By the middle of the nineteenth century the springs and streams which had previously provided a murmuring labyrinth of dependable forest hospitality and protection had become irregular, undependable, and sometimes downright vicious. The lifeblood of the land, which, under nature’s balance, had throbbed daily and monthly almost as evenly as the sea, was now given to torrential rages in early June which were reduced to feeble trickles in July. Restless farmers found their plantings delayed until after the spring floods abated, and although the willing seed germinated quickly the tender plants were desiccated by midsummer heat. These conditions made it increasingly apparent that Americans would soon be compelled to approach nature as a friend rather than as an adversary. Any other course was suicidal. By 1850 a new and more persuasive corps of conservationists was emerging. They affirmed that a nation desiring nature’s rewards must first learn her laws and then obey them implicitly.[265] They defined conservation as the protection and development of the full usefulness of natural resources, including forests, waters, minerals, scenery, and the land itself. Among these far-seeing men were Henry Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Muir. Through a persuasive campaign of lecturing and writing they established the plain fact that Americans, as a people, had never learned to love the land and regard it as an enduring resource. Rather had they viewed it as a field for exploitation and a source of immediate financial return. Although the effect of these declarations was quite negligible, still Congress did appoint several timber agents in 1850. This was the first glimmering of a systematic approach to the inspection and policing of federal timber resources. But what have these humble beginnings in conservation to do with the Yellowstone National Park idea? Only this, a child cannot take a second step until it takes the first. Americans have never been particularly inclined toward sentimentality. A national pleasuring ground, such as Yellowstone Park, designed to serve “as a great breathing place for the national lung, as a place to which every American citizen can resort,” could not have come into being without considerable intellectual preparation.[266] Congress could hardly be expected to enact protective legislation to stem this traditional exploitation until the idea of conservation became reasonably articulate and popular. Remember, that even at mid-century the thinkers were still groping for a program. Perhaps the first American possessed of both the appreciation and imagination to forecast what later evolved into the National Park program was George Catlin. When traveling up the Missouri River in 1832 he was so impressed as to write, “The realms might in future be seen preserved in their pristine beauty and wildness, in a magnificent park ... containing man and beast, in all the wild and freshness of their nature’s beauty.”[267]