Mother, mother ocean, I have heard you call. Wanted to sail upon your waters, since I was three feet tall. You've seen it all, you've seen it all. Watched the men who rode you, switch from sails to steam. In your belly, you hold the treasure that few have ever seen, most of them dreams, most of them dreams.

What more delightful avocation than to take a piece of land and by cautious experimentation to prove how it works. What more substantial service to conservation than to practice it on one's own land?

It's very important that we keep these special, wild places. It defines the United States. Imagine our country without our national parks and our monuments. Here in California, imagine if you didn't have in Southern Cal the Channel Islands or the great Highway 1, Big Sur up to Point Reyes up to the Redwood country.

It may be doubted that there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as have these lowly organized creatures.

The moon, like a flower in heaven's high bower, with silent delight sits and smiles on the night.

Good farmers, who take seriously their duties as stewards of Creation and of their land's inheritors, contribute to the welfare of society in more ways than society usually acknowledges, or even knows. These farmers produce valuable goods, of course; but they also conserve soil, they conserve water, they conserve wildlife, they conserve open space, they conserve scenery.