Report of the West Virginia Conservation Commission (Classic Reprint)

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Excerpt from Report of the West Virginia Conservation CommissionThe list of resources which, with certain restrictions, may be called inexhaustible, is longer. It contains much that enters into the lives of the people. The land' is inexhaustible, if men take care of it. If they do not take care of it, it will be gone sooner than almost anything else. The forests will live forever and yield their products forever, if necessary protection is thrown round them. Otherwise, they will disappear and leave nothing, so far as we can see now, to take their place. The rivers and natural waters will go on forever and supply men's needs, if men will do their part. But destruction of rivers, brooks and Springs is not only pos sible but dangerously near a certainty, unless men exert themselves to save soil and forest. The natural scenery, with the hundred things that go with it, is an everlasting resource, with a financial, intellectual, and moral value, but it too, depends upon so many things that neglect or careless ness may bring irreparable ruin.So it goes down the whole line. There is a condition attached to every good thing in the catalogue of natural wealth. In the past, people paid little or no attention to the conditions. They used, abused and wasted. The result can be seen by following the back track of civilization and see what it has left behind. Deserts, sand, rocks, salt, death and desolation where the nations of antiquity lived, tell the story of man's methods Of sub duing the earth.There seems to be a turn of the tide now. The progressive nations of Europe have taken up the work of saving their forests and soil as though existence depended upon it - and it does. The United States - the youngest richest, most intolerably improvident of them all - has taken the first side step from the downward road. Men who think, and men who do have the work in hand.Two very stubborn in¿uences must be overcome. The first is the per sistence Of those who can see no harm in continuing to do what they have always done. Habit is hard to break away from. But patience, per severance, example, and education will finally win those who waste because they have not seen the harm in it.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.