CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
I stood on the Great Wall of China near the borders of Mongolia. Below me in the valley, standing up square and high, was a wall that had once surrounded a city. Of the city only a few mud houses remained, scarcely enough to lead one's mind back to the time when people and household industry teemed within the protecting wall.
The slope below the Great Wall was cut with gullies of which were fifty feet deep. As far as the eye could see were gullies, gullies, gullies—a gashed and gutted countryside. The little stream that once ran past the city was now a wide waste of coarse sand and gravel which the hillside gullies were bringing down faster than the little stream had been able to carry them away. Hence, the whole valley, once good farm land, had become a desert of sand and gravel, alternately wet and dry, always fruitless. It was even more worthless than the hills.
Beside me was a tree, one lone tree. That tree was locally famous because it was the only tree anywhere in that vicinity; yet its presence proved that once there had been a forest over most of that land—now treeless and waste.
The farmers of a past generation had cleared the forest. They had plowed the sloping land and dotted it with hamlets. Many workers had been busy with flocks and teams, going to and fro among the shocks of grain. Each village was marked by columns of smoke rising from the fires that cooked the simple fare of these sons of Genghis Khan. Year by year the tain has washed away the loosened soil. Now the plow comes not, only the shepherd is here with his sheep and goats—nibbiers of last vestiges. The hamlets are shriveled or gone: Only gullies remain—a wide and sickening expanse of gullies, more sickening to look upon than the ruins of fire.
Forest—field—plow—desert—that is the cycle of the hills under most plow agricultures—a cycle not limited to China. China has a deadly expanse of it, but so have Syria. Greece, Italy. Guatemala, and the United States. Indeed we Americans, though new upon our land, are destroying soil by field wash faster than any people that ever lived—ancient or modern, savage, civilized, or barbarian. We have the machines to help us to destroy as well as to create.
We also have other factors of destruction, new to the white race and very potent. We have tilled crops—corn, cotton, and tobacco. Europe did not have these crops. The European grains, wheat, barley, rye, and oats, cover all of the ground and hold the soil with their roots. When a man plows corn, cotton, or tobacco, he is loosening the earth and destroying such hold as the plant roots may have won in it. Plowing corn is the most efficient known way for destroying the farm that is not made of level land.
We in America have another factor of destruction that is almost new to the white race—the thunder storm. South Europe has a rainless summer. North Europe has a light rainfall that comes in gentle showers. The United States has the rippling torrent that follows the downpour of the thunder storm. When the American heavens open and pour two inches of rain in an hour into a hilly corn field, there may result as much erosion as results from two hundred inches of gentle British or German rain falling on the wheat and grass.
I asked county agents in a number of counties in the hill country of North Carolina the following question: "What is your estimate of number of cultivated crops secured on steep land after clearing and before abandonment of cultivation?" The answers from ten counties were as follows: "5; 20; 12; 10; 5 to 10; 10 or 12; 10 or more; 12; 5, extremely 
FIG. 2. How the Cotton Belt goes to economic Hades. This is not the Alps. It is Georgia, U.S.A. It was good crop land and forest land a few decades ago. It has been a field. It might have yielded crops for ages. Major André, famous traitor in war, was not going to destroy any land;
he would merely have changed the law-makers from one group to another. CONTENTS
PART ONE: THE PHILOSOPHY
| I. | 3 |
| II. | 8 |
| III. | 20 |
PART TWO: TREES SOME FACTS ABOUT SOME CROP IV. SOME STOCK-FOOD PRODUCERS OF BRAN SUBSTITUTES. 33 V. A STOCK-FOOD TREE-THE WE, OR WAIIAN ALGAROBA, 36 VI. A STOCK-FOOD AND MAN-FOOD TREE-TIIE CAROB. 45 VII. A STOCK-FOOD TREE-THE HONEY LOCUST 62 VIII. A GROUP OF STOCK-FOOD TREES-TIIE MES- QUITES 69 IX. TIIE REAL SUGAR TREE. 81 X. A SUMMER PASTURE TREE FOR SWINE AND POULTRY-THE MULBERRY 8 3 XI. TIIE PERSIMMON-A PASTURE TREE FOR TIIE BEASTS ANDA KINGLY FRUIT FOR MAN 94 XII. A CORN TREE-TIIE CIIESTNUT 107 XIII. A CORN TREE-THE OAK AS A FORAGE CROP 126 XIV. SOME BREAD AND BUTTER TREES-THE ACORNS AS IIUMAN FOOD. 150 XV. NUTS AS IIUMAN FOOD. 161 XVI. A MEAT AND BUTTER TREE FOR MAN-TIIE PERSIAN WALNUT (JUGLANS REGIA) .164 XVII. ANOTHER MEAT AND BUTTER TREE-THE EAST- ERN BLACK WALNUT (JUGLANS NIGRA) 181 XVIII. A GROUP OF MEAT AND BUTTER TREES-THE OTHER WALNUTNI
191 PART ONE
THE PHILOSOPHY
CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM
I stood on the Great Wall of China near the borders of Mongolia. Below me in the valley, standing up square and high, was a wall that had once surrounded a city. Of the city only a few mud houses remained, scarcely enough to lead one's mind back to the time when people and household industry teemed within the protecting wall.
The slope below the Great Wall was cut with gullies of which were fifty feet deep. As far as the eye could see were gullies, gullies, gullies—a gashed and gutted countryside. The little stream that once ran past the city was now a wide waste of coarse sand and gravel which the hillside gullies were bringing down faster than the little stream had been able to carry them away. Hence, the whole valley, once good farm land, had become a desert of sand and gravel, alternately wet and dry, always fruitless. It was even more worthless than the hills.
Beside me was a tree, one lone tree. That tree was locally famous because it was the only tree anywhere in that vicinity; yet its presence proved that once there had been a forest over most of that land—now treeless and waste.
The farmers of a past generation had cleared the forest. They had plowed the sloping land and dotted it with hamlets. Many workers had been busy with flocks and teams, going to and fro among the shocks of grain. Each village was marked by columns of smoke rising from the fires that cooked the simple fare of these sons of Genghis Khan. Year by year the tain has washed away the loosened soil. Now the plow comes not, only the shepherd is here with his sheep and goats—nibblers of last vestiges. The hamlets are shriveled or gone: Only gullies remain—a wide and sickening expanse of gullies, more sickening to look upon than the ruins of fire.
Forest—field—plow—desert—that is the cycle of the hills under most plow agricultures—a cycle not limited to China. China has a deadly expanse of it, but so have Syria. Greece, Italy. Guatemala, and the United States. Indeed we Americans, though new upon our land, are destroying soil by field wash faster than any people that ever lived—ancient or modern, savage, civilized, or barbarian. We have the machines to help us to destroy as well as to create.
We also have other factors of destruction, new to the white race and very potent. We have tilled crops—corn, cotton, and tobacco. Europe did not have these crops. The European grains, wheat, barley, rye, and oats, cover all of the ground and hold the soil with their roots. When a man plows corn, cotton, or tobacco, he is loosening the earth and destroying such hold as the plant roots may have won in it. Plowing corn is the most efficient known way for destroying the farm that is not made of level land.
We in America have another factor of destruction that is almost new to the white race—the thunder storm. South Europe has a rainless summer. North Europe has a light rainfall that comes in gentle showers. The United States has the rippling torrent that follows the downpour of the thunder storm. When the American heavens open and pour two inches of rain in an hour into a hilly corn field, there may result as much erosion as results from two hundred inches of gentle British or German rain falling on the wheat and grass.
I asked county agents in a number of counties in the hill country of North Carolina the following question: "What is your estimate of number of cultivated crops secured on steep land after clearing and before abandonment of cultivation?" The answers from ten counties were as follows: "5; 20; 12; 10; 5 to 10; 10 or 12; 10 or more; 12; 5, extremely