The Project Gutenberg eBook ofConservation ReaderThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Conservation ReaderAuthor: Harold W. FairbanksRelease date: October 16, 2008 [eBook #26935]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Verity White, Joseph Cooper andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONSERVATION READER ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Conservation ReaderAuthor: Harold W. FairbanksRelease date: October 16, 2008 [eBook #26935]Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Verity White, Joseph Cooper andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net
Title: Conservation Reader
Author: Harold W. Fairbanks
Author: Harold W. Fairbanks
Release date: October 16, 2008 [eBook #26935]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Verity White, Joseph Cooper andthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team athttp://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CONSERVATION READER ***
image1Nat'l Ass'n Audubon SocietiesThe passenger pigeon, an extinct species.
Nat'l Ass'n Audubon Societies
The passenger pigeon, an extinct species.
Author of "Home Geography, Stories of OurMother Earth," "Rocks and Minerals,""The Western United States,""Practical Physiography,""Geography of California,"etc.
Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson
Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York
2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago
The need for education in the principles of conservation is imperative. As Henry Fairfield Osborn states the matter, "We are yet far from the point where the momentum of conservation is strong enough to arrest and roll back the tide of destruction." The movement for the preservation of natural resources can succeed only with the establishment of an enlightened public sentiment on the subject. To create and maintain such a sentiment is the proper work of the schools. In making thisConservation Readeravailable for school use, author and publishers have had in mind the great and lasting service that such a text might render. The publishers believe that this little volume and others forthcoming in the Conservation Series will rank high among "Books That Apply the World's Knowledge to the World's Needs"
Copyright, 1920, by World Book CompanyCopyright in Great BritainAll rights reserved
The wave of enthusiasm for the conservation of our national resources must reach the children or it will expend much of its force uselessly.
It is from the education of the children in right ways of looking at Nature that everything is to be expected in the years to come. If they learn to understand the value of the things about them, as well as to appreciate their beauties, the carrying on and enlarging of the conservation program which is now so well under way can be safely left to their care.
The West, although it has already been ruthlessly exploited, has lost less of its natural wealth than have the longer-settled Eastern states.
In the newer parts of our country we can reasonably hope to save most of the forests and most of the wild life, and pass them on down to our children and grandchildren in something of their primeval beauty and richness.
In the East we can hope to arouse a stronger sentiment for preserving what remains of the forests as well as for extending their areas, for proper forestation will lessen the danger of erosion of the soil and of floods, and will encourage the return of the wild creatures that are of so much economic importance and add so much to the joy of life.
A book bringing out in a simple and interesting manner the principles of conservation has long been needed, for there has been little that could be placed in the hands of pupils. It is with the earnest hope of furnishing something which will answer in part the present need that thisConservation Readerhas been prepared.
Acknowledgments are due the publishers ofAmerican Forestryand theCentury Magazinefor courteous permission to reprint poems taken from those publications. For their help in supplying photographic subjects to illustrate the book, thanks are extended to the persons to whom the various illustrations are accredited in immediate connection with their use in the text. The reproductions in color of two bird subjects have been secured through the friendly coöperation of Mr. T. Gilbert Pearson, Secretary of the National Association of Audubon Societies.
Before these fields were shorn and tilledFull to the brim our rivers flowed;The melody of waters filledThe fresh and boundless woods;And torrents dashed, and rivulets play'd,The fountains spouted in the shade.
William Cullen Bryant,quoted inAmerican Forestry, XIV. 520
The earth is our home. It is a great treasure house filled with the most wonderful things. Although people have lived on the earth for many thousands of years, they have been very slow in learning the secrets of their treasure house. This is because early men were much like the lower animals. During all these years their minds have been slowly growing. Now we can learn and understand many things which our ancestors of long ago could not.
In habits and appearance the first men that roamed the earth were little different from the other animals except that they walked upright. When they had enough to eat and a home safe from enemies, they seemed perfectly happy and contented.
These early men lived in the same wonderful treasure house as we do, but they did not know how to make use of its riches. In truth, their wants were so few that they would have had no use for the things that now seem so necessary to us. The rich fields about them lay untilled. The gold, silver, copper, and iron in the earth remainedundiscovered; and the animals and birds that we now use in so many ways then served them mainly for food.
Since they had no furry coats to keep them warm as do the animals of the cold regions, and had not learned to make clothing, their homes must have been in the warm parts of the earth. While they were without weapons to defend themselves against the lion and tiger, yet they were sharp witted and very quick in their movements and thus were usually able to escape their more powerful enemies.
Although these early ancestors of ours seemed so much like the other animals, they were in reality very different. They had the same keen senses of sight, hearing, and smell, but they were more intelligent.
When the dog and cat have had enough to eat, they lie down perfectly happy and contented. But when early men had had enough to eat, they were often not satisfied. They had other longings which finally led them to make discoveries about the uses of things around them and how to make their lives more comfortable.
The little bear cub, for example, as it grows up learns from its mother just what it should do on all occasions. It learns what its mother knows and that is all. But among the early people of whom we are speaking the children not only learned all that their parents knew, but a little more. In this way each generation of children came to know more about the world.
Thus after many years had passed people came to understand something of the wonderful world in which they lived. They were no longer at the mercy of wild animals, storms, heat, cold, hunger, and disease.
The first people, like the other animals, used only theirhands and teeth in hunting and in fighting their enemies. Finally some of the brighter ones discovered that a stick or club served better than the bare hands.
The use of flint knives may have been brought about through some one cutting himself accidentally upon a piece of flint sticking out of the ground. If he happened to be very bright, he would at once see the value of such a piece of stone tied on the end of an arrow or club. By such means, perhaps, implements of wood, bone, and stone came into use.
We have discovered the sites of many of the villages as well as the caves in which the ancient inhabitants of the earth lived. The implements of bone and stone which we have dug up in such places enable us to learn a great deal about their lives.
There was a time when people did not know the use of fire. What a fearful thing fire must have seemed to them, at first. Their knowledge of it probably came from lightning or from hot lava flowing from a volcano. After they had learned to control fire, and to make it by rubbing two sticks together, they must have felt rich indeed. The discovery of fire was one of their greatest triumphs. It kept the cold, damp cave warm and dry, even though it filled their eyes with smoke. It was a means of keeping them safe from the dangerous wild beasts when they had to sleep out in the open. It was useful in cooking their food, and by and by it was to prove valuable in still other ways, when they began tomakethings as well as tofindthings.
They began, by and by, to build rude shelters,—huts and wigwams, low houses of dried mud, and dugouts in the hillside. They learned to weave simple coverings out ofthe fibers of certain plants, or hair or wool, to protect their bodies against the cold and the wet. They learned, somehow, to tan the skins of animals, so that they would not first stretch and grow slippery. They learned to hold things together by sewing, using sharp bones for needles and the sinews of animals or fibers of plants for thread.
image2American Forestry AssociationThe Laplander of the far North uses the reindeer to pull his sled, its flesh for food, its skin for clothing, and its horns for various purposes.
American Forestry Association
The Laplander of the far North uses the reindeer to pull his sled, its flesh for food, its skin for clothing, and its horns for various purposes.
How did men discover that they could travel on the water? Some one may at first have made use of a log to cross a river and, afterwards, have tied several logs together, making a raft. When they had learned how to make a canoe out of a log, by burning or hewing it out with rude axes, they could then take long journeys on the water to new lands. Since paddling was very tiresome, some one, brighter than the rest, probably thought of making a sail of bark or skins and so letting the wind push the canoe along.
We do not know how the metals were discovered. Perhaps fire melted some of the copper in a vein of ore. Perhaps pure copper was found, for Nature sometimes leaves it in this form. Copper could be easily hammered into various useful articles, but it was too soft for many needs. After tin was discovered, it was learned that by melting it and copper together a new and very hard metal, known asbronze, was formed. Next, we think, came the discovery of iron, which has become so important that we could not get along without it. Think what this must have meant for them! To get firewood, to make rude boats and simple houses, to fight wild animals, now became easier. After iron they discovered gold and silver, and began to take an interest in making beautiful as well as useful things.
It is easy to see how, once these new ways of using the earth were found, men could move into other regions than the belt where it was always warm. They could store up food for the winter, they could build warm shelters and get warm clothing, and they could sit by a fire.
Sometimes when the first people were out hunting, instead of killing the young animals that they caught, they took them home and cared for them. So the little creatures became quite tame and grew up about the camps. The wild jungle fowls were the ancestors of the domestic hens which we find so useful. The wild cow was tamed in like manner, and made to supply milk in addition to food and clothing. The colts of wild horses and donkeys were captured and used for carrying loads. Sheep and goats were tamed in the same manner, and became the most valued possessions of some of the ancient peoples as they are of some peoples today. When they had learned to weave the wool of these animals into clothing and blankets, they had taken anotherstep upon the long road which leads from ancient times down to us.
Did these early people live entirely upon meat? If they had done so, we should never have had the wonderful variety of fruits and vegetables that we now enjoy so much. We must not suppose that Nature grew these things wild just as they are found in our gardens today. Our ancestors grew them for many generations, gradually improving their size and flavor. By selecting the best and carefully cultivating them, we are still continuing to make them better.
The horse, donkey, cow, and camel proved valuable in another way to the people who were learning to cultivate the ground. When harnessed to a crooked and sharpened stick they aided in breaking up the ground in which the young plants were growing.
And so the long years passed while the early people were discovering and making use of the things around them. They came to building better and more permanent homes, because they did not have to move from place to place in search of food. Where there were forests, wood served for their buildings. Where there were few trees, stone or mud bricks were used.
The brighter people learned to understand Nature more quickly than those who were dull. Each discovery of some new way of doing things aided them in making others, and in this way people finally came to have all the comforts of today. Those people less quick to learn the secrets of Nature, or those who lived in countries to which Nature had given little, gained few comforts and even now remain savage.
After our ancestors had learned to cultivate the soil, touse the minerals and the forests, and had tamed the animals and birds, they were still unsatisfied. They attempted to make the forces of Nature work for them. For a long time people made flour by crushing grain in a mortar. Next, two flat stones were used, one being made to turn upon the other by a handle. After that some animal, such as an ox or a horse, was harnessed to larger stones which, as they slowly turned, ground the grain. This was a great deal of work, and so some one thought of making the water tumbling over a ledge of rock grind the grain for them. The water was made to go over a water wheel. This wheel then made the millstones go around. It was a great deal easier.
image3H. W. FairbanksThe wild home of early men.
H. W. Fairbanks
The wild home of early men.
Where there was no water power, wind was made to do the same work. A crude windmill gathered the power ofthe rapidly moving air. After wind and water had been forced to serve them, some one who had seen the lid of a tea kettle dancing up and down, thought of using steam. Then electricity, which in the form of jagged lightning had seemed so fearful a thing to the early people, was harnessed and made the greatest servant of all the forces of Nature.
The discovery of powder led to the making of guns so destructive that dozens of birds could be killed at one shot.
Some people became greedy and used all these wonderful discoveries to rob Nature. It seemed as if in some places all the wild life would be destroyed. Fires were allowed to burn the forest unhindered. The soil was made to produce crops until it grew poor.
If we become selfish and indifferent and neglect to care for the treasures which Nature has placed in our hands, very serious things will happen to us, as they have happened to other people. How to use the storehouse of Nature without wasting or destroying these treasures is what we mean byconservation.
We have seen that the first men, like the other animals, depended upon the food that Nature supplied them, and when this was lacking they went hungry. When men had learned the use of fire they took the first step in making Nature serve them better than she did the lower animals. Today she works for us in so many ways that we can hardly name them all.
After the use of fire the next thing that men learned was to make better homes, to tame some of the wild animals, and to raise a part of their food supplies, instead of depending entirely upon what they could pick up here and there.
As the number of people increased, the question of securing food became more and more important. Would it not seem pretty hard to have to go out and hunt for your breakfast in the woods, or fields, or along the water? If you were alone you might find enough to eat, but if there were thousands of other people doing the same thing, you would probably go hungry. For this reason people began to cultivate berries, fruits, roots, and grains, and to take better care of their herds.
Living as they did, in those parts of the world where the climate was warm, they usually found an abundance of food. But when these places became too crowded, and some of them had to move to new regions, they often found less food and a climate not always comfortable.
In this way people spread into the colder and drier parts of the earth. The need for things which they did not havethere sharpened the wits of these people. It led to one discovery after another. New needs were felt and new ways of satisfying them were sought. They kept finding out more about Nature and how she works. After many years they knew much more and were also far more comfortable than those people who continued to live where Nature supplied everything.
There are now so many more people on the earth than there were long ago that to furnish them all with food is a very great task. Besides, there are now many people engaged in work other than farming, hunting, and fishing. All such people have to be provided for by those whose business it is to get food. People of the great cities are dependent upon those in the country for all that they eat! We can picture to ourselves the suffering that would follow if for only one week every one had to get his own food.
We need many things that the first people thought nothing about, because their manner of life was so much simpler than ours. Let us see now what they are.
We live in tightly closed houses, and so have less trouble in keeping warm and dry. But we do not always get the supply of fresh air that we need. Many of us are sickly and weak because of this. Our ancestors lived in the open air, which is always pure and fresh. A supply of pure air, then, is one of the things that we must now provide for.
People once gave no thought to the purity of the water that they drank. When there were few people, water did not easily become impure. One could drink water wherever one found it and there was small risk of harm. Now in many places there are so many thousands of peoplegathered together that they have to take the greatest care about drinking water, in order to keep in good health. To get pure water it is often necessary to bring it many miles from mountainous regions where no one lives.
Clothing is another thing that concerns us very much. Our ancestors were not troubled about their clothing. In the warm countries they went almost naked. Where it was cold the skins of animals served very well. Changes of fashion did not disturb them and cause them to throw away warm covering. To supply ourselves now with clothing we call upon Nature for many things. As she cannot, without our help, furnish what we need, we have to keep a great number of flocks, for their wool and skins, and cultivate vast fields of cotton and flax.
When Nature raised in her own way the berries, grains, and roots that the first men ate, no thought was given to the soil in which these things grew. In truth, it was not necessary to pay any attention to the soil. Nature is very careful in her way and never makes the soil poor by growing more plants than it can support. In her own gardens she always renews the foods in the soil which the plants require as fast as they take them away.
The needs of men have increased so fast that the soil has often been forced to grow more than it ought. Men have been a long time in learning that they cannot keep on growing the same crops on the same soil year after year without supplying to the soil extra foods, orfertilizers, as we call them. The care of the soil is another thing to which we have to give attention, but which did not worry our ancestors.
Nature clothes the earth with a carpet of grasses, bushes,or trees. When the rain falls on the ground, their roots hold the soil so firmly that it usually washes away only very slowly. When men first began to cultivate the soil, they paid no attention to the fact that water washes away the loose earth very easily. In this loose earth at the top of the ground is stored most of the food which the plants require. Care of the surface of the ground is, then, another thing which we have to keep in mind.
Men at first made shelters for themselves from anything that was at hand, such as bark, skins, rock, or earth. When they learned to make sharp-edged tools, they began to use trees. Where it is cold, much wood is required to build warm houses. As the numbers of men increased, they used greater and greater quantities of wood. Wood also proved to be most useful for many other purposes than house building. In order to plant larger fields the trees were cut down or burned off, without thought of doing any harm. In time trees became scarce in many parts of the world and men began to realize that care must be used or the supply of wood might fail them.
Coal was finally discovered and men said, "Now we have something that will last always, for there must be an inexhaustible amount in the earth beneath our feet. All that we shall have to do is to dig it out." When men grew wiser they learned that coal must not be used carelessly any more than the other gifts of Nature; otherwise the supply may give out and leave them with nothing to take its place.
image4George J. YoungSierra junipers above Tuolumne Meadows, near the Yosemite Valley, showing how roots will force their way in apparently most unfavorable places.
George J. Young
Sierra junipers above Tuolumne Meadows, near the Yosemite Valley, showing how roots will force their way in apparently most unfavorable places.
Hunting and fishing continued to be the business of many. They invented destructive weapons with which they were able to kill such large numbers of wild creatures that some kinds disappeared entirely. Fish, also, of which peoplethought the sea and the rivers contained a never failing supply, became scarcer. They did not know that fish live mostly in the shallow waters along shores, and that the great ocean depths contain very few.
Thus, as the earth became thickly settled with men and their wants increased, they discovered that they had to treat Nature in a very different way from that of their early ancestors.
Because of our great numbers we have to be careful not to use the earth in such a way as to lessen its fertility and productiveness. Where people have been careless, famine has often resulted. Poverty and suffering have come to many parts of the earth, as we shall learn farther along in this little book.
Strange indeed were the sounds I heardOne day, on the side of the mountain:Hushed was the stream and silent the bird,The restless wind seemed to hold its breath,And all things there were as still as death,Save the hoarse-voiced god of the mountain.
Through the tangled growth, with a hurried stride,I saw him pass on the mountain,Thrusting the briers and bushes aside,Crackling the sticks and spurning the stones,And talking in loud and angry tonesOn the side of the ancient mountain.
The tips of his goatlike ears were red,Though the day was cool on the mountain,And they lay close-drawn to his horned head;His bushy brows o'er his small eyes curled,And he stamped his hoofs,—for all the worldLike Pan in a rage on the mountain.
"Where are my beautiful trees," he cried,"That grew on the side of the mountain?The stately pines that were once my pride,My shadowy, droop-limbed junipers:And my dewy, softly whispering firs,'Mid their emerald glooms on the mountain?
"They are all ravished away," he said,"And torn from the arms of the mountain,Away from the haunts of cooling shade,From the cloisters green which flourished here—My lodging for many a joyous yearOn the side of the pleasant mountain.
"The songbird is bereft of its nest,And voiceless now is the mountain.My murmurous bees once took their rest,At shut of day, and knew no fear,In the trees whose trunks lie rotting hereOn the side of the ruined mountain.
"Man has let in the passionate sunTo suck the life-blood of the mountain,And drink up its fountains one by one:And out of the immortal freshness madeA thing of barter, and sold in tradeThe sons of the mother mountain.
"Down in the valley I see a town,Built of his spoils from my mountain—A jewel torn from a monarch's crown,A grave for the lordly groves of Pan:And for this, on the head of vandal man,I hurl a curse from the mountain.
"His palpitant streams shall all go dryHenceforth on the side of the mountain,And his verdant plains as a desert lieUntil he plants again the forest foldAnd restores to me my kingdom old,As in former days on the mountain.
"Long shall the spirit of silence broodOn the side of the wasted mountain,E'er out of the sylvan solitudeTo lift the curse from off the plain,The crystal streams pour forth againFrom the gladdened heart of the mountain."
Millard F. Hudson,inAmerican Forestry, XIV. 42
image5Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc."'Where are my beautiful trees,' he cried,'That grew on the side of the mountain?'"
Pillsbury's Pictures, Inc.
"'Where are my beautiful trees,' he cried,'That grew on the side of the mountain?'"
For ages, on the silent forest here,Thy beams did fall before the red man cameTo dwell beneath them; in their shade the deerFed, and feared not the arrow's deadly aim.Nor tree was felled, in all that world of woods,Save by the beaver's tooth, or winds, or rush of floods.
William Cullen Bryant,A Walk at Sunset
The earth has not always been as it is now. Those parts now possessed by the more civilized peoples have been very greatly changed. If we could look back and see some of the countries as they were long ago, we should hardly know them. In certain lands the forests have been cut down, the wild creatures driven away, and the soil so carelessly cultivated that it has become poor. In other lands Nature's gifts have been carefully used; even the barren deserts have been turned into green fields and blooming gardens for hundreds of miles.
Let us try to picture to ourselves how our own country looked when white men first found and explored it. A few hundred years ago it was the home of wild animals and Indians only. We have been given our freedom in one of the richest of Nature's gardens, and, like so many children, have tried to see who could gather the most treasures from it. We have given little attention to keeping up the garden.
If you have been in some part of the country that is still wild and unsettled, it will help you to form a picture of how the entire land once looked. If you have been in one of ourgreat natural parks, this will be a better help. In these parks everything remains just as Nature made it. There the animals, birds, and plants are free to live their lives unmolested. Is it not a good thing that our government has been wise enough to have large tracts of land left in just the condition in which the whole country was when our ancestors first came?
We will think of our whole land, then, as a great wild park, rich in all kinds of animal and plant life. It was not an altogether happy family that lived in this park, for all were struggling for food, drink, and sunshine. But as none were possessed of such deadly weapons as those of civilized man, no one kind of animal was able to kill off all of any other kind.
Neither the Indians in their wigwams, nor the wild animals in their lairs, nor the birds singing in the trees, nor the ducks quacking in the marshes dreamed of the change that was coming to their homes. They did not dream of civilized man with his terrible weapons and his many needs, who was to change the whole appearance of the country and nearly or quite exterminate many of them.
The life of the Indians was almost as simple as that of the lower animals. Their clothing required little care. Their homes were easily made. Some of them had learned to cultivate the soil, but they depended mainly upon food obtained by hunting, and such roots, berries, and nuts as the women could collect. If we could have looked down on our land as the bird does, we should have seen little sign of human inhabitants. There were no roads or bridges, and only indistinct trails led from one village to another.
In the far Southwest there were people quite differentfrom those of whom we have been speaking. They were called the Pueblo Indians. In Mexico there were similar people called the Aztecs. All these Indians still live in permanent stone villages, as they did a thousand years ago. They learned more about Nature than the wandering Indians, but we do not believe they would ever become civilized if left to themselves.
The only animal that the Indians had tamed was the wolf. They made little use of the wolf-dog except in the far North, where it drew their sleds over the snow.
Some of the Indians of our country once knew of the use of copper, but it had been forgotten when white men first came.
All about the Indians was the same world that surrounds us. In truth, it was a richer world in some ways, for since then many of its treasures have been lost through greed and waste.
The rich soil of the valleys was almost undisturbed. The forests were uncut save for an occasional tree used in making a canoe or a rude cabin. The forests suffered only at the hands of the insects, storms, and fires. The flowers that covered the ground in spring went ungathered. The vast grassy prairies were disturbed only by the feeding of such animals as the buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope.
A single great forest spread over all the mountains and valleys of the eastern part of our country. Now you can travel for many miles in the more thickly settled portions of this region and see not a single tree of the original forest.
To the west of the forest came the prairies and plains. Still farther west came lofty mountains and desert valleys. On these Western mountains were other forests with trees of wonderful size.