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WANTI MI1QNÄL £ JOIN DICKINSON SHERÎ Phtftcgra^s & FRANCES LA FOLLETTE y ' : >,7 •*• ' /Cw y ' 4 ' " ; ,i. t ^r if r*" ''' ' 6r*j itc Natural Wonderland in Indiana on Lake Michigan Should Be Saved for the People mm •>*» ** ii&ii f cJ%ÆZ> ! Milwaukee Us is ANTED : The Dunes National park in the sand dunes of Indiana ou the shore of Lake Michigan be tween Gary and Michigan City ! The middle West has visited the playgrounds of the people in the scenic West—the national parks of the Rockies, Sierras and Cascades. It has found them good. It has fallen In love with the national park Idea. Now it Is asking: "Why not a na tional park right here, Instead of half way across the continent?" For there is not a scenic national park worthy of the ammo between Ilocky Mountain at Colorado and Lafalyette on the coast of Maine. So Indinna, Illinois and Michigan want a na tional park, and they have picked out the dunes as the right place for it. ~ . How they ate going to bring about its establish ment is a big question. The proposed park area is all under private ownership and is held at spec ulative prices on the chance of a second Gary being built at the head of Lake Michigan. Even at actual values it would cost about $2,500,000 to buy the 13,000 Veres most desirable for park pur poses. The scenic parks of the West were taken from the national forests and the public domain by congress. To date there is no precedent for the appropriation by congress of funds to purchase a national park area. Lafayette was presented to the government for national park purposes by the owners of the property. Congress has no national park poliey.^Tt dilly dallies with national parks as it does with mast ether things. It Is now generous with appropria tions and again niggardly; for'instance. It gave Yellowstone $354.000 and Yosemlte $255,000 In and kept Rocky Mountain, with twice as visitors as both parks, down to $10,000. enters largely into all national park legls In the Sixty-fourth congress the Interior supported ' the bill to enlarge Yeliow and the bill to add to Sequoia and change dts name to Roosevelt. The agricultural depart ment, because the proposed additions would be taken from national forests, and therefore from Its control, opposed both bills, beating the former In the senate and the latter in the house. So there Is no telling what congress will or will not do In the matter of national park legislation. Can congress be induced to appropriate money I» the purchase of private holdings for national pork purposes? This question has been put squarely up to con gress by two bills Introduced at this session. One calls for the appropriation of a million dollars or so for tbe purchase of Mammoth cave, Kentucky, and its environs for a national park. Tbe other for the establishment of the Mississippi National park on both sides of ihe Missis southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Here the two states own the land under rer, the federal government controls Its part of the proposed area' is a Wiscon sin state park, some of the land will be donated and the land to be purchased by the government has been appraised at a very moderate price. Can congress condemn private holdings for na tional park purposes? -, Nobody seems to know. Most lawyers would off-hand that tbe state of Indiana can con 1 tbe dm »es for state park purposes. And Indiana could transfer the lent. The national park Into the question of con t the government can national park to condemn fiSSBfESP*** WhlCh for a reasonable price. As ^land outside of service is yet has been LAKE \ MICHIGAN irf" CAvt or Mii.cn t ■{ * '« ■» K > jjj Ærsæ&œe#* Æ&zzæes There Is no question that the Indiana dunes are worthy of national park honors. October 30, 1916, a public hearing was held in Chicago by the in terior department in pursuance of a senate resolu tion. In September, 1917, a printed report by Director Stephen T. Mather of the national park service was issued. This report eliminated from consideration all of the dune country except a strip along the shore of Lake Michigan about a mile deep between Miller's in Lake county and Michigan City. After describing the dunes with considerable enthusiasm, Director Mather says : "Assuming, without further description of actual conditions in this dune country, that tbe sand dunes of Indiana are equal to those iu any other section of the country ; that they are the most ac cessible dunes; that they possess extremely inter esting flora and fauna ; that they offer unparalleled opportunities to observe the action of the wind and Its influence on the sand and plant life; that the Lake Michigan beach is beautiful and offers bathing facilities for a multitude; that the recrea tional uses of the region are myriad, should they, or a large section of them, be preserved for present and future generations? If they should be pre served, are they worthy of Inclusion in a national park? And if tli«y are worthy of consideration as a possible national park, would It be practicable to establish them as such a park for the benefit and enjoyment of the people?" He answers the first two questions emphatically in tbe affirmative. He says this region should be preserved to the people for all time and that it is worthy of national park honors. As to the third question, he thinks it one of legislative policy to be determined by congress, inasmuch as the dunes arc not public lands, and private lands have never been purchased for national park purposes. He thinks the park should contain from 9,000 to 13,000 acres, extending 15 or 20 miles along the lake. He finds that options secured by speculators vary between $350 and $600 an acre, with one tract of 2,300 acres held at $1,000 an acre. "Manifestly," says Mr. Mather, "none of these lands are actually worth $350 au acre at this time. A figure less Ilian $200 an acre probably represents the actual value of the average tract of land not under the Influence of urban values, due to prox imity to cities* Frantically all of the larger hold ings must be purchased in-their entirety. I believe that 9,000 to 18,000 acres of dune lands can prob ably be secured for park purposes for approximate ly $200 an acre. The purchase price of a park of tbe size suggested would therefore be between $1.800,000 and. $2,600,000," The ''proposed Dune National park is really a wonderful place. In the first place, the dunes are an uninhabited wilderness. The. fact that there is an uninhabited wilderness within a few miles of the center of population—in 1910 at Bloomington, Ind.—and at the very doors of Chicago, the second city of the nation and the fourth city of the world, is In itself a marvel. Incidentally, tbe done» are few hoars by mil and automobile of 20,- ------- "» • Pub* W$h TOPJ&r (S&æMZ&P rocks and stones and quicksands, sloping verj gradually Into deep water. There is probably no finer freshwater bathing beach in the world. Don't think of the dunes as heaps of bare sand in a desert. They are exactly the reverse. They have water, trees, shrubs, vines, flowers, grass, -birds and small wild dhimal life. The truth Is that the dunes are a great natural propagating garden with a most astonishing array of trees and plants and flowers. This garden is packed full of flora from the Lake Superior region, the Atlantic coast, the middle South and the western prairie. It seems to have almost everything In the plant line from cactus to cranberries and from pines to tulip trees. A list of only the most characteristic and important plant species numbers 208. T * To the ordinary visitor probably the spectacle of the "walking dunes" Is the most interesting. Here he sees land in the making. Here today is a towering dune crowned with flowers and plants and trees ; tomorrow It Is gone and where it was is a great blow-out of glistening sand, with its steep sides strewn with dead trunks exhumed from an ancient graveyard of a previous forest. Today there Is a deep gash in the bluff; tomorrow its place Is taken by a very lofty heap of white sand that has come up, grain by grain, out of the lake, on which grasses and plants and shrubs and treelets are already struggling foFa foothold. To day stands a forest on the edge of a shallow pond ; tomorrow It is n cemetery, with even the tree tops covered by sand marching in from the bench. The accompanying map and diagram shows where the material that builds the dunes Is com ing from and how It gets there. Lake Michigan has been taking material from the west shore and depositing It at the dunes for a period reckoned at about 5,000 years. Previous to tills period the level of the lake wus 50 or 60 feet higher than now and the discharge was toward the Mississippi at a point near where now are the dunes. When the Ice-gorge or glacer which prevented the discharge of water into tbe St Lawrence was removed and the lake drained into the Atlantic Instead of the gulf, the level dropped, the present lake currents set in and the building of the dunes was begun. Public land surveys made In 1835 and soundings of Lake Michigan furnish the data for these estimates : During the last 5,000 years the waters of the lake have washed away about 500 square mile* of land from the shore extending from the Indiana state line northward into Wisconsin. Where this land was is now water from 30 to 60 feet deep. The old shore line èxtends out from three to nine miles ; then there Is an abrupt drop of,several hundred feet. This Is an unparalleled erosion; It is accounted for by the softness of the shore, which is largely composed of material that was ground very fine by tbe glaciers that deposited it. It is estimated that 7,000,000 tons of soil is taken yearly by the lake from the shore north of Chicago. So there is plenty of material for building operations at the dunes. These facts suggest this interesting question: What will happen to the dunes when the supply of building material stops? c And stop It will, and that comparatively soon. For the shore north of Chicago will in u few years be pretty solidly settled by people who have money to spend to prevent further erosion of the shore. In fact, erosion has already been stopped over long stretches, and in many places the shore lias ballt out. The time to coming when the west w!U be protected from erosion by pier* and of building material for t CONSTRUCTION OF HEN HOUSE More Fowls Can Be Kept on Small Floor Area Under Colony Than on Intensive System. (Prepared by the United States Depart ment of Agriculture.) A house constructed for the conven ience of the attendant will have enough cubic air space provided 2 to 5 square feet of floor space is allowed per fowl. Fresh air should be se cured by ventilation rather than by furnishing a larger amount of cubic air space than is required for the con venience of the attendant. The neces sary- amount of. floor space depends upon the system, on the size of the pens, the weather conditions, and the size o? the birds. More birds caa be kept on a small floor area under the colony than on the intensive system, where the colony system is used in a mild climate and the hens have free range throughout most of the year. Colony houses holding from 30 to 75 hens are about as large as can be v mm A*« 1 * , An Open-Front Poultry House Keeps Hens Healthy. easily moved, but larger numbers may be kept in one flock in a long house. Flocks of from 60 to 150 are well adapted to the average conditions for the production of market eggs. Large numbers require less labor, fewer fences, and a lower house cost than small flocks, but there Is a greater chance for disease and the Individual hen receives less attention. TEN WAYS TO PREVENT LOSS First, Select Pure Breeds That Lay More and Larger Eggs—Collect Eggs Frequently. (Prepared by the United States Depart' ment of Agriculture.) 1. Selecting pure breeds that lay more and larger eggs, such as the White Leghorns, Wyandottes, Ply mouth Rocks, Rhode Island Reds, Orp ingtons, etc. 2. Giving better care, food, and shelter, with dry, clean, vermin-proof nests. 3. Confining males except in breed ing season. 4. Collecting eggs frequently, espe daily in hot or muggy weather. 5. Storing eggs in a dry, clean, cool place. 6. Using small and dirty eggs at home. 7. Marketing frequently, with pro tection at all times from heat 8. Selling for cash on a basis of size and quality, "loss off" instead cl "case count." 9. Using an attractive package. 10. Combining shipments as a mat ter of ecoqomy. PROPER CARE FOR GOSLINGS At Yeung Fowl* <2row Older They Con sume Considerable Grass and Other Green Stuff. (Prepared by tbe United States Depart ment of Agriculture.) The brooding and feeding of gos lings ts not much different from that of ducklings except as the goslings grow older they consume considerable grass and other growing green ma terial and In that way cut down their feed bill. They can be allowed free range when they are two weeks old. Goslings are seldom brooded artificially but will do well with mother geese, hens or even ducks. XmOPYMK Provide a nest for each 4 or 5 hens. * - * * Feed table and kitchen waste to the hens. Give a light feed of grain In the morning. • • • Begin marketing the cockerels as soon as they weigh one pound or attain m marketable weight • • • When selling eggs to the country merchant or cash buyer Insist that the transaction be on a quality basis. 5 .a Tirm IWlFmK FREE HERD OF TUBERCULOSIS Estimated by Department of Agricul ture That Disease Causes Annual Loss of $25,000,000. (Prepared by the United States Depart ment of Agriculture.) The 165 veterinarians of the United States department of agriculture who are in the field doing tuberculosis erad ication work, together with an equal number of state men, have tested ap proximately 500 purebred herds and found them free from the disease. The owners of these herds have been given an official certificate, stating that they have tuberculosis-free accredited herds. The veterinarians also have given one test to 2.000 herds in prep aration for the accredited list. The nfeb m SR Herd Affected With Tuberculosis. owners of all these herds, together with the breeds and number in each herd, will be listed in a publication soon to'be issued by the department. Figures show that since July 1, 1918, 300 accredited herds and 1,000 herds that have passed one test have been added to the list. The veterinarians now have under supervision 1,200 herds of purebred cattle and 600 herds of grades which have shown by pre vious tests that one or more animals have tuberculosis. The publication lists 1,100 owners of grade cattle which have successfully passed tbe re quirements for tuberculosis-free ac credited herds. It is estimated that this disease causes an annual loss of $25,000,000. SUITABLE SPRAY FOR FUES Mixture Suggested by Iowa Stats College Will Keep off Pestif erous Little Insects. The Iowa State College experiment station suggests the following mixture ns being suitable for spraying dhiry cows for flies : Four and one-lialf quarts of eoal tar dip, four and one-half quarts of fish oil, three quarts of coal oil, three quarts of whale oil, one and one-half quarts of oil of tar. Dissolve three pounds of laundry soap in water, add the ingredients of the spray, and bring the whole up to thirty gallons with lukewarm soft water. This spray will keep off the files and prevent the coats of the animals from becoming harsh. The cows should be sprayed twice a day—in the morn ing after milking and in the afternoon when In the barn for silages, or green feed. With a portable cart, made from a half-barrel by attaching i and a spray pump and nozzle, two : can spray forty cows In five minute*. MUST REPAY GENEROUS FEED Cow la Living Machine, Taking Raw Materials and Working Them Over Into Milk. (Prepared by the United States m«it of Agriculture.) The cow must be regarded a* a mat of living machine. She takes fhe raw materials given her in the form of food nnd works them over into milk. If the supply of proper materials is small, the output will be small. The cow that win not repay generous feeding shoaM he disposed of and one bought that will. There are. of course, certain Inbred characteristics or natural qualities which even liberal feeding overcome. Daipy Note-s There's something to sell every day. * • * Good silage will cut the feed one-half. * • * The cow with a good appetite is better producer than the finicky • • • Cows fed well before being on heavy green forage will not likely to bloat. V • • • Sometimes on* can fool a a milker into "giving down" by her at milking time. * • • Cows will require attention summer when the days are files are troublesome • * Often old cows are offered for at low prices but they are m,