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Audio clip, conservation, 1959-02-09
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| Title | Audio clip, conservation, 1959-02-09 |
| Creator | Darling, Jay N. (Jay Norwood), 1876-1962
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| Date Original | Dictation by Darling on February 9, 1959; text is taken from transcription by Darling's secretary, Merle Strasser. |
| Note | Some audio is missing from the third and fourth paragraphs; the text below follows the transcription. |
| Subject - Topics | Conservation
Wildlife
Erosion
Soil
Soil conservation
Environment
Clean water
Civilization
Mother Nature
Agiculture
Family life
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| Subject - Places | Michigan
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| Type (DCMIType) | Sound
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| Type (AAT) | Sound recordings
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| Digital Collection | Editorial Cartoons of J.N. "Ding" Darling
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| Rights Management | Copyright is owned by the "Ding" Darling Wildlife Society; it is administered on behalf of the Society by The University of Iowa. While use within the classroom is encouraged without specific authorization, publishing this cartoon in any format requires written permission. See policy and permissions procedure at: http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll/services/dingdarling_fees.html |
| Identifier | 59-02-09-2_conservation |
| Language | English |
| Digital Format | mp3 |
| Full text | Des Moines, Iowa.
February 9, 1959
Miss Juanita Lines;
P 0 Box 684;
Madras, Oregon
Dear Miss Lines:
I have your request for an outline of my early interest in conservation and how it happened that I became actively engaged in the battle for wildlife. That's a rather large order, and I don't think It has ever been written, nor have I ever been consciously aware of the early experiences and observations which grew into convictions, which, in turn, compelled active expression. For whatever it is worth, here it is.
I was the son of a Methodist Minister, on a family budget of $750 a year, paid mostly in potatoes, squash, spareribs, eggs, and now and then a chicken, contributed by parishioners, and as soon as school was out in the spring I was sent to earn my keep on the farm of my father's brother in southern Michigan. It was a rich little eighty acres, with a crystal clear stream running across one corner, and a few acres of native timber. It was virgin soil, the river was full of fish, the woods abounded with song birds and migratory waterfowl nested in the marshes along the creek.
The work was hard but the harvest was rich. The memory of those early days on Uncle John's farm remained with me through the years, while the church called my father west and farther west, with advancing civilization, until one day the news came of the death of my Uncle John and I was the one selected by the family to attend Uncle John's funeral.
Br
Br
It was the first time I had seen my youthful paradise since I was about 15 years old and it seemed as if the farm had died with Uncle John. As I strolled down the lane that led from the country road down to the old pasture and the woods, I saw that the topsoil of the once rich grain fields had eroded away, the timber had been cut off, the river - no longer sparkling clear - was full of mud and only a trickle of water, devoid of all fishlife, flowed through the unsightly creek bed.
The once verdant pasture, now barren of grass, was gullied and quite evidently of no further use. A lone crow, which got up from the barnyard and slowly flapped its wings away, was all that was left of the wildlife Inhabitants. The well had gone dry end the old orchard was a scraggly wreck of dead lambs and old stumps. Where I had once plowed eight inches of black loam which had yielded from 40 to 60 bushels of wheat per acre there was nothing left worth cultivating and the neighbors who came to attend the funeral said the water table had fallen so low that most of the wells in that area had gone dry, and many of the people I'd known as a boy had moved away to greener pastures. That was my first conscious realization of what could happen to land, what could happen to clear running streams, what could happen to bird life and human life when the common laws of Mother Nature were disregarded.
I am quite sure that the shock of seeing that green land of my youth turned to wasteland in one generation started me pondering anal observing evidences of wasted soils and waters and depletion of natural resources wherever my paths led me.
They were not hard to find. Even in the frontier country along the Missouri River where my father was called to carry the gospel, the country was new and man had not yet despoiled it. The rivers were deep and clear, game of all kinds was abundant, prairie grass grew as high as my shoulders and I can remember my father taking me down to the side track on a new spur of the Milwaukee Railroad and pointing out the bales of buffalo skins which were on their way to the St. Louis fur market. Life was rich and easy. Everyone hunted and everyone fished and everyone helped himself liberally to the riches which Nature provided.
A flood of settlers, having skimed the cream from the forests and lands to the east, plowed up the rich loam of the prairies, cut down the timber that bordered the creeks and rivers, slaughtered the game, and cattle gnawed the protective cover of prairie grass from the hills, and the same signals of distressed land which I had noted on Uncle John's farm were apparent on every hand, by the time I had reached the age where my own children faced a future which might duplicate the picture I had witnessed on the little Michigan farm of my Uncle John. |
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