. The essential facts of Oklahoma history and civics . ALTH:WATERWAYS Our Natural Resources. — Nature has endowedour country with ahnost unequaled wealth inforests, mineS; agricultural lands^ and othernatural resources. AVe ought not, however, toact as if this wealth were inexhaustible. As amatter of fact, veiy much of it has already beenwasted and carelessly destroyed. The prices ofcommodities like lumber are already veiy muchhigher than they should be in a new is due to the fact that the timber was notproperly protected, so that forest fires, started bynegligence, were allowed t
. The essential facts of Oklahoma history and civics . ALTH:WATERWAYS Our Natural Resources. — Nature has endowedour country with ahnost unequaled wealth inforests, mineS; agricultural lands^ and othernatural resources. AVe ought not, however, toact as if this wealth were inexhaustible. As amatter of fact, veiy much of it has already beenwasted and carelessly destroyed. The prices ofcommodities like lumber are already veiy muchhigher than they should be in a new is due to the fact that the timber was notproperly protected, so that forest fires, started bynegligence, were allowed to destroy millions ofdollars worth of fine timber. The time has nowcome when our nation is beginning to take fargreater care of its natural wealth. It is pro-tecting its timber, replanting its forests, andgiving attention to the proper use of mineral and agricultural lands. 84 THE DEVELOPiMENT OF PUBLIC WEALTH 85 Transportation. — Nothing is more importantto the development of the wealth of a countrythan cheap transportation. If machinery can l)e. Yellow Pine Forest, California carried inexpensively to the mines and forests^and the products of the latter can be returned tothe large cities, the centers of industry, the entirenation will be prosperous and wealthy. Rail-ways are the main reliance for transportation,but they can never be so inexpensive as thenatural roads provided by rivers and by canalsbuilt by engineering enterprise. The Mississippi 86 CIVIL GOVERNMENT River, with all its tributaries, the Columbia River,the Hudson, the Erie Canal, and the Great Lakes,are only some of the most important of suchwater ways. To give some idea of the amount ofmerchandise carried in this way, it will be suffi-cient to say that the shipping which goes throughLake Huron is several times the shipping thatgoes out of the great port of New York. It is,therefore, plain that the improvement of suchwater ways is greatly to be desired. In orderthat the water in the rivers may be sufficienta
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