which are laid on the under side of the leaves, and 
 develop into adults in a short time. Two broods 
 of this beetle develop in a single season. Thus 
 it may be seen that the two are entirely different, 
 though they are often supposed to be the same. 
 The Colorado beetle, by the immense damage it was 
 doing to a necessary food crop, first led to a regular 
 method of fighting insects in this country. This 
 potato-bug is not feared as it was in the past, since 
 farmers have learned to control it in a great meas- 
 ure, but they have only been able to lessen the evil, 
 never to drive it out completely. 
 
 Other insects that destroy garden vegetables are 
 the well-known green cabbage-worm, the harlequin 
 cabbage-bug, the cabbage hairworm, the asparagus- 
 beetle, the squash-bug, the squash-vine borer, the 
 striped cucumber or melon beetle, the melon aphis, 
 the corn boll-worm, the cornstalk borer and many 
 others. 
 
 In addition to these insects that attack special 
 plants, all vegetables are preyed on by the grub-
 
 226 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 worm, the cutworm, the aphis and various tiny 
 hoppers. 
 
 The grub-worms which work about the roots of 
 plants are, in the adult state, the June-bugs or cock- 
 chafers which fly about our lights in the spring 
 and early summer, and which themselves do con- 
 siderable damage by eating leaves of trees and 
 bushes. 
 
 Orchards and small fruits suffer heavily from 
 insect pests, both on account of the direct loss and 
 on account of the expensive treatment. There are 
 several hundred insects which ravage fruit trees, 
 attacking the roots, trunk, foliage and fruit. 
 
 Among these are the scales, of which there are 
 many species, but of which the most widely known 
 and dreaded is the San Jose scale, so called because 
 San Jose, California, was its starting place in Amer- 
 ica. It is the only one of the scales which, if not 
 checked, will, in two or three years, completely 
 destroy the tree on which it feeds. It attacks the 
 citrus fruits, orange, lemon, grape-fruit, and the 
 apple, pear, and peach as well as small fruits, par- 
 ticularly currants. 
 
 Among the many varieties that do serious damage 
 are the black olive scale, plum scale, hickory scale, 
 locust scale, frosted black scale, red oak scale, the 
 cottony maple scale, greedy scale and oyster shell 
 scale.
 
 INSECTS 227 
 
 The woolly aphis injures the roots of our fruit 
 trees; the trunk and limb borers, the peach tree 
 borer, the apple borer, all stand ready to assail the 
 life of the entire tree. The various leaf worms 
 attack the life of the tree also. The grape-leaf 
 skeletonizer eats every particle of green from the 
 leaves, leaving only the veins. The canker-worms 
 and the destructive tent-caterpillars also cause the 
 death of many fruit trees. 
 
 Of insects which attack the fruit, the list is long. 
 The codling-moth of the apple causes a greater 
 money loss than any other enemy of fruits. Vari- 
 ous estimates of the loss have been made, and in 
 general it is believed that it causes the loss of one- 
 fourth to one-half of the apple crop of the United 
 States each year. 
 
 The plum-curculio attacks nearly all stone fruits. 
 Its natural food plant is probably the native wild 
 plum, and the plum continues to be its favorite 
 food, consequently this fruit suffers most from the 
 attacks of the insect. In years of short crops very 
 little fruit remains on the tree to ripen. But peaches, 
 apricots and cherries also suffer heavily, and apples 
 and pears in a less degree. 
 
 The insects which injure the hardwood forest 
 trees are principally the leaf -eaters, such as the 
 gypsy and brown tail moths, which have almost 
 stripped the New England shade trees, and done
 
 228 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 great damage to the forests ; the elm leaf beetles and 
 the numerous borers, both beetles and grubs, which 
 from eggs laid in or just beneath the bark, hatch 
 into larvae which burrow into the wood, destroying 
 its usefulness for lumber. Among the borers 
 which do most injury in destroying valuable timber 
 are the hickory-bark beetle, the bark-boring grubs 
 which kill oak, chestnut, birch and poplar trees, 
 the locust borer, the chestnut timber-worm and the 
 Columbian timber beetle. 
 
 All these represent the loss from insects to the 
 growing product; but when it is stored, there is 
 seemingly no less danger of attack by a different 
 class of insects. These include grain weevils and 
 beetles, flour-moths, the small fruit and vinegar 
 flies, buffalo-moths and dozens of others. 
 
 After these comes the loss to man and animals 
 from insects. The cattle tick alone, through the 
 dreaded Texas fever, causes a loss of from $10,- 
 000,000 to $35,000,000 in various years. The ox 
 warble also preys on cattle and causes a loss of 
 probably $3,000,000 more. The buffalo-gnats, 
 gadflies, and other flies do on the whole a large 
 amount of damage each year. 
 
 Man has only discovered in recent years how 
 serious a factor in his own health as well as com- 
 fort, is the insect life about him. This subject is 
 more fully treated under the subject of health, so
 
 INSECTS 229 
 
 for the present we need only say that flies, mos- 
 quitos and other insects are supposed to cause some 
 of our most serious diseases, and to be the indirect 
 cause of the loss of hundreds of millions of dol- 
 lars and many human lives each year. 
 
 Having thus summed up the damage done by 
 insects, let us see what may be done to prevent their 
 spread and if possible drive out the most harmful 
 species entirely. Unfortunately, that seems almost 
 impossible; so far all man's efforts have only re- 
 sulted in saving a larger or smaller proportion of the 
 various crops each year. 
 
 In insect control we turn first to the natural means 
 of destruction. Chief among these means are 
 birds, of which we will speak in another chapter, 
 snakes and toads. 
 
 Toads live entirely on insects and catch large 
 quantities of them. It is estimated that a single 
 toad is worth almost twenty dollars a year in a 
 field or garden. English gardeners are said to pay 
 high prices for them and to keep as many as pos- 
 sible in their gardens. Toads will eat almost any 
 kind of insect, are absolutely harmless, and should 
 be carefully protected. 
 
 There is one class of insects which, so far from 
 being an enemy to man, combines with him to kill 
 the harmful insects. Among these are the black 
 beetles which feed on cutworms and other larvae
 
 2 3 o CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 which injure the roots of plants. Lady-bird beetles 
 destroy large numbers of plant-lice, and the Asiatic 
 lady-bird has been found to be the natural destroyer 
 of the San Jose scale. These little insects are now 
 being hatched in this country, and it is hoped 
 through them to stamp out the pest. A number of 
 larger insects prey on the smaller ones. 
 
 Other insects, such as the Hessian fly, the green- 
 bug or spring grain aphis, the army-worm and va- 
 rious species of grasshoppers are killed by tiny- 
 parasitic insects whose eggs are laid in the bodies of 
 the larger insects, but which, after being hatched, 
 feed on them. 
 
 To these natural methods of control man has 
 added others. Cultivation is one of these methods. 
 As insects flourish when given an unusually large 
 amount of food of a particular kind, and starve 
 when that food is taken away from them, so rotation 
 of crops proves to be one of the best means of get- 
 ting rid of those insects which can not travel far for 
 their food. Farmers who practise rotation of 
 crops are much less troubled with insects that in- 
 jure the roots of plants than those who do not. 
 
 One of the best means of preventing damage from 
 the Hessian fly is to sow a narrow strip of wheat 
 all around the edges of the field several weeks be- 
 fore the main crop is to be sowed. The flies will
 
 INSECTS 231 
 
 gather in this strip and lay all their eggs in the early 
 wheat. Just before the main crop is sowed, the 
 narrow strip is plowed up and thoroughly harrowed 
 and the larvae perish for want of food. 
 
 The best known means of getting rid of grass- 
 hoppers is to destroy the eggs. This should be 
 done by plowing and harrowing all roadsides, ditch 
 banks, uncultivated fields and grassy margins around 
 fields in the fall or winter. 
 
 Fall harrowing and deep spring plowing will pre- 
 vent many of the bugs and beetles which spend the 
 larval state in the ground from hatching. This 
 method will also destroy the plum-curculio in 
 orchards. 
 
 In attempting to control the boll-weevil of the 
 cotton fields, it has been found that the best method 
 to pursue is the simple one of planting the crop 
 very early, so that the cotton passes the danger 
 stage before the insects emerge, and removing all 
 the plants in the fall. 
 
 Worms that infest fruit can be checked for the 
 following year by fall plowing in the orchard and 
 by destroying the decayed fruit as it falls. The 
 farmer who lets his decayed fruit lie on the ground 
 is preparing for a heavy crop of insects to eat his 
 fruit the following summer. 
 
 Fruit and forest trees are both protected by a
 
 232 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 burlap band or a band of " sticky " fly-paper placed 
 around the tree, to prevent insects from crawling 
 up. 
 
 The use of poison in destroying insects is now 
 the one most generally and successfully employed 
 by farmers and fruit growers. 
 
 Poisons may be liquid or dry. The liquid is made 
 by mixing with water, and for large plants and 
 trees is put on with a spray or force-pump that 
 carries the poison to every part of the plant. 
 
 Some insects, such as beetles, caterpillars and 
 grasshoppers, chew the leaves or stems of plants, 
 and the poison may be applied to their food; but 
 others, such as plant-lice, scale insects and all bugs 
 suck the juice, usually from the stem or bark. 
 Poisons must be applied to the insect itself to be 
 effectual in this case. 
 
 These are some of the insect poisons most in 
 use: . 
 
 Paris green, which will kill all insects that chew 
 the leaves, may be used in small quantities in gardens 
 by mixing one-half teaspoonful to a gallon of water, 
 or in large quantities with one pound to one hundred 
 and fifty or two hundred gallons of water. 
 
 White hellebore is used to destroy currant worms 
 and is usually dusted on dry. 
 
 Pyrethrum is used as a spray, mixing one ounce 
 to two gallons of water, to destroy cabbage- worms
 
 INSECTS 233 
 
 and many other garden insects. If the dry pyre- 
 thrum powder is blown from a bellows into a tightly 
 closed room, it is said to destroy all the flies. 
 
 Bordeaux mixture is made by dissolving four 
 pounds of copper sulphate in hot water and mixing 
 with an equal quantity of a solution made by mix- 
 ing four pounds of lime with water. This is then 
 mixed with fifty gallons of water. Paris green is 
 sometimes added. This mixture is largely used in 
 orchards and for destroying insects on a large scale. 
 It is also useful for curing diseases of plants. 
 
 An excellent spray for orchards both for remov- 
 ing fungous diseases and scale insects is a home- 
 made lime-and-sulphur solution. Enough for spray- 
 ing a large orchard is prepared as follows : 
 
 Add three gallons of boiling water to fifteen 
 pounds of lime. Then add ten pounds of sulphur 
 and three gallons more of hot water. Allow this to 
 boil about twenty minutes in its own heat, then add 
 enough water to make fifty gallons of the mixture. 
 Dilute with water in the proportion of one part of 
 the solution to seventy-five of water. 
 
 Small quantities are made by using a fractional 
 part of this recipe. 
 
 Whale-oil soap dissolved in water and used as a 
 spray is an effective remedy for the San Jose scale. 
 
 Kerosene emulsion is used to kill the insects 
 which suck the juices of plants and trees. It is
 
 234 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 made by mixing a half-pound of hard soap with 
 one gallon of hot water and stirring into it, so as 
 to mix thoroughly, two gallons of kerosene oil. 
 This may be kept on hand for use, and is mixed 
 with ten parts of water to one of the emulsion. 
 
 For use in large orchards force-pumps operated 
 by compressed air and drawn by two horses are 
 used. The spraying should be done as soon as 
 the blossoms drop, and many orchards are sprayed 
 three times in a season, but the work should never 
 be done while the trees are in blossom. Vegetables 
 should be sprayed many times through the season. 
 
 A careful study of these methods of control, 
 adapted to the various plants and the insects which 
 prey on them, with the natural enemies of insects 
 encouraged and protected, would go far to prevent 
 the wide-spread and serious damage now affect- 
 ing our crops, our vegetables, our orchards, and 
 our forests. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Circulars of the Bureau of Entomology. Dept. of Agri- 
 culture. List furnished on application. 
 
 Annual Loss Occasioned by Destructive Insects. Year- 
 book 1904.* 
 
 Value of Insect Parasitism to the American Farmer. 
 Yearbook 1907. 
 
 * Some of the Yearbooks of the Dept. of Agriculture contain very 
 instructive reports on Insects and on Birds. Reprints on various sub- 
 jects have been made from them which are available in pamphlet form, 
 or the entire Yearbook may be had in many cases.
 
 INSECTS 235 
 
 House Flies. Dept. of Agriculture. Bulletin 71. 
 
 The Grasshopper Problem. Bulletin 84. 
 
 The Boll-Weevil Problem. Bulletin 344. 
 
 The Most Important Step in the Control of the Boll- 
 Weevil. Bulletin 95. 
 
 The San Jose Scale. Yearbook 1902. 
 
 The Plum-Curculio. Bulletin 73. 
 
 The Apple Codling-Moth. Bulletin 41. Price 2OC. 
 
 The Gipsy Moth and How to Control It. Bulletin 275. 
 
 The Brown-tail Moth and How to Control It. Bulletin 
 264. 
 
 The Spring Grain Aphis or Green-Bug. Bulletin 93. 
 
 The Army- Worm. Bulletin 4. 
 
 The Hessian Fly. Bulletin 70. 
 
 The Chinch-Bug. Bulletin 17. 
 
 The Principal Household Insects of the U. S. Bulletin 4. 
 
 Insects Affecting Domestic Animals. Bulletin 5.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BIRDS 
 
 BIRDS give us pleasure in three ways: by their 
 beauty, by their song and by their usefulness in de- 
 stroying animals, insects or plants which are harm- 
 ful to man. 
 
 But although they are among man's best friends 
 they have been greatly misunderstood, so that to 
 the many natural enemies that are constantly prey- 
 ing on birds, we must add the warfare that man 
 himself wages on them, and the cutting down of 
 their forest homes. This work of bird destruction 
 has gone on until all the best species are greatly 
 reduced in numbers and some species have been 
 almost entirely driven out. 
 
 To see how serious a matter this is we must study 
 the food habits of birds, and we shall find that al- 
 though the different species eat a large variety of 
 food, in almost every case their natural food is 
 something harmful to man. 
 
 The large American birds, the eagles, hawks, 
 owls and similar kinds, are called birds of prey be- 
 cause they feed on small birds and animals. Some 
 
 236
 
 BIRDS 237 
 
 of these are of the greatest benefit to the farmer, 
 while others are altogether harmful. Another 
 large class of birds lives almost entirely on injur- 
 ious insects and this class is entitled to the fullest 
 care and protection from the farmer. 
 
 Still anothej class lives largely on fruits, wild or 
 cultivated, and on seeds, which may be either the 
 farmer's most valuable grains, or seeds of the 
 weeds that would choke out the grain. 
 
 It can not be denied that birds often do serious 
 damage through their food habits; but the great 
 mistake that has been made in man's treatment of 
 birds has been in hastily deciding that if birds are 
 seen flitting about fields of grain they are destroy- 
 ing the crop. A better knowledge of their food 
 habits will lead to proper measures for destroying 
 the harmful kinds and protecting the useful ones. 
 
 Successful agriculture could hardly be practised 
 without birds, and the benefit to man, though 
 amounting each year to millions of dollars, can 
 hardly be estimated in dollars and cents, since it 
 affects so closely the size of our crops, the amount 
 of timber saved for use in manufactures, and even 
 the health of the people. 
 
 Here again we see the careful balancing that 
 runs through nature; how carefully each thing is 
 adjusted to its work. Naturally the balance be- 
 tween birds, insects and plants would remain true,
 
 238 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 no one increasing beyond its proper amount. But 
 when man begins to destroy certain things, and 
 to cultivate others, this balance is seriously dis- 
 turbed. The birds that destroy weed seeds being 
 killed, weeds flourish in such vast numbers as to 
 drive out the cultivated crops. The birds which 
 destroy mice, moles, gophers, etc., being killed, 
 these animals become a nuisance and cause serious 
 losses. If insect-destroying birds are driven out, 
 the farmer will be at the mercy of the insects un- 
 less he employs troublesome and expensive methods 
 of getting rid of them. Certain favorable condi- 
 tions cause large numbers of birds to gather in a 
 small region and they become a pest. Very careful 
 observation has shown that in nearly every case the 
 favorite food of the birds is something which is 
 not valued by man, and if this food is provided, 
 the farm grains and fruits will not be seriously 
 molested. 
 
 Few birds are altogether good, still fewer are 
 altogether bad; most species are of great benefit, 
 even if at the same time they do some harm. Some 
 birds do serious damage at one season, and much 
 good at another. The most notable example of this 
 is the bobolink, which in northern wheat fields is 
 loved no less for his merry song than for the thou- 
 sands of weed seeds and insects he destroys; while 
 in the South he is known as the reed-bird or rice-
 
 BIRDS 239 
 
 bird, the most dreaded of all foes to the rice 
 crop. 
 
 Flying down on the fields by hundreds of thou- 
 sands these birds often take almost the entire crop 
 of a district. The yearly loss to rice-growers from 
 bobolinks has been estimated at two million dollars. 
 
 If crows or blackbirds are seen in large numbers 
 about fields of grain they are generally accused of 
 robbing the farmer, but more often they are busily 
 engaged in hunting the insects that without their 
 help would soon have destroyed his crop; and even 
 if they do considerable damage at one season they 
 often pay for it many times over. 
 
 Whether a bird is helpful or the reverse, in fact, 
 depends entirely on the food it eats and often even 
 farmers who have been familiar with birds all their 
 lives do not know what food a bird really eats. 
 As an example of the misunderstanding that is often 
 found in regard to birds, when hawks are seen 
 searching the fields and meadows, or owls flying 
 about the orchards in the evening, the farmer al- 
 ways supposes that his poultry is in danger, when 
 in reality the birds are quite as likely to be hunting 
 for the animals which destroy grain, produce, young 
 trees, and eggs of birds. 
 
 In order to correct such mistaken ideas the De- 
 partment of Agriculture has made a most careful 
 and accurate study of the habits of birds, and it is
 
 240 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 the results of these observations that are recorded 
 here. 
 
 Field workers from this Department who have 
 observed the habits of the principal birds that live 
 among men, have watched them all day and from 
 one day to another as they fed their little ones, and, 
 to be more certain of their facts, they have ex- 
 amined the stomachs of hundreds of birds, both 
 old and young, to learn exactly what each bird had 
 eaten. In this way they have proved absolutely 
 that many species that are supposed to eat chickens, 
 or fruit or grain, in reality never touch them, but 
 are among the farmer's best friends. 
 
 Among other things they have learned that while 
 they are feeding their young, birds are especially 
 valuable on a farm. Baby birds require food with 
 a large amount of nourishment in it that can be 
 easily digested. Almost all young birds have soft, 
 tender stomachs, and must be fed on insects; as 
 they grow older, the stomach or gizzard hardens 
 and is capable of grinding hard grain or seeds. The 
 amount of food required by the baby birds is as- 
 tonishing. At certain stages of their growth they 
 require more than their own weight in insects. And 
 the young birds are to be fed just at the season that 
 insects do the most injury to growing crops of grain 
 and young fruit and vegetables. 
 
 Birds vary so much in the kind of food eaten,
 
 BIRDS 241 
 
 not only by different varieties of the same species, 
 but by the same birds at different seasons, that it 
 is necessary to make a careful study of each bird 
 to know whether, if he is sometimes caught eating 
 cultivated fruit and grains, he helps in other ways 
 enough to pay for it. 
 
 When insects are unusually abundant, birds eat 
 more than at other times and confine themselves 
 more strictly to an insect diet, so that at such 
 times the good they do is particularly valuable. 
 
 Birds of prey may do harm in a particular place, 
 because in that region mice, rabbits and other nat- 
 ural food are scarce, and they are driven to feed 
 on things that are useful to man, while in places 
 where their natural food is plentiful the same birds 
 are altogether helpful. 
 
 In the same way, birds which naturally eat weed 
 seeds frequently find these almost altogether lack- 
 ing where the farms are most carefully cultivated, 
 but in their place are fields of grain whose seed also 
 furnishes them desirable food. Is it any wonder, 
 then, that, their natural food being taken from 
 them, they turn to the cultivated crops ? The fruit 
 eating birds seem always to choose the wild fruits, 
 but where these are not to be had they enter the 
 orchards and soon become known as enemies of 
 the farmer. 
 
 A careful examination of the harm done by birds
 
 242 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 leads to the belief that the damage is usually caused 
 by a very large number of one species of birds living 
 in a small area. In such cases so great is the demand 
 for food of a particular kind that the supply is soon 
 exhausted, and the birds turn to the products of 
 the field or orchard. The best conditions exist 
 when there are many varieties of birds in a region, 
 but no one variety in great numbers, for then they 
 eat many kinds of insects and weeds, and do not 
 exhaust all the food supply of one kind. Under 
 such circumstances, too, the insect-eating birds 
 would find plenty of insects without preying on use- 
 ful products, and the insects would be held in check, 
 so that the damage to crops would be slight. 
 
 The following are examples of the food eaten 
 by birds and the good that they thus accomplish 
 to man: 
 
 During the outbreak of Rocky Mountain locusts 
 in Nebraska, a scientific observer watched a long- 
 billed marsh wren carry thirty locusts to her young 
 in an hour and the same number was kept up regu- 
 larly. At this rate, for seven hours a day, a nest- 
 ful of young wrens would eat two hundred and 
 ten locusts a day. From this he calculated that the 
 birds of eastern Nebraska would destroy daily 
 nearly 163,000 locusts. 
 
 A locust eats its own weight in grain a day. The 
 locusts eaten by the baby birds would therefore be
 
 BIRDS 243 
 
 able to destroy one hundred and seventy-five tons of 
 crops, worth at least ten dollars a ton, or one thou- 
 sand seven hundred and fifty dollars. 
 
 So we see that birds have an actual cash value on 
 the farm. The value of the hay crop saved by 
 meadow-larks in destroying grasshoppers has been 
 estimated at three hundred and fifty-six dollars on 
 every township thirty-six miles square. 
 
 An article contributed to the New York Tribune 
 by an official in the Department of Agriculture 
 'estimated the amount of weed seeds annually de- 
 stroyed by the tree sparrow in the state of Iowa 
 on the basis of one-fourth of an ounce of seed 
 eaten daily by each bird. Supposing there were ten 
 birds to each mile, in the two hundred days that 
 they remain in the region, we should have a total of 
 1,750,000 pounds, or eight hundred and seventy-five 
 tons, of weed seed consumed in a single season by 
 this one species in the one state. In a thicket near 
 Washington, D. C. was a large patch of weeds 
 where sparrows fed during the winter. The ground 
 was literally black with the seeds in the spring but 
 on examining them it was found that nearly all 
 had been cracked and the kernels eaten. A search 
 was made for seeds of various weeds but not more 
 than half a dozen could be found, while many thou- 
 sands of empty seed-pods showed how the birds 
 had lived during the winter.
 
 244 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 In no place are birds more important than 
 in the forests, where they save hundreds of thou- 
 sands of dollars worth of valuable timber each year. 
 In forests there can be no rotation of crops and no 
 cultivation, and spraying, which keeps down the 
 insect pests in the orchard, is impossible here because 
 of the expense. It would not pay to spray two 
 or three times a year a crop of timber that requires 
 a lifetime to grow. So in the forests the owner 
 must depend entirely on birds for his protection. 
 How great the destruction of our forests would be 
 is shown by the fact that the damage at present is 
 estimated at $100,000,000, in spite of the fact that 
 a vast army of birds is working tirelessly, summer 
 and winter, to devour the insects! The debt of 
 the forester to the birds can hardly be estimated. 
 
 A full variety of birds will thoroughly protect a 
 farm and orchard. The sparrows will destroy the 
 weed seeds; the hawks and kites, flying by day, 
 will catch the meadow mice and other small mam- 
 mals, and the owls will pounce on those that venture 
 forth at night. Of the insect-eating birds, the larks, 
 wrens, thrushes and sparrows search the ground 
 for worms, eggs and insects under leaves and logs 
 everywhere. The nuthatches, vireos, warblers and 
 creepers search every part of the tree, while the 
 woodpeckers tap beneath the bark for grubs and 
 worms. The fly-catching birds catch their insect
 
 BIRDS 245 
 
 food on the wing among the trees and branches, and, 
 last of all, the swallows skim high in the air and 
 catch the few insects that rise high above the tree- 
 tops. 
 
 Thus each family has its part of the work and 
 the good they do is almost too great to calculate. 
 Without this check it would be impossible for any 
 green thing to flourish. So vast an amount of 
 food is required to feed the great army of insects 
 that the task would be impossible in any other way. 
 
 A brief description of some of the common birds 
 and their food habits is given here that farmers may 
 know their friends, and that people everywhere may 
 learn to protect the useful birds and drive out the 
 few that do the mischief. 
 
 All of these observations have been made by field 
 workers from the Department of Agriculture, and 
 no statement has been made that has not been proved 
 by the examination of many bird stomachs at dif- 
 ferent seasons. 
 
 Highest of all in the list come the bluebirds. 
 They are among the most beautiful of our native 
 birds, with their bright blue coats and soft red 
 breasts. They are sweet singers, and are among 
 the first to return in the spring to tell us of the re- 
 turn of summer. In addition to this they have 
 many good habits and absolutely no bad ones. 
 More than three-fourths of their food consists of
 
 246 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 insects, beetles, grasshoppers and caterpillars. 
 The remainder is weed seeds and fruit, but there 
 were no reports of cultivated fruits being eaten by 
 bluebirds. On the contrary they eat the most un- 
 desirable of the wild fruit, chokeberry, pokeberry, 
 Virginia creeper, bitter-sweet and sumac, as well 
 as large quantities of ragweed seeds. Other birds 
 are equally useful but none combines usefulness 
 with so much beauty and sweetness of song. 
 
 The tiny wrens are another class of wholly useful 
 birds. Their food consists almost entirely of in- 
 sects with a very little grass-seed. They search 
 every tree, shrub, and vine for caterpillars, spiders 
 and grasshoppers. 
 
 Sparrows are almost equally useful. The tree 
 sparrow, song sparrow, chipping sparrow, field 
 sparrow and snowbird or junco are all great weed- 
 seed destroyers. Many of them remain throughout 
 the winter, when they feed entirely on the seeds of 
 weeds. Each bird eats at least a quarter of an 
 ounce of seeds per day, and they are often found 
 by thousands in a region. At least a half dozen 
 varieties of birds are feeding in the same ratio all 
 over the country, reducing the crop of next year's 
 weeds. During the summer they turn to a diet 
 composed partly of insects and here again they 
 help the farmer by eating the weevils, leaf-beetles, 
 grasshoppers, bugs and wasps that infest his crops.
 
 BIRDS 247 
 
 The various species of swallows rank high as 
 insect-eating birds. The tree, bank, cliff and barn 
 swallows and the purple martins all eat small beetles, 
 mosquitoes, flying ants and other high-flying in- 
 sects, and the number destroyed is almost beyond 
 our power to imagine. 
 
 The most important service performed by swal- 
 lows, however, is in the South, where they migrate 
 for the winter. There they feed largely on the 
 cotton boll-weevil, one of the most destructive of 
 all insects, as we have seen. The Department of 
 Agriculture is urging strongly that farmers in the 
 North protect the swallows so that they may winter 
 in the South in large numbers to feed on the boll- 
 weevil, which, if allowed to flourish, will affect not 
 only the southern planters, but every user of cotton 
 goods, and every one who profits in any way by 
 the sale and manufacture of cotton goods. 
 
 Among swallows, the beautiful and graceful pur- 
 ple martin is most worthy of protection. Both 
 North and South, the swallows are among the most 
 useful of all birds to the farmer and fruit grower, 
 and should be protected from English sparrows and 
 encouraged in every possible way. 
 
 The seventeen species of titmice which inhabit 
 the United States, and many of which remain all 
 winter, are all insect eaters to a great extent, eating 
 large quantities of tent-caterpillars, moths and their
 
 248 CHECKING THE .WASTE 
 
 eggs, weevils, including the cotton boll-weevil, plum- 
 curculio, ants, spiders, plant-lice, bugs and beetles. 
 They also eat small seeds, particularly those of the 
 poison ivy. 
 
 The bush-tit feeds largely on insects that de- 
 stroy grape-vines and on the black olive scale. 
 Other species eat most of the scales which infest 
 fruit and forest trees. 
 
 The rose-breasted grosbeak, while it eats a few 
 green peas, is to be classed among the wholly bene- 
 ficial birds, for it is the great natural destroyer of 
 the Colorado potato beetle. In fact, it eats enough 
 potato-bugs at a single meal to pay for all the peas 
 eaten in a whole season. One family of grosbeaks, 
 nesting near the field, will keep an entire patch 
 cleared of potato-bugs throughout the season. In 
 some parts of the country the grosbeak feeds largely 
 on the plum scale, the hickory scale, the locust and 
 oak scales and on the tulip scale, which is very de- 
 structive to shade trees. The black grosbeak is 
 another variety that deserves encouragement in 
 every way, for it eats the chrysalis of the cod- 
 ling-moth that is so serious a foe to our apple 
 crop. It eats also many other injurious insects, 
 such as wire-worms, many of the most harmful of 
 beetles, caterpillars, and scales. 
 
 Among the most useful birds, we must mention 
 the phoebe, which nests near houses and lives al-
 
 BIRDS 249 
 
 most entirely on harmful insects which it catches 
 on the wing. 
 
 Night hawks eat flying ants in great numbers, as 
 many as eighteen hundred having been found in a 
 single stomach. They eat insects that fly by night 
 and are classed among our most useful birds. 
 
 Quails are almost unequalled as weed-destroyers. 
 Throughout the fall and winter they spend the time 
 destroying weed seeds. In summer they eat Colo- 
 rado potato beetles, chinch-bugs, cotton boll-weevils, 
 squash-beetles, grasshoppers and cutworms. The 
 mother quail, with her family of twelve to twenty 
 little ones, patrols the fields thoroughly for insects. 
 Quails should be prized as among a farmer's most 
 valuable helpers and protected at all seasons. 
 
 Similar in the good work it does is the meadow- 
 lark. Grasshoppers, caterpillars and cutworms 
 form a large part of its diet, and its vegetable food 
 consists of weed seeds or waste grain. 
 
 King-birds are useful in protecting poultry and 
 song birds from hawks, and are also great fly 
 catchers, taking many beetles on the wing. 
 
 Doves eat great quantities of seeds of harmful 
 weeds. They also eat some grain, but almost al- 
 together after the crop has been gathered. Old 
 damaged corn and single grains scattered along the 
 roads are eaten, but there is no complaint of doves 
 doing injury to fields of growing grain.
 
 250 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The orioles are beautiful, are sweet singers, and 
 no exception can be taken to their food habits. 
 Caterpillars are their principal article of food, but 
 plant- and bark-lice, spiders and other insects are 
 also eaten. Orioles do not eat much vegetable food. 
 They have been accused of eating peas and grapes, 
 but there seems no evidence to show that this habit 
 is general. 
 
 The food habits of cuckoos render them very 
 desirable, since they eat hairy caterpillars, particu- 
 larly tent-caterpillars, for which they seem to have 
 an especial fondness, fall web-worms and locusts, 
 besides other injurious insects, but they are accused 
 of bad habits in relation to other birds, and can 
 therefore hardly be classed among the wholly useful 
 birds. Warblers and vireos are among the most 
 helpful birds in an orchard, devouring large quan- 
 tities of insects. 
 
 There is no class of birds concerning which it 
 is more necessary that the farmer should be well 
 informed, than the hawks and owls, since some of 
 them are wholly good, and of the greatest possible 
 benefit to him and the fruit grower, while others 
 are extremely harmful in their food habits. 
 
 The harmful varieties live almost entirely on 
 poultry and wild birds, and include the goshawk or 
 partridge hawk and the Cooper hawk, which is a
 
 BIRDS 251 
 
 true chicken-hawk and should be recognized by all 
 farmers at sight. 
 
 The goshawk and chicken-hawk, in the amount 
 of damage done, far exceed all other birds of prey. 
 The sharp-shinned hawk rarely attacks full-grown 
 poultry, but preys heavily on young chickens and 
 song birds. In fact, it is known to eat nearly fifty 
 species of our most useful birds. There is no ques- 
 tion that these birds are a serious pest and should 
 be destroyed, but they should not be confused with 
 other members of the family which are among the 
 best friends that a farmer has in keeping his farm 
 clear of small enemies. 
 
 Owls and hawks eat the same class of food, the 
 hawks flying by day and the owls by night. Owls 
 remain North in winter, while hawks fly farther 
 south. 
 
 The small species of both eat large quantites of 
 insects, such as grasshoppers, locusts and beetles. 
 The larger ones are the farmer's great protection 
 against the meadow-mouse, the most destructive of 
 all animals to farm crops. It tunnels under fields 
 and eats the roots of grass, grain and potatoes, 
 eats large amounts of grain and does even more 
 damage by girdling young trees in orchards. Rab- 
 bits injure trees in the same way, often during the 
 winter ruining an entire orchard in this manner.
 
 252 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Squirrels, ground-squirrels, gophers, prairie-dogs, 
 and other small animals do serious damage in the 
 course of a year on almost every farm. 
 
 The rough-leg hawk feeds entirely on meadow- 
 mice, but if the supply fails, it eats mice, rabbits 
 and ground-squirrels, but in no instance attacks 
 birds. Its cousin, the ferruginous rough-leg, lives 
 largely on ground-squirrels, rabbits, prairie-dogs 
 and pouched gophers. This species also never at- 
 tacks birds, and neither do any of the four mem- 
 bers of the kite family. 
 
 Another large class of birds, the marsh-hawk, 
 Harris hawk, red-tailed hawk, red-shouldered hawk, 
 short-tailed hawk, white-tailed hawk, Swainson 
 hawk, short-winged hawk, broad-winged hawk, 
 Mexican black hawk, Mexican goshawk, sparrow- 
 hawk, barn-owl, long-eared owl, short-eared owl, 
 great gray owl, barred owl, western owl, Richardson 
 owl, screech-owl, snowy owl, hawk-owl, burrowing 
 owl, pigmy owl and elf owl live mostly on de- 
 structive mammals, insects, frogs and snakes, but 
 they eat some birds and some of them occasionally 
 catch poultry. Young ones do much more harm 
 than the full-grown ones, probably because they 
 find poultry and birds easier to obtain than other 
 food. These species all do great good on the farm 
 and in the orchard and if their natural food is plenti- 
 ful and the number of the birds of prey limited, they
 
 BIRDS 253 
 
 should be allowed to remain, even though they oc- 
 casionally do harm; but they can not be allowed 
 to increase greatly in a region without becoming 
 a nuisance. 
 
 In another class the golden and bald eagles, pigeon 
 and Richardson hawks, prairie falcon and great 
 horned owl do considerable harm, and the good and 
 bad qualities about balance. In a poorly settled 
 region, where there is plenty of natural food, a few 
 of these birds will bring forth little complaint, but 
 in a section where there are few ground-squirrels, 
 prairie-dogs, gophers, rabbits and woodchucks, 
 where poultry is raised extensively, and useful birds 
 are numerous they will do great harm and farmers 
 will usually want to keep them down entirely. 
 
 The gyrfalcons, duck-hawks, sharp-shinned hawk, 
 Cooper hawk and goshawk live almost entirely on 
 food that is desired by man, poultry, game birds 
 and many varieties of our best insect-destroying 
 birds, and they eat almost nothing that is harmful 
 to man. The numbers of these birds should be re- 
 duced as much as possible: but in general it may 
 be said that the birds of prey the hawks and owls 
 are among the most, if not the most, valuable 
 birds that are engaged in helping the farmer by de- 
 stroying the natural enemies of agriculture. 
 
 Among the smaller birds which do much good, 
 but of which complaints are made because they eat
 
 254 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 some fruit and grain are the woodpeckers, includ- 
 ing the flickers, cedar-birds, robins, cat-birds, 
 thrashers, crows and blackbirds. 
 
 The woodpeckers are the great natural protec- 
 tion of the forests by waging constant warfare on 
 the wood-boring insects and ants beneath the bark 
 where no other birds can reach them. They are 
 equally useful in an orchard except that here man 
 may only at great trouble and expense partly hold 
 them in check. Downy woodpeckers are also great 
 eaters of scales, and the fruit grower need not be- 
 grudge the red-headed woodpecker a meal of cher- 
 ries or apples, especially as it will usually be found 
 that it is the wormy fruit that is attacked. 
 
 The flicker or gold-winged woodpecker lives 
 ..largely on ants, of which he eats immense quantities, 
 seeking them not only in the trees but on the ground. 
 
 Robins are so well loved for their cheery song, 
 for their friendliness to man, and their red breasts 
 coming as a touch of color in returning spring, that 
 except where they are present in great numbers, 
 there is little complaint of the fruit they eat, even 
 without taking into account the good work they ac- 
 complish as insect eaters. In fact only four per 
 cent, of a robin's food is cultivated and a little less 
 than half of it is wild fruit not prized by man. 
 The remaining half consists of caterpillars, beetles, 
 spiders, snails and earth-worms.
 
 BIRDS 255 
 
 The cat-bird is also known as a cherry-eater and 
 he frequently helps himself from strawberry and 
 raspberry patches. He eats a larger proportion of 
 cultivated fruit than the robin, but about twice as 
 much wild fruit, including the sumac and poison ivy. 
 The cat-bird eats many injurious insects, which 
 constitute only a little less than half of his food. 
 
 The cedar-bird is sometimes called the cherry 
 bird, and is accused of being a great cherry-stealer, 
 but an examination of stomachs showed that only 
 nine birds out of one hundred and fifty-two had 
 eaten any cherries and that cherries formed only 
 five per cent, of the food of these few. There is 
 even evidence that this bird prefers wild fruits, 
 which form its principal food though it eats a few 
 insects. 
 
 The crows and blackbirds are accused of many 
 bad habits, such as pulling up young corn, destroying 
 large quantities of grain and injuring much fruit 
 by pecking holes in it which are later entered by 
 insects. Crows eat fruit to some extent, but the 
 greater part of it is wild. Both crows and black- 
 birds are accused of robbing the nests of other birds. 
 Blackbirds are injurious chiefly because they gather 
 in such large flocks that when they descend on a 
 field they can eat a large amount of grain in a short 
 space of time. The greatest good accomplished by 
 the blackbird is in the spring when it follows the
 
 256 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 plow in search of grubworms, of which it is ex- 
 tremely fond. It also does much good in destroy- 
 ing insects in the early summer, the young birds 
 being fed almost entirely on insect food until they 
 are grown. 
 
 Of the crow, Doctor Merriam, who is at the head 
 of this branch of work in the Department of Agri- 
 culture, says, " Instead of being an enemy of the 
 farmer, as is generally believed, the crow is one of 
 his best friends and the protector of his crops. 
 True, during corn-planting time, the crow's bill is 
 turned against the farmer during one month, and 
 one month only is he his enemy. But during the 
 other eleven months the crow is really working 
 overtime for him. It eats thousands upon thou- 
 sands of destructive insects and bugs every week, 
 and when it comes to feeding its young, gives them 
 a diet composed almost entirely of worms and in- 
 sects that prey upon the crops." 
 
 Another government report says, " The crow 
 should receive much credit for the insects which it 
 destroys. In the more thickly settled parts of the 
 country it probably does more good than harm, at 
 least when ordinary precautions are taken to pro- 
 tect young poultry and newly planted corn from 
 it." It is probable that in many parts of the coun- 
 try some farmers will find it desirable to reduce the 
 number of crows and blackbirds on their farms.
 
 BIRDS 257 
 
 The brown thrasher is a beautiful singer and eats 
 many insects, mostly injurious. It eats some culti- 
 vated fruits. It also eats a small amount of newly 
 planted corn, but at the same time clears the field 
 of May beetles. Altogether it is a useful bird but 
 not one of the highest benefit. 
 
 There are a few species of birds of which but little 
 good can be said, and which it may be desirable to 
 attempt to drive out in many parts of the United 
 States. Chief of these is the English sparrow. It 
 is of a quarrelsome disposition and is much given 
 to driving other birds from their nests. In some 
 districts it has completely expelled some of the most 
 useful kinds of birds. It exists everywhere in such 
 numbers as to render it a nuisance, and it may be said 
 to be the greatest pest among American birds. Its 
 favorite food is dandelion seeds, and it destroys 
 many thousands of seeds, but as the dandelion does 
 no real injury this habit does not offset all the harm 
 done. It also eats other weed seeds but the great- 
 est thing to be said in its favor is that it feeds on 
 the cottony maple scale. It is probable that in 
 small numbers the English sparrow might be classed 
 among the useful, or, at least, one of the only partly 
 harmful birds, but there is no bird whose numbers 
 it is more desirable to reduce. 
 
 The common blue- jay is accused of some very 
 bad habits, among them eating the eggs and young
 
 258 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 of small birds. It is a fruit eater and also a grain 
 eater and frequently robs corn-cribs and injures 
 newly planted fields. However, it eats some insects, 
 mice and other small enemies of the farmer and as 
 it is nowhere very plentiful, and does not live in 
 flocks, there is not much cause for complaint. 
 However, its cousin, the California jay, has an ex- 
 tremely bad record. It is a great fruit eater, and 
 devastates prune, apricot, and cherry orchards. It 
 is a serious robber of the nests of small birds and 
 hens, and though it eats some grasshoppers and 
 a very few weed seeds, it is thoroughly disliked by 
 western fruit growers. It should be greatly re- 
 duced in numbers. Another California bird that 
 has gained a bad reputation is the house finch or 
 linnet. It does serious harm in the cherry and 
 apricot orchards, not so much by eating as by peck- 
 ing at the fruit. It probably pecks, and thus de- 
 stroys, five times as much fruit as it eats. As the 
 bird is very abundant, it sometimes causes the loss 
 of almost the entire crop of a small fruit grower. 
 It does not deserve protection, for it eats the buds 
 and blossoms of fruit trees and does little to com- 
 pensate for all the harm done. Its best habit is' 
 eating woolly plant-lice. 
 
 No article on birds would be complete that does 
 not dwell on the enormous destruction of birds for 
 trimming hats. As one writer puts it, we pay eight
 
 BIRDS 259 
 
 hundred million dollars a year for hat trimmings, 
 assuming the insect ravages to be due to the killing 
 of our birds for millinery purposes. While this is 
 exaggerated, it is undoubtedly true that this is the 
 largest cause of the destruction of the birds of 
 America. 
 
 The Audubon society says that we, as a nation, 
 use 150,000,000 birds a year for trimming hats 
 alone and that this single item would save our crops 
 from insect destruction and largely rid our fields 
 of weeds. 
 
 If a few hundred dollars are stolen from a bank, 
 the greatest efforts are made to catch the thief, and 
 if possible to get the money back; but the great 
 army of insects destroy each year, almost as much 
 in money value as all the national banks in the coun- 
 try have on deposit, and this wholesale destruction 
 might largely be prevented if every woman and 
 girl took (and kept) a pledge not to use wings, 
 breasts, or birds on her hats. There is no objection 
 to the use of ostrich feathers, which are carefully 
 plucked from the live birds. The feathers grow 
 again, just as the wool grows on sheep that have 
 been sheared. Neither is there any objection to 
 using the feathers of the barn-yard fowls which are 
 killed for food. 
 
 Only a little less is the loss caused by so-called 
 " sportsmen," men who kill only for the pleasure
 
 260 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 of shooting, or who, because they like the taste of 
 quail, shoot as many as they can in a day instead 
 of only enough to satisfy hunger. Often a farmer 
 sells for a very small amount the privilege of hunt- 
 ing on his farm, thinking he is making money when 
 in fact he is losing ten dollars for every one he 
 makes. 
 
 The quail, sparrows and other birds on the farm 
 are destroyed. As a result the weed seeds are not 
 eaten and a big crop comes up in the spring. In 
 the summer there are no quail on the farm to de- 
 stroy insects. The insects and the weeds together 
 make the crop poorer, and the owner feels that 
 farming is growing less profitable, when in fact he 
 has failed to take ordinary precautions to obtain 
 a good crop by protecting the birds. 
 
 With the huntsman and his bag of birds we may 
 class the small boy with his rifle or sling-shot. A 
 single boy does little harm but all the boys in the 
 country taken together do a grave amount of dam- 
 age. 
 
 Last in the list comes the egg hunters, who by 
 robbing nests can kill four or five birds at a time, 
 simply for mischief. A party of boys can, by a 
 day's sport, make a serious difference in the number 
 of birds in a region where they are not plentiful 
 and thus have a large share in damaging the crops. 
 
 If, then, birds play so large a part in the welfare
 
 BIRDS 261 
 
 of the farm and in turn in the prices of farm crops, 
 fruit, lumber and cotton cloth, it is most desirable 
 that every effort be made to reduce the numbers of 
 harmful birds and to encourage the useful species. 
 
 Many of the states now have excellent laws for 
 the protection of birds; but without a large number 
 of game wardens, it is difficult to enforce the laws 
 closely unless the public sentiment is strongly against 
 the killing of birds. Laws should be made to pro- 
 tect birds against the egg hunter, (except for the 
 purpose of study, and then a license should be re- 
 quired), sling-shots should be prohibited, as they 
 already are in many places. All hunters should be 
 required to have a license, the number of birds killed 
 by a single person in a single day should be limited, 
 and certain birds should always be protected by 
 law. These laws should be as nearly uniform as 
 possible in all the states and there must be a desire 
 on the part of all the people to see these laws obeyed. 
 
 The boys and girls should be banded together in 
 the schools or in societies and pledged to protect 
 birds and not to destroy them. The girls should 
 pledge themselves not to wear birds for ornament. 
 
 Women's clubs might do much to popularize the 
 movement for the protection of birds, and to that 
 end should try to establish a sentiment among their 
 members against their use for millinery. 
 
 All these agencies working together will make
 
 262 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 a vast difference in the number of birds, and as a 
 result, in the good that they do, but the great work 
 must be done by farmers themselves. They will 
 need to protect themselves in certain ways against 
 the harm done by many of the birds that on the 
 whole are extremely useful. 
 
 To protect poultry from owls do not allow it to 
 roost in the trees; to protect from hawks, keep the 
 young ones near the house, and if possible cover 
 their runways with wire netting. 
 
 To protect against grain eating, use scarecrows 
 or put up a dead crow as a warning. Mixing seed 
 corn with tar so as to coat it will prevent crows 
 from pulling it up at planting time. 
 
 To protect against fruit eating, plant wild fruits. 
 The best of all trees for this purpose is the Russian 
 mulberry, which ripens at the same time that cherries 
 do and is particularly relished by all fruit-eating 
 birds. If planted in barn-lots, chickens and hogs 
 will eat all the fruit that falls to the ground, making 
 it serve a double purpose. The fruit of wild cherry, 
 elder, dogwood, haws, and mountain-ash are eaten 
 by birds, and if a farm be planted with such trees 
 and bushes in the barn-yard, along the lanes or in 
 some of those unproductive spots that are to be 
 found on every farm, birds will be attracted to the 
 farm and will pay well for themselves, and the 
 farmer's crop of cultivated fruit will be protected.
 
 BIRDS 263 
 
 Birds themselves distribute many seeds, particularly 
 of wild fruits. 
 
 The farmer who keeps several cats must pay for 
 it in the loss of birds, for birds will not nest where 
 they are constantly watched by cats. Boxes for 
 martins and other birds, bits of hay, horse-hair and 
 string scattered about will often encourage birds to 
 build about an orchard or farm. A wood-lot, be- 
 sides paying in other ways, will afford nesting 
 places for a large number of birds. To place a 
 drinking and bathing place near the house is one of 
 the best methods of attracting birds, which will use 
 it constantly. 
 
 By all these methods and a little winter feeding 
 with crumbs, apple peelings or waste fruit and grain, 
 the farmer will be able to induce a good variety of 
 birds to nest on his farm, and will receive in re- 
 turn great protection from the small mammals, in- 
 sects and weeds that would lessen the amount of his 
 harvests. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Relation Between Birds and Insects. Yearbook 486. 
 Annual Reports of the Smithsonian Institution. 
 Annual Reports of the National Audubon Society. 
 Bird Day. How to Prepare For It. C. C Babcock. 
 Bird Neighbors. John Burroughs. 
 Bird enemies. John Burroughs. 
 How to Attract the Birds. N. B. Doubleday. 
 The Food of Nestling Birds. Yearbook 1900.
 
 264 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Does It Pay the Farmer to Protect Birds? Yearbook 1907. 
 
 Birds as Weed Destroyers. Yearbook 1898. 
 
 How Birds Affect the Orchard. Yearbook 1900. 
 
 Value of Swallows as Insect Destroyers. Yearbook Re- 
 print. 
 
 Birds That Eat Scale Insects. Yearbook Reprint. 
 
 Birds Useful for the Destruction of the Cotton Boll- Weevil. 
 Dept. of Agriculture Bulletins 57, 64. 
 
 Hawks and Owls From the Standpoint of the Farmer. 
 Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 61. 
 
 Some Common Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture. 
 Dept. of Agriculture Bulletin 54. 
 
 Four Common Birds of the Farm and Garden. Yearbook 
 1895-
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 HEALTH 
 
 WHEN we have improved our soil and replanted 
 our forests and learned the most economical methods 
 of mining our great deposits of coal, iron, and other 
 minerals; when we have made the waters do our 
 work and carry our freight and water our waste 
 places; when we have learned to care for our birds 
 and our fishes, and taken measures to stop the 
 ravages of insects; when we have preserved our 
 natural beauties and increased them by planting 
 trees, shrubs, and flowers, and filling unsightly 
 corners; there still remains to be considered the 
 greatest subject of all, the people who are to 
 enjoy this wonderful inheritance. If they were to 
 be weak and sick, suffering from all kinds of dis- 
 eases, dying in great numbers, all these things would 
 count for little. But men and women, as they are 
 learning how to conserve their natural resources, 
 are thinking far more than ever before of health 
 and how to keep it. It is necessary to think of 
 these things, for as people crowd into cities, where 
 they live a life different from that which nature 
 
 265
 
 266 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 s 
 
 intended, sickness and the death-rate increase 
 greatly. 
 
 Health, by which we mean the possession of a 
 strong, well body, free from pain, should bring with 
 it great power to work and to think and to benefit 
 the world; and should also bring great happiness 
 and enjoyment to the person who possesses it, for 
 though sick people may be happy, and well people 
 unhappy, yet it is a general rule that to be strong 
 and well is the first great step toward being happy. 
 
 The question, "Is life worth living?" was once 
 happily answered, " It depends upon the liver ; " 
 and it is true in both senses, for not only does 
 happiness depend on what one gets out of life, but 
 on good digestion. It is only the person who feels 
 well who really enjoys life. 
 
 The person who can get up each morning able to 
 do a day's work or have a day's enjoyment, is the 
 one on whom we must depend for the world's work 
 and invention. We seldom find a strong, vigor- 
 ous mind in a weak body. 
 
 On the other hand, the invalid is the idle member 
 of the family or the community. He can not find 
 pleasure for himself nor do anything to help others, 
 and not only that, but he must be cared for by 
 others, thus taking the labor of the sick person him- 
 self and of his nurse. It is coming to be seen that 
 this is a great waste of time, of money, of work,
 
 HEALTH 267 
 
 and of happiness, and people are determining that 
 if these wastes can be stopped, it is well worth all 
 the time and thought and money necessary to bring 
 about the change. 
 
 People everywhere are thinking about health, and 
 because of this, Christian Science, the Emmanuel 
 Movement and the various sects which practise 
 faith or mental healing have sprung up. 
 
 Hospitals and health officers are doing much for 
 the public health. Doctors themselves are chang- 
 ing their ideas and are teaching us not only how 
 to cure but how to prevent disease. 
 
 Doctors are also seeking not only to prevent dis- 
 ease but to find new ways of treating it. They are 
 discarding drugs in as many cases as possible, fre- 
 quently using serums in which cultures from the dis- 
 ease itself are used for its cure. 
 
 Health means more ability to work, more 
 means of learning, of accomplishing great things, 
 more pleasures in every day that is lived; and so 
 it is as important to preserve health, in order to 
 enjoy life, as it is to prevent death. We can real- 
 ize how few persons have perfect health by noting 
 the common salutation " How do you do ? " or 
 " How are you ? " 
 
 Serious sickness is such as renders a person en- 
 tirely unable to work. Benefit societies have found 
 that the average number of days of sickness per
 
 268 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 year from each person under seventy years of age 
 is ten, of which at least two are spent in bed. 
 
 About a million and a half people die each year 
 in the United States, and it is estimated that twice 
 that number, or three million persons, are constantly 
 unable even to care for themselves. The effect of 
 this is felt on the patient himself, in suffering, in 
 loss of time in which he is unable to earn money, 
 and in the amount spent for doctors, medicine, and 
 nursing. It is felt on the family, in which the 
 household machinery is thrown out while the wife 
 and mother nurses the sick members of the family, 
 or is herself too ill to work, or when the father's 
 income stops on account of sickness. 
 
 The entire community suffers from the constant 
 idleness of three million persons, as well as from the 
 deaths which withdraw a still larger number of 
 persons from actual work for a period of two to 
 five days during the time of death and burial of the 
 bodies of members of the family. 
 
 Then there is all the long train of small ailments, 
 which do not make us seriously ill, often do not even 
 keep us from work, but which do take away from 
 the pleasure and enjoyment of life, which render 
 work a burden instead of a delight, and lessen our 
 ability to work by many degrees. 
 
 Not only this, but they all have within them the 
 possibility of developing into serious diseases.
 
 HEALTH 269 
 
 Such lesser troubles are colds, headache, catarrh, 
 dyspepsia, nervousness, neuralgia, sore throat, skin 
 eruptions, rheumatism, toothache, earache, affec- 
 tions of the eyes, lameness, sprains, bruises, cuts, 
 and burns. 
 
 Civilization has brought us great blessings but it 
 has also brought with it many dangers to health. 
 Professor Irving Fisher of Yale says : 
 
 " The invention of houses has made it possible 
 for mankind to spread all over the globe but it is 
 responsible for tuberculosis or consumption. The 
 invention of cooking has widened the variety of 
 man's diet but has led to the decay of his teeth. 
 The invention of the alphabet and printing has pro- 
 duced eye strain with all its attendant evils. The 
 invention of chairs has led to spinal curvature, etc., 
 etc. Yet it would be foolish even if it were possible 
 to attempt to return to nature in the sense of abolish- 
 ing civilization. 
 
 " The cure for eye strain is not in disregarding the 
 invention of reading, but in introducing the inven- 
 tion of glasses. The cure for tuberculosis is not in 
 the destruction of houses but in ventilation. It is a 
 little knowledge that is dangerous. Civilization can, 
 with fuller knowledge, bring its own cure, and make 
 the ' kingdom of man ' far larger than the ' nature ' 
 people can ever dream of." 
 
 Until within the last few years, sickness and death
 
 270 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 were regarded from a religious standpoint. All sick- 
 ness was to be borne with patience and resignation 
 because all our sufferings were sent by an all-wise 
 Providence. But since science has clearly proved 
 that typhoid fever is usually caused by an impure 
 water supply, and that boiling the water would pre- 
 vent the suffering, expense and possible death; that 
 the dreaded yellow fever can be banished from com- 
 munities that destroy the eggs of certain mosqui- 
 toes ; and many other facts in regard to health have 
 been learned, a great change has come over the pop- 
 ular belief. It is seen that, to a great extent, man 
 holds his own fate and is responsible for his own 
 suffering, and people are eager to learn more about 
 their own bodies, how to cure them and how to keep 
 them well. 
 
 This knowledge has already done much to prolong 
 life. The average length of .life in India, where no 
 attempt is made to check disease, is twenty-five 
 years. In England the length of life has doubled in 
 a few generations. In Sweden, where the people 
 live a sanitary life, the average is over fifty years, 
 in this country, forty-five years. 
 
 Insurance companies and benefit societies keep 
 close watch of their members and they report that 
 a person ten years old may now count on living to 
 be sixty years of age. That is the average age, 
 whereas a hundred years ago the average expecta-
 
 HEALTH 271 
 
 tion of life at that age was only fifty-three 
 years. 
 
 And this is true in spite of the fact that people 
 have been crowding into cities, that they are living 
 on richer foods, taking less exercise in the open air, 
 living in houses which shut out the fresh air, and 
 doing dozens of other things that have tended to 
 lower rather than to raise the average. 
 
 We can scarcely realize the possibilities of life 
 if, with all the present scientific knowledge of dis- 
 ease and health, we could have a generation of 
 people living according to nature's laws. 
 
 Life can be not only lengthened but strengthened. 
 There are many instances of frail, feeble children 
 who have developed into exceptionally strong men 
 and women. One of the most noted is Von Hum- 
 boldt, the great scientist, who as a child was very 
 weak physically, and, he himself says, was mentally 
 below the average, but who lived to the age of 
 ninety, and developed one of the greatest minds of 
 his century. 
 
 Doctor Horace Fletcher, noted for his theories in 
 regard to eating, was rejected at the age of forty- 
 six for life insurance but so strengthened his con- 
 stitution by careful living that by the time he was 
 fifty he not only obtained his life insurance but cele- 
 brated his birthday by riding one hundred and ninety 
 miles on his bicycle.
 
 272 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 If we could imagine a person who all his life had 
 lived in a locality where the air was pure; in a 
 house where fresh air entered day and night, and 
 which was heated to a uniform temperature ; whose 
 food had always consisted of the most pure and nu- 
 tritious material prepared in the most wholesome 
 way, eaten slowly and in proper quantity; if bathing, 
 sleep, rest, exercise, brain work and pleasure had 
 each its due proportion; if he could be always 
 guarded from contagion and accidents, we can im- 
 agine that such a person would be free from dis- 
 ease and that death might be long deferred. Of 
 course, death can not be prevented, only postponed, 
 but disease can be prevented, and so we can increase 
 the chances of postponing death. Doctors tell us 
 that under ideal conditions there would be only one 
 cause of death old age. 
 
 There is no question that under such conditions 
 life could be prolonged far beyond what is now 
 usually considered its span. One hundred years or 
 more might easily, we imagine, become the average 
 of life, instead of the great exception. 
 
 We can hope for these things in the future though 
 it will take several generations at least to bring them 
 all about, but we need not wait so long for some 
 of the best results. There are many things that can 
 be done at once to prolong life and prevent illness. 
 Since we know that many diseases are preventable
 
 HEALTH 273 
 
 and we know the suffering and sorrow, as well as 
 expense, that come from sickness and premature 
 death, we should all eagerly unite in doing all that 
 we can to stop these ravages. 
 
 There are two agencies that will help to bring 
 this about : individual or private means, and general 
 or public means. Both are absolutely necessary if 
 we are to be successful in stamping out disease. 
 Professor Fisher says : " Personal hygiene means 
 the strengthening of our defenses against disease. 
 Public hygiene seeks to destroy the germs before 
 they reach our bodily defenses." 
 
 In the first place, in order to learn what we may 
 do to lengthen the span of life we must learn some- 
 thing of the nature of disease. Doctors tell us that 
 diseases are of two classes. The first are hereditary, 
 or inherited ; those which pass from parents to their 
 children and often run through an entire family. 
 It is more often the tendency to disease that is in- 
 herited, rather than the disease itself, and so even 
 these inherited diseases may often be prevented by 
 careful living. 
 
 Diseases which may be inherited include rheuma- 
 tism, gout, scrofula, diabetes, cancer and insanity. 
 This class of diseases is the most difficult to prevent 
 and to cure. For some of them no cure has been 
 found. 
 
 The other class comprises the diseases of environ-
 
 274 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 ment, or personal surroundings, that is, our man- 
 ner of living both as regards our private life and our 
 relations to other people. These diseases are largely 
 preventable and it is with them that most of the work 
 of prevention is to be carried on. 
 
 A disease is considered preventable if, by using 
 the best known means of treatment, it might be 
 prevented or cured, so that either the disease or 
 the death usually resulting from it would be 
 avoided. 
 
 Of course, not all deaths from a given disease 
 could be prevented even with the best known means. 
 Infant diseases constitute one class which is con- 
 sidered most hopeful of betterment through a pure 
 milk supply and better hygiene; and yet many au- 
 thorities believe that not more than half the deaths 
 could be prevented owing to the large part played 
 by weather conditions, feeble constitutions, and 
 other unchangeable conditions. 
 
 Preventable diseases may be divided into six 
 classes : 
 
 (1) Diseases caused by lack of proper hygiene. 
 
 (2) Diseases caused by bad habits. 
 
 (3) Contagious diseases. 
 
 (4) Diseases caused by insects. 
 
 (5) Accidents, wounds, or operations and their 
 resulting diseases. 
 
 (6) Diseases remedied by slight means.
 
 HEALTH 275 
 
 We will treat each of these in turn. 
 
 ( i ) By proper hygiene is meant the proper treat- 
 ment of the body as to breathing, eating, drinking, 
 sleeping, bathing and rest. This treatment includes 
 plenty of fresh air, both day and night, keeping out- 
 doors as much as possible, and in well-aired houses 
 the rest of the time. Vigorous but not violent exer- 
 cise, brisk walking, regular physical exercise, such 
 as is practised in gymnasiums, will go far toward 
 keeping the body in good condition. 
 
 The question of fresh air in the home is one of 
 the most important points to be considered. The 
 bedrooms, the living-rooms, and the kitchen should 
 have the air changed constantly, not once or twice 
 a day. In order to prevent drafts, and that the 
 house may not be kept at too low a temperature in 
 winter, a board, eight to twelve inches in height, 
 may be placed across the bottom of a window that 
 is raised. 
 
 Many diseases, not only of the throat and lungs, 
 but of the other organs, may be prevented by the 
 constant introduction of fresh air into our rooms 
 day and night. 
 
 Tuberculosis causes more deaths than any other 
 single disease in America, and the sickness and dis- 
 ability continue longer than with most diseases. It 
 is extremely contagious, being a germ disease, and 
 not an inherited one, as was formerly supposed.
 
 276 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 It increased very rapidly for a few years but is now 
 slightly decreasing, owing to better knowledge of 
 its cause and cure. 
 
 Its prevention and its cure both lie largely in 
 fresh air. Physicians say that no one who lives 
 an open-air life with plenty of fresh air night and 
 day will contract it. The cure which is restoring 
 hundreds to health is to find a place where the air 
 is pure, and live and sleep practically outdoors; 
 to eat as much milk, raw eggs, and meat as can be 
 digested and to observe the other rules of hygiene. 
 Incipient cases, those in the earliest stages, may 
 sometimes be cured while continuing at work by 
 following the other rules as nearly as possible. 
 
 On account of the extremely contagious nature 
 of tuberculosis, special care should be taken to pre- 
 vent its spread. The sputum coughed up from the 
 lungs is the principal carrier of the disease, and the 
 person who, having tuberculosis, even in its earliest 
 stages, spits in a public place, is an enemy of man- 
 kind, for he endangers the lives of hundreds of 
 others. The only excuse for this is that he usually 
 does it through ignorance, but the knowledge of 
 the danger should be so impressed on all the peo- 
 ple that no one could plead ignorance, and for a 
 consumptive to spit on the street should be 
 counted as much a crime morally as for a small-
 
 HEALTH 277 
 
 pox patient deliberately to expose others to the 
 disease. 
 
 Great care should of course be taken in the home 
 of a consumptive patient to prevent the infection 
 from spreading through the family. Separate 
 sleeping-rooms, thorough disinfection, and the use 
 of paper napkins which are burned at once, to take 
 the place of handkerchiefs, should be some of the 
 means employed. 
 
 Pneumonia, pleurisy, bronchitis, grip, colds, and 
 catarrh are some of the other ailments which may 
 be largely banished by living the outdoor life. 
 The method of treatment is medical, is different in 
 each case, and should be decided by the family 
 physician. The constant habit of breathing im- 
 purities, day after day and year after year, brings 
 about a gradual change in the tissue of the lungs. 
 
 In the same way, simple food to take the place 
 of the rich, heavy foods eaten in large quantities, 
 will prevent many of the diseases of the stomach, 
 liver, and kidneys, and improve the general health 
 and strength. A diet of less meat and more eggs 
 has been tried by football teams in training and 
 found to give an equal amount of strength with 
 greater endurance. A diet of milk, cereals, vege- 
 tables, nuts, and fruits, raw or simply cooked, with 
 a small amount of animal foods, will perhaps give
 
 278 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 f 
 
 the best results in this climate. Food fried in fats, 
 rich pastries and gravies are the hardest to digest, 
 and better health will usually follow discontinuing 
 them. 
 
 The purity of the food eaten should receive 
 careful consideration. Artificially preserved foods 
 are usually more or less dangerous, for although 
 dealers urge that the poison contained in them is 
 too small to do harm we must remember that it is 
 not the single dose that does harm, but the many 
 foods each containing a very small amount of poi- 
 son, taken day after day. 
 
 Pure food laws, national and state, have done 
 great good in driving adulterated and impure foods 
 out of the markets by requiring all foods to be 
 properly labeled. 
 
 Thorough mastication or chewing of the food is 
 only a little less important than the character of the 
 food itself. Rapid swallowing without chewing in 
 childhood lays the foundation for many of the di- 
 gestive diseases of later life. If food be thor- 
 oughly masticated much that would otherwise be 
 hard to digest can be eaten without bad results. 
 One of the best known examples of this is meat, 
 which, while full of nourishment, sets up in the 
 large intestine a condition known as " auto-intoxi- 
 cation," a species of digestive poison. If meat be
 
 HEALTH 279 
 
 eaten slowly and chewed thoroughly, this condition 
 is almost entirely absent. 
 
 Pure drinking water is almost as necessary 
 as pure food. We take water into the body for 
 three principal purposes: first, it is needed to dis- 
 solve and dilute various substances and carry them 
 from one part of the body to another; second, it 
 forms a large part of the blood and other important 
 fluids of the body, and is a part of many substances 
 formed in the body; third, it serves to carry from 
 the body the worn-out and useless tissues, the waste 
 products of the body. 
 
 These are extremely poisonous and must be 
 promptly disposed of to prevent sickness. This 
 can not be done except by an ample supply of water. 
 Few persons, especially grown persons, drink 
 enough water. Ten glasses of pure water are 
 needed properly to supply the body. " Insufficient 
 water drinking is perhaps the commonest cause of 
 the interruption of the normal life processes," says 
 Doctor Theron C. Stearns. 
 
 But the common drinking cup in public places 
 probably causes far more disease than the drinking 
 itself prevents. 
 
 Particles of dead skin and disease-germs are left 
 in the cup by each drinker. Some of the most se- 
 rious diseases may be carried in this way. A cup
 
 280 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 made of heavy waterproof paper, cheap enough to 
 be thrown away after being used once, is a recent 
 invention that is highly recommended for use by 
 school children and those who are obliged to drink 
 away from home. The water in a public drinking- 
 fountain should come out in a small steady stream 
 so that those who have no cups may drink from the 
 stream itself as it rises. Many school-houses are 
 so equipped. 
 
 Sleep is a necessary part of good hygiene. It 
 promotes health and prevents disease. It is largely 
 in sleep that the system renews itself, that growth 
 takes place, that waste products are thrown off, 
 and the body repairs its wastes. No less than eight 
 hours for grown persons and ten for children should 
 be employed in sleep. Late hours and sleepless 
 nights are the frequent cause of nervousness, eye 
 strain, nervous prostration, and the beginning of 
 brain troubles and insanity. 
 
 Bathing is also necessary to good health. The 
 pores of the skin play a large part in carrying off the 
 wastes of the body, through the perspiration, and 
 if these become clogged, this poisonous material re- 
 mains in the system. We have all noticed how a 
 bath refreshes and gives tone to the entire body by 
 opening the pores. 
 
 The skin is composed of minute scales, arranged 
 in layers like fish scales. The tiny crevices
 
 HEALTH 281 
 
 between these form a lodging place for dirt 
 and germs. If these remain, our own bodies are 
 constantly exposed to their infection, if they drop 
 off, as some are constantly doing, we may spread 
 the contagion to others. This is strikingly illus- 
 trated by scarlet fever, smallpox, and similar dis- 
 eases where these minute scales are the sole source 
 of contagion. 
 
 Exercise is another necessity of health. Regular 
 physical culture in a gymnasium will develop any 
 muscle or part of the body almost at will, but if this 
 be not possible much can be accomplished in de- 
 veloping the body by simple work. Gladstone 
 found health in chopping wood, Roosevelt in a daily 
 tennis game, and President Taft in golf. Many 
 find it in gardening or farming. These all help to 
 develop vigorous bodies. 
 
 Anything which brings into moderate play any 
 set of muscles, which increases the circulation, or 
 stimulates the secretion is beneficial. House-work, 
 which, in its various forms, brings into use all the 
 muscles of the body, is a wholesome exercise for 
 women. Those who do no house-work seldom 
 substitute for it any other active exercise, and many 
 diseases which are caused by deposits of waste tis- 
 sues that are not thrown off by the body, are the 
 result. 
 
 Rest recreation pleasure these are as nee-
 
 282 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 essary to health as anything else, but the American 
 people are slow to learn the need of them. We 
 hear much of nervous prostration as an American 
 disease. It is due to a variety of causes, high 
 living, late hours, ill-ventilated rooms, and climate; 
 but chief of all the causes is the long hours of work 
 under strong pressure. Work done in a hurry and 
 without rest may accomplish many things, but it 
 invariably causes a corresponding loss of nerve 
 force. Fatigue, by checking bodily resistance, gives 
 rise to all kinds of poisons in the system. Every 
 part of the body feels the ill effect of continued ex- 
 haustion. 
 
 Of the diseases caused by bad habits, it can only 
 be said that all the evils they cause, directly and in- 
 directly, are entirely preventable; that they are us- 
 ually wrong morally, and that the suffering which 
 results is sure. 
 
 Under this head come the effects of drinking, 
 of the use of tobacco and drugs, and of bad per- 
 sonal and social habits. It is only necessary to re- 
 frain from these bad habits to prevent all the dis- 
 eases that arise from them, with all their train of 
 suffering, poverty and crime. 
 
 It is not the province of this book to deal with 
 scientific temperance, but merely to state a few of 
 the most serious results of the use of alcohol and 
 other poisons. The white corpuscles of the blood
 
 HEALTH 283 
 
 have been called our " standing army," because they 
 are natural germ-destroyers. One class of the white 
 cells has the power of motion, and another class 
 has the power of absorbing outside matter, such as 
 disease-germs. One destroys the germs and the 
 other moves them through the blood and carries 
 them off with the waste products of the body. 
 
 The white corpuscles thus stand as the defenders 
 of the body, ready to destroy the germs as they en- 
 ter, and are, for each individual, the best of all pre- 
 ventives of germ diseases. The person whose blood 
 is lacking in white cells is always liable to " catch " 
 contagious or infectious diseases, and the one who 
 has that element of the blood in proper proportion 
 is best fitted to withstand disease. 
 
 Leading physicians believe that the greatest harm 
 that comes from the use of alcohol lies in the fact 
 that nothing else so weakens the resistance of the 
 white corpuscles, and that therefore the person 
 who is an habitual user of alcohol lacks the power 
 to repel all classes of disease. English and American 
 life insurance companies give us almost exactly the 
 same figures, which show that of insured persons, 
 the death rate is twenty-three per cent, higher among 
 those who use alcohol than among total abstainers. 
 It is probable that the proportion of persons carry- 
 ing life insurance is much less among the drinking 
 classes and that if we had complete statistics the
 
 284 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 difference would be far greater than appears in the 
 life insurance tables. 
 
 Of time lost by sickness, directly and through 
 other diseases caused by alcoholism, drugs and 
 other bad habits, the percentage is very great, ac- 
 cording to all hospital records. 
 
 The number of prominent persons who have died 
 of " tobacco heart " indicates that the rate of those 
 whose heart action is weakened by the use of to- 
 bacco is probably very large. 
 
 Doctor Morrow says that if we could put an 
 end at once to diseases caused by bad habits it 
 would result in closing at least one-half of our in- 
 stitutions for defective persons, and almost all of 
 our penal institutions. 
 
 There is another long list of diseases which are 
 contagious, that is, which one person may transmit 
 to another. These are usually serious but their 
 spread may be largely prevented by keeping the 
 sick person alone, except for the necessary nurses, 
 quarantining the house and disinfecting everything 
 when the period of infection is past. 
 
 In this class are smallpox, diphtheria, scarlet 
 fever, measles, mumps, chicken-pox and whooping- 
 cough. 
 
 These latter are the so-called " childish dis- 
 eases " which it was formerly considered impossible 
 to escape, and little attempt was made to guard
 
 HEALTH 285 
 
 against them. Now they are recognized as serious, 
 whooping-cough for its close relation to brain and 
 spinal trouble; measles for their effect on the eyes 
 and lungs; chicken-pox for its similarity to small- 
 pox, and mumps for its general lowering of the 
 tone of the system, allowing other diseases to gain 
 a foothold. 
 
 Special serum treatment for diphtheria and vac- 
 cination for smallpox have greatly reduced the 
 danger from these once greatly dreaded diseases. 
 
 Of preventable diseases none should receive more 
 attention than typhoid fever, because it is a great 
 scourge and yet it can be prevented by simple 
 means. If we understand that typhoid is a dirt 
 disease, that it comes only from dirt, we shall feel 
 it a disgrace to have an epidemic of typhoid, though 
 one of the saddest features about it is that we must 
 suffer for the sins of others. The one who is at- 
 tacked by typhoid fever may not be the one who has 
 left dirt for the disease to breed in. 
 
 Typhoid fever germs are bred chiefly in ma- 
 nure piles, sewers, or cess-pools, and would not be 
 transmitted to man directly, but there are several 
 indirect ways in which they may be carried. Flies 
 also breed in the same places. Their legs become 
 covered with typhoid germs, and then they fly into 
 houses directly on the food and cooking utensils. 
 This is one of the most common ways in which the
 
 286 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 disease is carried, and doctors tell us that the com- 
 mon house-fly should be known as the " typhoid 
 fly " so that people may know the serious danger 
 that lurks in what was formerly considered as noth- 
 ing worse than an annoying foe to clean house- 
 keeping. 
 
 If houses are thoroughly screened, if cess-pools, 
 manure piles and garbage are kept tightly covered, 
 screened, or, still better, disinfected with chloride 
 of lime, there will be no breeding-places left for 
 flies and this will remove one of the greatest dan- 
 gers. 
 
 The other danger lies in a polluted water or milk 
 supply. Every sewer that is carried into a stream, 
 every manure pile that drains into a water course 
 is a menace to health. 
 
 Very frequently the farm well for watering stock 
 is near the barn, near the manure pile, which, as 
 it drains, carries down millions of typhoid germs 
 to the water-level below. The well becomes infected, 
 the family drink from it, and soon there may be 
 several cases of typhoid fever in the home. 
 
 Worst of all, the milk pails are rinsed at the well, 
 and all the milk that is poured into them spreads 
 the germs wherever the milk may be sold. In this 
 way an epidemic may be carried to an entire town, 
 and to persons who themselves have taken every 
 precaution against the disease.
 
 HEALTH 287 
 
 Drinking water should be boiled unless one is 
 sure of the water-supply, and surface wells are 
 never safe unless we know that they drain only 
 from clean sources, and then the water should be 
 analyzed frequently. Boiling absolutely destroys 
 typhoid and other germs, and well repays the extra 
 work it makes. One case of typhoid fever causes 
 more work than boiling the water for years, if we 
 consider the work only. 
 
 If you can not buy pasteurized milk, and are not 
 sure of conditions about the dairy, your milk should 
 be boiled, or, still better, sterilized at home by put- 
 ting it in bottles or other containers, and placing in 
 a vessel of hot water, keeping the milk for several 
 hours about half-way to the boiling point, then cool- 
 ing gradually. 
 
 All these means of prevention are troublesome 
 and require time and work, but as the result in health 
 for the family is sure, every housekeeper should 
 gladly take this extra burden on herself if it be 
 necessary. In some states and many cities, the 
 laws governing dairies are now so strict that there 
 is no need of doing this work in the home. This 
 care in the dairies should be insisted on everywhere, 
 even if it raises the price of milk, because it means 
 the saving of many doctor and drug bills and also 
 raises the standard of public health. 
 
 Yellow fever was formerly dreaded more than
 
 288 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 any other single disease because it was so wide- 
 spread, so fatal, and was thought to be violently 
 contagious, but during the Spanish- American War 
 it was proved that it is not contagious at all, but 
 comes only from the bite of a certain mosquito, the 
 stegomia, which is usually found only in hot cli- 
 mates. It is conveyed in this way: the mosquito 
 bites a yellow fever patient; for twelve days it is 
 harmless, but after that time it may infect every 
 person that it bites. 
 
 If every yellow fever patient could be screened 
 with netting to prevent his being bitten, we could 
 prevent the yellow fever mosquito from becoming 
 infected. Further, if we can prevent healthy peo- 
 ple from being bitten by fever-infected mosquitoes, 
 they will escape the disease, and still further, if we 
 can destroy the eggs of mosquitoes, we can entirely 
 obviate all danger of yellow fever in a community. 
 
 The mosquito breeds only in water; by having 
 all cisterns, rain-water barrels, and other water 
 containers carefully covered, and by spreading the 
 surface of pools of standing water, especially dirty 
 water, covered with greenish scum, with a thick 
 coating of kerosene oil, we can prevent the eggs 
 from hatching. This has been done in many com- 
 munities in Cuba and the southern part of the United 
 States, and has resulted in completely stamping out 
 the disease in those places.
 
 HEALTH 289 
 
 Malaria is caused by another mosquito, called 
 the anopheles and while malaria is seldom fatal 
 as is yellow fever, it causes much suffering and loss 
 of time, and strong efforts should be made to pre- 
 vent it. The same measures that are used to 
 prevent yellow fever will banish malaria from any 
 community. They are the screening of patients to 
 prevent spreading the disease; screening all houses 
 closely and keeping close watch for mosquitoes in 
 the house, and covering all ponds in the neighbor- 
 hood with oil. New Jersey mosquitoes were for- 
 merly known far and wide, but such an active cam- 
 paign has been waged against them, that they have 
 been almost completely driven from the state. 
 
 The ordinary mosquito has never been found to 
 do any harm beyond the discomfort of its bite. 
 
 Of other diseases caused by insects, an affection 
 of the eyes called pink-eye is carried by very tiny 
 flies, and the dreaded bubonic plague is supposed to 
 be transferred from sick people to well ones by the 
 bites of fleas, which in turn are brought to this 
 country by rats. 
 
 The hook-worm which affects so many persons 
 in the South is often called " the lazy disease " since 
 the persons afflicted with it are not totally disabled, 
 but are lacking in energy and vigor because the 
 small insects take from the blood the red corpuscles 
 which should carry the digested food all over the
 
 290 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 body. These insects can be destroyed by medicine, 
 of which only a few cents worth is required to cure 
 a case and make the patient fit for work and en- 
 joyment. In Porto Rico almost 300,000 cases have 
 been treated by the United States government in 
 the last six years. 
 
 Another matter which should receive careful con- 
 sideration is the large number of preventable ac- 
 cidents. Mining accidents come in a few cases 
 from failure to provide the best appliances in 
 the mines, but in many cases are due to careless- 
 ness or ignorance of the operators themselves. 
 There still remain a large number of accidents 
 which occur in the best regulated mines, and when 
 no instance of special carelessness can be traced. 
 For years these disasters have puzzled mining en- 
 gineers, but within the last few months it has been 
 discovered that the minute particles of coal dust in 
 a dry mine completely fill the air, so that the air 
 itself is ready to burn. 
 
 When a light is taken into this coal-filled at- 
 mosphere, it bursts into flame, causing a violent 
 explosion. Sprinkling the mines, forcing a fine 
 spray of water through the air of every part of the 
 mines, it is thought, will prevent this class of acci- 
 dents, which have furnished long lists of killed and 
 injured each year. 
 
 Reports show that one miner is killed and several
 
 HEALTH 291 
 
 injured for every one hundred thousand tons of 
 coal mined. The mining accidents of one year total 
 2,500 killed and 6,000 seriously injured. 
 
 Other industries do not cause such wholesale in- 
 juries, but there are thousands of individual acci- 
 dents each year where the injury varies from man- 
 gled fingers to death. 
 
 When the cause is failure to provide suitable 
 safeguards to machinery, or to warn employees of 
 danger, the penalty to the employers should be made 
 severe, so that no consideration of money will pre- 
 vent them from taking precautions. More often, 
 however, the injury is due to the carelessness of the 
 men or to the fact that they try to run machines 
 with which they are unfamiliar. 
 
 Manual training schools, night schools for work- 
 ing-men, with a short apprenticeship in the running 
 of machinery and an explanation of the dangers, 
 will go far to prevent this class of accidents, but 
 the fact will still remain, that often those who are 
 most familiar with machinery become careless and 
 are more liable to injury than beginners. 
 
 The number of accidents that have been added 
 to the world's list by automobiles, both to those rid- 
 ing and to persons who are run over by them, is 
 great and is in a large measure due to carelessness 
 in handling the machine or to reckless driving. 
 
 The entire number of accidents in the United
 
 292 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 States, including railway accidents, reaches the im- 
 mense total of sixty thousand killed and many times 
 that number injured. A most appalling waste of 
 life and labor value! 
 
 Professor Ditman says, " Of 29,000,000 workers 
 in the United States over 500,000 are yearly killed 
 or crippled as a direct result of the occupations in 
 which they are engaged more than were killed 
 and wounded throughout the whole Russo-Japa- 
 nese War. More than one-half this tremendous 
 sacrifice of life is needless." 
 
 Until the last quarter of a century there was a 
 large addition to the death rate each year from the 
 blood poisoning following operations and injuries 
 making open wounds. It was not until the dis- 
 covery of the germs which cause septic poisoning 
 that deaths from these causes could be checked. 
 The use of antiseptics, such as carbolic acid, alco- 
 hol, and various other preparations, the boiling of 
 all surgical instruments, and the boiling or baking 
 of all articles used in the treatment of open wounds 
 and sores has reduced the death rate at least one- 
 half. 
 
 The rate could be lowered much more if all sores 
 were treated as surgical cases and carefully steril- 
 ized from the beginning. About eighty-five deaths 
 out of every hundred from these causes might be 
 prevented.
 
 HEALTH 293 
 
 Every Fourth of July a great many entirely pre- 
 ventable deaths and minor accidents occur. The 
 toy pistol has come to be considered almost as 
 deadly as the larger variety. The tiny " caps " 
 that are used in them are fired back into the hand 
 of the person shooting them, tiny particles of pow- 
 der enter the skin, burrowing into the flesh, and the 
 skin closes over them, shutting out the air. If these 
 particles carry with them tetanus germs, as is often 
 the case, because these germs are found chiefly in 
 the dirt of the street where most of this shooting 
 is done, lock-jaw or tetanus, a severe form of blood- 
 poisoning, results, and is usually fatal. The same 
 results come less frequently from fire-crackers and 
 other explosives, and in addition many accidents 
 which injure hands, eyes, and other parts of the 
 body, are the result of the use of the heavier ex- 
 plosives. 
 
 The Pasteur Treatment is saving many lives each 
 year by treating cases of infection from " mad 
 dogs " and other animals affected with hydrophobia. 
 
 Among the diseases which can be remedied by 
 slight means are enlarged tonsils and adenoid 
 growths back of the nose, both of which can be re- 
 moved by a slight and almost painless operation, but 
 which, if allowed to develop, often cause serious 
 throat and lung troubles, deafness, and weakened 
 minds. Slight defects of the eyes can be remedied
 
 294 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 by the wearing of glasses, but which if unchecked 
 give rise to various nerve and spinal diseases as well 
 as more serious eye troubles. It is believed now 
 that most of the blindness of later life could be pre- 
 vented by proper care of the eyes in early life and 
 by prompt attention to slight defects of the eyes 
 when they begin. 
 
 Doctor Walter Cornell, who has made a study of 
 eye strain says, " Eye strain is the chief cause of 
 functional diseases. It is almost the sole cause of 
 headache, is the frequent cause of digestive dis- 
 eases, of spinal curvatures, and indirectly of neuras- 
 thenia and hysteria." 
 
 Decayed teeth in children, slight in themselves, 
 give rise to more serious troubles in later life, ill- 
 shaped mouths and jaws and crooked teeth result 
 from teeth that have been drawn too early in life. 
 Decayed teeth lead also to many stomach and di- 
 gestive troubles. 
 
 Medical inspection in the schools shows a sur- 
 prising number of children suffering from these 
 minor troubles. About 80,000 children were ex- 
 amined, and the records show that out of every one 
 hundred children examined sixty-six needed the 
 services of a doctor, surgeon, or dentist, and some 
 needed all three. 
 
 Forty out of each hundred had badly neglected 
 teeth.
 
 HEALTH 295 
 
 Thirty-eight had enlarged glands of the neck. 
 
 Eighteen had enlarged tonsils. 
 
 Ten had growths of the nose. 
 
 Thirty-one needed glasses. 
 
 Six needed more nourishing food. 
 
 This meant that more than 52,000 of the num- 
 ber needed some medical care that they would not 
 have received at home because their parents had 
 never noticed the need of it. Every one of them 
 could by prompt attention, a small dentist's bill, 
 a slight operation of the throat or nose, or the 
 use of glasses, (almost 25,000 needed glasses) be 
 saved great suffering or inability to work in later 
 life. 
 
 As we learn more of disease, and especially of 
 germ diseases, we are oppressed by the feeling that 
 we are in constant danger, but we must bear in 
 mind that it is the weak and unfit that are attacked, 
 and that fitness, while partly inherited, is almost 
 altogether a matter of proper hygiene. Keeping 
 our bodily defenses in good condition against dis- 
 ease is as much a matter of necessity and good pol- 
 icy as keeping the defenses of a city in fighting 
 condition in time of war. 
 
 That life may be prolonged and so strengthened 
 that the average height, weight, and endurance will 
 be increased, admits of no doubt. The same rule 
 of cultivation runs through all nature. The orig-
 
 296 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 inal or natural apple was a small, sour, bitter crab. 
 The difference between that and the finest products 
 of western orchards, is altogether a matter of culti- 
 vation, selection, and proper treatment. In 1710 
 the average weight of dressed cattle did not exceed 
 three hundred and seventy pounds. Now it is not 
 far from one thousand pounds. An equal change 
 could be made in the human race, but because we 
 believe so fully in personal liberty to live our lives 
 as we choose, little has actually been done to raise 
 the human standard. 
 
 The care and hygiene of chidren is receiving uni- 
 versal attention, with the result of a wonderful re- 
 duction in the sickness and death of children, but as 
 yet comparatively few grown persons apply these 
 lessons to their own lives, and the rates for older 
 persons remain almost unchanged. 
 
 When individuals have done all that they can, 
 there still remains much that must be done by the 
 city, the state, and the nation. Boards of health 
 can do much toward controlling epidemics by plac- 
 ing infected households under quarantine, by com- 
 pelling householders who are ignorant or careless 
 to clean their premises and to take other precautions 
 for the public health. 
 
 Hospitals, both public and private, have done 
 excellent work, not only in curing disease but in 
 gaining more definite knowledge of the nature of
 
 HEALTH 297 
 
 diseases through the study of large numbers of 
 cases. 
 
 The cleaning of streets and the removal of garb- 
 age regularly are among the great factors in keep- 
 ing a city in a sanitary condition. New Orleans 
 and some of the cities of Cuba and Porto Rico show 
 strikingly what may be done in that direction. 
 
 Medical inspection of schools is a new and valu- 
 able aid to health. Epidemics of childish diseases 
 which sweep through the schools with a fearful 
 record of illness and a lesser one of death, may 
 often be checked entirely by the close watch of the 
 medical inspector, who removes the first patients 
 from the schools when the disease is in its begin- 
 ning. 
 
 Public playgrounds for children in cities have an 
 influence that it is as good for health as it is for 
 morals, providing, as it does, fresh air and active 
 exercise for children. Open air schools for tuber- 
 cular children are being operated in several cities 
 with excellent results in health and school work. 
 
 Many states are making an organized effort to 
 fight tuberculosis by establishing fresh-air colonies 
 where, with pure air, rest and plenty of the most 
 nourishing food, patients are restored to health. 
 
 Care of epileptics and the insane by the state, 
 with proper hygiene and treatment, accomplishes 
 many cures.
 
 298 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 The nation is doing excellent work in a few lines, 
 notably the Pure Food Bureau and the Marine 
 Hospital Corps, but perfected organization of all 
 the forces is lacking. The Department of Agricul- 
 ture has done a wonderful work in investigating 
 and curbing insect pests that injure farm crops and 
 trees, and in stamping out disease among live stock. 
 Forty-six million dollars have been spent and well 
 spent in the work in the last few years, but it is a 
 matter of reproach that more pains are taken to 
 save the lives of cattle and farm crops than human 
 lives. 
 
 There should be a strong central Bureau of 
 Health with power and money scientifically to in- 
 vestigate disease, to distribute information as the 
 Department of Agriculture does to farmers, and to 
 carry out their ideas, as do state and city boards of, 
 health. 
 
 We have dealt with only one side of the ques- 
 tion the suffering and sorrow; but in a work on 
 conservation, we must consider also the money 
 question, the loss to the nation in time and money of 
 these great wastes of health and life. 
 
 There are no trustworthy statistics as to wages. 
 The average yearly earnings of all persons, from 
 day laborers to presidents, is estimated at seven hun- 
 dred dollars; but as not more than three-fourths of 
 the people are actual workers, three-fourths of this
 
 HEALTH 299 
 
 amount, or five hundred and twenty-five dollars is 
 taken as the average wage. 
 
 From these figures the money value of a person 
 under five years is given at ninety-five dollars ; from 
 five to ten years, at nine hundred and fifty dollars; 
 from ten to twenty years at $2,000; from twenty to 
 thirty at $4,000 ; thirty to fifty years at $4,000 ; fifty 
 to eighty at $2,900 and over eighty at $700 or less. 
 The average value of life at all ages is $2,900 and the 
 93,000,000 persons living in this country would be 
 worth in earning power the vast sum of $270,000,- 
 000,000. This is probably a low estimate but is 
 more than double all our other wealth combined. 
 
 Now let us see how much of this vital wealth is 
 wasted. As the average death rate is at least eigh- 
 teen out of each thousand, we have 1,500,000 as the 
 number of deaths in the United States each year. 
 Of these, forty-two per cent., or 630,000 are classed 
 as preventable so that a number equal to the en- 
 tire population of the city of Boston die each year 
 whose deaths are as unnecessary as is the waste of 
 our forests by fire. 
 
 If some great plague should carry off all the 
 people of Boston, not the people of the United States 
 only, but of the whole world would be roused by 
 the appalling calamity and every possible means 
 would be employed to prevent other cities from 
 sharing such a fate; but because these preventable
 
 300 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 deaths are not in one city, but are widely scattered, 
 \ve have long remained indifferent to this terrible 
 and needless waste. 
 
 Then there are always 3,000,000 persons ill, 
 1,000,000 of whom are of working age. If, as 
 before, we count only three- fourths of them as ac- 
 tual workers, we find a yearly direct loss from sick- 
 ness of $500,000,000 in wages. The daily cost of 
 nursing, doctor bills, and medicine is counted at one 
 dollar and fifty cents, which makes for the 3,000,000 
 sick, a yearly cost for these items of more than $i,- 
 500,000,000. What should we think if nearly all of 
 the people of the city of New York were constantly 
 sick, and were spending for doctors, nurses, and 
 medicine as much money as Congress appropriates 
 to run every department of the government ! 
 
 It is estimated that sickness and death cost the 
 United States $3,000,000,000 annually, of which at 
 least a third, probably one-half, is preventable. Is 
 it not well worth while, then, from a money stand- 
 point alone, to use every effort to conserve our na- 
 tional health? Conservation of health and life, 
 going hand in hand with conservation of national 
 resources, will give us not only a better America, 
 but better, stronger, happier, more enlightened Amer- 
 icans. What a new world would be opened to us if 
 we could have a nation with no sickness or suffer- 
 ing! That is the ideal, and everything that we can
 
 HEALTH 301 
 
 do toward realizing that ideal is a great step in hu- 
 man progress. 
 
 REFERENCES 
 
 Report on National Vitality. Committee of One Hundred. 
 (Fisher.) 
 
 The Nature of Man. Metchnikoff. 
 
 The Prolongation of Life. Metchnikoff. 
 
 The New Hygiene. Metchnikoff. 
 
 Vital Statistics. Farr. 
 
 The Kingdom of Man. Lankester. 
 
 Cost of Tuberculosis. Fisher. 
 
 School Hygiene. Keating. 
 
 Economic Loss Through Insects That Carry Disease. 
 Howard. 
 
 Report of Associated Fraternities on Infectious, Conta- 
 gious, and Hereditary Diseases. 
 
 Conservation of Life and Health by Improved Water Sup- 
 ply. Kober. 
 
 Backward Children in the Public Schools. Davis. 
 
 Dangers to Mine Workers. (Mitchell.) Report Governor's 
 Conference. 
 
 Tuberculosis in the U. S. Census Report 1908. 
 
 Industrial Accidents. Bureau of Labor Pamphlet, 1906. 
 
 Factory Sanitation and Labor Protection. Dept. of Labor, 
 No. 44. 
 
 How Insects Affect Health in Rural Districts. Dept. of 
 Agriculture. Bulletin 155. 
 
 Public Health and Water Pollution. Bulletin 93.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 BEAUTY 
 
 AMERICA has another resource that differs from 
 all the others, and yet is no less valuable to us as a 
 nation, for it is upon natural beauty that we must 
 depend to attract visitors and settlers from other 
 countries, and also to develop love of country in 
 our own people, and to arouse in them all the higher 
 sentiments and ideals. 
 
 The love of romance and poetry is awakened only 
 by the sight of beautiful objects, and that nation 
 will produce the highest class of citizens which 
 has most within it to kindle these lofty ideas. The 
 savage cares only for the comfort of his body, but 
 as civilization advances, man devotes more and more 
 thought to those pleasures that come only through 
 his mind and the cultivation of his tastes. 
 
 The United States is particularly fortunate in 
 this respect, for here is everything to inspire a love 
 of beauty. There is the beauty of changing seasons, 
 of our wonderful autumn forest coloring, of rivers, 
 mountains, lakes, sea, and shore. 
 
 In addition to the beauty of our landscapes, 
 302
 
 BEAUTY 303 
 
 which is everywhere to be found, there are many 
 special beauties which are among the world's won- 
 der-places, and which are visited yearly by thousands 
 of sight-seers, and each year they attract a greater 
 number of visitors from other lands. Some of the 
 most remarkable of these are Niagara Falls, the 
 Yosemite Valley, with its crowning glory, the 
 Yosemite Falls, the Hetch-Hetchy Falls, Mammoth 
 Cave, the Garden of the Gods, the Grand Canon of 
 the Colorado, the Agatized Forests of Arizona, 
 Yellowstone Park, The Natural Bridge of Virginia, 
 Great Salt Lake, and dozens of others, less wonder- 
 ful, but scarcely less beautiful, and equal to the most 
 talked-of beauties of Europe, such as the Palisades 
 of the Hudson, Lake Champlain, the Shenandoah 
 Valley, the Dalles of Oregon, Pike's Peak, Mount 
 Rainier, Lookout Mountain, the Adirondacks, and 
 the entire Rocky Mountain region. 
 
 To these must be added the relics of ancient civili- 
 zation, the homes of the Cliff Dwellers, the work of 
 the Mound Builders, and such fragments as still 
 remain of the occupation in various times and places 
 of certain Indian tribes, and of the Norsemen and 
 the Spaniards. 
 
 All these are to be valued for their beauty or 
 historic interest, and are also valuable as a source of 
 wealth to the community. 
 
 The money spent on tourist-travel in Europe is
 
 304 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 said to be more than half a billion dollars a year. 
 This vast amount is spent because in Europe there 
 is so much to delight the eye, because the cities are 
 made beautiful with artistic buildings filled with 
 art treasures, because historic places are carefully 
 preserved, because the villages are neat and well- 
 kept, and the intensive farming which is practised 
 almost everywhere leaves no waste places to grow up 
 with weeds, and lie neglected. 
 
 There are parts of Europe, of course, where this 
 is not true, but they are not included in the line of 
 tourist-travel, and in general it may be said that 
 Europe is visited almost solely because of its beauty : 
 the natural beauty that man has preserved, the 
 beauty that he has created, or the relics of past 
 greatness. 
 
 Modern Greece would attract few visitors for its 
 own sake. It is the ruins of a mighty past, the 
 Acropolis at Athens and the places made famous 
 in mythology and literature draw thousands to its 
 shores every year, and add greatly to the wealth and 
 prosperity of the country. 
 
 The same thing is true of America wherever we 
 have preserved and made beautiful our natural 
 scenery. During three months in the summer, the 
 New York Central Railroad derives about $200,000 
 in fares from its Niagara business alone. Since 
 it became a state reservation in 1885, more than
 
 BEAUTY 305 
 
 seventeen million persons have visited Niagara, and 
 the amount of money that has been spent there at 
 hotels, for carriages, automobiles, side-trips, souve- 
 nirs, etc., is almost beyond calculation. 
 
 In the Adirondack Park there is between $10,- 
 000,000 and $15,000,000 invested in hotels and cot- 
 tages. The 15,000 clerks and helpers receive about 
 $1,000,000 in wages, the railroads receive another 
 $1,000,000 in fares, and hotel guests spend between 
 $5,000,000 and $6,000,000. All of these advan- 
 tages to the region are entirely apart from the prac- 
 tical uses of the forest. 
 
 These are examples which show the great amount 
 of wealth which can come from preserving our 
 natural beauties, and the same conditions exist 
 everywhere, not only in the state and national parks, 
 but wherever some beautiful spot has been set aside 
 by a city, a railroad company, or some private en- 
 terprise. People flock to these resorts in large num- 
 bers for rest or recreation, and to satisfy their love 
 for the beautiful, and the result is a gain in health 
 and morals, more desire on the part of those who 
 visit them to make their own surroundings beau- 
 tiful, and at the same time a great gain in money 
 value to the city or company that promotes such an 
 enterprise. 
 
 Most of the larger cities of the United States 
 have given particular attention to the subject of
 
 306 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 public parks during recent years. They are the 
 breathing places for the dwellers in the city, often 
 the only place where children can have fresh air 
 and plenty of exercise, and the parks constitute one 
 of the greatest attractions to draw summer visitors 
 to the city. 
 
 Nearly all steam and electric railway companies 
 own some park or pleasure resort from which they 
 derive a large income in fares, and many steamboat 
 companies find their largest profit from their excur- 
 sion boats. 
 
 All these facts show clearly that if we consider 
 only the gain in money, it is altogether a wise policy 
 to include natural beauty among our national re- 
 sources, and to conserve it carefully, while if we 
 look at it from the larger standpoint of preserving 
 for future generations the same beauties that we 
 enjoy, the need of such conservation is still more 
 urgent. 
 
 In our future development the United States will 
 largely be made over. We shall no longer have the 
 same natural conditions that we have had in the 
 early years of our history, and the physical appear- 
 ance of the country will grow better or worse each 
 generation. 
 
 It is possible for us to make America the most 
 beautiful land the world has ever seen, for we have 
 the natural beauty, and greater knowledge in setting
 
 BEAUTY 307 
 
 about the work of building than has ever been pos- 
 sessed by any other nation during its time of greatest 
 growth. 
 
 We shall go far toward realizing our ideal of a 
 beautiful America if we understand that the conser- 
 vation of our resources means beauty, and that waste 
 means ugliness. Proper conservation of our min- 
 eral resources will include the removal of the ugly, 
 unsightly piles of culm, slag, and other refuse that 
 lie about the mouth of the mines, and disfigure some 
 of our most beautiful mountain scenery, for, as we 
 have shown elsewhere, this should be used and not 
 wasted. The proper use of coal would solve the 
 smoke problem of cities, one of the worst foes of 
 cleanliness and beauty, and the use of water-power- 
 would serve the same purpose. The complete utili- 
 zation of our water resources that has been sug- 
 gested would make all our waterways contribute 
 greatly to the beauty and attractiveness of the land- 
 scape. 
 
 In conserving our forests we not only increase our 
 timber supply, but add one of the greatest of all 
 beauties, the trees which give variety and tone to 
 every picture that our eyes rest upon. We shall 
 have the shady roads, the long green hill-slopes, the 
 quiet woodlands, the glory of autumn coloring, the 
 delight of blossoming orchards. 
 
 Conservation of the soil, and utilization of every
 
 3o8 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 part of the land mean even more. Picture the con- 
 trast between a country where the hillsides are worn 
 into gullies, where rocks are everywhere to be seen 
 cropping above the barren soil, where the crops are 
 scanty, the vegetation stunted ; and one where every 
 field yields a rich harvest, where the grain hangs 
 heavy and golden, where every wayside nook holds 
 a flower, where there are no neglected fence-corners, 
 no piles of rubbish, what we truly call " a smiling 
 landscape." Lastly, in conserving health, w r e do 
 more toward promoting personal beauty and advan- 
 cing the standard of the race than in any other way. 
 
 We should not be content, however, with the 
 beauty that comes only from the conservation of our 
 other resources, but should have a definite plan for 
 the conservation of beauty as a valuable resource in 
 itself. 
 
 The city of Washington should be made the 
 center of this movement toward national beauty. 
 There is now an organized effort on the part of 
 those in charge of the erection of public buildings, 
 to make Washington the most beautiful capital in 
 the world, and a model for other cities. 
 
 The federal government should set aside as na- 
 tional parks all of our greatest natural wonders, as 
 Yellowstone Park is now held. 
 
 The states should follow the same line and set 
 apart in the same way those objects of lesser inter-
 
 BEAUTY 309 
 
 est, either natural or historic, which are to be found 
 in every state those that are not of sufficient im- 
 portance to merit national recognition, but that will 
 add interest to the state as a place for tourists to 
 visit. 
 
 Few states are visited in this way more than is 
 Massachusetts, and it is largely because not only 
 the state, but the various communities have pre- 
 served historical places, buildings and objects so 
 carefully, have erected monuments to commemorate 
 them ; and have thrown these various objects of in- 
 terest open to the public free of charge. These 
 communities in turn have gained the original ex- 
 penditure many times over from the money spent 
 by the steady stream of visitors. 
 
 There has been a great movement toward the 
 beautifying of cities and villages in the past few 
 years. Besides the good work done by park boards 
 in cities there has been a great improvement in 
 the matter of cleaner streets, better sidewalks, the 
 planting of more shade trees, and a far greater 
 attention to the beautifying of private grounds. 
 The adorning of front yards and porches with vines 
 and flowers is increasing enormously every year. 
 
 Many causes have been at work to produce this 
 result: the broadening influence of travel, which 
 brings people in touch with what is being done in 
 other places to promote public beauty, the work of
 
 310 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 schools, newspaper and magazine articles, and more 
 time and money to spend on luxuries, even the 
 post-card, which makes a souvenir view of every 
 spot of local beauty or interest; but probably no 
 other one agency has produced such good results in 
 public beauty as has the woman's club which has 
 taken up this line of work. 
 
 The " cleaning-up " movement, with a public 
 house-cleaning day twice a year when all refuse is 
 carted away, and streets, alleys and back-yards 
 cleaned, had its origin in this way. The care and 
 beautifying of cemeteries is another branch of the 
 work. 
 
 In many places, flower and vegetable seeds are 
 distributed free or at a nominal cost among the 
 school children, prizes are offered for the best gar- 
 den, the largest vegetables, the most attractive back- 
 yard, the best arranged flower-bed, and other good 
 results; the work is examined by a committee, and 
 the prizes awarded at the end of the season either 
 by the club or by merchants who have become inter- 
 ested in the contest. 
 
 This provides the children wholesome outdoor 
 work and exercise throughout the summer, and pro- 
 motes a pleasant rivalry among them, besides in- 
 creasing their knowledge of plants, and the results 
 have been found to be far-reaching, for not only the 
 pupils, but their parents as well, are interested in
 
 BEAUTY 311 
 
 neater, more orderly methods of living, and in beau- 
 tifying their homes. 
 
 In the movement for public beauty, as in all other 
 progress, it is the work of individuals that counts 
 most. Every house that is built with a thought for 
 its beauty, every home, farm-building and fence 
 kept in good repair, every neat back-yard and 
 flower-surrounded home has its part in making 
 America more beautiful, and this influence in count- 
 less homes is certain to count in the making of better 
 citizens. 
 
 A country where beauty meets the eye at every 
 turn will invite the tourist and the home-seeker, 
 will be deeply loved by its own people, and will be 
 an inspiration to poetry and art. It rests largely 
 with the people of to-day to decide whether we 
 shall make of our own land such an ideal place.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN CONCLUSION 
 
 No ONE can read the record of facts presented 
 in this book without being impressed by two things : 
 ( i ) How these resources depend on one another and 
 that proper care of one results in the saving of an- 
 other, and, (2) the fact that every one of our most 
 valued resources is decreasing so rapidly that its 
 end is in sight, even though far in the distance. 
 When the end comes we know that it will mean the 
 end of progress for our country in that direction. 
 
 It is also plain that the great, in fact the only, 
 reason for this scarcity lies not in use but in waste. 
 And lastly we see that there is yet time to prevent 
 serious shortage in most directions if we set about 
 a general system of good management and thrift. 
 
 In the meantime we are sure to have higher prices, 
 for the supply is growing less and the demand 
 greater for almost every material. In many lines, 
 unless something be done to check this shortage, 
 prices will rise so high that only the rich can afford 
 what are now considered the necessities of life, and 
 the lives of the poorer classes will become like those 
 
 312
 
 IN CONCLUSION 313 
 
 of the peasants of Europe : a scanty living on the 
 plainest food, poor homes, hard work, less oppor- 
 tunity to develop mind and body. 
 
 Let us sum up how the various resources may be 
 used to conserve one another. 
 
 The soil is saved from erosion by the planting of 
 forests, and by the storing of the flood waters of 
 rivers. Waste land is made fertile by proper con- 
 trol of the rivers through drainage, storage and 
 irrigation. Farm crops and also the forests are in- 
 creased in value by insect control. 
 
 The insects are largely kept in check by encour- 
 aging the nesting and increase of certain birds. 
 Birds play a large part in the conservation of the 
 crops, by destroying insects, weeds, and small mam- 
 mals. The birds themselves are sheltered and thrive 
 only where trees are abundant. 
 
 The grazing lands are conserved by proper forest 
 control, and the supply of animal food depends 
 largely on theigrazing lands. 
 
 Fisheries are dependent on proper care of the 
 waters, which in turn depend on forest control, and 
 on proper care of the by-products of. factories. 
 
 Coal is conserved by the, use of. lower-grade fuels, 
 by using waste from the forests, and by substituting 
 water-power. 
 
 Gas and oil will also, be: saved by the greater use 
 of water-power.
 
 3 14 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 Coal-mining is made safer to human life and 
 much saving in coal is effected by the use of mine- 
 timbers, which involves the planting of forests. 
 Forests regulate to a great extent the stream-flow of 
 rivers. 
 
 Beauty can only be conserved by the planting of 
 trees, by keeping the waters pure and clear, by using 
 waste products so that there will be no unsightly 
 piles of refuse. 
 
 Health depends, among other things, on pure wa- 
 ter, air unpolluted by coal smoke and poisonous 
 gases which should be used as factory by-products. 
 
 And lastly, the life, happiness, and prosperity of 
 man is conserved by all of these things. 
 
 The first step in this system of conservation must 
 be education on this subject, education not only of 
 the children but of the men and women also, on 
 the need and methods of saving. There would be 
 no danger of a scarcity of coal if manufacturers 
 all knew the value and economy of electric water- 
 power or low-grade fuels, and of smoke-consuming 
 devices. There is no reason why insect destruction 
 should cost the nation so dearly if the birds were 
 protected, and a few simple methods of prevention 
 understood. All the various water problems could 
 be met and solved if one general plan were adopted 
 and carried out, and so all along the linCi 
 
 We have taken note of the great natural wastes :
 
 IN CONCLUSION 315 
 
 how two-thirds of the wood cut is wasted, and how 
 insects and fire destroy the standing timber; how 
 the soil is washed down into the valleys, taking the 
 best from the farms; how we are steadily robbing 
 the soil of its most necessary elements ; how our wa- 
 ters are unused and we pay for this non-use by the 
 use of other resources that we can ill afford to 
 spare; how millions of acres of land which might 
 be profitably farmed lie useless for lack of water 
 and other millions are useless because they are cov- 
 ered with water. Consumers pay high freight 
 rates and the railroads are so overcrowded that they 
 are unable to care for all the business, while the 
 rivers, the cheapest of all carriers, flow idly to the 
 sea. 
 
 We have seen how one- fourth of the coal is left 
 in the mines, and how small a part of that which is 
 mined is actually turned into heat, how gas is al- 
 lowed to escape unchecked into the air. And great- 
 est and most serious of all, the useless waste of hu- 
 man life and health. 
 
 But there are scores of other wastes and extrav- 
 agances that all growing boys and girls should think 
 of, so that when they enter active life, they may do 
 their part to prevent them. 
 
 It is going to be necessary to learn to economize 
 in every department of life as all the European 
 pedfJles tio. We must learn, in this new cduntry,
 
 316 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 to do things more with the idea of the future in 
 mind. In all European cities, there are hundreds 
 of houses that have lasted many centuries, but there 
 are few houses in America that are built in an 
 enduring way. This building up and tearing down 
 taxes not one, but many, resources heavily. As 
 the housewife learns that a good kettle that costs a 
 dollar and lasts five years is cheaper than a poor 
 one which costs fifty cents but will wear out in one 
 year, so people must learn the lesson that in build- 
 ing poor light houses of wood which will last a 
 comparatively short time, they are really paying the 
 higher price; that in putting in poor roads, cheap 
 bridges, badly-constructed public buildings, that 
 cost less heavily in the first place but that will need 
 to be renewed in a few years, they are really paying 
 much more than if these had been substantially built 
 in the beginning. 
 
 The fire loss of the United States amounts to over 
 half a million dollars a day, and all insurance men 
 agree that most of this might be prevented. 
 
 The remedies are to build fewer wooden houses, 
 especially in crowded districts, to exercise greater 
 care in the building and management of chimneys, 
 greater care in electric wiring, and general watch- 
 fulness in handling matches and lighted cigars. 
 
 For the forest fires which mean so much to all 
 of us thb remedy lies in forest patrol. The amdunt
 
 IN CONCLUSION 317 
 
 usually set aside for fighting fires was not allowed 
 by some states in 1910, and the fires which cost 
 hundreds of millions of property and many lives 
 were the result. 
 
 Much of the most fertile land in our country is 
 used for raising tobacco, and grains that are made 
 into alcoholic liquors. As these can never be con- 
 sidered necessities it is well to think to what better 
 uses the land might be put. 
 
 The yearly bill of the United States for pleasure 
 is gigantic, and a large proportion of the pleasure 
 tends to lower rather than raise the standard of 
 American life and morals. 
 
 The greatest of all wastes is the waste of time and 
 labor. The waste of time by drunkenness, by poor 
 work that must be done over, and by idleness, makes 
 a large item of loss in every line of business. 
 
 Proper education will teach every child to work 
 neatly and with perfect accuracy, will teach eye, 
 hand and brain, will teach the value and pleasure of 
 work, careful management and economy and a re- 
 gard for the general good. 
 
 A study of the great facts of our national possi- 
 bilities that have been gathered together in this 
 book should arouse in the heart of every American, 
 old and young, the feeling that here is a work for 
 every hand and every brain, not only to save, but to 
 use wisely; to develop all the possibilities of our
 
 318 CHECKING THE WASTE 
 
 great resources no less than to conserve them. In 
 searching for new by-products or machinery for 
 checking the waste and adding to the usefulness of 
 these resources there is a field for invention that will 
 not only bring wealth to the inventor, but prosperity 
 and length of life to the nation. 
 
 QPHE END
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000 683 732 2 
 
 IiI:ENTANO'S 
 Jooksellers It Stationery