< Page:Natural history of the farm.djvu
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I. MOTHER EARTH

"Brother, listen to what we say. There was a time when our forefathers owned this great land. Their seats extended from the rising to the setting sun. The Great Spirit had made it for the use of the Indians. He had created the buffalo and the deer and other animals for food. He had made the bear and the beaver. Their skins served us for clothing. He had scattered them over the country and had taught us how to take them. He had caused the earth to produce corn for bread. All this he had done for his red children because he loved them."
—From the great oration of "Red Jacket," the Seneca Indian, on The Religion of the White Man and the Red.

If you ever read the letters of the pioneers who first settled in your locality when it was all a wilderness (and how recent was the time!), you will find them filled with discussion of the possibilities of getting a living and establishing a home there. Were there springs of good water there? Was there native pasturage for the animals? Was there fruit? Was there fish? Was there game? Was there timber of good quality for building ? Was the soil fertile ? Was the climate healthful? Was the outlook good? Has it ever occurred to you how, in absence of real-estate and immigration agencies, they found out about all these things?

They sought this information at its source. They followed up the streams. They foraged: they fished: they hunted. They measured the boles of the trees with eyes experienced in woodcraft. They judged of what nature would do with their sowings by what they saw her doing with her own native crops. And having found a sheltered place with a pleasant outlook and with springs and grass and forage near at hand, they built a dwelling and planted a garden. Thus, a new era of agriculture was ushered in.

Your ancestors were white men who came from another continent and brought with them tools and products and traditions of another civilization. Their tools, though simple, were efficient. Their axes and spades and needles

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