1925 
  I GREW on . . . the old prairie which we 
feared and loved, and conquered .... 
   Beautiful little brooks, so clear. . . . The 
fisherman's heart seemed to shake the neighbor- 
hood. . .  We saw no reason for not killing as 
many prairie chickens as we could, so in winter 
we trapped them by the thousands. . . . I have 
not heard a bobolink's song for thirty years. 
It has passed with the little clear brooks and 
the flights of clamoring wild fowl and all the 
primitive wildness and beauty and sternness of 
the prairie. 
                    HERBERT QUICK, 
                          One Man's Life. 
 
                    1933 
    WE HAVE JUST BEGUN to think of this 
whole country as a good farmer thinks of his 
farm. We have at last been forced to plan. 
                HENRY A. WALLACE, 
         Secretary of Agriculture in a wired 
           message to Western Governors, 
           November 28, 1933. 
    IN CHANGING OUR PATTERN of 
 basic crop production, we have set upon a 
 process which is bound to alter our entire agri- 
 cultural structure; and I think it may go be- 
 yond that and lead in time to a rational resettle- 
 ment of America. 
             RExFORD Guy TUGWELL, 
             Assistant Secretary, in a radio 
                      talk, August 6, 1933. 
 
                    i 934 
    ALTHOUGH there is as yet no safely se- 
 cured beginning, even, in the salvaging of 
 "nature" in the United States-what a chance! 
 * . . The future of the planet itself, and of 
 mankind through distant hundreds of thou- 
 sands of years, is concretely dependent on the 
 task now being begun. 
                      JOHN COLLIER, 
           Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 
                          August 1, 1934. 
 
                    1935 
    THE FABRIC OF HUMAN LIFE has been 
 woven on earthen looms. It everywhere smells 
 of the clay. . . . Howsoever high the spirit of 
 man may soar . . . it is on (the stomach) that 
 humanity, like an army, ever must advance. 
                       J. H. BRADLEY, 
                   Autobiography of Earth. 
    THERE IS REALLY no returning to places 
 and people you remember from your youth.... 
 Even in my time this part of the country has 
 changed ... 
    We men who have allowed this soil to be 
 swept from under us and from under our chil- 
 dren at such a bewildering rate have a good 
 deal to answer for. We didn't know any better. 
 But we do now. 
                  HUGH H. BENNETT, 
          Chief of the U. S. Soil Conserva- 
            tion Service, talking to his old 
            neighbors back home, in North 
            Carolina. 
 
 
                   1936 
   IF YOU GREW UP HERE, as I did, and 
love this country, it cuts you to the heart. 
                          T. S. BUIE, 
         Of the U. S. Soil Conservation 
      Service, interviewed in Sowth Carolina. 
 
   WORLD WAR PRICES said, "Plow!" The 
Government said, "Plow!" The farmers plowed 
these rolling hills of Davis County, on the 
Missouri border, for wheat and corn. "Food 
will win the war," the posters said. 
   Woodland was hacked away. Grass was 
plowed under. The hills washed. The water- 
table fell. Springs went dry. Game went dry 
and died. Now thousands of acres have been 
abandoned and the tax situation is catastrophic. 
            J. N. ("DING") DARLING, 
                Interviewed at Des Moines. 
 
   IS THIS THE SORT OF COUNTRY we 
want to leave behind us, to be our monument 
or history?  Ravaged land, wasted forests, 
empty oil wells, and a people starved, stunted, 
ignorant and savage. Why do we do it? What 
strange insanity is driving us to destroy our- 
selves? 
             DAVID CUSHMAN COYLE, 
                                   Waste. 
 
    OUR COUNTRY is . . . like a man well 
gone with cancer or tuberculosis .... With 
continuance of the manner in which the soil 
is now being squandered (we have), less than 
a hundred years of virile national existence 
 
 
(and), probably less than- 
which to build up the technique, to recruit the 
fighting personnel, and, most difficult of all, 
to change the attitudes of millions of people 
who hold that ownership of land carries with 
it the right to mistreat and even destroy their 
land. 
                   MORRIS L. COOKE, 
       Engineer, before a Senate Committee. 
 
    THE COLLAPSE of the plantation sys- 
tem leaves in its wake depleted soil, shoddy 
livestock, crude agricultural practices, crippled 
institutions, a defeated and impoverished people. 
. . . After the boll weevil, the sedge, after the 
sedge, the silent redeeming pines; and from 
pines back to cotton ... 
    On December 10, 1934, I stopped at St. 
Mary's, a rural negro school in north Green 
County, Georgia, to find it cold and bare. 
These words, well written, were on the black- 
board: 
      Opened School, October 15, 1934. 
      closed School, December 7, 1934. 
           Lord Teach us to Pray! 
                   ARTHUR F. RAPER, 
                   A Preface to Peasantry. 
 
   BLOWN OUT-baked out-and broke ... 
nothing to stay for . . . nothing to hope for. 
... Homeless, penniless and bewildered they 
joined the great army of the highways. 
                      PARE LORENTZ, 
       From the sound-track. of The Plow 
                    That Broke the Plains. 
 
 
AN ALL BUT CATASTROPHIC DEGRADATION OF SOIL AND MAN