sperous human life. This
conclusion is as false as the term "inexhaustible" applied to other
natural resources. The waste of soil is among the most dangerous of all
wastes now in progress in the United States. In 1896, Professor Shaler,
than whom no one has spoken with greater authority on this subject,
estimated that in the upland regions of the states south of Pennsylvania
three thousand square miles of soil had been destroyed as the result of
forest denudation, and that destruction was then proceeding at the rate
of one hundred square miles of fertile soil per year. No seeing man can
travel through the United States without being struck with the enormous
and unnecessary loss of fertility by easily preventable soil wash. The
soil so lost, as in the case of many other wastes, becomes itself a
source of damage and expense, and must be removed from the channels of
our navigable streams at an enormous annual cost. The Mississippi River
alone is estimated to transport yearly four hundred million tons of
sediment, or about twice the amount of material to be excavated from the
Panama Canal. This material is the most fertile portion of our richest
fields, transformed from a blessing to a curse by unrestricted erosion.

The destruction of forage plants by overgrazing has resulted, in the
opinion of men most capable of judging, in reducing the grazing value of
the public lands by one-half. This enormous loss of forage, serious
though it be in itself, is not the only result of wrong methods of
pasturage. The destruction of forage plants is accompanied by loss of
surface soil through erosion; by forest destruction; by corresponding
deterioration in the water supply; and by a serious decrease in the
quality and weight of animals grown on overgrazed lands. These sources
of loss from failure to conserve the range are felt to-day. They are
accompanied by the certainty of a future loss not less important, for
range lands once badly overgrazed can be restored to their former value
but slowly or not at all. The obvious and certain remedy is for the
Government to hold and control the public range until it can pass into
the hands of settlers who will make their homes upon it. As methods of
agriculture improve and new dry-land crops are introduced, vast areas
once considered unavailable for cultivation are being made into
prosperous homes; and this-movement has only begun.

The single object of the public land system of the United States,