"
It is not the thrifty, nepotic, static conservation of the St. Lawrence
habitant, which depends upon the self and family interest of each
landholder to keep the fields enriched and to prevent the washing away of
the soil. It is a dynamic and paternalistic conservation--a conservation
that thinks of great dams for the restraint of waters and reservoirs for
their impounding to the extent of millions or billions of cubic feet,
forestation of great stretches of mountain slope, of restrictions and
compulsions of other than personal and family interests--a paternalism
that looks beyond the next generation or even two generations and to the
feeding of other children than one's own lineal descendants--a paternalism
that is not exploiting but fiduciary.
It is interesting to observe again how the beginnings of this conservation
have been made in the fields where stood the first hospitals for the sick
among the living, the first memorials to the dead, the first schools for
the children of to-day that are to be the nation of to-morrow.
Pages:
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564