FOOD SECTION (continued 2)

Indianapolis was located on this stream because it was navigable for the water-craft then in use. The Legislature of 1825, on petition from the people of Indianapolis, made Alexander Ralston a commissioner to survey the stream, and report on the probable expense of keeping it free from obstruction. He made the survey that summer, and reported the distance from Sample’s Mills, in Randolph County, to Indianapolis, 130 miles; from here to the forks, 285 miles; from there to the Wabash, 40 miles, and that for this distance of 455 miles the stream could be made navigable for three months in the year by an expenditure of $1,500. He found two falls or rapids, one of eighteen inches, eight miles above Martinsville, and one of nine feet in about one hundred yards, ten miles above the forks.

On this report, the Legislature on January 21, 1826, passed a law to improve the navigation of White River as high as Sample’s Mills, in Randolph County, directing that all persons liable for road work living within two miles of the stream, in the counties bordering on the stream, be called out to improve the stream as a highway. This law was made general by the act of May 31, 1852, which empowered county boards to declare streams navigable, and to work them as highways; and this act is still continued in force by the act of April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stats., Sec. 7672.)

The act of January 28, 1828, appropriated $1,000 for improving the navigation of White River as high as Anderson, in Madison County. The act of January 23, 1829, “relative to navigable streams declared highways by the ordinance of Congress of 1787,” prohibited any obstruction of any stream or river “which is navigable, and the bed or channel of which has not been surveyed or sold as land by the United States.” So the law of 1852 made it a penal offense to obstruct “any navigable stream, the bed or channel whereof may not have been surveyed or sold by the United States.” (Rev. Stats. 1852, Vol. 2, p. 432.) This is continued in force, in the same language, by the act of April 15, 1905. (Burns’ Stat., Sec. 2650.)

The executive department never questioned the correctness of this rule, and some of the Governors took a great deal of interest in the matter. After the general introduction of steamboat navigation, Governor Noble was ambitious to add that to the ordinary commerce by flatboats and keel boats, and in 1828 he offered a reward of $200 to the first captain who would bring a steamboat to this point, and also to sell his cargo free of charge. In pursuance of this a small steamboat from Cincinnati was actually brought up the river to Indianapolis in 1831. The early courts also recognized the rule that the survey and sale of the bed of a stream was the conclusive test of its navigability, under the law. (3 Blackf. 193.) The State asserted actual ownership of the bed of the stream in this county, and for years maintained an agent at the Washington street crossing to sell sand and gravel from it on the State’s account.

In the face of all this, when the question came before the Supreme Court, in 1876, the court, by Judge Perkins, without any real examination of the law or the facts, said: “The court knows judicially, as a matter of fact, that White River, in Marion County, is neither a navigated nor a navigable stream”; and as to the bed not being surveyed or sold he said: “The idea that the power was given to a surveyor, or his deputy, upon casual observation, to determine the question of the navigability of rivers, and thereby conclude vast public and private rights, is an absurdity.” On this assumption he proceeded to wipe the “vast public rights” out of existence. A little examination would have shown him that the surveys were not irresponsible acts of the surveyors, but official acts in pursuance of law, under the direction of superior officers, and confirmed and ratified not only by those superiors, but by the United States and the State of Indiana. (54 Ind. 471.)

The court abandoned the reasoning of this case two years later, when it held that the Wabash River, in Warren County, was “a navigable stream, the bed of which has neither been surveyed nor sold.” (64 Ind. 162.) But it cited the decision of 1876 as authoritative in another case in 1900 (155 Ind. 477), and this again without any examination of the law or the facts. It is worthy of note that the United States Government has uniformly declined to recognize this decision as law, and as late as 1899 refused to be bound by it. (Indianapolis News, November 7, 1899.)

Fortunately, opportunity has arisen for a reconsideration of this question in a case arising in the Kankakee swamp lands (State vs. Tuesbury Land Co., Starke Circuit Court). In the northern end of Indiana, particularly near the Kankakee River, there was a large amount of swamp land which was not included in the United States surveys nor sold by the United States. This was transferred to the State many years ago, and part of it was reclaimed and sold by the State. In 1891 reclamation was entered on a large scale by removing the ledge of rock at Momence, Illinois, which dammed the Kankakee, and caused most of those swamps. As soon as these lands were drained, adjacent owners set up claims to the thread of the stream as riparian owners, and a judgment was obtained in the Starke Circuit Court upholding such claims. If valid this means that the great expense to which the State has gone in reclaiming the lands is money thrown away.

As soon as he learned of it, Governor Marshall, who is very practical in his statesmanship, directed the Attorney-General to take steps to secure a reversal of the judgment or appeal it, and a new trial has been secured in the case, which is to be heard shortly. The Kankakee is one of the most noted of the streams referred to in the Ordinance of 1787 as “navigable waters,” which are reserved forever as “public highways,” and there should be no riparian rights in it.

There is certainly good reason to expect a reversal of the Indiana decision, if not by our Supreme Court, by the Supreme Court of the United States, for two special reasons: (1) The question of the navigability of a stream is not primarily a judicial question, but one of public policy to be determined by the legislative department, and both Congress and our State Legislature have consistent records for the navigability of these streams. (2) In this case the navigability is a matter of solemn compact between the State and the United States; and as the constitutions of both prohibit any law impairing the obligation of a contract, it is hardly to be assumed that the courts would undertake to annul a contract of this character.

Unquestionably White River, like most of the other streams of Indiana, is not as practically navigable today as it was eighty years ago, and for two very simple reasons. First, at that time the only timber that got into the river was trees on the bank that were thrown in by the banks caving, and these were usually held to the banks by their roots. But after settlement began every freshet carried quantities of logs, rails and boards down the river, to form drifts; and these in turn caused the formation of sand and gravel bars. Second, when the land was cleared and cultivated, the ground washed much more readily than it did before, and much greater quantities of sand and gravel were carried into the river to form bars. These bars constitute the chief obstruction to practical navigation now.

But by a change in recent conditions of life, these bars furnish the means for making the river practically navigable. Within the last two decades there has grown up a special demand for this sand and gravel; and especially has this demand been increased by the call for good roads; for washed gravel is one of the best materials available for road-making, and by these streams, nature has distributed it very widely over the State. This demand has developed the industry of removing sand and gravel from the river beds by means of suction pumps, and since 1897, when it began, this industry has reached proportions that are not generally known to the public. At Indianapolis there have been six steam pumps working for several years. They are mounted on scow boats, fifty to sixty-five feet in length, and twenty to twenty-five feet in width, and by centrifugal suction power, draw up a mixture of sand, gravel and water through eight-inch pipes. The pipe entrance is screened to prevent the entrance of stones over four or five inches in diameter, in order to avoid clogging the pipe.

These six pumps take out 180,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel in a year, at a cost of 20 to 25 cents a cubic yard. The material is separated by passing over screens into two grades of sand and two of gravel, and is sold at a good profit for street improvement, roofing, asphalt mixture, concrete, mortar and locomotive sand. Formerly Lake Michigan sand was shipped here in considerable quantities, but now the demand is fully met by this local industry. The pumps take out the material for a depth of about fifteen feet, and in the course of their work they have made about three miles of Indianapolis river front practically navigable for any kind of river craft. The boats can easily be run to any point on the river and used for removing bars at any place. At present the proprietors of the boats are paying the adjacent landowners for the privilege of taking out material that rightfully belongs to the State, and of which the public ought to have the benefit.

The practical situation is this: Indiana has an almost inexhaustible supply of the best and cheapest road material known, which rightfully belongs to the State. By using this material it will make actually navigable hundreds of miles of waterways that are now of no use in commerce. It is quite common for the unthinking to joke about the absurdity of making small streams navigable, but there is nothing absurd about it. Over half a century ago Indiana constructed 453 miles of canal, at an average cost of $15,000 a mile, which has since been practically abandoned, not as is generally supposed, because of the competition of rail roads, but because it was high line canal, and was built up, in part, instead of being dug out, and without proper precaution for making it water-tight. The State was not alone in its experience. There are in the United States over 1,950 miles of abandoned high-line canal, that cost over $44,000,000. But there are also plenty of low-line canals in practical and profitable operation.

The mistake that was made in Indiana was in not utilizing the natural water-courses. At an expense of less than $15,000 per mile, White River can easily be made navigable for steamboats from Indianapolis to its mouth, where there is actual steamboat navigation now. The fall in the river is only 269 feet in the 285 miles, or less than a foot to the mile. The tested flow of White River at this point is over 1,000 cubic feet per second. With not to exceed half a dozen dams, and the principal bars pumped out and put into roads, the thing is accomplished. Not only is there nothing impracticable about it, but it is as certain to be done, in the not distant future, as it is that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. The advantages of water communication with the great coal and building stone region of the State, as well as direct connection with the Wabash, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, is too obvious for discussion. With our Supreme Court decisions put on a rational and just basis, there is nothing to prevent a speedy accomplishment of the work.

Report from the National Fertilizer Association

REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL FERTILIZER ASSOCIATION.

Presented by Mr. John D. Toll, Secretary of the Educational Bureau of the National Fertilizer Association, and Mr. Charles S. Rauh, of Indianapolis, Official Delegates to the Fourth National Conservation Congress.

In the last analysis man must have food. The law of supply and demand becomes operative the minute that a nation is born. Scarcity of food produces abnormal prices. As scarcity increases, the prices become almost prohibitive. The attention of every citizen of this country has been called to the rapid increase in the cost of food products during the last decade. This increase has been due to several causes, among which we may note the following: (1) Increase of population has exceeded the increase in production of foodstuffs; (2) scarcity of new lands to be developed to meet the needs of a growing population; (3) decrease in productivity of some of the formerly productive soils of this country.

Other causes have undoubtedly contributed to this situation, but the one pertinent to the present discussion is that of decreasing soil fertility as it is related to the production of crops. The production of crops depends (1) upon the fertility of the soil; (2) climatic conditions; (3) quality of seed used; and (4) the culture and care given to the crop. Three of these governing factors are under the control of the farmer. Therefore, inasmuch as they are under his control, so also is the supply of food under his control to an equal degree.

According to the latest available statistics, out of 1,755,132,800 acres in the United States, there are 383,891,682 acres of improved land. A considerable amount of this land is being used for the production of crops of various kinds. These crops in 1911 totaled the enormous production of $5,504,000,000.

The plant food consisting of nitrogen, phosphoric acid and potash which these crops take from the soil is not all returned to the land, and, as a result, we have a yearly drain upon the fertility account of our soils.

The loss of all three essential elements of plant food is being partly met by the wise Conservation and use of barn manure.

The loss of nitrogen in this depletion is also being partly met by the growing of legumes which have the power of taking nitrogen from the air and fixing it in the soil where it is available as plant food.

If any one of these elements is lacking, crop production suffers a decrease in quantity and a deterioration in quality, to wit: If phosphoric acid is the lacking element in soil, the production of ear corn may be large in quantity but the ears are soft and immature, consequently are inferior for stock food or for human food. In the same way a scarcity of phosphoric acid decreases the yield of wheat and causes an inferiority in its quality.

The lack of nitrogen and potash has equally disastrous effects on the production of the crop. It is, therefore, not only a supply of plant food that is necessary, but the balancing of it in order that our soil may produce a maximum crop of best quality. The fertilizer industry is an industry engaged entirely in the supply of these plant food elements. It is, therefore, a direct contributor to the maintenance of the human race, in that it deals in the elements of plant food.

Not only since its inception in 1840 has this industry contributed to the supply of plant food, which in the end means human food, but it has noted the wasteful methods of agriculture being practiced, unconsciously frequent, in many parts of this country, and it has put forth continuous efforts along the lines of educating the American farmer to grow larger yields of better crops, to maintain and increase the fertility of the soil, and increase the average yield per acre.

The fertilizer industry has, through its national association, within the past two years established several movements, the great purpose of which is to assist in the dissemination of knowledge of modern methods of agriculture.

Another line of effort wherein the fertilizer industry has been a direct contributor to the conservation of vital resources is in its great manufacturing plants. To produce the phosphoric acid which is supplied in fertilizers, the industry obtains the barren phosphatic rock from Tennessee, Carolinas, Florida, etc., grinds this material and treats it chemically so as to make the phosphoric acid available. By this means, it supplies to the great crop producing States of this country the element of plant food, which, to a large extent, determines the maturity and quality of crop production.

The industry also takes the waste material of the packing houses, such as bone, offal, blood, etc., dries and grinds it and produces an ingredient of fertilizers which was formerly thrown away. This packing house material supplies nitrogen and phosphoric acid.

Furthermore, the garbage of the cities and towns of this country is collected and reduced to the form of fertilizer ingredient, where it formerly was burned or otherwise destroyed.

Not only is all this done, but the former waste products of the cotton and tobacco industry are similarly reduced to a form of plant food to be mixed with other materials and returned to the soil.

Still further, besides gathering up the waste and otherwise barren products of the country, the industry has developed processes whereby the gases from gas and coke manufacture are collected and reduced to sulphate of ammonia in which form it constitutes one of the nitrogenous ingredients in fertilizers. This ammonia sulphate is used as an ingredient in fertilizers supplying nitrogen.

Of late years the industry has gone even further than this, in that a process has been discovered whereby the nitrogen of the air is harnessed, and the product reduced to such forms that it supplies available nitrogen for plant food.

In assembling and preparing these essential elements of plant food, the industry, as we have pointed out, not only prepares material to return to the soil to supply the elements which have been taken out of it, but it actually provides in deficient soils elements in which they may be deficient, and by so doing makes more productive lands which, on account of their balanced plant food, could not produce paying results before being treated.

The State of Georgia in 1911 spent over twenty million dollars for fertilizers, with the result that they raised more and better cotton than was ever raised in this State before. The State of Maine in the same year used 150,000 tons of fertilizers on their potato fields, with the result that their good potato growers produced from two to four hundred bushels of potatoes per acre. The total State productions exceed 25,000,000 bushels.

The fertilizer industry, we believe, occupies a most prominent part in the problem of producing sustenance for future generations and in conserving the vital resources of the world, inasmuch as it is making a close study of and doing a wonderful work in devising means whereby practically all of the former waste materials of this country may be reduced to available plant food and returned to the soil from which they were taken.

Summarizing, the fertilizer industry, as we have pointed out, is an important factor in the maintenance of the human race, of this and other continents, in that (1) it supplies plant food to balance up the plant food in the soil and to make up the deficiencies which have occurred as a result of continuous cropping; (2) assists in educating the farmers to conserve the fertility of their soils by employing scientific methods of farming; (3) it makes use of waste products of other industries which have formerly been destroyed, and returns them to the soil in the form of food for future crops.

The fertilizer industry, therefore, must be recognized as one of the greatest agencies of conservation of vital resources.

Dr. W. J. McGee: An Appreciation of His Services for Conservation

DR. W J McGEE: AN APPRECIATION OF HIS SERVICES FOR CONSERVATION.

Mr. W. C. Mendenhall, Washington, D. C.

Dr. W J McGee had mastered and advocated the fundamental principles of Conservation long before the majority of those now most active in the movement had come to appreciate the real meaning of the word. He was one of the founders of this movement, was at all times one of the most stimulating thinkers in its councils, and in him Mr. Pinchot found one of his most loyal supporters and friends. Doctor McGee was the personification of strength and steadfastness in the pioneer period of Conservation, when the meaning of the word was unknown to the multitude, and when the mere suggestion that our natural resources are not inexhaustible but may be depleted to the vanishing point by wasteful use was regarded as a wild heresy. During the preceding sessions of this Congress he was its accepted authority on problems involving that most widespread and universally distributed of our natural resources—water. He has dealt with this resource from the points of view of transportation, of irrigation, and of power, and from the standpoint of biology in which it is recognized as fundamental in all life.

Doctor McGee’s mind was of the type of the intellectual pioneer, intensely individual and original. He was masterful in the alignment of facts and stimulating in the recognition and boldness of his expression of the generalizations and far-reaching conclusions to which his marshalled facts pointed. Like most men of brilliant imagination, he was at times impatient of the slow processes of research, or let us say rather that his impatience was with that timidity in reaching conclusions so often displayed by those engaged in research, rather than with the process itself. He believed that the scientist’s practical rule of life should be the acceptance, as a basis of action, of the conclusions indicated by such facts as are known, even though those conclusions may not at present be definitely established.

Doctor McGee’s death at the Cosmos Club on September 4, 1912, removed from the domain of science and from the forum of public discussion one of its leading personalities. His career embraced an unusually wide range of activities and in each of these he attained distinction. As a geologist he was one of the group assembled by Major Powell during the formative period of the United States Geological Survey, a group which made American geology classic and its leaders world-leaders in their science. In this field McGee’s name is associated with the names of Powell, Dutton, Gilbert, Holmes, Emmons, and Hague. Later, with the establishment of the Bureau of Ethnology, into which he followed Major Powell, he became a pioneer in ethnological research, although retaining continually his interest in geologic and geographic problems. At the time of his death and for a few years prior thereto he was the erosion and hydrologic expert of the Department of Agriculture, his immediate connection with that department being through the Bureau of Soils. His last years are distinguished by a number of papers on the subject of Conservation, in which he was so vitally interested; these articles are broad in their scope, thoroughly original and stimulating in their expression, and point out fearlessly some dangers of present practice and suggest methods of remedy. But a few days before his death he completed the correction of the galley proofs of the last of his papers, faithful to his work and to his duty even while descending into the Valley of the Shadow.

This very brief sketch would not be complete without expressed recognition of the fact that Doctor McGee’s attitude in the face of death was in accordance with the best traditions of the science to which his life had been devoted and was as admirable and as deeply stirring and stimulating as any act of his career. For a year or more he had recognized the fact that he was afflicted with cancer and that his days were numbered. He faced this fact calmly and prepared patiently for the inevitable by carefully completing all work on hand and by disposing by will of his body and his brain to his friend and fellow scientist, Dr. Spitska, to be used in the way most likely to be beneficial to humanity. So long as his faculties remained undimmed, he maintained the same keen interest in scientific questions and current affairs that had marked his career at its height. Those of his friends who visited him during the last few weeks of his life heard not a single complaint nor an expression of regret, but found themselves chatting easily with an old and honored friend who gave no indication of the fact that he knew definitely that his career was soon to be stayed by the hand of Death. Thus, rising superior to the weakened, pain-racked body, he met with philosophic calm and sublime courage the final inevitable test. It is not given to man to do more than this.

REPORTS OF STANDING COMMITTEES.

All the standing committees were represented at the Fourth National Conservation Congress and made reports. Members of these committees also addressed the Congress.

Forests: See paper by Prof. Henry S. Graves, Chairman, page 318; also addresses of Mr. E. T. Allen and Major E. G. Griggs, pages 312 and 183, respectively.

Lands: Prof. L. H. Bailey, being unavoidably prevented from attending the Congress, the report of the Lands Committee was presented by Dr. George E. Condra, page 123. See also address of Mr. Charles S. Barrett, page 132.

Waters: Owing to the death of Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, the report of this committee was submitted by Dr. W. C. Mendenhall. See page 335.

Minerals: See address of Dr. Joseph A. Holmes, Chairman, page 200.

Vital Resources: See address of Mr. A. B. Farquhar, page 214.

Food: See address of Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, Chairman, page 75. Also see paper by Mr. F. G. Urner, page 327.

Homes: See address of Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, President-General, Daughters of the American Revolution, page 250. Also report by Mrs. Orville T. Bright, of Chicago, Vice-President of the National Congress of Mothers, page 196.

Child Life: See address and report of the Hon. Ben B. Lindsey, Chairman, page 170.

Education: See report of Dr. C. E. Bessey, Chairman, page 66; see also address of Prof. E. T. Fairchild, page 134.

Civics: See address of Mr. Ralph M. Easley, Chairman, page 272.

National Parks: The report of this committee was submitted in writing, signed by Dr. W J McGee, Chairman, and Col. Malcolm H. Crump. See page 182.

General (including Wild Life): Dr. W. T. Hornaday, Chairman, presented the report of this committee. See page 344. Dr. T. Gilbert Pearson gave an address on “Bird Slaughter and the Cost of Living.” See page 72.