It means that we shall not allow enough natural gas to escape into the air every day to light all the large cities in the United States. It means that we shall take better care of the life and health of the people.
This is the true conservation.
In the following chapters we shall take up each of the great resources in turn, shall see what we have used, what we have wasted, what remains to us, how long it will continue at the present rate, how it may be used more wisely, and how it may be replaced, if that be possible, or what may be used instead of those which can not be renewed.
We shall study how we may make the most of all that nature has given us and develop our country to the highest possible point, how we may rise far above our present level in comfort, convenience, and abundance, and yet do all these things with much less waste than we now permit.
[CHAPTER II]
THE SOIL
The soil is the greatest of our natural resources. We may almost say that it is greater than all the others combined, for from it comes all of our food; a large part of it directly as plants which grow in the soil and which we eat in the form of roots, leaves, grains, berries, fruits, and nuts; and a part of it indirectly as animals, which have received their food supply from the plants.
But this is not all. The soil supplies almost every known need. We build our homes from the trees of the forest; combined with the iron that comes from the soil they furnish our fuel, our ships, our cars, our furniture, and countless other things. Our clothing is made from the cotton or flax which grows from the soil, the wool from the sheep that feed on the pastures, or from the silk-worms that feed on leaves.
So it is to the earth that we turn for every need, and Mother Nature supplies it. But it is of the soil as it gives us our food supply that we shall speak in this chapter, and we must first learn the nature of the soil, and the process of its making, in order to understand the need of extraordinary care in its management, and also how to use it so that it will not wear out, or become exhausted, but will increase in value for years and even centuries, as it will if properly cared for.