now hate to have a son of mine growing up and some land where there's mighty little food and still less freedom that's why i want to build a realize just how lucky he is to be an american and i want him to learn what this land of ours is like this beautiful breathtaking americ i want to build a see as much as possible of this land of infinite well and boundless opportunity but i want him to know that there is also another america the america got it hills and i want bill to learn what they can rinse and greed can do so i left and i want him to know that he can hope for a life of freedom and prosperity and happiness only if we care for our resources and guard our libert here in america three hundred years ago the oceans washed the edges of a continent are most untouched by man the seas roll in on sand or broken rocks that form the threshold of the land on which great between her two oceans the land held everything men could name the sights timber and grass that was the bright water of quiet lakes and the clean water of running street hundred years ago there was but a handful of human beings on the continent a few hundred thousand endy to pitch their tepees deep in the forest or build their dwellings high in the canyon clips but then the white men came running from across the sea they act the spade apply the wheel and the guns across the continent the white men rolled first on wheels of war and land on wheels of chicago and dallas washington minneapolis and omaha detroit and atlanta new york and los angeles everything that went into their building came out of the good earth and everything that keeps all those derives from the good and yet they cause of ignorance and greed we have squandered the riches of our heritage we have wasted our timber ravaged our soil polluted our river indeed we have done all those things that have brought poverty and famine to other once rich land one of america's richest resources was her forests except for the grasslands forests covered the whole country and it was hard to believe that there could ever be a shortage of trees big tree from which to make pine lumber indeed to the early settlers trees were a nuisance something to cut and burn to make room for corn and continental bacco early lumber men generally left the land the desert of cut over and burned over hills from which rain water now flows with our right washing unprotected soil down into the swollen flooding river today we are handling our forests more intelligently but we are still harvesting timber faster than we are growing from maine to california the mills are nothing but the demands on our forests continue to increase houses and binds and churches tables and chairs and fancy boats and boxes newspapers and magazines telephone poles and baseball bat  they all come from our forest harvest the intelligent thing is to cut only the big mature trees and leave the smaller ones where lumber men practice the selective cutting scars will heal after a few years and the forest will soon produce another crop you and i can best help preserve our forest by doing all we can to prevent five every year thousands of acres are burned because for just one moment some man or woman or some child this grass died and decay and retching the soil so that each year more tall grass grew in the days of the bison the streams the grain the grassland ran bright and clear the the time even powder river and parts of the missouri but the white men destroyed the bison and put cattle and sheep on the grass like too many cattle and sheep sold slowly but surely the good grass disappear until now much of our western range grows only sagebrush n t t grass or nothing at all grafton utah so they tell me learned about overgrazing the hard way not long ago grafton was a unsettlement those people cultivated fertile field along the banks of the virgin river that flowed pure and clean out of the in spots to rocky and too steep for cattle or sheep to reach the rest of the range produces only the poorest of grass now it takes nearly two hundred acres to support a cow fifty years ago it took settler killed by indians but it was not indians that killed gratin grafton was killed by the men whose livestock overgrazed the watershed and brought on the flood that swept away the fertile bottom lands and left only willow covered sand bars in a valley of the under a protective covering of trees or grass lay our soil the richest of our resources it was spread over the face of the land in a thin layer laid down by centuries of the growth and decay of trees and plants and grasses while it was covered with vegetation the soil was safe from destruction or dan ready to produce food for the nation and vast abundance so long as the soil was treated with wisdom and skill water is up for so powerful that even an gentle slopes it can leave the stones but carry soil down the furrows to the lowest parts of the field while in hillier sections water running down the furrows of a corn field will tear out a great gaping gun once a gun a stun it keeps on growing less brought under control by structures or by the restoration of protective covering one of the not only is kudzu a soil binder but it is also a soil build an amazingly rapid soil building in a field planted up and down a slope every furrow is a gutter to hasten water downhill but when worked across the slope each for over is a little check dam that slows the downward passage of water and gives it a chance to sink into planting slopes in strips help still more to break the rush of water especially in strips of some covered crop like alfalfa alternated with strips of less well covered so i of course the ideal in other fields it is better to let the water run down its most natural courses and grow only a protective cover of grandson and these grass waterways are excellent insurance against erosion from bad storms and they're worth whatever space they require