We are in the habit of speaking of the solid earth and the eternal hills as though they, at least, were free from the vicissitudes of time and certain to furnish perpetual support for prosperous 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, as President Roosevelt repeatedly declared, is the making and maintenance of prosperous homes.  That object cannot be achieved unless such of the public lands as are suitable for settlement are conserved for the actual home-maker.  Such lands should pass from the possession of the Government directly and only into the hands of the settler who lives on the land.  Of all forms of conservation there is none more important than that of holding the public lands for the actual home-maker.