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were, all in all, the most magnificent forests of the globe a million square miles of timber land. In the short time as time counts in the life of nations that we have been here, we have all but reached the end of them. We thought it unimportant until lately that we have been destroying by fire as much timber as we have cut. But we have now reached the point where the growth of our forests is but one-fifth of the annual cut, while we have in store enough for only ten years at our present rate of use.

Our development, which would have been impossible without the cutting of the forests, has brought us where we really face their absolute exhaustion within the present generation. And we use five or six times more timber per capita than the European nations. A timber famine will touch every man, woman, and child in all the land; it will affect the daily life of every one of us; and yet without consideration, without forecast, and without foresight, we have placed ourselves, not deliberately, but thoughtlessly, in a position where a timber famine is one of the inevitable events of our near future.

Canada cannot supply us, for she will need her timber herself. Siberia cannot supply us, for the timber is too far from water transportation. South America cannot supply us, because the timbers of that vast continent are of a different character from those we use, and ill-adapted to our needs. We must suffer because we have carelessly wasted this great condition of success. It is impossible to repair the damage in time to escape suffering.

But the exhaustion of forests only begins the story of our impaired capital. Our anthracite coals are said to be in danger of exhaustion in fifty years, and our bituminous coals early in the next century; some of our older oil fields are already exhausted; natural gas has been wasted-burning night and day in many towns of this country until the supply has failed. Our iron deposits grow less each year. Our ranges in the West, from which we first drove the buffalo to cover them again with cattle and sheep, are capable of supporting

but about one-half what they could under intelligent management; and the price of beef is raised. We have used nearly every one of our resources without reasonable foresight and reasonable care, and as each becomes exhausted a heavier burden of hardship will be laid upon us as a people.

What is our remedy? The remedy is the perfectly simple one of common sense applied to national affairs as common sense is applied to personal affairs. We can replace the forests at great cost and with an interval of suffering. The soil which is washed from the surface of our farms every year to the amount of a billion tons, making, with the further loss of fertilizing elements carried away in solution, the heaviest tax the farmer has to pay, may in the course of centuries be replaced by the chemical breaking up of the rock; but it is decidedly wiser to keep what we have by careful methods of cultivation. We may very profitably stop putting our farms into our streams, to be dug out at great expense through river and harbor appropriations. Fertile soil is not wanted in the bed of a stream; it is wanted on the surface of the soil of the farms and the forest-covered slopes of the mountains; yet we spend millions upon millions of dollars every year removing from our rivers what ought never to have got into them.

Besides, we have left unused vast resources which are capable of adding enormously to the wealth of the country. Our streams in the West have been used mainly for irrigation and in the East mainly for navigation. Only recently has it occurred to us that a stream is valuable not merely for one, but for a considerable number of uses; and that to obtain the full benefit of the stream, we should plan to develop all uses together. For example, when the national government builds dams for navigation on streams, it often disregards the possible use, for power, of the water that flows over those dams. Engineers say that many hundred thousand horse-power are going to waste over government dams in this way. Since a fair price for power, where it is in demand, is from $20 to $80 per horse

power per year, it will be seen that the government has here - developed yet lying idle — a resource capable of adding enormously to the natural wealth. So, also, in developing the Western streams for irrigation, in many places irrigation and power might be made to go hand in hand.

This nation has, on the continent of North America, tnree and a half million square miles. What shall we do with it? How can we make ourselves most vigorous, and our civilization most influential, as we make use of that splendid heritage? Shall not the nation undertake to answer that question in the spirit of wisdom, prudence, and foresight? There is reason to think we are on the verge of saying to ourselves: Let us do the best we can with our natural resources; let us find out what we have, how they can best be used, how they can best be conserved. Above all, let us have clearly in mind the fundamental fact that this nation will not end in the year 1950, or a hundred years after that, or five hundred years after that; that we are just beginning a national history the end of which we cannot see, since we are still young. In truth, we are at a critical point in that history. We are at the turning of the ways. We may pass on along the line we have been following, exhaust our natural resources, continue to let the future take care of itself; or we may do the simple, obvious, common-sense thing in the interest of the nation, just as each of us does in his own personal affairs.

On the way in which we decide to handle this great possession which has been given us, hangs the welfare of those who are to come after us. Are we going to protect our springs of prosperity, our sources of well-being, our raw material of industry and commerce and employer of capital and labor combined, or are we going to dissipate them?

As we accept or ignore our responsibility as trustees of the nation's welfare, our children and our children's children for uncounted generations will call us blessed or will lay their suffering at our doors. We shall decide whether their lives, on the average, are to be lived in a flourishing country, full

of all that helps make men comfortable, happy, strong, and effective, or whether their lives are to be lived in a country like the miserable outworn regions of the earth which other nations before us have possessed without foresight and turned into hopeless deserts.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. What unwise use has been made of each of the gifts of nature discussed in this article? Read aloud the sentences which you think present the most important facts in regard to the waste. 2. What resources of your county are unused? What partially used? What is being done by your city, county, or State to use nature's gifts wisely?

3. Read to the class the ten questions you prepared. Have a class secretary copy the fifteen best questions (not duplicates) on the blackboard. Then revise the class list. Determine what makes

a good question; what a bad one.

4. Make an outline by writing the topic of each paragraph; find the paragraphs that are closely related in meaning, and place them under one main heading. Find three main headings in the selection.

2. THE HEART OF THE TREE

HENRY C. BUNNER

The prose selections in "Saving and Conserving" have been saying don't; now we come to two poems which say do.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants cool shade and tender rain,

And seed and bud of days to be,
And years that fade and flush again;
He plants the glory of the plain;

He plants the forest's heritage;
The harvest of a coming age;

The joy that unborn eyes shall see
These things he plants who plants a tree.

What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants, in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty,

And far-cast thought of civic good,
His blessings on the neighborhood.
Who in the hollow of His hand

Holds all the growth of all our land
A nation's growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.

3. "WHAT DO WE PLANT?"

HENRY ABBEY

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the tree which will cross the sea,
We plant the mast to carry the sails;
We plant the planks to withstand the gales —
The keel, the keelson, the beam, the knee;
We plant the ship when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
We plant the houses for you and me,
We plant the rafters, the shingles, the floors,
We plant the studding, the laths, the doors
The beams and siding, all parts that be;
We plant the house when we plant the tree.

What do we plant when we plant the tree?
A thousand things that we daily see;
We plant the spire that out-towers the crag,
We plant the staff for the country's flag,
We plant the shade, from hot sun free;
We plant all these when we plant the tree.

CLASS ACTIVITIES

1. Explain how, by merely planting a tree, we plant all the things named. Is it true that we destroy all of these when we cut down a tree?

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