Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-01-14

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Copyright, 1913, by Herbert Quick.l
"HE great race problems of the
good ship Earth have always
grown out of the moving of
those great cliques of passengers
called nations or tribes from one PAM
of the dry decks to another, and
jostling other peoples about, throw
ing them overheard, putting them to
death, enslaving and other wise ex-
terminating them.
In the future why should these
movements take place? Are they
likely to be necessary? And if so,
what will make them necessary
Come to the bank of the river-the
nearest river-and l will show you
one reason why we may have to move
some time.
If it be aafter rain, the river-any
river almost-will be roily. If 1t be
the Missouri. the Tennessee, the Ohio,
the Red, the Platte, the Arkansas, the
Sacramento, the Alabama, the lower
Mississippi, or any one of a hundred
others, it win be found turbid with
earth, whether one looks just after
a rain or not. And in this fact lies
one of the greatest dangers to our
part of the ship.
What is it which diseolors the
rivers? 1t is soil. What is soil? /
might give you a long and learned
definition, but the plain English of
1t is, Soil is the looser earth, spread
over the surface, and in which plants
can grow 1t is the raw material of
man-and woman.
It is the dust which has gathered
on the decks of the good ship Earth
by the trampling of the feet of the
rain and hail, the grinding hoofs of
the ice, the crushing and prying lever
of the frost, the wearing sand blast
of wind-blown particles, and the
washing of the waters. Until soil APP
peared on the ship, there were decks
clean as cement sidewalks, or sterile
as piles of building stone-but no
place for the green rash breaking out
on the decks which we call vegeta-
ton. And until vegetation came.
there were no animals because they
must have the raw earth worked over
in plants or other animals before they
can assimilate it.
1t took more centuries than you
have hairs in your headfsto make a.
good soil. In the millenniums which
have passed there has been a race
between the accumulation of vege-
table matter and the earth-dust made
by the elements and the forces carry
ing 1t away, in which the deposits of
soil have managed to keep just a
little ahead of the natural wastage
by blowing, washing and other ero-
sion. Maybe on square foot there
would be teaspoonful more of good
soil at the end of century than at
the beginning. Increasing at the rate
of teasoonful century, given cen
turtles enough, and the soil is six
inches deep.
The average soil is shallower than
that. But now, we have cut Off the
trees, and barred the deck of our air
ship to the action of the moving ele-
ments. so that the dust of life is be-
ing swept off into the ocean, where it
may do good to some living creatures,
after man has disappeared. but can
never again be useful toNthe present
passengers of the ship, or their chill
dren. The Bible says that we are
made of the dust of the earth. So we
are. We can exist only so long as the
supply of dust lasts. If we have
descendants they must be formed of
1t. And we see it wasting off into the
oceans as if it did not concern us at
all!
The wastage OF soil in the streams
cubic yards year, A cubic yard is
wagon-load. If we were Swickedly
throwing this mother-stuff of men
into the sea as rapidly as we are let
ting it wash in, and had years loss
loaded on wagons waiting TO dump at
the pier-head, allowing one team to
the rod. the string of teams waiting
to unload would reach seventy-six
times around the world! So fast are
we allowing to be undone the thing
which it took God millions of years
to do.
There are great nations which have
so cultivated their lands that no such
waste occurs. They are nations
which have kept up the fertility OF
their soil through four thousand years
of constant extraction of food and
clothing and shelter for man. And
those nations only which can do this
are fit for the ownership of the ship
on which we sail. All others are
mere runners and cumberers of the
Earth 1t is not time for us to begin
If We re IN uua1ifv &c ma csap0arc ar,
the good ship Earth? God will surely