Show r I IMan Man Mans Is s Riding Life Cycle T Toward award His Destruction By Newt News Analyst and nd COmm Commentator WASHINGTON Today WASHINGTON Today we have two visitors whom I met recently at ot the Smithsonian Institution Mrs her husband wasn't available and Mr Magnon Cro-Magnon They have come a long way The lived about years ears ago but ego but what what's a few thousand years year ears among friends friends or or relatives I doubt dot that the are relatives of ours and ours and Im I'm not or sorry They lived early In the Old Stone Stoned Stone age and died without leaving an any known heirs assigns or cr descendents descendent which may be Just a an as well for the rest of us UJ who might have Inherited some lome of ot their characteristics They were sub sub humans stocky sub stocky folks folks- but they couldn't take it They died out Now Mr Cro Magnon was waa a different different dif dlf ferent proposition lie He was a superior su u perlor human and I wish he JA r were a relative because he be was waa wasi i i really superior to tous toy x y us better us-better better body ft F better brain If H hed he'd only lasted what a career he would have had hadIn hadt hadIn t I In n Hollywood Hollywood- and what he might have done for He lIe might have saved us He lIe may still Baukhage Ive I've been read read- readIng Ing two new books Our books Our Plundered Planet by Fairfield Osborne and Road to Survival by William Vogt Our friend probably probably proba bly Iy managed to stick sUck around years TeatS or or so before his environment r r his neighbors finished him off oft Today we are rapidly changing changIng chang chang- ing our environment and nn- nn less we cease ceale destroying our sources of rood food and shelter sheller we shall hall soon loon destroy ourselves as our human subhuman friend was de de- de- de We know that there are two things which chiefly distinguish man from the animal The way he be has developed de the use of ot his hands and the way his brain works But Dut our hands at the levers of machines conceived by our brains have so disturbed the cycle of nature have bave done such terrible things to all aU forms of at life Ufe that they may prove our undoing undoing- if It they dont don't blow us into atomic eternity Forgetting atomic destruction lets let's look at some others We are very good at a reproducing In la three centuries the population of the earth has bas Increased In creased almost five live times tunes Inthe In Inthe Inthe the seventeenth century there were Vere million people There are 2000 million today Five t times mes as many months to feed Osborne says If It one takes four lour billion acres representing an area of land estimated as now available for cultivation it means that there thero are less than two acres ecres per capita Contrasted with this is a generally accepted computation that two and one half acres of at land of at average productivity are required to provide even a minimum adequate diet for tor each person Think of at that It takes two and one half acres to feed teed you ou properly There are now only two acres avail avail- t 7 1 rS MRS MUS they Ihy could couldn't tak take it it 1 able So you OU can see ee why wh- there are such uch food shortages around Ui the Ule world Osborne Oborne goes ioe on The relation between land health and lind health of human beings being Is I. actually no more moro than n a delicate delicato aspect of ot the delicate complex aspect of all aU life uto The Tho cycle of fit life the his the life We In la Inthe latho Inthe the tho soll oll that feeds eeds and clothes our own life Is life to a part of f U the he whole which contributes to 10 the ef of the earth I J i space pace here her to go iO through the tle list of 01 crimes crimea that man has committed in the race to break that cycle cycle to to destroy the fruitful fruitful- ne nest of ot the earth that earth that fruitfulness upon which his hJ own existence de d. Take the most striking r ex ax ample the ample th topsoil T TopsoiL Topo When Hint bt b Io toes gota w We Wego Co go with H II t Osborne borne as I 1 sd la to this W. space pan last It week estimates the h aye aver age depth of at the topsoil on the earth Is about one foot It is estimated that it takes nature under favorable condItions con con- from to 1000 years eara to build bund one inch of that vital source of 01 our food clothing and shelter Yet ye he says what may have taken a thousand years yeara to build b can be and in fn iome some places place has been removed by erosion in a year or even in a single day Erosion That comes from overuse over use wrong use ue or removal of ot protecting protecting pro pro- protecting grasses and trees We overgrazed over grazed the plains to get quick money for tor beef beet mutton and wool We plowed fields of at grass left them ex exposed posed and you yO remember what happened hap the the dust bowl We slaughtered slaughtered the forests and reaped the yearly devastating floods Today our food tood and shelter runs down the muddled mud mudd died rivers to be lost in the ocean And animal life Ute We Sye killed oft off millions of 01 wild animals O Othis on this continent We replaced them to some Borne extent by domestic domes dome tic animals Hut But we are breaking breakIng break break- Ing the magic marlc cycle of life there too for tor the life giving proper propero properties ties of 01 t of 01 our domestic animals do not return to the Bollas soil Boll as did the bones and bodies of 01 wild life that lived their course died and were enveloped in their mother earth Sheep and cattle are shipped today to slaughter houses where what lit tit I MR MAGNON CRO-MAGNON t s spark ark of o f something els elsIe tie Ie is left disappears in disposal plants or goes coes back to the ocean We are killing the soil Gradually removing it and the tiny animal and plant cells It contains and thus destroying destroying destroying de de- de- de the potential for ing the tiny living organisms in the top soil soU which are a part of the re- re re reo of all aU living JIving things I 1 haven't space to go on but I dont don't want to leave on a too de pressing note Its It's true that our friends Mr and Mrs Neanderthal er cc the sub human folk tolk with the little lit tie tle brain couldn't take it But Dut wo we can hope that his successor Mr Crl Magnon Cro-Magnon Magnon who had a better brain than we have passed some of at It onto on onto onto to us with the spark of something else that made him lift IUt his chin a aUtie Utie from the clod We ha have ve been taught to io lilt lift ours higher to the heavens Theres There's hope up there and there and inspiration Inspiration and and within with in ourselves the tha power too If it we know how to use it e e eMore More Trees On the Way American farmers will have ave more trees to plant next year than ever before In tn our history State nurseries plan Ilan to grow l in 48 1941 according to a national survey just completed by the American Forest Products In Inc of ot Washington D. D C C. C Most of ot these thue trees will be sold to farmers farmer and other landowners landowner at cost while many will b bo be given ilven to farmers free of ot charge by forest industries who purchase th them m from tram state nurseries This forest seedling production however will be increased Uan by federal and private Indus tr try over the United States State pushing the total to approximately million seedlings seedling Yet the th figures represent representing In the planting ot three trees for tor every i man woman and child In the c court try Indicate statistically that seedling seed teed Un ling production still till is I not enough to fill fiU U the demand by woodland owners own own- era ers nd end other citizens interested In growing tree trees And while the they still Un do not meet the tho tremendous demand It if all IU these seedlings were planted 1000 to an acre they would form torm a verdant wide mils belt stretching from rum New York to Chicago I The record in tree planting U s matched only by the tho volume of ot new flew wood now growing on Americas America's forest lorest lands landi Total I growth crowth now exceeds ex seeds billion cubic feet feel of wood very every year lear year greatest volume ever over recorded In ID une surveys made mad by bl the federal rover government ent I I |