land must be educated: there is more need, on the side of the public
welfare, to educate this man than any other man whatsoever (page 36).
When he knows, and his obligations to society are quickened, he will be
ready to become a real conservator; and he will act energetically as
soon as the economic pressure for land-supplies begins to be acute. When
society has done all it can to make every farmer a voluntary conservator
of the fatness of the earth, it will probably be obliged to resort to
other means to control the wholly incompetent and the recalcitrant; at
least, it will compel the soil-robber to remove to other occupation, if
economic stress does not itself compel it. We shall reach the time when
we shall not allow a man to till the earth unless he is able to leave
it at least as fertile as he found it.
I do not think that our natural soil resources have yet been greatly or
permanently depleted, speaking broadly; and such depletion as has
occurred has been the necessary result of the conquest of a continent.
But a new situation will confront us, now that we see the end of our raw
conquest; and the old methods cannot hold for the future. The conquest
has produced great and strong folk, and we have been conserving men
while we have been free with our resources. In the future, we shall
produce strong folk by the process of thoroughness and care.
_Ownership_ vs. _conservation_.
This discussion leads me to make an application to the conservation
movement in general. We are so accustomed to think of privileged
interests and of corporation control of resources that we are likely to
confuse conservation and company ownership. The essence of conservation
is to utilize our resources with no waste, and with an honest care for
the children of all the generations. But we state the problem to be the
reservation of our resources for all the people, and often assume that
if all the resources were in private ownership the problem would thereby
be solved; but, in fact, the conservation question is one thing and the
ownership of property quite another. A corporation may be the best as
well as the worst conservator of resources; and likewise, private or
individual ownership may be the very worst as well as the best
conservator. The individual owner, represented by the "independent
farmer," may be the prince of monopolists, even though his operations
compass a very small scale. The very fact that he is independent and
that he is intrenched behind the most formidable of all
barriers--private property rights--insure his monopoly.
In the interest of pure conservation, it is just as necessary to control
the single men as the organized men. In the end, conservation must deal
with the separate or the individual man; that is, with a person. It
matters not whether this person is a part of a trust, or lives alone a
hundred miles beyond the frontier, or is the owner of a prosperous
farm,--if he wastes the heritage of the race, he is an offender.
We are properly devising ways whereby the corporation holds its property
or privileges in trust, returning to government (or to society) a fair
rental; that is, we are making it responsible to the people. What shall
we do with the unattached man, to make him also responsible? Shall we
hold the corporate plunderer to strict account, and let the single
separate plunderer go scot-free?
_The philosophy of saving._
The conservation of natural resources, therefore, resolves itself into
the philosophy of saving, while at the same time making the most and
best progress in our own day. We have not developed much consciousness
of saving when we deal with things that come free to our hands, as the
sunshine, the rain, the forests, the mines, the streams, the earth; and
the American has found himself so much in the midst of plenty that
saving has seemed to him to be parsimony, or at least beneath his
attention. As a question of morals, however, conscientious saving
represents a very high development. No man has a right to waste, both
because the materials in the last analysis are not his own, and because
some one else may need what he wastes. A high sense of saving ought to
come out of the conservation movement. This will make directly for
character-efficiency, since it will develop both responsibility and
regard for others.
The irrigation and dry-farming developments have a significance far
beyond their value in the raising of crops: they are making the people
to be conservators of water, and to have a real care for posterity.
Civilization, thus far, is built on the process of waste. Materials are
brought from forest, and sea, and mine, certain small parts are used,
and the remainder is destroyed (page 20); more labor is wasted than is
usefully productive; but what is far worse, the substance of the land is
taken in unimaginable measure, and dumped wholesale into endless sewer
and drainage systems. It would seem as if the human race were bent on
finding a process by which it can most quickly ravish the earth and make
it incapable of maintaining its teeming millions. We are rapidly
threading the country with vast conduits by which the fertility of the
land can flow away unhindered into the unreachable reservoirs of the
seas.
_The conservation of food._
The fundamental problem for the human race is to feed itself. It has
been a relatively easy matter to provide food and clothing thus far,
because the earth yet has a small population, and because there have
always been new lands to be brought into requisition. We shall eliminate
the plagues and the devastations of war, and the population of the earth
will tremendously increase in the centuries to come. When the new lands
have all been opened to cultivation, and when thousands of millions of
human beings occupy the earth, the demand for food will constitute a
problem which we scarcely apprehend to-day. We shall then be obliged to
develop self-sustaining methods of maintaining the producing-power of
land.
We think we have developed intensive and perfected systems of
agriculture; but as a matter of fact, and speaking broadly, a permanent
organized agriculture is yet unknown. In certain regions, as in Great
Britain, the producing-power of the land has been increased over a long
series of years, but this has been accomplished to a great extent by the
transportation of fertilizing materials from the ends of the earth. The
fertility of England has been drawn largely from the prairies and plains
of America, from which it has secured its food supplies, from the guano
deposits in islands of the seas, from the bones of men in Egypt and the
battlefields of Europe.
We begin to understand how it is possible to maintain the
producing-power of the surface of the earth, and there are certain
regions in which our knowledge has been put effectively into operation,
but we have developed no conscious plan or system in a large way for
securing this result. It is the ultimate problem of the race to devise
a permanent system of agriculture. It is the greatest question that can
confront mankind; and the question is yet all unsolved.
_The best husbandry is not in the new regions._
The best agriculture, considered in reference to the permanency of its
results, develops in old regions, where the skinning process has passed,
where the hide has been sold, and where people come back to utilize what
is left. The skinning process is proceeding at this minute in the
bountiful new lands of the United States; and in parts of the older
states, and even also in parts of the newer ones, not only the skin but
the tallow has been sold.
We are always seeking growing-room, and we have found it. But now the
Western civilization has met the Eastern, and the world is
circumferenced. We shall develop the tropics and push far toward the
poles; but we have now fairly discovered the island that we call the
earth, and we must begin to make the most of it.
_Another philosophy of agriculture._
Practically all our agriculture has been developed on a rainfall basis.
There is ancient irrigation experience, to be sure, but the great
agriculture of the world has been growing away from these regions.
Agriculture is still moving on, seeking new regions; and it is rapidly
invading regions of small rainfall.
About six-tenths of the land surface of the globe must be farmed, if
farmed at all, under some system of water-saving. Of this, about
one-tenth is redeemable by irrigation, and the remainder by some system
of utilization of deficient rainfall, or by what is inappropriately
known as dry-farming. The complementary practices of irrigation and
dry-farming will develop a wholly new scheme of agriculture and a new
philosophy of country life (page 44).
Even in heavy rainfall countries there is often such waste of water from
run-off that the lands suffer severely from droughts. No doubt the hilly
lands of our best farming regions are greatly reduced in their
crop-producing power because people do not prepare against drought as
consciously as they provide against frost (page 52). It is often said
that we shall water Eastern lands by irrigation, and I think that we
shall; but our first obligation is to save the rainfall water by some
system of farm-management or dry-farming.
Agriculture rests on the saving of water.
_The obligation of the farmer._
The farmer is rapidly beginning to realize his obligation to society. It
is usual to say that the farmer feeds the world, but the larger fact is
that he saves the world.
The economic system depends on him. Wall Street watches the crops.
As cities increase proportionately in population, the farmer assumes
greater relative importance, and he becomes more and more a marked man.
Careful and scientific husbandry is rising in this new country. We have
come to a realization of the fact that our resources are not unlimited.
The mining of fertilizing materials for transportation to a few spots
on the earth will some day cease. We must make the farming sustain
itself, at the same time that it provides the supplies for mankind.
We all recognize the necessity of the other great occupations to a
well-developed civilization; but in the nature of the case, the farmer
is the final support. On him depends the existence of the race. No
method of chemical synthesis can provide us with the materials of food
and clothing and shelter, and with all the good luxuries that spring
from the bosom of the earth.
I know of no better conservators than our best farmers. They feel their
responsibility. Quite the ideal of conservation is illustrated by a
farmer of my acquaintance who saves every product of his land and has
developed a system of self-enriching live-stock husbandry, who has
harnessed his small stream to light his premises and do much of his
work, who turns his drainage waters into productive uses, and who is now
troubled that he cannot make some use of the winds that are going to
waste on his farm.
_The obligation of the conservation movement._
What I have meant to impress is the fact that the farmer is the ultimate
conservator of the resources of the earth. He is near the cradle of
supplies, near the sources of streams, next the margin of the forests,
on the hills and in the valleys and on the plains just where the
resources lie. He is in contact with the original and raw materials. Any
plan of conservation that overlooks this fact cannot meet the situation.
The conservation movement must help the farmer to keep and save the
race.
PERSONAL SUGGESTIONS
In the preceding pages I have tried to develop the reader's point of
view. To do this, I have gone over very briefly some of the questions
that are now actively under discussion. There are other matters, of a
more personal nature, that need to be discussed, or at least mentioned,
in connection with even a sketchy consideration of the country-life
movement; and some of these I now place together in a closing budget.
_The open country must solve its own problems._
It may first be said that the reconstruction of the open country must
depend in the main on the efforts of the country people themselves. We
are glad of all interchange of populations; the influx of country blood
has thus far been invaluable to cities; the outgo of city people has set
new aspirations into the country, and it is still necessary to call on
the cities for labor in times of pressure: but stated in its large
terms, the open country will rise no higher than the aspirations of the
people who live there, and the problems must be solved in such way that
they will meet the conditions as they exist on the spot.
_Profitable farming is not a sufficient object in life._
It may then be said that it is the first duty of every man to earn a
decent living for himself and those dependent on him; and a countryman
cannot expect to have much influence on his time and community until he
makes his farm pay in dollars and cents.
But the final object in life is not to make money, but to use money in
developing a higher type of endeavor and a better neighborhood. The
richest farming regions do not necessarily have the best society or even
the best living conditions. Social usefulness must become a fact in
country districts. The habit of life in the usual farm family is to take
everything to itself and to keep it. Standards of service must take the
place of standards of property.
_New country professions._
The country-life movement does not imply that all young persons who
hereafter shall remain in the country are to be actual farmers. The
practice of customary professions and occupations will take on more
importance in country districts. The country physician, veterinary,
pastor, lawyer, and teacher are to extend greatly in influence and
opportunity.
But aside from all this, entirely new occupations and professions are to
arise, even the names of which are not yet known to us. Some of them are
already under way. There will be established out in the open country
plant doctors, plant-breeders, soil experts, health experts, pruning and
spraying experts, forest experts, farm machinery experts, drainage and
irrigation experts, recreation experts, market experts, and many others.
There will be housekeeping experts or supervisors. There will be need
for overseers of affiliated organizations and stock companies. These
will all be needed for the purpose of giving special advice and
direction (page 78). We shall be making new applications of rural law,
of business methods for agricultural regions, new types of organization.
The people will find that it will pay to support such professions or
agents as these.
Country life will become more complex as rapidly as it becomes more
efficient.
_The personal resources._
The attitude toward one's world has much to do both with his
effectiveness and with his satisfaction in living; and this is specially
true with the farmer, because he is so much alone and has so few
conventional sources of entertainment. It may be important to provide
new entertainment for the farmer; but it is much more important to
develop his personal resources.
The simple life, as Pastor Wagner so well explains, is a state of mind.
It is a simplification of desire, a certain directness of effort and of
purpose that brings us quickly to a result, and such an attitude that we
derive our satisfactions from the humble and the near-at-hand. The
countryman is the man who has the personal touch with his environment.
With the increasing differentiation of country life, it is of the first
importance that the country people do not lose their simplicity of
desires.
_The meaning of the environment._
It is too little appreciated that every natural object makes a twofold
appeal to the human mind: its appeal in the terms of its physical or
material uses, and its appeal to our sense of beauty and of personal
satisfaction. As the people progresses in evolution, the public mind
becomes constantly more sensitive to the conditions in which we live,
and the appeal to the spiritual satisfaction of life constantly becomes
stronger. Not only shall the physical needs of life be met, but the
earth will constantly be made a more satisfactory place in which to
live.
We must not only save our forests in order that they may yield timber
and conserve our water supplies, but also that they may adorn and
dominate the landscape and contribute to the meaning of scenery. It is
important that our coal supplies be conserved not only for their use in
manufacture and the arts, but also that smoke does not vitiate the
atmosphere and render it unhealthful, and discolor the objects in the
landscape. It is of the greatest importance that water supplies be
conserved by storage reservoirs and other means, but this conservation
should be accomplished in such a way as not to menace health or offend
the eye or destroy the beauty of contiguous landscape. The impounding of
waters without regard to preserving natural water-falls, streams, and
other scenery, is a mark of a commercial and selfish age, and is a
procedure that cannot be tolerated in a highly developed society. It is
important that regulations be enacted regarding the operation of steam
roads through woody districts, not only that the timber may be saved,
but also that the natural beauty of the landscape may be protected from
fire and other forms of destruction. The fertility of the soil must be
saved, not only that products may be raised with which to feed and
clothe the people, but also that the beauty of thrifty and productive
farms may be saved to the landscape. The property-right in natural
scenery is a tenure of the people, and the best conservation of natural
resources is impossible until this fact is recognized.
On this point the Commission on Country Life makes the following
statement: "In estimating our natural resources we must not forget the
value of scenery. This is a distinct asset, and it will be more
recognized as time goes on. It will be impossible to develop a
satisfactory country life without conserving all the beauty of landscape
and developing the people to the point of appreciating it. In parts of
the East, a regular system of parking the open country of the entire
state is already begun, constructing the roads, preserving the natural
features, and developing the latent beauty in such a way that the whole
country becomes part of one continuing landscape treatment. This in no
way interferes with the agricultural utilization of the land, but rather
increases it. The scenery is, in fact, capitalized, so that it adds to
the property values and contributes to local patriotism and to the
thrift of the commonwealth."
_Historic monuments._
The general tendency of our time is to dump everything into the cities,
particularly into the large cities. It is there that we assemble our
treasures of art, our libraries, our dramatic skill, our specimens of
statuary and architecture; and it is there that the aspiring men also
assemble to work out their destinies. And yet there have been events in
the open country. Great men have lived there. Things have come to pass.
We should be interested to record these events of the rural country, as
well as the events that are associated with the congested city. Persons
of quickened intelligence will not live contentedly in the outer country
if it provides nothing more than subsistence. Every new memorial in the
farming country is one additional reason for people to live there.
The open country as well as the city has a history; but one would not
discover the fact from monuments that he may see.
It may not be possible now to erect elaborate monuments far in the
country to commemorate historical events, but records may be made, and
it is at least possible to roll up a pile of stones.
_Improvement societies._
Of late years there has sprung up a line of societies in villages and
small cities whose province it is to create public sentiment for the
betterment of the place in general good looks, and which, for lack of a
better name, are generally collectively known as "village improvement
societies." These organizations have had much effect in making the
villages attractive. Their influence extends far and wide, but the
organization itself in any case ought to take in all the surrounding
territory, with the purpose to secure a coöperative action between town
and country (page 122). The entire region, not city or town alone,
should be organized.
In many rural communities, there could well be an open-country
improvement society; or an organization might be formed, from the church
or otherwise, to care for a particular interest, as the school ground or
the cemetery. The average country cemetery particularly needs attention.
The care of all the public or semi-public property of a township or a
neighborhood is somebody's responsibility, and this responsibility
should be recognized in organization. The pride of the community could
be greatly stimulated if a group of people should associate to look
after roadsides, lake shores and river banks, waste places, deserted and
dilapidated buildings, weeds, raw spots, paths, dangerous places,
mosquito ponds, breeding places of insects, stray dogs, horse sheds,
trees, birds, wild flowers, telegraph and telephone depredations,
cemeteries, church grounds, school grounds, almshouse grounds, picnic
grounds, historic places, patriotic events, bits of good scenery, and
to give advice on lawns, back-yards and barn-yards, advertising signs.
_Entertainment._
All persons seem to be agreed that more entertainment and recreation
should be provided for country residents; but it does not follow that
vaudeville, and the usual line of moving pictures, and the traveling
concert would add anything really worth while, although these are often
recommended by town folk. The Board Walk kind of pageant may very well
be left at the sea-shore.
But we certainly need entertainment that will help country people over
the hard and dry places, and raise their lives out of monotony. The
guiding principles are two: an entertainment that shall express the best
that there is in country life; one that shall set the people themselves
at work to produce it, rather than to bring it in bodily from the
outside.
I would not eliminate good things merely because they come from the
outside, and no one would deny the countryman the touch with any of the
masterpieces; but I am speaking now of a form of effort that shall
quicken an entire country district and leave a permanent impression on
it. I would rather leave the situation as it is than to introduce the
meaningless performances of the city thoroughfare and the resorts.
The movement to provide new and better sports, games, and general
recreation is now well under way, and I do not need to explain it here;
but two things ought to begin to receive attention: music and drama.
The _music spirit_ seems to be dying out in the country. I hear very
little joyous song there, even though the people may be joyous. The
habit of self-expression in song and music needs much to be encouraged
in home and school and grange and church. I think the lack is in part
due to the over-mastering influence of professional town music, and in
part to the absence of study of simple country forms. Simplicity is not
now the fashion in music. The single player with a simple theme and the
single singer with a melodious and untrilled strain are not much heard
at gatherings now. Some of the best singing I hear is now and then out
among the folk,--a simple direct song as plain and sweet as a bird's
note. I hope we shall not lose it.