The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1933-11-04
conservation
NATURE LOVING
HAS DEVELOPED
HOBBY STATUS
Whether 1t viii Die With
Depression, or Last,
Is important.
BY WILLIAM F. COLLINS
Times Special Writer

BY WILLIAM r. GOLLINS
Times Special Writer
The woods are full Of conserva-
tionists. Suddenly this has become
Americas leading hobby. If this is
depression baby" then something
has been accomplished. If it dies
with the upturn, it will indicate that
conservationists are born and not
made.
We have progressed farther with
our dreams in the last year than this
nation has seen accomplished in the
previous ten.
The state of Washington has
eradicated stream pollution and
Muscle Shoals has been released to
the people.
This will save the vast stands of
valuable timber left in the west;
civilian conservation camps save
our youngsters from hoodlunism
and teach them practical conserva-
ton; fish and bird culture is adopt
ed by Michigan farmers as a means
to perpeutate sport; Connecticut
opens public shooting grounds, and
saves us from the European turnkey
system of shooting and new wild
life refugees are being reported daily
from many states.
How about Indiana? She has
stream pollution. This is one of our
most important projects. Up to the
minute, twenty-seven municipalities
and factories have expressed their
desire to clean up filth.
Pollution Enemies Flee
About $50 other gross polluters
have hidden in the cyclone cellar.
1t probably will take a legislative
act in the next session to make
this state free from disease carrying
public waters. In no other way
possible can those citizens of our
state, intolerant of their neigh
bors' welfare, be brought into line.
l have in my files two letters, one
complaining about summer cot
tager on Steuben county lake who
throws his accumulation of filth
into a public lake $50 feet from a
public beach and performs this wan
ton act after dark.
Another letter complains of a
man, a resident of Indianapolis, who
owns an island in Tippecanoe river,
near Buffalo, the toilet overhangs
the stream.
These reports indicate a mental
development comparable to a Bontoc
igorotte. At another point on the
Tippecanoe, photographed this
sign, please throw your garbage in
the river"
How many of you at some time
in the past picnicked with your
family in imagined security below
some heather of this stripe? And
how could you tell, from looking
at the water, just what was going
on upstream, possibly after dark.
Law Needs Teeth
If it is. indecent for the indivi-
dual, how about individuals in a
town who dump raw sewage into a
public watercourse? We have no
state law in Indiana to tell them,
and I am impressed by the fact
that they can be told plenty.
We have made some progress in
reforestation. Last year the state
planted $50 acres in new timber,
71,700 acres were cut off by indi-
viduals and township trustees and
$4,000 acres were burned over in
such a way as to destroy completely
the new seeding timber crop. Put
that fire in your pipe and smoke it.
If you think we are getting any,
where with the $50 acres replanted,
you can get more consolation out of
it than can.
And by the way, have you priced
a board lately? Wooden shingles
have gone up under the code to
$3.50 applied. In a few more years
we will frame the walnut table top
our dad left us in one of these new
tangled wood substitutes and put
it in the room with the candle
snuffer. Good Indiana yellow pop
lar will be as rare as a Currier and
Ives.
Fish and Game Progress
In fish and game culture we really
have made some progress. The man
who used to buy So worth of min
nows, SIS worth of rod and line, SIS
worth of gasoline and about $40
worth of other equipment to go out
fishing and then raised hell and
placed prop under it because the
state charged him 81 for a fishing
and hunting license combined is
seeing the light.
About 10000 of these complaints
joined fishing and hunting clubs
this year and are beginning to aid
the conservation department Go the
things necessary to perpetuate their
sport. If you have not joined one
of them, the Izaak Walton League,
The Fish, Forest and Game Clubs
The Fox Hunters Association or the
SportsmenS, Inc, do it now.
Your voice in these matters as an
individual is no louder than a
Mickey Mouse squeak, through your
sportsman's club it will sound like
the Paramount lion. I can assure
you that the new conservation de-
partment will not be jealous OF
your powers, in fact, the opposite
is true.
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In the fight to prevent valuable
soil from being eroded away, north