Chapter XXIV: Section VIII: The Congress shall have power (14)

To this practical side of soil Conservation this Congress should give its hearty approval. It should urge upon the people of every community the adoption of the demonstration tract and the local instructor, with as much earnestness as it has championed the saving of forests and the reclamation of arid lands. Ten per cent. of the money now expended in formal instruction in the institutions where agriculture is taught, or supposed to be taught, would put every farmer in touch with the man who could and should help him in the treatment of his land as readily and surely as the doctor helps his family when they are sick. It would be more than repaid every year in the value of the crop increase. It would be repaid over again in the healing of sick soils, the renovation of old lands, the preservation undiminished in every acre of our arable area of those elements of fertility without which plant life languishes, and the wilderness and the desert in a few generations sweep away the traces of man’s unworthy occupation. It is well worth the hearty and undivided support of public-spirited men. For without just such Conservation the time will come when our country will be unable to support its own people; the diminishing percentage of its population engaged in tilling the land will still further decline; and it will scarcely be worth while to consider how best human life may be prolonged and made sturdier and wholesomer physically by vital Conservation, because it will lack the sustenance that it can not longer draw in sufficient quantity and quality from nature’s withered breasts.

_WAR, THE POLICY OF WASTE—PEACE, THE POLICY OF CONSERVATION._

Mrs. ELMER BLACK, New York City.

In advancing some arguments bearing on that broad assertion permit me at the outset to express my satisfaction that the questions this Congress has set itself to consider have come to be recognized as among the most urgent of all the world’s humanitarian problems. For the peace movement and the Conservation movement are as closely interrelated as, in the pacifist view, the interests of the entire human race are mutual and not antagonistic. The advance of your program is the advance of ours; both are essential to the progress of mankind.

I do not suppose any one will cavil at my plea that when we talk of natural resources we must not merely include inanimate things—timber, minerals, lands, oil and waters—but the brain and sinews of the people as well.

An observant traveler in the United States, asked recently what he considered the greatest asset of the American nation, replied: “The American nation itself, with its self-reliance, ingenuity, the blended genius resulting from race fusion, and the boundless belief in its ability to reach any goal it sets out to attain.” With that contention in mind, I would at once emphasize the fact that neither the material resources of the world nor these higher resources of human equipment can be utilized or developed to their full complement till the profligate policy of international strife is purged from the activities of mankind.

I venture to assert that no war can be waged today that can be justified ethically or economically. With the bringing together of the civilizations of the world, the development ever closer of the bonds of communication, and the institution of the International Court of Arbitration, the last excuse of the war makers has disappeared. No nation today need go to war if the cause it advocates is just. When the plea of “questions of national honor” is advanced it will usually be found that the case behind the plea is so faulty as to entail risk if presented to the judgment of an impartial tribunal, or that there is the secret reason of a desire for aggression in order that some other nation may be robbed of territory.

But assuming for the sake of argument that this latter case can be justified on the ground of imperial advancement and the “survival of the fittest”—a conclusion I do not in reality concede—I still contend that war is a ghastly blunder, inevitably inflicting such loss to the treasuries alike of victor and vanquished that both are laden with debts so great that generations yet unborn are foredoomed to carry an unnatural charge.

It requires no casuist to demonstrate that such a policy is detrimental to human progress and diametrically opposed to thrifty administration. If we think for a moment of what might be accomplished if the war expenditures of nations were devoted to the proper development of the world’s bountiful stores of wealth, the advancement of health and science and the promotion of communal betterment, the imagination reels at the vista of progress that is opened up.

Let us take a few comparisons. The Panama Canal, uniting two oceans and bringing into closer contact the peoples of East and West, is being constructed at a cost of $400,000,000. Against that accomplishment set down the blood and treasure poured out in reckless waste in the Crimean, South African and the Russo-Japanese wars. On the one hand we have a constructive policy in which the nation’s toil and money is conserved and invested so as to operate at compound interest for the benefit not only of American citizens but also of the whole human race. On the other hand, there is a destructive and prodigal policy that has disappointed in after days even those most closely concerned with the crimson fruits of victory.

Speaking of the Crimean War, Lord Salisbury, the late Premier of England, said in his cynical way, “We put our money on the wrong horse.”

The South African War cost no less than $1,331,655,000 and added no less than $795,880,000 to the national debt of England. The flower of British manhood perished on the veldt that the Dutchmen of the Transvaal might be forever relegated to the strata of the subjugated. Yet today, a few short years after that deadly struggle, South Africa is united; the Dutch are enjoying self-government, and, in fact, are politically in the ascendant over their nominal rulers.

Russia lost her entire fleet, wrecked her army and set the forces of internal discontent seething once more within her boundaries. Japan, the nominal victor, so poured forth her wealth that even her amazing vitality is shackled by the bonds of financial stringency. Today both are suffering from the gigantic, blundering conflict—and in the end are compelled peacefully to agree to recognize their respective interests in Northern Asia.

England’s naval expenditure amounts to nearly $250,000,000 a year, and every ten years great costly Dreadnoughts are thrown on the scrap heap—a total waste. Now England has spent on irrigation in India $150,000,000, and I would ask your attention to the fact that this expenditure has not only brought health and prosperity to hundreds of thousands, reduced the dangers of famine and made the desert blossom as the rose, but there is a profit on the capital invested of six and three-quarters per cent.

Taking that as a specimen of contrasts, one is amazed at the mental spectacle of the immense strides that could be made in the world’s prosperity if the expenditure on war and preparations for war was devoted to the Conservation and development of natural resources. The armed peace in Europe in thirty-seven years has cost $150,000,000,000. Yet there are resources waiting to be developed for the benefit of the struggling millions who are crushed beneath the iron heel of Mars; there are reeking human rookeries in the cities of Europe that are a menace to the human race; there are schemes for waterways that would open up wealth practically untapped, to the end that productive machinery might be set in motion for the continual benefit of nations yet to come.

When a Dreadnought fires a single shot from its big guns as much money is dispersed into the air as would pay a workman’s wages for three years or secure a clever student’s college course for a full twelve months. For every cruiser scrapped in naval frenzy a fully staffed scientific laboratory could be run for years in conflict against man’s mortal enemies, the disease bearing bacilli. For years the inventive faculties of the world have been turned to the production of implements of death and destruction. In a saner age of Conservation and peace this concentrated genius will be focused on the preservation of life, the clothing of the desert with verdure, the elimination of space, the improvement of communications, the harnessing of natural forces to the service of man that even today are seen but as through a glass, darkly.

The world is spending every year eight billion dollars on militarism. The expenditure of that ocean of treasure leads nowhere but to the slippery slope of bankruptcy. It creates nothing by which future generations will benefit or of which any but the superficial can be proud. It robs the treasury of the busy bees of commerce and industry and withdraws from active participation in constructive affairs seventeen million men, the strongest and best types, whose brain and muscle should be used for the advancement of their kind. Women, in consequence, as in Germany, have often to undertake work for which nature did not equip them, and so a double wrong is wrought upon the human race.

If the interest only on the money spent on militarism were used on education, 32,000,000 more students would be accommodated at college every year; or the housing problem of every land could be solved as if by a magic wand, to the immeasurable conservation of human health and vigor.

During the South African War the “Investors’ Review” of London said: “In one short eighteen months the war party now sitting on our necks has dissipated more money than the working class managed to accumulate out of their wages during the whole sixty-four years of the reign of Queen Victoria.”

Chancellor Lloyd-George, as recently as the last budget, said in the House of Commons that the money spent on building Dreadnoughts in England in one year would add a dollar a week to the income of every workingman’s family in Europe.

The United States, though not yet in the same parlous plight as the European nations, is heading in that direction, and devotes the enormous proportion of seventy per cent. of its national expenditure to preparations for war. That is to say, every year we waste more than would construct an epoch-making Panama Canal.

Were it possible immediately to reconstruct the scheme of things so that reason ruled, there would be no need to cry aloud for the development of the barren lands of our continent. Waterways would be extended, irrigation works would carry the life-giving fluid to arid areas that need but that to release their dormant fertility, herbage and fruit would spring from regions now productive of only scrub and cacti, and the reforestation of natural timber land would cause the birth of new resources formerly despoiled by the ignorance and greed of man.

But, some may say, surely these shipyards, barracks, Dreadnoughts, and war equipment circulate money and employ millions of men. That, I contend, is a common fallacy a little thought will dissipate. Money being but the tool used in the purchase of labor or the product of labor, is in itself of no account. But the building of a Dreadnought to fire away the product of labor in thin air is to bring all that has gone to prepare for that achievement to nought. The chain of production is broken; henceforth mankind is so much the worse off for that loss of money, labor and its products. But in the true conservation of resources, the labor and its products employed in peaceful and constructive enterprises achieve benefits that flow on continuously in an ever-widening stream, till the entire humanity is made to feel the blending of each man’s labor in the commonweal.

Brain, sinew, time, energy and material resources are being thrown into the melting pot of war, yet but for that very war the evolution of the human race would be eons further on.

Every time a war scare sends the exchanges of the world’s capitals into panic, deadly injury is done to the commerce of the entire globe. Ruin has not to wait for the actual outbreak of hostilities. The wolf of war has but to bare his fangs in menace to cause a premonitory slump to spread devastation through the ranks of the investors. Yet instead of meeting, as the delegates of this Congress are meeting, to debate the best methods of insuring national and international thrift, in statesmanlike preparation for the future needs of the human race, many powerful minds are spending their time devising nightmares with which to scare humanity into ruinous expenditure.

I venture to predict that in the future it will be found that the chief instrument of Conservation has been established already in the arbitration court at The Hague, and generations yet to come will say of its founders, “They builded better than they knew.”

Meanwhile the omens are favorable for the causes of peace and Conservation. The object lessons are there for all the world to see. I have mentioned the Panama Canal in the Western Hemisphere as an instance of constructive Conservation. The Eastern Hemisphere also has its encouragement. Right in the reputed cradle of the human race some of the world’s most brilliant engineers are executing works that will unchain rivers and cleave through mountains to the end that on Mesopotamia’s broad lands the Garden of Eden shall be re-established.

I rejoice to know that this movement towards Conservation nowhere has attained greater volume than in our own land; for with our advantages it seems to me that we are specially equipped for the ennobling task of removing obstacles from the path along which our race must tread in the accomplishment of its high destiny.

_THE CONSERVATION OF NAVIGABLE STREAMS._

Mr. JACOB P. DUNN, Indianapolis.

The objects of the conservation of natural resources divide naturally into two classes. The first relates to the development of lands in private ownership, such as the encouragement of forestation and renewing the fertility of the soil, in which the interest of the State is the indirect one of increasing the supply, or cheapening the cost of products that are of material benefit to the entire community. The second relates to the preservation and utilization of public property, such as forest lands and mineral resources, in which the State has the direct interest of securing special revenues, whereby the burdens of taxation may be reduced, and of promoting the public welfare by furnishing facilities for commerce and industry. To this second class belongs the conservation of navigable streams, and this subject has already been brought prominently before the public by the discussion of proposals for improvement of the navigation of the Mississippi River and its tributaries. But this Mississippi project has a vastly greater significance than the general public has fully considered; for it means that hundreds of streams that are now navigated only in a small way, or not navigated at all, will later be made navigable in a practical and useful way.

Moreover, this subject is of special importance to the great region formerly included in the territory northwest of the Ohio River, including the present States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, because the Ordinance of 1787, by which that territory was created, expressly provided that: “The navigable waters leading into the Mississippi and St. Lawrence, and the carrying places between the same, shall be common highways, and forever free, as well to the inhabitants of the said territory as to the citizens of the United States, and those of any other States that may be admitted into the confederacy, without any tax, duty, or impost therefor.”

These words show that the word “navigable” was not then used in its present common acceptation. When we speak of a navigable stream we commonly mean one that can be navigated by steamboats, but there were no steamboats in 1787, and all of the commercial navigation of this region at that time was by means of canoes and the small vessels known as bateaux and pirogues. That this navigation was what was intended is conclusively shown by the reservation of “the carrying places,” i. e., the stretches of watershed between the headwaters of the streams of the two drainage systems over which both the boats and their loads were transported bodily. This meaning has usually been adhered to by the courts (2 Mich. 219; 19 Oregon, 375; 33 W. Virginia 13; 20 Barbour, N. Y., 9; 14 Ky., 521; 87 Wis. 134), and the general rule is that any stream that will carry commerce, even by floating logs, is a navigable stream. (51 Illinois, 266; 42 Wis. 203.)

The United States Government followed out this theory consistently. By the act of Congress of 1796, for the survey and sale of the public lands of this region, it was expressly declared that “all navigable streams within the territory to be disposed of by virtue of this act shall be deemed to be and remain public highways.” As such their beds were always excluded from the lands surveyed and sold. The government surveyors did not include any of the larger streams in their surveys, but “meandered” them, and when the land was sold, it was sold in fractional sections, running to the meander lines. The beds of the streams and the land bordering them was thus reserved as public property, and when the several States were formed and admitted to the Union, the title was transferred to them from the general government. It is of course to be remembered that Congress has ultimate power over navigable streams, but it is well established law that a State has plenary power over navigable streams that are entirely within its borders, at least until Congress acts.

The acceptance of this provision as to navigable streams was made a prerequisite to the admission of Indiana to the Union by the enabling act of 1816. It was formerly accepted by ordinance of the constitutional convention of Indiana in 1816. And yet Indiana stands today in the unique position of being the only State in the Northwest in which the public rights thus established have been nullified, or at least clouded, by an absurd decision of the Supreme Court of the State, made in 1876. (54 Ind. 471.) Inasmuch as this case deals with White River in Marion County, and as this stream at this point furnishes a typical illustration of the whole subject, I will call your attention to it in detail.

Prior to this decision, every department of the government of Indiana fully recognized the binding force of this compact with the United States, and accepted as conclusive the United States surveys in the determination of what streams were navigable under that compact. The bed of White River in Marion County was not included in these surveys, and it was never sold by the United States or by the State. The Legislature of Indiana always recognized this rule, and always applied it to “White River in Marion County.” The act of January 17, 1820, declared White River navigable as high as “the Delaware towns,” meaning presumably to Muncie, and made it and the other streams named “public highways,” making it a penal offense to obstruct “any stream declared navigable by this act,” except only that mill-dams might be erected under certain conditions, by persons who had “purchased from the United States the bed of any stream by this act declared navigable.” This law was never repealed, but was modified by the act of February 10, 1831, which declared White River navigable as high as Yorktown in Delaware County. This last law is notable as recognizing that a stream need not be navigable at all seasons, for it prohibited any obstruction that would “injure or impede the navigation of any stream, reserved by the ordinance of Congress of 1787 as a public highway, at a stage of water when it would otherwise be navigable.”

Indianapolis was located on this stream because it was navigable for the water-craft then in use. The Legislature of 1825, on petition from the people of Indianapolis, made Alexander Ralston a commissioner to survey the stream, and report on the probable expense of keeping it free from obstruction. He made the survey that summer, and reported the distance from Sample’s Mills, in Randolph County, to Indianapolis, 130 miles; from here to the forks, 285 miles; from there to the Wabash, 40 miles, and that for this distance of 455 miles the stream could be made navigable for three months in the year by an expenditure of $1,500. He found two falls or rapids, one of eighteen inches, eight miles above Martinsville, and one of nine feet in about one hundred yards, ten miles above the forks.

On this report, the Legislature on January 21, 1826, passed a law to improve the navigation of White River as high as Sample’s Mills, in Randolph County, directing that all persons liable for road work living within two miles of the stream, in the counties bordering on the stream, be called out to improve the stream as a highway. This law was made general by the act of May 31, 1852, which empowered county boards to declare streams navigable, and to work them as highways; and this act is still continued in force by the act of April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stats., Sec. 7672.)

The act of January 28, 1828, appropriated $1,000 for improving the navigation of White River as high as Anderson, in Madison County. The act of January 23, 1829, “relative to navigable streams declared highways by the ordinance of Congress of 1787,” prohibited any obstruction of any stream or river “which is navigable, and the bed or channel of which has not been surveyed or sold as land by the United States.” So the law of 1852 made it a penal offense to obstruct “any navigable stream, the bed or channel whereof may not have been surveyed or sold by the United States.” (Rev. Stats. 1852, Vol. 2, p. 432.) This is continued in force, in the same language, by the act of April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stat., Sec. 2650.)

The executive department never questioned the correctness of this rule, and some of the Governors took a great deal of interest in the matter. After the general introduction of steamboat navigation, Governor Noble was ambitious to add that to the ordinary commerce by flatboats and keel boats, and in 1828 he offered a reward of $200 to the first captain who would bring a steamboat to this point, and also to sell his cargo free of charge. In pursuance of this a small steamboat from Cincinnati was actually brought up the river to Indianapolis in 1831. The early courts also recognized the rule that the survey and sale of the bed of a stream was the conclusive test of its navigability, under the law. (3 Blackf. 193.) The State asserted actual ownership of the bed of the stream in this county, and for years maintained an agent at the Washington street crossing to sell sand and gravel from it on the State’s account.

In the face of all this, when the question came before the Supreme Court, in 1876, the court, by Judge Perkins, without any real examination of the law or the facts, said: “The court knows judicially, as a matter of fact, that White River, in Marion County, is neither a navigated nor a navigable stream”; and as to the bed not being surveyed or sold he said: “The idea that the power was given to a surveyor, or his deputy, upon casual observation, to determine the question of the navigability of rivers, and thereby conclude vast public and private rights, is an absurdity.” On this assumption he proceeded to wipe the “vast public rights” out of existence. A little examination would have shown him that the surveys were not irresponsible acts of the surveyors, but official acts in pursuance of law, under the direction of superior officers, and confirmed and ratified not only by those superiors, but by the United States and the State of Indiana. (54 Ind. 471.)

The court abandoned the reasoning of this case two years later, when it held that the Wabash River, in Warren County, was “a navigable stream, the bed of which has neither been surveyed nor sold.” (64 Ind. 162.) But it cited the decision of 1876 as authoritative in another case in 1900 (155 Ind. 477), and this again without any examination of the law or the facts. It is worthy of note that the United States Government has uniformly declined to recognize this decision as law, and as late as 1899 refused to be bound by it. (Indianapolis News, November 7, 1899.)

Fortunately, opportunity has arisen for a reconsideration of this question in a case arising in the Kankakee swamp lands (State vs. Tuesbury Land Co., Starke Circuit Court). In the northern end of Indiana, particularly near the Kankakee River, there was a large amount of swamp land which was not included in the United States surveys nor sold by the United States. This was transferred to the State many years ago, and part of it was reclaimed and sold by the State. In 1891 reclamation was entered on a large scale by removing the ledge of rock at Momence, Illinois, which dammed the Kankakee, and caused most of those swamps. As soon as these lands were drained, adjacent owners set up claims to the thread of the stream as riparian owners, and a judgment was obtained in the Starke Circuit Court upholding such claims. If valid this means that the great expense to which the State has gone in reclaiming the lands is money thrown away.

As soon as he learned of it, Governor Marshall, who is very practical in his statesmanship, directed the Attorney-General to take steps to secure a reversal of the judgment or appeal it, and a new trial has been secured in the case, which is to be heard shortly. The Kankakee is one of the most noted of the streams referred to in the Ordinance of 1787 as “navigable waters,” which are reserved forever as “public highways,” and there should be no riparian rights in it.

There is certainly good reason to expect a reversal of the Indiana decision, if not by our Supreme Court, by the Supreme Court of the United States, for two special reasons: (1) The question of the navigability of a stream is not primarily a judicial question, but one of public policy to be determined by the legislative department, and both Congress and our State Legislature have consistent records for the navigability of these streams. (2) In this case the navigability is a matter of solemn compact between the State and the United States; and as the constitutions of both prohibit any law impairing the obligation of a contract, it is hardly to be assumed that the courts would undertake to annul a contract of this character.

Unquestionably White River, like most of the other streams of Indiana, is not as practically navigable today as it was eighty years ago, and for two very simple reasons. First, at that time the only timber that got into the river was trees on the bank that were thrown in by the banks caving, and these were usually held to the banks by their roots. But after settlement began every freshet carried quantities of logs, rails and boards down the river, to form drifts; and these in turn caused the formation of sand and gravel bars. Second, when the land was cleared and cultivated, the ground washed much more readily than it did before, and much greater quantities of sand and gravel were carried into the river to form bars. These bars constitute the chief obstruction to practical navigation now.

But by a change in recent conditions of life, these bars furnish the means for making the river practically navigable. Within the last two decades there has grown up a special demand for this sand and gravel; and especially has this demand been increased by the call for good roads; for washed gravel is one of the best materials available for road-making, and by these streams, nature has distributed it very widely over the State. This demand has developed the industry of removing sand and gravel from the river beds by means of suction pumps, and since 1897, when it began, this industry has reached proportions that are not generally known to the public. At Indianapolis there have been six steam pumps working for several years. They are mounted on scow boats, fifty to sixty-five feet in length, and twenty to twenty-five feet in width, and by centrifugal suction power, draw up a mixture of sand, gravel and water through eight-inch pipes. The pipe entrance is screened to prevent the entrance of stones over four or five inches in diameter, in order to avoid clogging the pipe.

These six pumps take out 180,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel in a year, at a cost of 20 to 25 cents a cubic yard. The material is separated by passing over screens into two grades of sand and two of gravel, and is sold at a good profit for street improvement, roofing, asphalt mixture, concrete, mortar and locomotive sand. Formerly Lake Michigan sand was shipped here in considerable quantities, but now the demand is fully met by this local industry. The pumps take out the material for a depth of about fifteen feet, and in the course of their work they have made about three miles of Indianapolis river front practically navigable for any kind of river craft. The boats can easily be run to any point on the river and used for removing bars at any place. At present the proprietors of the boats are paying the adjacent landowners for the privilege of taking out material that rightfully belongs to the State, and of which the public ought to have the benefit.

The practical situation is this: Indiana has an almost inexhaustible supply of the best and cheapest road material known, which rightfully belongs to the State. By using this material it will make actually navigable hundreds of miles of waterways that are now of no use in commerce. It is quite common for the unthinking to joke about the absurdity of making small streams navigable, but there is nothing absurd about it. Over half a century ago Indiana constructed 453 miles of canal, at an average cost of $15,000 a mile, which has since been practically abandoned, not as is generally supposed, because of the competition of rail roads, but because it was high line canal, and was built up, in part, instead of being dug out, and without proper precaution for making it water-tight. The State was not alone in its experience. There are in the United States over 1,950 miles of abandoned high-line canal, that cost over $44,000,000. But there are also plenty of low-line canals in practical and profitable operation.

The mistake that was made in Indiana was in not utilizing the natural water-courses. At an expense of less than $15,000 per mile, White River can easily be made navigable for steamboats from Indianapolis to its mouth, where there is actual steamboat navigation now. The fall in the river is only 269 feet in the 285 miles, or less than a foot to the mile. The tested flow of White River at this point is over 1,000 cubic feet per second. With not to exceed half a dozen dams, and the principal bars pumped out and put into roads, the thing is accomplished. Not only is there nothing impracticable about it, but it is as certain to be done, in the not distant future, as it is that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. The advantages of water communication with the great coal and building stone region of the State, as well as direct connection with the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, is too obvious for discussion. With our Supreme Court decisions put on a rational and just basis, there is nothing to prevent a speedy accomplishment of the work.

_REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL FERTILIZER ASSOCIATION._

Presented by Mr. JOHN D. TOLL, Secretary of the Educational Bureau of the National Fertilizer Association, and Mr. CHARLES S. RAUH, of Indianapolis, Official Delegates to the Fourth National Conservation Congress.

In the last analysis man must have food. The law of supply and demand becomes operative the minute that a nation is born. Scarcity of food produces abnormal prices. As scarcity increases, the prices become almost prohibitive. The attention of every citizen of this country has been called to the rapid increase in the cost of food products during the last decade. This increase has been due to several causes, among which we may note the following: (1) Increase of population has exceeded the increase in production of foodstuffs; (2) scarcity of new lands to be developed to meet the needs of a growing population; (3) decrease in productivity of some of the formerly productive soils of this country.

Other causes have undoubtedly contributed to this situation, but the one pertinent to the present discussion is that of decreasing soil fertility as it is related to the production of crops. The production of crops depends (1) upon the fertility of the soil; (2) climatic conditions; (3) quality of seed used; and (4) the culture and care given to the crop. Three of these governing factors are under the control of the farmer. Therefore, inasmuch as they are under his control, so also is the supply of food under his control to an equal degree.

According to the latest available statistics, out of 1,755,132,800 acres in the United States, there are 383,891,682 acres of improved land. A considerable amount of this land is being used for the production of crops of various kinds. These crops in 1911 totaled the enormous production of $5,504,000,000.

The plant food consisting of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash which these crops take from the soil is not all returned to the land, and, as a result, we have a yearly drain upon the fertility account of our soils.

The loss of all three essential elements of plant food is being partly met by the wise Conservation and use of barn manure.

The loss of nitrogen in this depletion is also being partly met by the growing of legumes which have the power of taking nitrogen from the air and fixing it in the soil where it is available as plant food.

If any one of these elements is lacking, crop production suffers a decrease in quantity and a deterioration in quality, to wit: If phosphoric acid is the lacking element in soil, the production of ear corn may be large in quantity but the ears are soft and immature, consequently are inferior for stock food or for human food. In the same way a scarcity of phosphoric acid decreases the yield of wheat and causes an inferiority in its quality.

The lack of nitrogen and potash has equally disastrous effects on the production of the crop. It is, therefore, not only a supply of plant food that is necessary, but the balancing of it in order that our soil may produce a maximum crop of best quality. The fertilizer industry is an industry engaged entirely in the supply of these plant food elements. It is, therefore, a direct contributor to the maintenance of the human race, in that it deals in the elements of plant food.

Not only since its inception in 1840 has this industry contributed to the supply of plant food, which in the end means human food, but it has noted the wasteful methods of agriculture being practiced, unconsciously frequent, in many parts of this country, and it has put forth continuous efforts along the lines of educating the American farmer to grow larger yields of better crops, to maintain and increase the fertility of the soil, and increase the average yield per acre.

The fertilizer industry has, through its national association, within the past two years established several movements, the great purpose of which is to assist in the dissemination of knowledge of modern methods of agriculture.

Another line of effort wherein the fertilizer industry has been a direct contributor to the conservation of vital resources is in its great manufacturing plants. To produce the phosphoric acid which is supplied in fertilizers, the industry obtains the barren phosphatic rock from Tennessee, Carolinas, Florida, etc., grinds this material and treats it chemically so as to make the phosphoric acid available. By this means, it supplies to the great crop producing States of this country the element of plant food, which, to a large extent, determines the maturity and quality of crop production.

The industry also takes the waste material of the packing houses, such as bone, offal, blood, etc., dries and grinds it and produces an ingredient of fertilizers which was formerly thrown away. This packing house material supplies nitrogen and phosphoric acid.

Furthermore, the garbage of the cities and towns of this country is collected and reduced to the form of fertilizer ingredient, where it formerly was burned or otherwise destroyed.

Not only is all this done, but the former waste products of the cotton and tobacco industry are similarly reduced to a form of plant food to be mixed with other materials and returned to the soil.

Still further, besides gathering up the waste and otherwise barren products of the country, the industry has developed processes whereby the gases from gas and coke manufacture are collected and reduced to sulphate of ammonia in which form it constitutes one of the nitrogenous ingredients in fertilizers. This ammonia sulphate is used as an ingredient in fertilizers supplying nitrogen.

Of late years the industry has gone even further than this, in that a process has been discovered whereby the nitrogen of the air is harnessed, and the product reduced to such forms that it supplies available nitrogen for plant food.

In assembling and preparing these essential elements of plant food, the industry, as we have pointed out, not only prepares material to return to the soil to supply the elements which have been taken out of it, but it actually provides in deficient soils elements in which they may be deficient, and by so doing makes more productive lands which, on account of their balanced plant food, could not produce paying results before being treated.

The State of Georgia in 1911 spent over twenty million dollars for fertilizers, with the result that they raised more and better cotton than was ever raised in this State before. The State of Maine in the same year used 150,000 tons of fertilizers on their potato fields, with the result that their good potato growers produced from two to four hundred bushels of potatoes per acre. The total State productions exceed 25,000,000 bushels.

The fertilizer industry, we believe, occupies a most prominent part in the problem of producing sustenance for future generations and in conserving the vital resources of the world, inasmuch as it is making a close study of and doing a wonderful work in devising means whereby practically all of the former waste materials of this country may be reduced to available plant food and returned to the soil from which they were taken.

Summarizing, the fertilizer industry, as we have pointed out, is an important factor in the maintenance of the human race, of this and other continents, in that (1) it supplies plant food to balance up the plant food in the soil and to make up the deficiencies which have occurred as a result of continuous cropping; (2) assists in educating the farmers to conserve the fertility of their soils by employing scientific methods of farming; (3) it makes use of waste products of other industries which have formerly been destroyed, and returns them to the soil in the form of food for future crops.

The fertilizer industry, therefore, must be recognized as one of the greatest agencies of conservation of vital resources.

_DR. W J McGEE: AN APPRECIATION OF HIS SERVICES FOR CONSERVATION._

MR. W. C. MENDENHALL, Washington, D. C.

Dr. W J McGee had mastered and advocated the fundamental principles of Conservation long before the majority of those now most active in the movement had come to appreciate the real meaning of the word. He was one of the founders of this movement, was at all times one of the most stimulating thinkers in its councils, and in him Mr. Pinchot found one of his most loyal supporters and friends. Doctor McGee was the personification of strength and steadfastness in the pioneer period of Conservation, when the meaning of the word was unknown to the multitude, and when the mere suggestion that our natural resources are not inexhaustible but may be depleted to the vanishing point by wasteful use was regarded as a wild heresy. During the preceding sessions of this Congress he was its accepted authority on problems involving that most widespread and universally distributed of our natural resources—water. He has dealt with this resource from the points of view of transportation, of irrigation, and of power, and from the standpoint of biology in which it is recognized as fundamental in all life.

Doctor McGee’s mind was of the type of the intellectual pioneer, intensely individual and original. He was masterful in the alignment of facts and stimulating in the recognition and boldness of his expression of the generalizations and far-reaching conclusions to which his marshalled facts pointed. Like most men of brilliant imagination, he was at times impatient of the slow processes of research, or let us say rather that his impatience was with that timidity in reaching conclusions so often displayed by those engaged in research, rather than with the process itself. He believed that the scientist’s practical rule of life should be the acceptance, as a basis of action, of the conclusions indicated by such facts as are known, even though those conclusions may not at present be definitely established.

Doctor McGee’s death at the Cosmos Club on September 4, 1912, removed from the domain of science and from the forum of public discussion one of its leading personalities. His career embraced an unusually wide range of activities and in each of these he attained distinction. As a geologist he was one of the group assembled by Major Powell during the formative period of the United States Geological Survey, a group which made American geology classic and its leaders world-leaders in their science. In this field McGee’s name is associated with the names of Powell, Dutton, Gilbert, Holmes, Emmons, and Hague. Later, with the establishment of the Bureau of Ethnology, into which he followed Major Powell, he became a pioneer in ethnological research, although retaining continually his interest in geologic and geographic problems. At the time of his death and for a few years prior thereto he was the erosion and hydrologic expert of the Department of Agriculture, his immediate connection with that department being through the Bureau of Soils. His last years are distinguished by a number of papers on the subject of Conservation, in which he was so vitally interested; these articles are broad in their scope, thoroughly original and stimulating in their expression, and point out fearlessly some dangers of present practice and suggest methods of remedy. But a few days before his death he completed the correction of the galley proofs of the last of his papers, faithful to his work and to his duty even while descending into the Valley of the Shadow.

This very brief sketch would not be complete without expressed recognition of the fact that Doctor McGee’s attitude in the face of death was in accordance with the best traditions of the science to which his life had been devoted and was as admirable and as deeply stirring and stimulating as any act of his career. For a year or more he had recognized the fact that he was afflicted with cancer and that his days were numbered. He faced this fact calmly and prepared patiently for the inevitable by carefully completing all work on hand and by disposing by will of his body and his brain to his friend and fellow scientist, Dr. Spitska, to be used in the way most likely to be beneficial to humanity. So long as his faculties remained undimmed, he maintained the same keen interest in scientific questions and current affairs that had marked his career at its height. Those of his friends who visited him during the last few weeks of his life heard not a single complaint nor an expression of regret, but found themselves chatting easily with an old and honored friend who gave no indication of the fact that he knew definitely that his career was soon to be stayed by the hand of Death. Thus, rising superior to the weakened, pain-racked body, he met with philosophic calm and sublime courage the final inevitable test. It is not given to man to do more than this.

_REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES._

All the standing committees were represented at the Fourth National Conservation Congress and made reports. Members of these committees also addressed the Congress.

Forests: See paper by Prof. Henry S. Graves, Chairman, page 318; also addresses of Mr. E. T. Allen and Major E. G. Griggs, pages 312 and 183, respectively.

Lands: Prof. L. H. Bailey, being unavoidably prevented from attending the Congress, the report of the Lands Committee was presented by Dr. George E. Condra, page 123. See also address of Mr. Charles S. Barrett, page 132.

Waters: Owing to the death of Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, the report of this committee was submitted by Dr. W. C. Mendenhall. See page 335.

Minerals: See address of Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, Chairman, page 200.

Vital Resources: See address of Mr. A. B. Farquhar, page 214.

Food: See address of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chairman, page 75. Also see paper by Mr. F. G. Urner, page 327.

Homes: See address of Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, President-General, Daughters of the American Revolution, page 250. Also report by Mrs. Orville T. Bright, of Chicago, Vice-President of the National Congress of Mothers, page 196.

Child Life: See address and report of the Hon. Ben B. Lindsey, Chairman, page 170.

Education: See report of Dr. C. E. Bessey, Chairman, page 66; see also address of Prof. E. T. Fairchild, page 134.

Civics: See address of Mr. Ralph M. Easley, Chairman, page 272.

National Parks: The report of this committee was submitted in writing, signed by Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, and Col. Malcolm H. Crump. See page 182.

General (including Wild Life): Dr. W. T. Hornaday, Chairman, presented the report of this committee. See page 344. Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson gave an address on “Bird Slaughter and the Cost of Living.” See page 72.

_INDEX._

Accidents, Due to trespassing on railroads, 212
Elevator, Statistics of, 229
Industrial, 212
Prevention of elevator, Address by R. P. BOLTON, 223–230
Prevention of railroad, Address by T. H. JOHNSON, 205
Railroad statistics on, 205
Railway, Preventable, 220
prevention section, 335
prevention section, Resolution adopted, 335

ADDAMS, Miss JANE, Reference to, 174

Adjournment of Congress, 311

ALLEN, E. T., Chairman Forestry Section, 312
Member Nominating Committee, 196
Member Committee on Credentials, 111
Address by, 61–66

American Farmer, 133

American Federation of Labor, Reference to, 174

AUSTIN, Hon. R. M., Remarks by, 310

ASHLEY, Dr. BURTON J., Address by, 281–286

BAILEY, Prof. L. H., Chairman Committee on Lands and Agriculture, 10

BARKER, H. A., Member Nominating Committee, 196

BARNARD, H. E., Resolution by, 327

BARRETT, CHARLES S., Address by, 132–134

BAUMGARTNER, J. P., Remarks by, 286

BESSEY, Dr. C. E., Chairman Committee on Education, 10
Report by, 66–71

Bird life, Conservation of, 280

Birds, Federal protection of migratory, Address by Dr. W. T.
HORNADAY, 72, 73
Protection of, 19
Slaughter and the cost of living, Address by Dr. T. GILBERT
PEARSON, 72

Birth and death certificates, Reference to, 215
registration, 18, 235
registration in Indiana, 247
registration in Europe, 245

BLACK, Mrs. ELMER, Paper by, 352

BLUE, Surgeon-General, Reference to, 111

Board of Managers, 9

BOLTON, REGINALD PELHAM, Address by, 223–230

BRANDEIS, LOUIS D., Reference to, 154

BRIGHT, Mrs. ORVILLE T., Address by, 196–200

Bureau of Mines, Reference to, 108
of Public Health, Reference to, 221

Child, The, 171
Duty of Nation to, 180
labor, 19
laws, Reference to, 112
life, Committee on, 10
Problem of the, 172
welfare exhibit, 179
International congress on, Reference to, 200

Childhood, Rights of, 181

Children, Attendance of, in schools of U. S., 270
Duty of State toward, 176
Legislation for protection of dependent, 175
Protection of dependent, 175
Safeguarding the morals of, 179
Welfare of, 172

Children’s Bureau, Address by Miss JULIA CLIFFORD LATHROP, 242–249
Importance of, 242
Object of, 242
Reference to, 108
Reference to, 174
Work of, 248

Civics, Committee on, 10

Civil service, 278

Climate as an asset, 303

Coal, Amount mined, 203
State production of, 48, 49
Waste of, 203

COFER, Dr. L. E., Address by, 111–112

Cold storage, 329
Attacks on, 326
economics, 330
Food conservation by, Address by F. G. URNER, 327–334
Function of, 331

Committee of one hundred, Reference to, 107
on Resolutions, Chairman of, 111

Compensation act in Washington State, 188

CONDRA, Dr. GEORGE E., Address by, 48
Member of Nominating Committee, 196
Report of, 123–130

Conservation of bird life, 260
of business, 60
of business, Reference to, 123
Commission, Reference to, by President WHITE, 39
Reference to, 108
Commissions, 56
of the child, 178
Congress, Development of, 161, 162
Field of, Reference by President WHITE, 38
Homes department of, 199
Objects of, 183
Origin of, 161
department, General Federation of Women’s Clubs, Work of, 258
of food, Address by F. G. URNER, 327–334
in relation to the home, 252
of the human race, Address by Dr. JOHN N. HURTY, 148–154
of land and the man, Address by Mrs. HAVILAND H. LUND, 131–132
of life, 256
of man, Address by Dr. H. W. WILEY, 75–91
of man on the land, Address by CHARLES S. BARRETT, 132
and mining, 202
of navigable streams, Address on, 357–362
organization, 55
in States, 55, 56
Progress in, 60
redefined, Address of E. T. ALLEN, 61–66
Results of lack of, 259
and secondary industries, 147
of the soil, Paper by Hon. JAMES J. HILL, 349–352
of waters, Report by W. C. MENDENHALL, Chairman Committee on
Waters,
335–344
work in General Federation of Women’s Clubs, 259

Constitution, 13
Amendment to, 286
Changes in, 286, 287

Consumers’ League, Reference to, 253, 254

Corporations, Overcapitalization of, 231

Cost of living, 162

Country life, 22

Credentials, Committee on, 111

CROCKER, Mrs. MARION A., Address by, 258–262
Member Nominating Committee, 196

CRUMP, M. H., Report by, 182, 183

Daughters of the American Revolution, Reference to, 249
Reference to, 253

Death, Loss through, 109
Means of avoiding, 81
registration, 18
Unnecessary, 109

DENNY, Miss ADELINE, Motion by, 181

Department of Labor, Reference to, 108

Diseases of children, 244
Communicable, 84
Heredity of, 86
Immunity from, 84
Most active, 79, 80, 81
Occupational, 143
Prevention of introduction of contagious and infectious, 114
Prevention of the spread of, 117
of unknown genesis, 83

DOREMUS, CHARLES A., Letter from, 147

DOWLING, Dr. OSCAR, Address by, 139–144

DRINKER, Dr. HENRY STURGIS, Address by, 347–349

Drugs, Supervision of, 87

DUNN, JACOB P., Address by, 357–362

EASLEY, RALPH M., Address by, 272–281
Chairman Committee on Civics, 10

Education, Committee on, 10
of immigrants, 198
A plea for more equal educational opportunities, Address by
Professor E. T. FAIRCHILD, 134–139
In relation to Conservation, 59
Report of standing committees on, 66–71
Value of, 167, 168
Work in the community, 67
Work through legislation, 70
Work in the schools, 68

Efficiency, Human, Address by HARRINGTON EMERSON, 154–160

Elevator accidents, Legislation governing, 226

ELLIS, DON CARLOS, Presentation of Knoxville invitation by, 307–310
Resolution by, 310

EMERSON, HARRINGTON, Address by, 154–160

Employer, The duty of, Address by Dr. E. A. RUMELY, 144–147

Employment department, 154
Responsibility of, 237

EVANS, Dr. WILLIAM A., Speaker, 61

Executive Committee, 9
Adoption of report by, 288
Report by, 286

Exhibit, 22

Factory legislation, 274

FAIRBANKS, Hon. CHARLES WARREN, Address of welcome by, 24

FAIRCHILD, Professor E. T., Address by, 134–139

Farmers’ Union, President of, CHARLES S. BARRETT, 132

Farming, Scientific, 297

FARQUHAR, A. B., Address by, 214–223
Motion by, 288

FARRAND, Dr. LIVINGSTON, Address by, 264–271

Federal Forest Service, Reference to, by E. T. ALLEN, 63

Fish, Protection of, 19

FISHER, Professor IRVING, Address by, 103–111

Flood Damage, 291
Investigation of Pittsburgh Flood Commission, Address by
GEORGE M. LEHMAN, 289–296
prevention, 294
protection, 293

Food, Committee on, 10
preservation, Methods of, 328
production, Development of, 328
preservation, Requirement of, 328
products, Relative values of, 143
Section on, 326

Foods, Quality of cold storage, 332

Forest fires, 21
State appropriations for prevention of, 21
resources, Situation in States, 52, 53, 54
service, Commendation of, 20
Appropriations for, 20

Forestry, Attack upon, 321
Committee on, 10
Committee on Co-operation, 314
Committee on Permanent Organization, 314
Committee on Resolutions, 31
Education in, 313
policy, 323
Present situation in, Address by Prof. H. S. GRAVES, 318–325
Progress in State, 320
Reasons for government ownership, 324, 325
Report of Committee on Permanent Organization, 315, 316
Report of Committee on Resolutions, 315
section, 312
Organization of, 312
Register, 317

Forests, 20
and floods, 304
Address by E. T. ALLEN, 61–66
Protection by the States, 21

FOSTER, VOLNEY T., Member Committee on Credentials, 111

Game, Protection of, 19

General (including domesticated animals and wild life), Committee
on, 10