The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1909-09-02
WHEN AMERICA IS HALF
A CENTURY OLDER.
Will She Be Able To Supply The Nat
ural Demands

1t may be truly said that nature,
or the earth, is the mother of labor
and the father Of all products
necessary to sustain human life.
The richness and prosperity of a
country, therefore, depend on the
presence of natural resources with
in its borders, such as water, min
erals, forests and cultivable soils
on the one hand, and intelligent
human energy on the other to
shape them into the 70 ms neces-
sary for the needs Of man. Ofthe
two elements the natural resources
are indispensable, for in a country
like the desert of Sahara all human
effort would be of little avail. The
growth Of a nation depends, there
fore, upon the extent of the natur-
al resources and the knowledge Of
how to use them with as little de-
stTuction as possible.
The resources Of a country fall
naturally into three water,
minerals and land-which repre-
sent, respectively, resources which
are inexhaustible, resources which
are eXhaustible and cannot be re-
newed, and resources which are
exhaustible but can be renewed.
1t may be questioned, indeed,
whether there is such a thing as
an jnexhaustible natural resource.
Even water, through the denuda-
tion OF the drainage basins, may
become irregular in its flow, or
through the careless disposal of
refuse may become polluted so
that II cannot be ussd. Mines are
Illustrations of resources which
are eXhaustible and not renewable.
Gas, oil, coal and iron once gone
are gone forever.
OF all the natural resources the
.sc7ly one which contains within it.
Al1f the possibility of infinite re-
newal is land. The nation should
therefore be most vitality concerned
with the conservation and i'm
provement OF this resource. Human
control over such resources as min.
erals is limited. The only posi-
bic means of conservation is the
avoidance of waste, but their ulti-
nate exhaustion is unavoidable.
With agricultural and forest land,
however, it is otherwise. Land
can not only be conserved, but
constantly improved and its yield
increased. While in England the
iron ores and the coal are becom-
ing constantly harder to get and
their exhaustion is threatened,
the agricultural land, after thou
sand years of cultivation, is now
more productive than ever. The
wheat fields of England, under in
tensives cultivation, yield thirty
bushels to the acre, while the viz
gin fields of America on an aver
age yield less than thirteen.
II a far-sighted national policy
in the conservation of natural re-
sources is to make provision for an
ever-increasing population, then
the greatest possibilities lie in the
direction Of developing the land in
all its forms-feld, forest and
range for, Notwithstanding all
possible economy in the use of
nOn-renewable resources, they are
bound to decrease as time goes on.
One hundred years ago the
United States east of the MISSISSIPPI
pi river was almost unbroken for
est, comprising something over
I,ooo, 900 square miles, or about
100, 900, 900 acres. Now, after
about a century of settlement,
there are not more than 800, 900
square miles Of merchantable for
\ & land in the eastern United
y tates. About $4,000 square
miles have been cleared for farm
land. The remainder has been
culled Of its valuable timber and
devastated by fire or else turned
into useless brush land. With
the growth Of population and the
greater demand for agricultural
land, the ratio between farm and
forest land will change still further.