The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, October 27, 1927, Page 8

ene res N.D CORN SHOW | GROWS RAPIDLY Number of Exhibits and At- tenilance Increase Rapidly Since First Show erenses and ‘the pronort it, been years, and atten ° not intend to fluence caragua in Jan Rear to Coolidge Secretary him fre district Minneapolis quigging., inatera 1 necfion ten here October 1. city auditey doubt buat tion will far f NEWS ions | both president Adm with the ident us for r ACO es oO 4 44, POD 9ESS LAAN AALAND ‘ ie , | try filled up with settlers they grad- | Rare Opportunity for Music Lovers | telly Glonposnved. Thee In Gas sions nd vicin- | stanc o. the Chicago tot eptional mu | OP and Mr. Farbman 4 ‘ S ¢ ding American ifi the recital to be given! GROEAE VEL auditorium Satur Maxwell, so- violin- “ducation night and the attend the Sat- night cone ATION OF STATE'S WILD LIFE ER ‘ Y eG the prairie fox or swift. The Bad Tells of Steps Necessary t0 71nd huttes wore relatively well tim- Insure Preservation of An- b with cedar over them : 3 re isi roamed the Da ig Horn or imals, Natural Beauties of) srointain Shee rd the south North Dakota—Account of | the: péa torest= | ed , with the byll pine. d bands of deer. Trip With Seton Is Given elk an should be undertaken | T n North Da-| f his trip with) r Steps wh The many nd fresh, harbored yr fowl of eve: which nested with- rvation of our! me in which most ed but at the ich we fe ull of nll the native wild yr chapter? red a hook by Mr. S. Biological e of painstak- “A Biqbgical All the which ever isted and cal references, n the account TS URGED BY GEORGE WILL I TALK | Yellowstone. .| the buffalo wolf -| tail deer, perhay THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE | closes with the words “as the coun- | of most of our large animals as weil a’ of 112-y of our rative plants, Races Disappear Peri=ps with our other native vild life we should consider also our ative races, the six tribes of In- ians who once peopled our land. ‘hey too‘ their natural and pic- uresque li. have gradually disap egated and in many ways degraded “olk remains, In July just past I had the good ‘ortune, along with Russell Reid and ‘lell Gannon, to travel for a time vith Ernest Thompson Seton, the rreat natiralist and nature. writer. he principal object, at least so far s Mr. Seton was concerned, appear- d to be the retracing of old trails} ver which he had traveled many ears before And we did travel the | ld tra’ across southwestern North| ‘akota by way of Slim Buttes to the Slack Hills, then on across the high | Wyoming plains to the Rockies in | Colorado. “In the course of the jour- | ney we learned many interesting | things and heard many thrilling | Stories of this great stretch of ter- | ritory as it was in earlier days with its vast population of game ani-| mals, and its wonderful hunting. This, too, was a hunting trip but of what a different sort! A battery} of cameras, movie, graflex, kodak took the place of Winchésters and! hooters and shot guns, and I! the trophies will be fully as sting and as highly prized as any collection of mounted heads, veare’, and but a remnant of a seg-| valley of the Cannon Ball, as I have been told by the first settlers, have nearly disappeared. When Sakaka- wea came to the Knife River villages as a captive, she marveled at the plenty which the land afforded in wild fruits and berries of many his book “Bird Woman.” And how far do we have to travel and search today in the coulees and timber for real crops of wild fruit and really thrifty busheg? Of course, we still feel that the chokecherry, the buffalo berry, the wild currant, the June berry and the plum are plentiful but we who re- member our childhood days here know that there is a vast difference. between then and now, Although our prairie land is still starred with flowers in the summer and there are many wild fruit bush- es in our coulees, yet have we lost much of the finest. Gone or pra Ueally gone are the beautiful gen- tian, the large: wild phlox, and the prairie flame lily wh'ch colored the indscape when Bradbury, the Eng- lish botanist, came to this region in 1812, is seen now only in scattered little patches here and there. Close Pasturing Kills Native Grass While wo do not have the same serious problem of intensive cultiva- ion which obliterated the last Ges- ‘iges of native prairie in parts of Iowa and eastern Nebraska, yet we do .evertheless have one sufficiently serious to promise destruction to many of our wild plants. Continued haying has wiped out the wonderful native blue joint grass over thou- sands of acres of our river bottom | But to Mr. Seton I think the pil-| rimage held something of the tragic. Again and again he would talk of the wonderful game country | which we were approaching, always! to be disappointed with vast and empty plains save where an occa- onal herd of Herefords or flock of sheep grazed. Certainly these ex- periences brought to us most vi the tremendous changes that have) in our west North Dakota Big n, largest and finest of his tribe extinct. The buffalo are gone,! too, is the little prairie fox, and} s red brother nearly so; the ante- lope from herds of thousands are reduced-to a pitiful handful; the elkj are gone entirely who once roamed | from the Turtle mountains to the) ule deer are unknown ble i with the p in the mos' h and neither the black bears rder nor the griz- are represented by a single individual. The white! craftiest of all of searcely holds its} buffalo, our wild thi own in the s Native Plants Disappearing And of the native plant life what! n we say? It has not suffered to| e extent that the animal life has,| but its destruction is going on with, I believe, increased impetus. Of the; bull pine groves only , scattered! specimens remain, while most of) the cedars have become fence posts and the great oaks which lined the land. Too close pasturing is killing in many }laces the rich native grama grass and other valuable na- And the little gray artemisia frigida or sage, the Russian thistle und many other worthless imported weeds are replacing them, ~orth of town. id And all of this destruction and | loss both e.onomic and esthetic has been wrought by the civilized white man through carelessness, failure to vision the future, lack of education, Q 1 boy spirit of destruc- tiveness, And what of the future? What can we do about these conditions? Can we in fact do anything? The wer is, I believe, that we can. Jonservation of our native wild life can be brought about and there are tivo methods which should be fol- 3 y| lowed jointly in promoting such con- 3) Servation. First, I believe there should be in- stituted a system of reserves where our native wild life, both plant and | animal, may persist undisturbed by humanity, which, after all, is their dhly requirement. We cannot and do not want to bring back aborie- .| inal conditions over all the state. There is as much beauty in a fine field of grain as in the unbroken prairie. The buffalo grazed just as do dur cattle. But much of our land kinds, so we are told by Schulz in|: is not tillable, and our pastures may be grazed without being destroyed. There arc plentiful tracts in our state whose greatest value is in the beauty they can show us. The wild fruits and berries may be gathered without the maiming and destruction of the plunts which bear them and many acres which we have rendered barren and desolate chan be repos- sessed by the wild things if we will only make it possible, Young Pines Where There Was Nothin; Let us glance for a moment at our tap witht to the ge oe my trip with the Seton party we 81 for, a short time in the Blin Buttes in’ western South Dakota. This area i. part of a national for- est reserve and has been so since Roosevelt set it aside. I had seen it som 19 years before when it had only recently become a reserve, and the contrast which 19 years of pro- tection shad “wrought was amazing. Now there are thousands of sturdy young pines growing up where be- fore there was nothing. the big trees had ben cut for ranch buildings and overgrazing kept the seedlings from surviving.* On tl slopes and level tops are,myriads of ‘wild flov ers including many of our| and rarest, such as the beautiful mari- posa lily. Grazing is permitted but no overgrazing is allowed. There are even a few mule deer surviving in the deep recesses among the buttes and antelope are increasing along the sides. Then out on the vlain to the west the state has es- tablished an antelope reserve of nearly a township. It is in the hands of a capable and interested keeper who seemed to take delight in show- ing us around. There are plans for! a fetta thd reserve in which the Slim Buttes area may become a part of a larger project. The reserve al ready holds some 150 antelope and the keeper stated that several hun- dred more would be taken inside the fence next winter. .You who have read the book By Lincoln Lang, “Ranching Wit! Roosevelt,” will recall his oe tion of the great changes in the Bad Lands between the time when he first saw them and the time when he left them, changes due primarily to overgrazing. It would seem that our own state might do as_ well as our southern neighbor. Whether we get a na- tional park in the Bad Lands or not, large tracts there and in the Kill- deer mountains should be set’ aside as big and plant reserves. They could readily stocked with elk, antelope and buffalo and the plant life undisturbed would soon come back to its former natural condition. Smaller tracts in other sections such as the Turtle and Pembina moun- tains could also be acquired and set aside. So would we always have natural beauty spots, a nursery for the many beautiful native plants and an outdoor museum of plant and ani- mal life. The critic may ask whether this conservation program is worth while or not. The only answer is that to the old question ‘do we live to eat,’ or ‘do we eat to live?’ In other) words is our sole purpose on earth to produce for our own sustenance, like a squirrel in a cage or a dog on a treadmill, or is sustenance merely @ necessary accompaniment in carry- ing on the adventure of living? Those who answer affirmatively to Most of| brie: the latter can appreciate which natura] beauty and tic play in a broad and useful life. Those who answer” affirmatively to the first question mast be educated | Se out of pure materialism. Education Necessary The second and most important step in conserving our native wild life is education. of the people. “And this is perhaps even more difficult to put-through. You all know the general attitude toward anything] wild displayed by the average per- are wantonly -or broken down, wild plants and flowers are uprooted | and carried off or cast aside after a f inspection, kers shall not be allowed reservations. Epplcss wild birds animals are slaughtered for the mere sport of killing and game {s taken ‘without féyard to need or ability to use. Camp sites and pic- nic grounds are left with’ rubbish and tin cans scattered about with broken’ trees and bushes and trampled grass and: flowers. Concerted Campaign. Necessa: Only a concerted mpai Pp against these things will avail tol ¢. change conditions. A new vi int, must be produced amo: oe nels generally. Iam reminded again of our trip with Mr. Seton. He early laid down his camp-rules which were that ths camp must be so placed as to do as lit harm as possible; only dead wood was to be gathered, all rubbish and refuse must be buried before the site was left, and he himself always ‘cata the ground as camp was broken, saying that the place must be left looking even a little better and cleaner than it was when we came. When all of us can be trained to the same feel- ing our problem of conservation will be solved, 7 In catrying on this work of edu- cation, newspaper publicity, pamph- lets, posters, lectures and the back- ing of many organizations are all necesary, together with the outspok- en support of prominent people. Thej hunters‘ can help by observing and helping to enforce our game laws, the plant lovers by bringing to gen- eral attention the value and beauty of our ngtive plants. There has remained strongly in my mind ever since I saw it in the Black Hills last summer a r issued by the Izaak Walton League. It depicts an Indian in a natural background and under it are the words. “He took onlv what he need- ed.” In other words we can learn much about conservation from our native Indians who believed that every living thing had a\soul and versonality of its own and-a right bestowed by the Great One Above its own place on this earth. In practicing conservation let us include then our aboriginal people from whom we can, if we will, garn- er much of philosophic wisdom and let us encourage them to preserve the ancient, picturesque ceremonials POSE 3 save OPSSCLSSSSSGOL POP SSCG SISOS SS S006 $9996 oe SINCE 1883— | - AND STILL AT IT Some of the Corn Varieties We Have Developed and Introduced; WILIS PIONEER MAR GISTERED. BISMARCK, Gehu Flint oo o Pioneer White Dent Northwestern Dent Dakota White Flint Square Deal Yellow Dent Falconer Semi-Dent PIONEER SEED HOUSE, GREENHOUSE AND NURSERY o \ . SEND FOR WILL’S 1928 CATALOG BEFORE ORDERING YOUR SEEDS OSCAR and trees} states, | of to; THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1927 and: the simple natural He ohtt| Which goes with theme, Pea UP hy appredate what can be learned from jem, but I am glad to say that Mr. was not one of the Part of the work of ines of conservation that we. ~_s Problem Not So Great much and continued done to forward the conservation movement, but we have not nearly the problem that hasbeen met in some of the more populous If a state such as Pennsyl- Mot can poaietee beta game population, preserve her natoral beauties and at the same So bad have these conditions become that. the Tadien| thas seen bedes, people more game he agents have issued orders that berry | lities in our own state are tremend- ic on the} ous. an ever before, syrely the possibi- coty Relationship of _ Bathtubs to Autos Must Be Considered The relationship of bathtubs to automobiles must be seriously con- sidered when it comes to determin- ing the needs of rural communities, . C. Swain, president of. Mayville Normal school, told members of the department of rural schools, North Dakota Education association, here Wednesday afternoon, Speaking on “The Rural Teacher and Her Community,” Swain said that in order to ascertain what can 5] be done to advance a commnmitv. the ratio of bathtubs to automobiles must be taken into consideration. If there are three times as many auto- mobiles as bathtubs, provision must be made in the community proeram for remedy of this situation, he said. Some other things to be considered hen it comes to making a survey communjty needs is the amount spent by farmers for ges in com- parison with cultural subjects, such as instruction in music; the number of pianos in homes and the number of these pianos which are actually yed. Potential strength of the com- munity must be discovered, Swain inted out, Those with talent should encouraged, he said. farm- er whose work along any agricul- tural line makes him outstanding should be urged to impart his views, with the idea of bettering the whole community. Programs should be held in the schoolhouse at least four times during the school year, and if possible oftener, while the work of rent-teacher associations . should encouraged, Swain said. se 4 ”>