Friday, October 22, 2010

The earth gets tired of being exploited

From Hemingway's Green Hills of Africa; a rare explicit statement on ecological conservation.

A continent ages once we come. But the foreigner destroys, cuts down the trees, drains the water, so that the water supply is altered and in a short time the soil, once the sod is turned under, is cropped out and blown away as I had seen it start to blow in Canada. The earth gets tired of being exploited. A country wears out quickly unless man puts back all of his residue and that of the beasts.  When he quits using beasts and uses machines, the earth defeats him quickly.  The machine can't reproduce, nor does it fertilize the soil, and it eats what he cannot raise.  A country was made to be as we found it. 

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