Doctor Shaler[8] estimated that in the States south of the Ohio and the James Rivers more than 8,000 square miles of originally fertile land had, by this shiftless and thoughtless way of doing things, been put into such a state that it wouldn't grow anything; and over 1,500 square miles of this, actually worn down to the subsoil, and even to the bed rock, so that it may never be profitable to farm again--at least not in our time--no matter what they do! [8] "Outlines of Earth's History." I knew a farmer with a small son to whom he intended to leave the farm when he grew up, who did things like that for twenty years. By the time the little boy was old enough to vote, there was no farm to leave; all the good part of it was gone. Serious thing for that little boy, wasn't it? HIDE AND SEEK IN THE LIBRARY What have burrowing animals to do with the drainage system of the land? (Keffer's "Nature Studies on the Farm.") How do angleworms help drain the soil? How do the forests help make good use of the rain that falls, not only for themselves but for the rest of us? How do the rains help to warm the ground in the spring? The heat they carry into the soil is produced in two ways. The book mentioned above tells of one of these ways, and Russell's little book, "The Story of the Soil," tells of another. Beale's "Seed Dispersal" tells how the raindrops (working together, of course) help plant maple, elm, sycamore, willow, and other trees that grow by the waterside, to scatter their seeds. You'd be surprised what a series of adventures the seeds of a bladderwort have before they get planted on some new shore, after having left the parent shrub. First, they float down-stream, as you know, but when autumn comes on, what do you suppose they do? They go to bed. Where? Right in the bottom of the stream. Then how do they ever get up and get planted on the shore? Well, you just look it up in that Beale book and see. Do you know how the rains help to get the mineral food up into the plant? And why swamps are such poor producers? And how the sun acts as a pump for the plant world? You will find answers to all these questions in Shaler's "Outlines of Earth's History" and in your books on botany and agriculture. Russell's book on the soil tells how the ancient Gauls and Britons used to fertilize their land with marl, and how the tides help to fertilize England. It's just the reverse of the way Father Nile looks after Egypt, as you will see. If you want to read an interesting description of the difficulties of farming on wet lands, you will find it in this meaty little book. If you don't know how serious a thing it is to let gullies form in land, look it up in Shaler's "Man and the Earth" and you will see.