Conservation Is A State Of

The Last Word In Ignorance Is The Man Who Says Of An Animal Or Plant, "what Good Is It?" If The Land Mechanism As A Whole Is Good, Then Every Part Is Good, Whether We Understand It Or Not. If The Biota, In The Course Of Aeons, Has Built Something We Like But Do Not Understand, Then Who But A Fool Would Discard Seemingly Useless Parts? To Keep Every Cog And Wheel Is The First Precaution Of Intelligent Tinkering.

If Education Really Educates, There Will, In Time, Be More And More Citizens Who Understand That Relics Of The Old West Add Meaning And Value To The New. Youth Yet Unborn Will Pole Up The Missouri With Lewis And Clark, Or Climb The Sierras With James Capen Adams, And Each Generation In Turn Will Ask: Where Is The Big White Bear? It Will Be A Sorry Answer To Say He Went Under While Conservationists Weren't Looking.

Ideas, Like Men, Can Become Dictators. We Americans Have So Far Escaped Regimentation By Our Rulers, But Have We Escaped Regimentation By Our Own Ideas? I Doubt If There Exists Today A More Complete Regimentation Of The Human Mind Than That Accomplished By Our Self-imposed Doctrine Of Ruthless Utilitarianism.

High Horns, Low Horns, Silence, And Finally A Pandemonium Of Trumpets, Rattles, Croaks, And Cries That Almost Shakes The Bog With Its Nearness ... A New Day Has Begun On The Crane Marsh. A Sense Of Time Lies Thick And Heavy On Such A Place ... Our Ability To Perceive Quality In Nature Begins, As In Art, With The Pretty. It Expands Through Successive Stages Of The Beautiful To Values As Yet Uncaptured By Language.

The Government Tells Us We Need Flood Control And Comes To Straighten The Creek In Our Pasture. The Engineer On The Job Tells Us The Creek Is Now Able To Carry Off More Flood Water, But In The Process We Have Lost Our Old Willows Where The Owl Hooted On A Winter Night And Under Which The Cows Switched Flies In The Noon Shade. We Lost The Little Marshy Spot Where Our Fringed Gentians Bloomed.