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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78622-0.txt b/78622-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a941ec4 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,21532 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78622 *** + + + + + Proceedings + of the + Third + National Conservation Congress + + at + Kansas City, Missouri + September 25, 26 and 27, 1911 + + “_Let us conserve the foundations of our prosperity_” + (Declaration of the Governors, 1908) + + Kansas City, Missouri + National Conservation Congress + 1912 + + + + +[Illustration: HON. J. B. WHITE, President] + + + + +OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES FOR 1910-11 + + + _President_ + HENRY WALLACE, Des Moines + + _Executive Secretary_ + THOMAS R. SHIPP, Washington, D. C. + + _Treasurer_ + D. AUSTIN LATCHAW, Kansas City, Mo. + + _Recording Secretary_ + JAMES C. GIPE, Clarks, La. + +_Executive Committee_ + + J. B. WHITE, Kansas City, Mo., _Chairman_ + B. N. BAKER, Baltimore + L. H. BAILEY, Ithaca + JAMES R. GARFIELD, Cleveland + FRANK C. GOUDY, Denver + W. A. FLEMING JONES, Las Cruces + MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, Saint Louis + WALTER H. PAGE, New York + GEORGE C. PARDEE, Oakland, Cal. + GIFFORD PINCHOT, Washington, D. C. + J. N. TEAL, Portland, Ore. + E. L. WORSHAM, Atlanta + +_Vice-Presidents_ + + ALABAMA, Hon. Albert P. Bush, Mobile; ALASKA, Hon. James + Wickersham, Fairbanks; ARIZONA, B. A. Fowler, Phenix; + ARKANSAS, A. H. Purdue, Fayetteville; CALIFORNIA, E. H. + Cox, San Francisco; COLORADO, Murdo Mackenzie, Trinidad; + COLUMBIA (District of), W J McGee, Washington; CONNECTICUT, + Rollin S. Woodruff, Hartford; DELAWARE, Hon. George Gray, + Wilmington; FLORIDA, Cromwell Gibbons, Jacksonville; GEORGIA, + Hon. Jno. C. Hart, Union Point; HAWAII, Mrs. Margaret R. + Knudsen, Kauai; IDAHO, James A. McLean, University of Idaho; + ILLINOIS, Julius Rosenwald, Chicago; INDIANA, F. J. Breeze, + Lafayette; IOWA, Carl Leopold, Burlington; KANSAS, W. R. + Stubbs, Topeka; KENTUCKY, James K. Patterson, Lexington; + LOUISIANA, Newton C. Blanchard, Shreveport; MAINE, Bert M. + Fernald, Augusta; MARYLAND, William Bullock Clark, Baltimore; + MASSACHUSETTS, Frank W. Rane, Boston; MICHIGAN, J. L. Snyder, + Lansing; MINNESOTA, Ambrose Tighe, Saint Paul; MISSISSIPPI, + A. W. Shands, Sardis; MISSOURI, Hermann Von Schrenk, Saint + Louis; MONTANA, E. L. Norris, Helena; NEBRASKA, Dr. F. A. + Long, Madison; NEVADA, Senator Francis G. Newlands, Reno; NEW + HAMPSHIRE, George B. Leighton, Monadnock; NEW JERSEY, Charles + Lathrop Pack, Lakewood; NEW MEXICO, W. A. Fleming Jones, Las + Cruces; NEW YORK, R. A. Pearson, Albany; NORTH CAROLINA, T. + Gilbert Pearson, Greensboro; NORTH DAKOTA, U. G. Larimore, + Larimore; OHIO, James R. Garfield, Cleveland; OKLAHOMA, + Benj. Martin, Jr., Muskogee; OREGON, J. N. Teal, Portland; + PENNSYLVANIA, William S. Harvey, Philadelphia; PHILIPPINE + ISLANDS, Maj. George P. Ahern, Manila; PORTO RICO, Hon. Walter + K. Landis, San Juan; RHODE ISLAND, Henry A. Barker, Providence; + SOUTH CAROLINA, E. J. Watson, Columbia; SOUTH DAKOTA, Ellwood + C. Perisho, Vermillion; TENNESSEE, Herman Suter, Nashville; + TEXAS, W. Goodrich Jones, Temple; UTAH, Harden Bennion, Salt + Lake City; VERMONT, Fletcher D. Proctor, Proctor; VIRGINIA, + A. R. Turnbull, Norfolk; WASHINGTON, M. E. Hay, Olympia; WEST + VIRGINIA, A. B. Fleming, Fairmont; WISCONSIN, Charles R. Van + Hise, Madison; WYOMING, Bryant B. Brooks, Cheyenne; NATIONAL + CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION, Gifford Pinchot, Washington. + +_Standing Committees_ + +FORESTS—H. S. Graves, U. S. Forester, Washington, D. C., _Chairman_; +E. M. Griffith, Madison, Wis.; E. T. Allen, Portland, Ore.; J. Lewis +Thompson, Houston. + +LANDS—Governor W. R. Stubbs, Topeka; _Chairman_; Dwight B. Heard, Phenix; +J. L. Snyder, Lansing; Murdo Mackenzie, Trinidad; Charles S. Barrett, +Union City, Ga. + +WATERS—W J McGee, Washington, D. C., _Chairman_; E. A. Smith, Spokane; +Henry A. Barker, Providence; J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore.; Herbert Knox +Smith, Washington, D. C. + +MINERALS—Charles R. Van Hise, Madison, _Chairman_; Joseph A. Holmes, +Washington, D. C.; D. W. Brunton, Denver; John Mitchell, New York; I. C. +White, Morgantown, W. Va. + +VITAL RESOURCES—Dr. William H. Welch, Baltimore, _Chairman_; Professor +Irving Fisher, New Haven; Dr. H. W. Wiley, Washington, D. C.; Dr. J. H. +Kellogg, Battle Creek, Mich.; Walter H. Page, New York. + + + + +OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES FOR 1911-12. + + + _President_ + JOHN B. WHITE, Kansas City, Mo. + + _Executive Secretary_ + THOMAS R. SHIPP, Washington, D. C. + + _Treasurer_ + D. AUSTIN LATCHAW, Kansas City, Mo. + + _Recording Secretary_ + JAMES C. GIPE, Clarks, La. + +_Executive Committee._ + + PROF. E. LEE WORSHAM, Atlanta, Ga., _Chairman_. + J. LEWIS THOMPSON, Houston, Tex. + W. A. FLEMING JONES, Las Cruces, N. M. + WALTER H. PAGE, New York. + EX-GOV. GEORGE C. PARDEE, Oakland, Cal. + DR. H. E. BARNARD, Indianapolis, Ind. + MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, St. Louis, Mo. + BERNARD N. BAKER, Baltimore, Md. + DR. HENRY C. WALLACE, Des Moines, Ia. + GIFFORD PINCHOT, Washington, D. C. + +_Vice-Presidents._ + + _Arkansas_, E. N. PLANK, Decatur. + _California_, FRANCIS CUTTLE, Riverside. + _Colorado_, I. S. T. GREGG, Golden. + _Connecticut_, PROF. J. W. TOWNEY, Hartford. + _District of Columbia_, DR. H. W. WILEY. + _Florida_, T. J. CAMPBELL, West Palm Beach. + _Georgia_, SENATOR L. R. AKIN. + _Illinois_, BALLARD DUNN, Chicago. + _Iowa_, PROF. P. G. HOLDEN, Ames. + _Louisiana_, HON. HENRY E. HARDTNER, Urania. + _Massachusetts_, PROF. F. W. RANE, Boston. + _Missouri_, HERMAN VON SCHRENK, St. Louis. + _Nebraska_, PROF. E. A. BURNETT, Lincoln. + _New Jersey_, E. A. STEVENS, Hoboken. + _New York_, DR. W. T. HORNADAY, New York City. + _Ohio_, J. C. RODGERS, Mechanicsburg. + _Oklahoma_, THOMAS C. HARRICE, Wagoner. + _South Carolina_, PROF. M. W. TWITCHELL, Columbia. + _South Dakota_, GOV. R. S. VESSEY, Pierre. + _Texas_, W. GOODRICH JONES, Temple. + _Washington_, A. L. FLEWELLING, Spokane. + _Wisconsin_, HERBERT QUICK, Madison. + +_Local Board of Managers for Kansas City Congress Representing Commercial +Club_—J. C. LESTER, _President_; E. M. CLENDENING, _Secretary_; F. P. +NEAL, _Chairman_; F. A. FAXON, F. L. HALL, W. B. HILL, F. J. MOSS, J. C. +SWIFT, R. A. LONG. + + + + +STANDING COMMITTEES. 1911-12. + + +_Forests_—H. S. GRAVES, Washington, D. C., _Chairman_; E. T. ALLEN, +Portland, Ore.; Major E. G. GRIGGS, Tacoma, Wash.; WILLIAM IRVINE, +Chippewa Falls, Wis.; GEORGE K. SMITH, St. Louis. + +_Minerals_—Dr. JOSEPH A. HOLMES, Washington, D. C., _Chairman_; Dr. +CHARLES R. VAN HISE, Madison, Wis.; Dr. I. C. WHITE, Morgantown, W. Va.; +C. W. BRUNTON, Denver, Col.; JOHN MITCHELL, New York City. + +_Lands and Agriculture_—Prof. L. H. BAILEY, Cornell University, +_Chairman_; Prof. GEORGE E. CONDRA, Nebraska; Prof. J. L. SNYDER, +Lansing, Mich.; F. D. COBURN, Kansas; CHARLES S. BARRETT, Union City, Ga. + +_Education_—Dr. C. E. BESSEY, Lincoln, Neb., _Chairman_; Dr. DAVID +STARR JORDAN, Leland Stanford University, Oakland, Cal.; Dr. EDWARD E. +ALDERMAN, University Of Virginia, Charlotteville; Dr. E. C. CRAIGHEAD, +Tulane University, New Orleans, La.; Prof. FAIRCHILD, Topeka, Kas. + +_Vital Resources_—Dr. WILLIAM H. WELCH, Johns Hopkins University, +Baltimore, Md., _Chairman_; Prof. IRVING FISHER, Yale University, New +Haven, Conn.; Dr. J. N. HURTY, Indianapolis, Ind.; Hon. A. B. FARQUHAR, +York, Pa.; Dr. OSCAR DOWLING, Shreveport, La. + +_Homes_—Mrs. MATTHEW T. SCOTT, Washington, _Chairman_; Mrs. HARRIET +WALLACE ASHBY, Des Moines, Ia.; Mrs. J. E. RHODES, St. Paul, Minn.; Mrs. +SARAH S. PLATT-DECKER, Denver, Col.; Mrs. AMOS F. DRAPER, Washington, D. +C. + +_Child Life_—Hon. BENJAMIN B. LINDSAY, Denver, Col., _Chairman_; Dr. +SAMUEL M. LINDSAY, New York City; Judge HENRY L. MCCUNE, Kansas City, +Mo.; Mrs. CARL VROOMAN, Bloomington, Ill.; Dr. ANNA LOUISE STRONG, +Seattle, Wash. + +_Food_—Dr. HARVEY W. WILEY, Washington, D. C., _Chairman_; F. G. URNER, +New York; Prof. F. SPENCER BALDWIN, Boston, Mass.; J. F. NICKERSON, +Chicago, Ill.; LUCIUS P. BROWN, Nashville, Tenn.; E. H. JENKINS, New +Haven, Conn.; M. A. SCOVELLE, Lexington, Ky.; Prof. GEO. A. LOVELAND, +Lincoln, Neb. + +_Civics_—RALPH EASLEY, New York, _Chairman_; Judge ALBERT HALL WHITFIELD, +Jackson, Miss.; B. A. FOWLER, Phoenix, Ariz.; Hon. H. M. BEARDSLEY, +Kansas City, Mo.; Hon. FRANCIS J. HENEY, San Francisco, Cal. + +_General_ (_Including Domestic Animals and Wild Life_)—Dr. W. T. +HORNADAY, New York, _Chairman_; Dr. J. O. HOWARD, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. +MINNIE MADDERN FISKE, New York City; Dr. JOHN MUIR, Martinez, Cal.; D. +AUSTIN LATCHAW, Kansas City, Mo.; Prof. GEO. A. LOVELAND, Lincoln, Neb. + +_Waters_—Hon. J. N. TEAL, Portland, Ore., _Chairman_; Hon. JOSEPH E. +RANSDELL, Lake Providence, La.; WALTER S. DICKEY, Kansas City, Mo.; Hon. +HERBERT KNOX SMITH, Washington, D. C.; W. K. KAVANAUGH, St. Louis, Mo.; +Dr. W J MCGEE, Washington, D. C.; Prof. GEO. F. SWAIN, Harvard University. + +_National Parks_ (_to include Mammoth Cave, Ky., and Adjacent Lands_)—Dr. +W J MCGEE, Washington, D. C.; Dr. HENRY F. DRINKER, South Bethlehem, +Pa.; Hon. WILLIAM P. BORLAND, Kansas City, Mo.; Hon. GIFFORD PINCHOT, +Washington, D. C.; Col. W. H. CRUMP, Bowling Green, Ky. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + + CONSTITUTION IX + + RESOLUTIONS XIII + + OPENING SESSION 1 + + Invocation by BISHOP LILLIS 1 + + Welcome by MAYOR BROWN 1 + + Address of Welcome by PRESIDENT LESTER for Commercial Club 4 + + Address by GOVERNOR HADLEY 5 + + Address by PRESIDENT WALLACE 11 + + Address by HONORABLE J. B. WHITE 19 + + Appointment of Credentials Committee 21 + + Announcements by PRESIDENT WALLACE 21 + + Announcement by SECRETARY SHIPP 21 + + Announcement by RECORDING SECRETARY GIPE 22 + + Request by DELEGATE BAUMGARTNER 22 + + SECOND SESSION 22 + + Invocation by the REV. DR. KERR 22 + + GOVERNOR HADLEY Made Chairman 23 + + Remarks by GOVERNOR HADLEY 23 + + Call of States 24 + + Address by MR. J. C. BAUMGARTNER of California 24 + + Address by PROFESSOR WORSHAM of Georgia 24 + + Address by MRS. HOLLAND C. DAY 28 + + Address by COL. ISHAM RANDOLPH of Illinois 28 + + Address by MR. HARRY EVEREST BARNARD of Indiana 28 + + Message from MEXICAN AMBASSADOR 28 + + Address by MR. THOMAS H. MACBRIDE of Iowa 29 + + Remarks by MR. A. W. STUBBS of Kansas City, Kansas 29 + + Address of DEAN WATERS of Kansas 29 + + Address by COL. CRUMP of Bowling Green, Ky. 29 + + Address by MR. FRED J. GRACE of Louisiana 30 + + Introduction of EX-PRESIDENT B. N. BAKER 30 + + Motion by MR. BREEZE of Indiana 30 + + Remarks by CHAIRMAN HADLEY 30 + + Address by JUDGE LINDSAY of Colorado 31 + + Address by MR. D. M. NEILL of Minnesota 43 + + Address by HONORABLE GEORGE COUPLAND of Nebraska 43 + + Announcement by PROFESSOR CONDRA 43 + + Address by HONORABLE E. A. STEVENS, Commissioner of Public Roads 44 + + Address by PROFESSOR RANE of Massachusetts 44 + + THIRD SESSION 45 + + Announcements by ACTING CHAIRMAN CONDRA 45 + + Remarks by MR. EMIL GUNTHER 46 + + Address by STATE COMMISSIONER JOHN D. MOORE 46 + + Address by DR. TWITCHELL of South Carolina 47 + + Address by MR. GROSS, President of National Soil Fertility League 47 + + Address by CHAIRMAN CONDRA 49 + + Address by EX-PRESIDENT BAKER 50 + + Address by PRESIDENT TAFT 54 + + FOURTH SESSION 62 + + Invocation by BISHOP HENDRIX 62 + + Roll Call of States Resumed 62 + + Announcement by CHAIRMAN FOWLER of Resolutions Committee 63 + + Announcement by SERGEANT-AT-ARMS 64 + + Address of MR. LOGAN of the Missouri Waterways Commission 64 + + Remarks of MR. C. P. DYAR of Ohio 68 + + Address by MR. MILTON BROWN of Oklahoma 68 + + Address by MR. A. B. FARQUHAR 68 + + Address by DR. DRINKER of Lehigh University 68 + + Remarks by PRESIDENT WALLACE 71 + + Address by MR. B. G. HOLDEN of Iowa 71 + + Address by MR. R. A. LONG 76 + + Address by HONORABLE W. A. BEARD of California 78 + + Chair Assumed by HONORABLE J. B. WHITE 87 + + Announcement by CHAIRMAN FOWLER of Resolutions Committee 87 + + Address by MR. HERBERT QUICK 88 + + Reading of Telegram 109 + + Appointment of Committee on Nominations 110 + + FIFTH SESSION 111 + + Invocation by the REV. DR. COMBS 111 + + Announcement by RECORDING SECRETARY GIPE 111 + + Introduction of GOVERNOR VESSEY as Chairman 111 + + Address by GOVERNOR VESSEY 111 + + Reading of Letter from COLONEL ROOSEVELT 112 + + Reports from National Organizations 113 + + Report by MR. MULLIN 113 + + Report by MAJOR GRIGGS 113 + + Report by MR. RUSHTON 113 + + Report by HONORABLE E. T. ALLEN 114 + + Report by MR. SCHWEDTMAN, of St. Louis 116 + + Report by MR. COFFIN, of New York 116 + + Report by DR. FIELD, of the Audubon Society 116 + + Report by MR. E. R. TAYLOR 116 + + Address by MRS. VROOMAN 117 + + Vote of Thanks by DELEGATE BAUMGARTNER 119 + + Remarks by MR. MCBRIEN 120 + + Address by PROFESSOR GREENWOOD 120 + + Address by DEAN MUMFORD, of Missouri 121 + + Address by MRS. ASHBY, of Des Moines 121 + + Address by MRS. SCOTT, President General, Daughters American + Revolution 125 + + Address by MISS FRANCES BROWN 128 + + Report of Executive Committee by CHAIRMAN WHITE 129 + + Amendments to the Constitution 129 + + Adoption of Amendments 130 + + Address by MISS WELLER, of the Iowa Federation of Women’s Clubs 130 + + Address by MR. GUTHRIE, of St. Paul 131 + + SIXTH SESSION 131 + + Address by MRS. MOORE, President General, Confederation Women + Clubs 132 + + Address by DR. WILSON, of Presbyterian Church 139 + + Address by DR. WILEY 139 + + SEVENTH SESSION 147 + + Induction of DR. NORTHROP as Chairman 147 + + Invocation by THE REV. DR. NEEL 148 + + Address by MR. BAILEY 148 + + Remarks by DELEGATE STUBBS 151 + + Discussion by PRESIDENT WALLACE 151 + + Call of States Resumed 152 + + Report by MR. FILSON 152 + + Address by PROFESSOR SPILLMAN, of the Department of Agriculture 152 + + Address by MRS. WEEKS, of the National Congress of Mothers 156 + + Address by CONGRESSMAN F. S. JACKSON 157 + + Address by HONORABLE CURTIS HILL, of Missouri 163 + + Report of Committee on Credentials 167 + + Address by HONORABLE J. B. WHITE 167 + + Report of Committee on Nominations 174 + + Address by PRESIDENT WHITE 175 + + Address by PROFESSOR HOPKINS, of University of Illinois 176 + + Remarks by SECRETARY COBURN, of Kansas 183 + + Address by DR. MCGEE, of the Department of Agriculture 183 + + EIGHTH SESSION 193 + + Invocation by the REV. DR. MONROE 193 + + Entrance of MR. BRYAN 193 + + Address by PROFESSOR TEN EYCK 193 + + Resolution Complimenting GIFFORD PINCHOT 193 + + Address by HONORABLE WALTER L. FISHER, Secretary of the Interior 194 + + Remarks by MR. BRYAN 203 + + Letter from COLONEL ROOSEVELT 204 + + Address by MR. GROUT, of Illinois 205 + + Report of Committee on Resolutions 211 + + Personnel of Committee on Resolutions 211 + + Remarks by DELEGATE SHOFFER 212 + + Resolution by DELEGATE STUBBS 212 + + CLOSING SESSION 214 + + Address by PROFESSOR HOYNES, of Notre Dame University 214 + + Address by SENATOR OWEN, of Oklahoma 218 + + Address by MR. BRYAN 220 + + SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS 231 + + Address by DEAN MUMFORD, of the University of Missouri 231 + + Address by EX-GOVERNOR HOARD, of Wisconsin 234 + + Address by HENRY I. WILLEY, of New York 237 + + Address by MR. GRIGGS, of Washington 245 + + Address by PROFESSOR TEN EYCK 247 + + Address by the REV. DR. WILSON 257 + + Address by F. A. FILSON 259 + + Address by MR. SCHWEDTMAN 261 + + Report of PRESIDENT STILLMAN 262 + + Report of DR. FIELD 263 + + Address by MR. RUSHTON 264 + + Report of the Camp Fire Club 265 + + Report by Committee of National Board of Fire Underwriters 267 + + Report of National Association of Audubon Societies 272 + + Letter from MR. VAN ORNUM 273 + + Address by MR. BAUMGARTNER 274 + + Report for Idaho by MRS. DAY 275 + + Report for Illinois by COLONEL RANDOLPH 275 + + Report for Indiana by MR. BARNARD 277 + + Report for Iowa by MR. MACBRIDE 277 + + Report for Kansas by DEAN WATERS 278 + + Report for Louisiana by MR. GRACE 278 + + Report for Massachusetts by PROFESSOR RANE 281 + + Report for Minnesota by MR. NEILL 284 + + Report for Nebraska by MR. COUPLAND 285 + + Report for New York by MR. MOORE 286 + + Report for Oklahoma by MR. BROWN 287 + + Report for Oregon by MR. TEAL 288 + + Report for Pennsylvania and Philadelphia by MR. GUNTHER 290 + + Report of Conservation Movement by MR. FARQUHAR 291 + + Report for South Carolina by DR. TWITCHELL 299 + + National Organizations Represented at the Congress 301 + + List of Registered Delegates 303 + + Index 315 + + + + +CONSTITUTION OF THE NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS + +_As Amended by the Third Congress._ + + +ARTICLE 1—NAME. + +This organization shall be known as the National Conservation Congress. + + +ARTICLE 2—OBJECT. + +The object of the National Conservation Congress shall be: (1) to provide +a forum for discussion of the resources of the United States as the +foundation for the prosperity of the people, (2) to furnish definite +information concerning the resources and their utilization, and (3) +to afford an agency through which the people of the country may frame +policies and principles affecting the wise and practical development, +conservation and utilization of the resources to be put into effect by +their representatives in state and federal governments. + + +ARTICLE 3—MEETINGS. + +_Section 1._ Regular annual meetings shall be held at such time and place +as may be determined by the executive committee. + +_Section 2._ Special meetings of the Congress, or its officers, +committees or boards, may be held subject to the call of the president of +the Congress or the chairman of the executive committee. + + +ARTICLE 4—OFFICERS. + +_Section 1._ The officers of the Congress shall consist of a president, +to be elected by the Congress; a vice-president from each state, to +be chosen by the respective state delegations; and from the National +Conservation Association; an executive secretary, a recording secretary, +and a treasurer. + +_Section 2._ The duties of these officers may at any time be prescribed +by formal action of the Congress or executive committee. In the absence +of such action their duties shall be those implied by their designations +and established by custom. In addition, it shall be the duty of the +vice-presidents to receive from the state conservations commissions, +and other organizations concerned in conservation, suggestions and +recommendations and report them to the executive committee of the +Congress. + +_Section 3._ The officers shall serve for one year, or until their +successors are elected and qualify. + + +ARTICLE 5—COMMITTEES AND BOARDS. + +_Section 1._ An executive committee of seven, in addition to which the +president of the National Conservation Association and all ex-presidents +of the Congress shall be members, ex officio, shall be appointed by the +president during each regular annual session to act for the ensuing year; +its membership shall be drawn from different states, and not more than +one of the appointed members shall be from any one state. The executive +committee shall act for the Congress and shall be empowered to initiate +action and meet emergencies. It shall report to each regular annual +session. + +_Section 2._ A board of managers shall be created in each city in which +the next ensuing session of the Congress is to be held, preferably +by leading organizations of citizens. The board of managers shall +have power to raise and expend funds, to incur obligations of its own +responsibility, to appoint subordinate boards and committees, all with +the approval of the executive committee of the Congress. It shall report +to the executive committee at least two days before the opening of the +ensuing session, and at such other times as the Congress or the executive +committee may direct. + +_Section 3._ An advisory board, consisting of one person from each +national organization having a conservation committee, shall be created +to serve during that Congress and during the interval before the next +succeeding Congress. The board shall report to and coöperate with the +executive committee. + +_Section 4._ A committee on credentials shall be appointed, consisting +of five (5) members, by the president of the Congress not later than on +the second day of each session of the Congress. It shall determine all +questions raised by delegates as to representation, and shall report +to the Congress from time to time as required by the president of the +Congress. + +_Section 5._ A committee on resolutions shall be created for each annual +meeting of the Congress. A chairman shall be appointed by the president. +One member of the committee shall be selected by each state represented +in the Congress. The committee shall report to the Congress not later +than the morning of the last day of each annual meeting. + +_Section 6._ Permanent committees, consisting of five members each, on +each of the following five divisions of conservation: forests, waters, +lands, minerals and vital resources, shall be appointed by the president +of the Congress. The committee on vital resources is to consist of six +subordinate committees as follows: food, homes, child life, education, +civics (including wild life, domesticated animals, and cultivated +plants). These committees shall, during the intervals between the +annual meetings of the Congress, inquire into these respective subjects +and prepare reports to be submitted on the request of the executive +committee, and render such other assistance to the Congress as the +executive committee may direct. + +_Section 7._ By direction of the Congress, standing and special +committees may be appointed by the president. + +_Section 8._ The president shall be a member, ex officio, of every +committee of the Congress. + + +ARTICLE 6—ARRANGEMENTS FOR SESSIONS. + +_Section 1._ The program for the session of each annual meeting of +the Congress, including a list of speakers, shall be arranged by the +executive committee. The entire program, including allotments of time +to speakers and hours for daily sessions and all other arrangements +concerning the program, shall be made by the executive committee. + +_Section 2._ Unless otherwise ordered, the rules adopted for the guidance +of the preceding Congress shall continue in force. + + +ARTICLE 7—MEMBERSHIP. + +_Section 1._ The personnel of the National Conservation Congress shall be +as follows: + + +OFFICERS AND DELEGATES. + +Officers of the National Conservation Congress. + +Fifteen delegates appointed by the governor of each state and territory. + +Five delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population of +25,000 or more. + +Two delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population of +less than 25,000. + +Two delegates appointed by each board of county commissioners. + +Five delegates appointed by each national organization concerned in the +work of conservation. + +Five delegates appointed by each state or interstate organization +concerned in the work of conservation. + +Three delegates appointed by each chamber of commerce, board of trade, +commercial club, or other local organization concerned in the work of +conservation. + +Two delegates appointed by each state, or other university, or college, +and by each agricultural college, or experiment station. + + +HONORARY MEMBERS. + +The President of the United States. + +The Vice-President of the United States. + +The Speaker of the House of Representatives. + +The Cabinet. + +The United States Senate and House of Representatives. + +The Supreme Court of the United States. + +The representatives of foreign countries. + +The governors of the states and territories. + +The lieutenant-governors of the states and territories. + +The speakers of state houses of representatives. + +The state officers. + +The mayors of cities. + +The county commissioners. + +The presidents of state and other universities and colleges. + +The officers and members of the National Conservation Association. + +The officers and members of the National Conservation Commission. + +The officers and members of the state conservation commissions and +associations. + + +ARTICLE 8—DELEGATIONS AND STATE OFFICERS. + +_Section 1._ The several delegates from each state in attendance at any +Congress shall assemble at the earliest practicable time and organize by +choosing a chairman and a secretary. These delegates, when approved by +the committee on credentials, shall constitute the delegation from that +state. + + +ARTICLE 9—VOTING. + +_Section 1._ Each member of the Congress shall be entitled to one vote on +all actions taken _viva voce_. + +_Section 2._ A division or call of states may be demanded on any action, +by a state delegation. On division, each delegate shall be entitled to +one vote; provided (1) that no state shall have more than twenty votes; +and provided (2) that when a state is represented by less than ten +delegates, said delegates may cast ten votes for each state. + +_Section 3._ The term “state” as used herein is to be construed to mean +either state, territory, or insular possession. + + +ARTICLE 10—AMENDMENTS. + +This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Congress +during any regular session, provided notice of the proposed amendment has +been given from the Chair not less than one day or more than two days +preceding; or by unanimous vote without such notice. + + + + +RESOLUTIONS OF THE THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS. + + +The third National Conservation Congress, made up of delegates from all +sections and nearly every state and territory of the United States, met +at the call of a great moral issue, now in session assembled in the city +of Kansas City and State of Missouri, does hereby adopt and solemnly +declare the following platform of opinion and conclusion concerning the +inherent rights of the people of the United States: + +Heartily accepting the spirit and intent of the Constitution and adhering +to the principles laid down by Washington and Lincoln, we declare our +conviction that we live under a government of the people, by the people, +and for the people; and we repudiate any and all special or local +interests or platforms or policies in conflict with the inherent rights +and sovereign will of our people. + +Recognizing the natural resources of the country as the prime bases of +property and opportunity, we hold the rights of the people in these +resources to be natural and inherent, and justly inalienable and +indefeasible; and we insist that the resources should and shall be +developed, used, and conserved in ways consistent both with current +welfare and with the perpetuity of our people. + +We commend the efficient work of the federal forest service, and +particularly urge upon Congress the need for more liberal financial +provision for protection of the national forests from fire, and the +desirability of making the army available without delay whenever needed +to supplement such protection. + +We also appreciate the forestry progress being made by many states, +believing it not only the function, but the duty of the state to +safeguard its forest resources by liberal appropriation for fire +prevention; by acquisition and conservative management of state owned +forest lands; by encouraging the practice of private forestry on timber +lands and wood lots in every way, especially through reform in forest +taxation; and by providing for the educational work necessary to secure +all these ends. + +We commend the increasing effort at better forest management and +protection by timber owners themselves, and urge upon all such the study +and emulation of the several coöperative systems for this purpose. + +We urge the coöperation of public and private educational authorities in +instilling the principles of forest economics in the minds of the young +of today, who will be the doers of tomorrow. + +We are in sympathy with the policy of establishing public parks to be +used for the benefit of the people forever, including localities of +scenic, scientific or historic interest, by states and by the National +Government, and we cite as an example the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, one +of the wonders of the world; we recommend this policy to obviate the +danger of such national heirlooms being held permanently in private +ownership and subordinated to private interest rather than the public +good. + +Recognizing the 900,000,000 acres of well-watered arable land in this +country as the chief source of food and clothing for our people, we hold +that these lands should be guarded as a natural heritage to be kept in +sacred trust for our children and our children’s children; that they +should be safe-guarded from loss through natural agencies and negligent +or thriftless use; that they should be protected from monopoly and +private or corporate rapacity; that they should be so cultivated and +improved that they may pass to each coming generation with increased +fertility and productivity; and that they should forever be used as sites +for homes in which the strength and spirit of the Nation may be conserved +for the general welfare of mankind. + +Approving the withdrawal of public lands pending classification, and +the separation of surface rights from mineral, forests, and water +rights, including water-power sites, we recommend legislation for the +classification and leasing for grazing purposes all unreserved lands +suitable chiefly for this purpose, subject to the rights of homesteaders +and settlers, or the acquisition thereof under the land laws of the +United States; and we hold that arid and non-irrigable public grazing +lands should be administered by the Government in the interest of small +stockmen and homeseekers until they have passed into the possession of +actual settlers. + +We favor the repeal of the commutation clause of the Homestead Law, and +the disallowance of homestead entries on land chiefly valuable for its +timber at time of filing. + +We hold that mineral deposits underlying public lands should be +transferred to private ownership only by long-time leases with +revaluation at stated periods, such leases to be in amounts and subject +to such regulations as to prevent monopoly and needless waste; and that +in case of doubt as to the availability of such mineral deposits, or +while they are waiting exploitation, surface rights to the land should be +transferred by lease only under such conditions as to promote development +and protect public interest. + +Since all successful conservation effort must follow ascertained fact, +we agree (1) that there should be in each commonwealth an active +conservation commission or equivalent organization; and (2) that such +commission should use, and strive ever to coördinate, all agencies, state +or national, which have for their object the discovery of exact data and +the ascertainment of scientific information in reference to all natural +resources and conditions in each of the several states and in the country +at large. + +We hold that phosphate deposits underlying the public lands should be +safe-guarded for the American people by appropriate legislation, and +that export of phosphates and other natural and manufactured fertilizing +material should be limited and regulated by law. + +Realizing that the productivity of our soil depends on water supply; that +one of the chief losses to the farm is destructive soil erosion; that +the freshets and floods due to storm and thaw waters are destructive of +property and even of life; and knowing through experience in this and +other countries that the waste and destruction due to unregulated run-off +are largely susceptible to control by appropriate agricultural methods, +we hold that the aim of every farmer should be to make his farm take care +of the water naturally reaching it; we also hold that allowing ordinary +storm waters to carry silt and sand from farms into neighboring streams +and rivers works a public injury which may be prevented by appropriate +legislation. + +Realizing that the strength of the Nation will ever lie in the +multiplication of homes on the land up to its full capacity, we approve +the successful efforts of the Federal Government to provide for such +homes through irrigation of the more arid portions of the country; we +endorse and commend the Reclamation Service, and urge its continuance +with such increased means as may be found needful; and we urge the +immediate extension of the same policy to the drainage of swamp and +overflow lands, to be carried forward so far as appropriate through +coöperation between state and federal agencies. + +We recommend the early opening of the coal fields and other resources +of Alaska belonging to the people of the United States, for industrial +and commercial purposes, on a system of leasing, national ownership to +be retained pending such development of that portion of our territory +as to permit the creation of states within its area; and as a means of +promoting industry and commerce in Alaska we approve the construction of +necessary highways, railways, and terminal facilities by the National +Government. + +Realizing that the prosperity of the country and its suitability for +homes must always depend largely on transportation facilities, we +recommend extension of the good roads movement until every community is +provided with safe and easy ways to schools, churches and markets; and +in developing the necessary road systems, we favor coöperation between +townships, counties, states, and the federal government in such manner as +to secure the greatest benefits to the entire country at the minimum cost. + +Realizing that the current cost of railway transportation is apparently +exorbitant, amounting to about $2,750,000,000 annually, equivalent +to a tax of $150 per family (or one-third the cost of living) or an +impost of over $5 on each acre of improved land in the United States, +we urge on the Federal Government appraisal of railway property and +such investigation and supervision of railway business as will insure +protection of the public interests; and to this end we recommend +enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. + +As a means of reducing the cost of living and promoting the general +welfare, we favor the establishment of a parcels post. + +Realizing that products of the soil on which our people depend for food +and clothing are sometimes diverted from the most direct lines leading +from producer to consumer for speculative purposes, and that they are +made the basis for gambling transactions, we hold that all dealing in +futures and gambling operations involving foodstuffs and materials +for clothing are a public injury, and recommend investigation of the +matter by authority of the Federal Congress; and in case our judgment +is sustained by such investigation, we demand the enactment of law by +the Federal Congress prohibiting the sale of these necessaries of life +by men or interests who do not own them at the time of such sale, under +penalties including imprisonment at least for any second offense. + +Since noxious insects and plants, including weeds, are a source of +public injury, we urge appropriate state and federal legislation tending +to their extermination; and we commend the development of that public +spirit finding expression from time to time in communities and states in +crusades against insect and plant pests in the public interest. + +Recognizing in coöperative enterprises an effective means of conserving +human energy and increasing the efficiency of our soils in feeding our +people cheaply, and thereby affording means for the development of equal +opportunity for all, we approve and commend such coöperative organization +among our producers and consumers as will tend to promote economy and +prevent waste in handling the necessaries of life. + +Realizing that the interests of our citizens, our states, and our +Nation are identical, and impressed by the success which has attended +coöperation between state institutions and the Federal Government, +we favor continuation and extension of such coöperation as a highly +efficient means of promoting the general welfare. + +Impressed by immeasurable benefits derived by our people from the work +of the United States Department of Agriculture in promoting the use and +conservation of our soil and its products, we endorse and commend that +department; we strongly urge on Congress increased appropriation for +its necessary work; and we recommend the enactment of such state and +federal legislation as will enable the state colleges of agriculture and +experiment stations to maintain in every agricultural county a capable +field demonstrator to aid farmers in practical application of newly +acquired agricultural knowledge. + +Since all successful conservation effort must follow ascertained fact, +we agree (1) that there should be in each commonwealth an active +conservation commission or equivalent organization; and (2) that such +commission should use and strive ever to coördinate all agencies, state +or national, which have for their object the discovery of exact data and +the ascertainment of scientific information in reference to all natural +resources and conditions in each of the several states and in the country +at large. + +Recognizing the waters of the country as a great national resource, we +approve and endorse the opinion that all the waters belong to all the +people, and hold that they should be administered in the interests of all +the people. + +Realizing that all parts of each drainage basin are related and +interdependent, we hold that each stream should be regarded and treated +as a unit from its source to its mouth; and since the waters are +essentially mobile and transitory and are generally interstate, we hold +that in all cases of divided or doubtful jurisdiction the waters should +be administered by coöperation between state and federal agencies. + +Recognizing the interdependence of the various uses of the waters of +the country, we hold that the primary uses are for domestic supply and +for agriculture through irrigation or otherwise, and that the uses for +navigation and for power, in which water is not consumed, are secondary; +and we commend the modern view that each use of the waters should be made +with reference to all other uses for the public welfare in accordance +with the principle of the greatest good to the greatest number for the +longest time. + +Viewing adequate and economical transportation facilities as among the +means of conservation, and realizing that the growth of the country +has exceeded the development of transportation facilities, we approve +the prompt adoption of a comprehensive plan for developing navigation +throughout the rivers and lakes of the United States, proceeding in the +order of their magnitude and commercial importance. + +Recognizing the vast economic benefits to the people of water power +derived largely from interstate and source streams no less than from +navigable rivers, we favor public control of water power development; we +deny the right of state or federal governments to continue alienating or +conveying water by granting franchises for the use thereof in perpetuity; +and we demand that the use of water rights be permitted only for limited +periods, with just compensation in the interests of the people. + +We demand the maintenance of a federal commission empowered to deal +with all uses of the waters and to coördinate these uses for the public +welfare in coöperation with similar commissions or other agencies +maintained by the states. + +We recognize the great service that has been, and can be, rendered in +the conservation of our mineral resources, by developing and mining in +large units with adequate capital, and approve the encouragement of such +development under proper regulation. + +We heartily approve of the work of the United States Government in +improving sanitary conditions and in lowering the death rates of Cuba, +the Philippine Islands, and the Canal Zone. We are especially pleased +that in 1911 the National Government, through its wise provisions for +the maneuver division of the United States Army operating in western +Texas, demonstrated that the achievements in health and life security +found possible in Cuba, the Philippine Islands, and the Canal Zone, +are possible with Americans on American soil. We therefore call on our +municipal, state, and national governments, to accomplish these same +results for the people of the United States. + +Our National Government in the Canal Zone of Panama has demonstrated that +Caucasians, properly directed, can work in the tropics without loss of +efficiency, and we express our opinion that this is one of the monumental +discoveries of the age. + +The Hook Worm Commission is demonstrating another possibility in +increasing efficiency; and we endorse the efforts of this commission, and +all other efforts, governmental and extra-governmental, for increasing +human efficiency through promotion of physical welfare, and call on our +governments—municipal, state, and national—to increase their activities +along these lines. + +We favor a child welfare bureau under, and as a part of, each municipal +and state government. + +Inasmuch as nearly all the states and most of the cities have health +departments as coördinate branches of administrative work, we endorse +the plan of bringing together as a department of health the various +human health activities of the United States Government as a coördinate +branch of its administrative work, divorced from the impediment of being +a part of other administrative work of entirely different character +and conducted for entirely different purposes; this in order that the +efficiency of the service may be increased to a point in some degree +commensurate with its importance. + +We protest against the present neglect of health, life security, and work +for physical efficiency by the municipal, state and national governments, +and we ask that they be given that study and care that have proven so +broad an economy in the case of live stock and farm crops. + +We are of opinion that municipal, state, and national governments should +pass proper laws, and provide proper means of enforcement of such laws +that there may be prevented, (1) blindness, (2) birth accidents, (3) +infant mortality, (4) labor by immature children, (5) communicable +diseases of children, (6) occupational diseases, (7) occupational +accidents, and especially mine and transportation accidents, (8) +communicable diseases of adults, (9) bad ventilation, and (10) physical +inefficiency. + +We deplore the practice of disposing of sewage and manufacturing waste +by dumping it into the streams, lakes, and coastal waters of the Nation, +thereby polluting the chief sources of water for drinking and domestic +purposes, destroying fish and crustacean life, rendering the waters +obnoxious to sight and smell, and losing beyond hope of recovery vast +quantities of elements essential to plant life. + +We earnestly advocate the employment by communities and manufacturing +concerns of such methods of sewage disposal as will render their waste +products innocuous to health and utilize them in the restoration of +soil fertility, and to this end we urge the enactment by states of +stream-pollution laws, and by the Federal Government of such legislation +as will prevent the pollution of interstate and coastal waters. + +Deeply concerned at the rapid disappearance of wild life from the +continent of North America and the large economic loss that the continued +destruction of that life is bound to entail, we call upon the people of +America to adopt more stringent measures to stop the excessive killing of +birds, quadrupeds and fish, and to enact more drastic and far-reaching +laws for the protection of the remnant from the extermination that +threatens it. + +We realize that the tremendous importance of our fishery resources is +underestimated, and that this great asset is threatened with serious +diminution. We urge upon Congress and the states to provide more +liberally for fish propagation and preservation, in the interest of the +conservation of this food source so important at present and vital for +the future. + +The problem of the preservation of migratory birds, fishes and quadrupeds +is interstate; therefore, we emphatically endorse the resolution of the +second National Conservation Congress to the effect that the National +Government supplement the laws of the states with comprehensive national +laws for the protection of migratory animals. + +The losses of life and property from fire in the United States are +enormous and abnormal, amounting to 1,500 human lives annually, and +with the cost of prevention to nearly $400,000,000 of property, or ten +times that of any other civilized country of the world. Such losses may +be largely prevented by economical treatment, and we recommend to the +Congress of the United States a national investigation of this subject +under government supervision, the collection, classification and analysis +of data concerning the causes of such fire losses, and the relation of +fire insurance rates thereto, to the end that a permanent department of +government be established to collect and furnish to the United States and +the people thereof reliable information in relation to life and property +losses and practical means for their prevention. + +The children of the United States are recognized as the most precious +resource of this Nation, and the Federal Bureau of Education as the +best agency for collecting, publishing and distributing educational +information throughout the country. We therefore urge that national +appropriations for studying problems involving the welfare of the +Nation’s school children be made comparable in amount with those annually +made for studying problems involving the welfare and conservation of the +Nation’s material resources. + +In a system of free schools all the children should be trained for good +citizenship and for the useful industries; owing to the rapidly changing +and increasingly complex social and economic condition in all sections of +the Union, our public schools should make ample provision for instructing +the youth of the land in the more important occupations in which our +people are engaged, and the parents and teachers should counsel together +to determine if possible for what vocation each child is best adapted. +We recommend that the schools should be so organized and conducted that +the great purposes for which this Congress exists may be realized through +the work and lives of men and women who have been trained in health, +home-making, citizenship, and industry. + +We urge upon all who are concerned with the actual work of conservation, +whether in the state or Nation, that they secure quickly as possible +through unprejudiced scientific investigation exact knowledge concerning +our various resources and the conditions which affect their development, +and we urge that all constructive conservation policies be based upon +such exact information. + +As this notable Congress draws to a close we, the delegates, desire to +express our hearty appreciation of the many courtesies and the warm +hospitality extended to us by the citizens of the city and state in which +we are assembled. We desire, especially, to proffer warm thanks to His +Excellency Herbert S. Hadley, Governor of Missouri, and to Honorable +Darius A. Brown, Mayor of Kansas City, for their words of welcome, borne +out later by actions. + +We desire also to express a special acknowledgment of the courtesy, +energy and ability and good will of the Commercial Club of Kansas City, +as manifested particularly by its accomplished president, Mr. J. C. +Lester, and its highly capable secretary, Mr. E. M. Clendening. We +appreciate our obligation, too, to the local board of managers, and to +Chairman Neal, for their efficient service. + +We also acknowledge a debt to the clergy of Kansas City for their +coöperation in several sessions and for the spirit emanating from them +which has done so much to temper and ennoble the deliberations of the +Congress. + +We, the delegates, desire also to express appreciation of the devotion, +eminent fairness, tireless energy, and endless good humor of retiring +President Wallace; we acknowledge no less indebtedness to the highly +efficient chairman of the executive committee, Mr. John B. White, now +president of the Congress. + +We also note our debt to the efficient executive secretary of the +Congress, Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, without whose untiring efforts the +Congress would have fallen short in the accomplishment of duty; and we +appreciate, too, the efficiency of Recording Secretary Gipe. + +We desire to signalize our appreciation of the notably efficient service +of our worthy sergeant-at-arms, Colonel John I. Martin, who has not only +maintained perfect order under trying circumstances, but has smoothed the +practical working of the Congress by his courtesy and good humor. + +Finally, we acknowledge a special obligation to the press of Kansas City +for the notably full and fair reports of our proceedings from day to day, +and in equal degree for the preliminary publicity which contributed so +much to the success of this Congress. + +[Illustration: DR. HENRY WALLACE, President 1910-11] + + + + +THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS + + + + +_OPENING SESSION._ + + +The Congress convened in Convention Hall, Kansas City, Missouri, on the +morning of September 25, 1911, President Henry W. Wallace in the chair. + +President WALLACE—The convention will come to order and will be opened +with an invocation by the Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Lillis, Bishop of the Roman +Catholic Diocese of Kansas City. + + +INVOCATION. + + _In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy + Ghost, Amen. Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy + name; Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in + Heaven; give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our + trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us + not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen._ + +President WALLACE—An address of welcome will now be delivered on behalf +of Kansas City by its Mayor, the Honorable Darius A. Brown. (Applause) + +Mayor BROWN—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the very brief time +in which I have to speak to you, if there is one fact of which I want to +convince you it is that I am absolutely not responsible for the condition +of the weather this morning. Convention Hall, the walls of it, have +probably enclosed many important conventions and congresses, but I do not +believe in the entire history of the institution, or of Kansas City, that +there has ever gathered here a congress or convention whose deliberations +and conclusions are of such vital importance to the great mass of people +as that which will soon convene here this morning. We have had all sorts +of conventions for the purpose of discussing ways and means of pursuing +their public avocations, and how to best carry on the business in which +they are engaged, but this is a Congress which is not gathered for the +purpose of determining how it is best to make money or to carry on +business, but for the purpose of solving some of the great problems which +are necessary to be solved in order that we should go forward in the way +in which this Nation should go forward. + +Beginning with a strong desire to prevent waste of some of the lands and +natural resources of this country, the principle of conservation has +been so extended and its scope so widened that today it is only limited +by the bonds of human activity, and this principle of conservation is +certainly of vital importance to the great cities of this country, and +it has lately come to be given a practical application in the saving and +preventing from waste of the valuable rights which the people of great +cities have in their streets and public thoroughfares. For a long time +past when private individuals sought certain valuable rights in the +streets and thoroughfares of our great cities it has been the custom +to give them for the asking, but now has come a time when the minds of +the people are turned to the principles which demand that none of these +things should be wasted or granted away unless there is a fair and just +return to the people for the rights which are granted. There is another +application of this principle of conservation in the life of our great +cities. Conditions have arisen and exist today, and have existed, the +cause of which has not yet been definitely determined, whereby the lives +and the health and the morals of the people are being wasted; and so the +thinking patriotic people of every city in this country are directing +their minds, not so much to anything that is the result of these +conditions as to get directly at the cause and prevent the results which +are flowing from the causes which have existed. And the officers of this +Congress have become so saturated and so imbued with this principle of +conservation that the secretary, in sending out his notices to those who +have been selected to deliver these addresses of welcome this morning, +inserted therein a clause wherein he said there will be five addresses +for the morning session, and therefore all of them will necessarily have +to be brief; and the secretary was right. And it is absolutely right that +it should be so, for many reasons, particularly two: Because there will +assemble here this morning and during the days of these sessions some +of the most distinguished, able and learned men of the United States, +men who have shown their right to speak authoritatively on these great +subjects; men who have devoted their time, energy, their lifetime, to +the study of the proper solution of the great problems of American life; +men who are coming here with a message to deliver to the people of this +Congress and to the people of this great country; and therefore it is not +right and proper that their time and the time of the people who have come +here to listen should be wasted by an address of welcome. + +And it has been suggested that on account of the fact that possibly +some of those who are to deliver these addresses of welcome have caused +considerable delay, that they ought to be abolished altogether. There +is another reason why no time should be wasted in hearing addresses of +welcome. I do not know why this custom has grown up in this country that +when any considerable body of citizens of one part of the country gathers +in another part that it is necessary for some high dignitary or executive +of the city to deliver an address of welcome. Perhaps it came from the +older countries of the world, where the provinces and the municipalities +and states were clutching at each other’s throats, and they built great +walls around the city, and when one man wanted to visit another community +it was necessary for him to go to the gate and rap on it and have some +high dignitary bid him enter. In this great country of ours we have +been drawn so closely together by the influence of the newspapers, the +magazines, the railroads, telephone and telegraph that today we are one +great common people, actuated by the same great motives and inspired by +the same high ideals, and so a citizen of one portion of this country +today is just as welcome in another portion of the country as the rising +sun in the morning. (Applause) And so I say it is not necessary for any +representative of the city to say to this gathering that they are welcome +in Kansas City, or to say that the arms of the people of Kansas City are +extended in a hearty welcome, because we believe that the result of the +deliberations which you will hold here and the conclusions which you will +reach will not only be of lasting and vital benefit to the people of this +city, but to the people all over this country. And it is an encouraging +sign of the times that in every branch of human endeavor the people +are gathering periodically, yearly or monthly, or biennially, for the +purpose of discussing the questions which affect them in their peculiar +avocations. It has been said a great many times that perhaps democracy +is a failure, that the people all have shown themselves incapable of +governing themselves. But the most prolific cause of that opinion has +been that in the past the public servants have been selected and the +public questions have been solved by a small body of men, sometimes +too many of which are actuated only by a desire for their personal +aggrandizement. + +And the great rank and file of the citizenship, the individual citizen, +has not seen fit to devote any of his time to a study of any of those +problems, but has left the whole government of the people to be done +by this small coterie of men. The people are awakening to their +responsibility as citizens of this country: they are beginning to ally +themselves with some such organization as this, which has for its +purpose the study and solution of these problems, and day by day, more +and more, by enactment of Congress, amendments of constitution, state +legislative action, amendments of city charters, more and more of these +great questions are being submitted directly to the people for solution, +and so I say, when the time comes through this awakening which we have +seen, when the individual citizen will come to a full appreciation of +his responsibility, and these problems are submitted to them, they will +all be solved right and properly. And I want to say in conclusion that +I hope, and I express the hope of every good citizen of Kansas City, +that this Congress will achieve great things, will do more than has ever +been done before to solve these great problems that are clamoring for +solution. I thank you. (Applause) + +President WALLACE—On behalf of the Commercial Club of this city an +address of welcome will be delivered by Mr. John C. Lester, its honored +president. + +Mr. Lester spoke as follows: + +Mr. President and Members of the National Conservation Congress: I bear +to you the greetings of the Commercial Club and the other industrial and +civic organizations of Kansas City. We find nothing in our annals which +is a greater source of pride than our part in bringing this Congress to +Kansas City. We are proud to welcome an assembly of men and women who +are devoted to the idea of the salvation of the physical resources of +the nation, which means the physical salvation of our part of the race. +The moral benefit to ourselves of trying to do something for others, +is taught in an age-old lesson. What better way of illustrating that +principle, and securing that good than by teaching that the spendthrift +energies of this generation must be curbed in order that more be left for +the vital sustenance of the next. What more inspiring sight than this +great audience, drawn from the four quarters of the Nation with minds +intent on that one principle? We easily recognize the great impulses +and movements for the good of the race. They stand out in history +like mile-stones. Among them the cause of your meeting, the cause of +conservation is a pillar of fire. You are rightfully appalled by waste +and are fighting it as sin. You are fully conscious from the story of +life on this earth, of what a proper use of his resources means to man. +You are fully conscious of the folly of destroying today what will be +needed to save life tomorrow. + +Your theme is Conservation. You tremble at conditions and seek a remedy. +To you the glory of the harvest, the wealth of the mine, the roar of the +falling water, the shadows of the forests, the flow of the streams, means +more than the happiness of today: you would also have them the joy of +tomorrow. If the world heeds your advice the day of the last man will be +put off for countless ages. + +The products of the soil and the forest, in seeking a market, seek the +sea and its highways as naturally as do the waters of the streams. In +obedience to this law, this community is now engaged in an effort to +solve one of the great practical problems of conservation—that is, the +conservation of power in transportation. We are devoted to the idea of +the practical use of the Missouri River as a freight carrier. You have +taught us that saving coal means saving life. You have also taught us +that the same power required to move 8 tons on steel rails will move 34 +tons on water; hence who dares say that our ambition to reach the sea +by water with our products is an idle dream, or that the immutable laws +of Nature are not on our side? Our critics are fighting the eternal +verities! They might as well fulminate against the law of gravitation! +The Missouri River is and will be navigated. In this effort we claim +kinship with all the sons and daughters of Conservation. + +As that eminent Frenchman and conservator of peace, Baron Destournelles, +recently our guest, in writing a short time ago about this city and its +relation to the Missouri River, pointed out, the river and the railroads +have their separate burdens to bear, one class of freight will always +seek the quicker transit of the rails, another class will always seek the +vastly cheaper transportation afforded by a water channel. + +But I must not anticipate a possible subject of your deliberations. +Pardon me, if I feel impelled when addressing conservationists to prove a +strong local bond of sympathy! + +As apostles of conversation-conservation, you, at your third annual +meeting, have made a splendid beginning. You have supported precept by +example in that you have selected a place for your Congress, just 125 +miles east of the geographical center of the United States. You have thus +conserved both the time and money of your members in meeting at Kansas +City!—a most excellent centre from which easily radiate all influences +for good, either moral or commercial! + +It is my part, however, on behalf of all our civic organizations, to +supplement and, if possible, strengthen your official welcome. You are +thrice welcomed; first, because we are proud to honor as great a nucleus +of brains and character as ever assembled under Convention Hall; second, +because we know your purpose and your work and believe in them; and, +third, because we expect to learn from you how to conserve the health of +our children, how to conserve the purity of the streams from which we +must drink, how to conserve the fertility of our soil from the exhausting +wastes of ignorance, how to conserve the happiness of the country home, +and turn the tide back from the cities—all save this one perhaps—and in +all things to live in and enjoy this world so that the generations that +come after will bless us and the great doctrines of conservation. + +We are honored by your presence. + +May we all follow the banner bearing your motto, “The greatest good for +the greatest number for the longest time.” + +President WALLACE—An address of welcome will now be delivered by the +Honorable Herbert S. Hadley, Governor of Missouri, on behalf of that +great state. Governor Hadley. (Applause) + +Governor HADLEY—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: His Honor, the Mayor, +and the President of the Commercial Club have made welcoming on my part +a work of supererogation. I know, of course, that you are welcome, +and you know are welcome, or you would not be here. The President of +the Commercial Club has referred to you and to himself as apostles of +conversation as well as apostles of Conservation. And so it is upon that +suggestion, I suppose, that in making speeches of welcome, we are making +speeches in discussion of the subject that has brought them here. I take +it, however, the explanation of my presence on the program this morning, +is not for the purpose of welcoming you here to the State of Missouri, +because you were welcomed here when you decided to come. I am here among +these apostles of conservation and apostles of conversation simply for +the purpose of giving a little variety to the program. It seemed well +to those who were managing this Congress that on an occasion when the +people gathered together from all the states in the Union to consider the +important question of a proper conservation of the soil, that it would be +well to have at least one farmer among those who were gathered together +for the purposes of that discussion. (Applause) And so they came down to +Jefferson City to ask me to turn aside from my executive and agricultural +pursuits long enough to come up here and lend a little variety to the +program this morning, because to those who come from other states it may +be necessary to impart that although I have been regarded and referred to +upon various occasions as something of a political curiosity, I am far +more than that in that I am the first farmer Governor of the State of +Missouri in over a half a century, and I think the first Governor in the +entire history of the state who became a farmer after he became Governor. +(Laughter and applause). So consequently I represent in and of myself +both the principles of conversation and the principles of Conservation. +Consequently, what I have to say to you this morning will be along the +line of congratulation that you have come to a state that has such a +splendid example, not only of the necessity, but of the practical results +of the application of that great national policy that you are gathered +here to consider. As has been suggested by the remarks of the Mayor, and +the President of the Commercial Club, this question of conservation is a +question which has so many sides, and has so many practical and important +applications that you have, Mr. Chairman, to come to a great state like +the State of Missouri, with its diversified interests and resources, in +order to see just exactly how great a question you are dealing with. +(Laughter) So I congratulate you upon the wisdom that you have displayed +in selecting your place of meeting. I say this advisedly, because +Missouri, which is the oldest of those states lying wholly west of the +Mississippi to have been admitted to the Union, is one of the youngest or +most undeveloped states between the Mississippi and the Pacific. + +Even before the territory where we meet today had become a part of the +American Republic, the hardy pioneers, hunters, trappers and traders who +had carried English civilization across the Alleghanies and into the +valley of the Mississippi had pushed westward even to the banks of the +Missouri. Following the acquisition of the Territory of Louisiana and our +organization as a territory and admission as a state, Missouri stood for +forty years as an outpost of civilization, reaching out to the unknown +and the undiscovered West. And from her borders stretched those two great +highways of commerce, the Oregon Trail, and the Santa Fe Trail, along +which, in turn, were to march the soldiers, hunters, trappers and traders +who were to bind the Trans-Mississippi country to the United States by +ties stronger than those of treaties and of laws. The Missourian became +the pioneer of the West. And in practically every state that lies in that +vast empire between the Mississippi and the Pacific the sons of Missouri +have felled the forests, dug the mines, cultivated the soil, written the +constitutions and laws, held the offices and directed the commercial and +industrial activities. + + +MISSOURI’S UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES. + +So bounteously, in fact, has Missouri contributed of her citizenship +to the development of other states and territories that she has left +undeveloped many of her own natural resources and uncultivated almost +one-half of her soil. Of the 44 millions of acres which constitute the +State of Missouri, little more than one-half has ever been touched by a +plowshare; and of her 20 millions of acres of uncultivated soil, there +are 17,500,000 acres of woodland awaiting the stroke of the woodman’s +axe. Of lead and zinc, we produce more than any state in the Union, yes, +more than all of the states of the Union combined, or any nation in the +world. And yet the geologists tell us that greater stores of mineral +wealth lie beneath the surface of our soil than have even been discovered +by the drill of the miner or the pick of the prospector. We have within +and along our borders 6,000 miles of navigable rivers, a larger number +of miles of navigable waterways than any inland state in the Union. By +the cultivation of one-half of our 44 millions of acres we produce over +100 million dollars worth of corn each year, nearly 1 million dollars in +value of this product for every county in the state. Missouri lies in +the very center of the American corn belt, and there are no corn lands +superior to those found in this state. One farmer in Missouri grows more +corn each year on his farm than is grown in the nine States of Utah, +Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Rhode Island, Wyoming and +Nevada combined. Three counties in Missouri grow more corn than nineteen +other states, in which is included all of New England. These three +counties grow more corn than do the states of New York, Maryland or West +Virginia. Three times as much corn is produced in Missouri each year as +is produced in all of South America, three-fifths as much as in all of +Europe and nearly one-half as much as is produced in the whole world +outside of the United States. The average yield of corn in Missouri per +acre is forty bushels, a higher average yield than in any state in the +Union, and yet by the proper application of the principle of conservation +in the use and cultivation of the soil, this production could doubtless +be increased 25 per cent. And by the proper use of the uncultivated +corn lands of the state, our production could be made greater than any +state in the United States, and probably greater than the entire corn +production of Europe. + +The same thing is true as to our other important crops. Our average wheat +crop sells for 30 millions of dollars, which is also the average value of +our crop of hay which is sold upon the markets, not including the immense +acreage of blue grass, clover and timothy pastures. + + +THE OZARK REGION. + +The character of our soil, as well as of our climate, is peculiarly +favorable for the growing of grass. Grass is not only the greatest +of all agricultural products, but its production under most favorable +conditions is an indication of the most desirable place of habitation for +man. One of the early travelers who investigated the conditions in the +Trans-Mississippi country, who was also much of a philosopher, made the +statement that the best place for human habitation is in that country +farthest south where grass grows well. And the country farthest south +where grass grows well is to be found in the Ozark region of Missouri. +When the first Spanish explorers crossed the Mississippi, they found +the largest herds of buffalo, elk, deer and antelope feeding upon the +splendid pastures of blue stem and of blue grass in what is now the +southern half of Missouri. Prior to the coming of the white man, this +region was a vast upland prairie, noted for its splendid growth of grass +and favorable hunting ground. And so long as the Indians remained, the +growth of trees, except along the rivers and the streams, was prevented +by the burning of the grass each year. But with the coming of the white +man and the driving out of the Indian, the growth of the timber extended +back from the rivers and the streams, and what was once the greatest +pasture in the country is now covered by a growth of timber. + +Through the proper application of the principles of conservation, this +timber can be cleared in such a manner as to restore the growth of +blue grass and of blue stem to make this region the most favorable for +dairying and the raising of live stock that the country affords, and at +the same time preserve enough of the trees to give the natural commercial +advantages to be derived therefrom. + +Of our 20 millions of acres of uncultivated soil, three and one-half +million consist of swamp and overflowed lands to be found in the valleys +of our great rivers. If this land were reclaimed by the application +of the principles of conservation, so as to produce a certain annual +harvest, it would produce enough of agricultural wealth each year to feed +all of the people of Missouri, and leave the balance of our 23 millions +of acres for the production of surplus products. + +In support of this statement, let me refer you to facts of history, for +Egypt, during the palmiest days of her civilization, never had under +cultivation to exceed six millions of acres in the Valley of the Nile. +And yet these six millions of acres supported a population of 10 millions +of people. Holland reclaimed from the sea two and one-half millions of +acres of land which supported a population of 8 millions of people. And +yet the swamp and flooded lands of Missouri are as rich as the reclaimed +lands of Holland or the Valley of the Nile. + + +THE NEED OF SWAMP LAND RECLAMATION. + +The reason why these lands do not now produce a certain annual harvest +is largely due to the fact that the National Government does not keep +within their banks the waters of its navigable rivers. During the course +of the last ten years, the National Government has spent 125 millions +of dollars to put water on to three and one-half millions of arid lands +in the West. I am confident that there is no one present here today who +objects to the policy that has been followed by our National Government +for the reclamation of the arid lands of the West by the conservation of +our waters for the purpose of irrigation. Though mistakes may have been +made in isolated cases, the general policy meets with national approval. +But I feel that the time will come; in fact, I believe it has come, when +the national government should be willing to spend at least a small +portion of the money that it uses to put water on the arid lands of the +West to keep the water of its navigable rivers off of the rich lowlands +of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers. It takes an expense of from +$25 to $40 an acre to put water on to the arid lands of the West, and yet +it is the estimate of engineers that by an expense of not to exceed $5.00 +an acre the water of the navigable rivers can be kept off of the lowlands +adjacent thereto. + +This question is of importance not only to the people of Missouri, but +to the people of the entire country. There are in the Mississippi and +Missouri river valleys over 20 millions of acres of the richest lands +in the world, which are now impaired for the purpose of cultivation by +reason of swamps and overflows. If this land were reclaimed and made to +yield a certain annual harvest, it would almost double the agricultural +production of the Mississippi Valley. And the reason why it is not so +productive is, as I have said, because the national government does not +keep the waters of its navigable rivers within their banks. By doing so +the reclamation of this swamp and flooded land would not only be made +possible, but by such a policy our navigable rivers would be improved and +made more dependable as a means of inland transportation. And it little +profits us to increase the production of our fertile fields unless that +production can be carried from the farms to the market in such a way and +for such a charge as will adequately compensate for the labor thereby +expended. + +And if the principles of conservation were given a practical and +effective application in improving our rivers by the keeping of their +waters within their banks, by using in a proper and a scientific way our +uncultivated soil, the railroads would be unequal to the task of carrying +such an immensely increased agricultural production from the farm to +the market. Then the question of water transportation would become a +necessity and, in my judgment, a satisfactory progress in the improvement +of our inland waterways for the purposes of transportation will not be +made until our agricultural production is increased to such an extent +that existing railroads are unequal to its transportation. + + +THE PROBLEM OF ADEQUATE PRODUCTION. + +I have outlined to you, in a most general way, some of the important +phases of the question of conservation which find a practical +application to the conditions existing today in the State of Missouri. +Experts tell us that over 40 per cent of our farm lands are being +cultivated in a way which tends to decrease, rather than to increase, +their productivity. Such a policy must inevitably result in the +impoverishment of the Nation; because when you destroy the productivity +of the soil, then do you strike at the very foundation of national +prosperity and happiness. Agriculture, the oldest of occupations, is +clearly the most important. The value of that which is produced from the +soil exceeds the value of all other products of human labor. Up to the +present time in this country, we have been peculiarly fortunate in that +our production has exceeded consumption and the supply has always been +greater than the demand. The result has been that the American people +alone, of all the people of the world, have eaten the same kind of food. +And no stronger influence could exist as against the creation of classes +and castes in our population than for all of the people to eat the same +kind of food. + +But with the consumption increasing more rapidly than production, and +the consequent increase in the cost of the necessities of life, there +shall come a time when many will not be able to secure the same kind of +food that is enjoyed by others. Then will there come a disturbing and +dangerous influence which will threaten our society and our institutions. +Statistics tell us of a constantly decreasing surplus of production. Our +balance of trade is rapidly becoming confined to the exports of cotton. +And if the present tendency continues, in a few years we will consume +all of the products of our grain and of our live stock and have none to +sell in other lands. And when this condition is followed by a time that +it will be necessary to import the necessities of life, then will exist +conditions which will be the cause of concern, as well as a reflection +upon the American people for their capacity to use in a proper manner the +great natural resources with which nature has endowed them. + +I feel, however, that the American people have demonstrated most +impressively their capacity for self-government by the effective manner +in which they have taken up this important question of conservation. Ten +years ago, the term was hardly known outside of the laboratory of the +scientist and the class-room of the agricultural college. Today it is +almost a household term. Under the inspiring leadership of that great +American, Theodore Roosevelt, the American people have taken up the +consideration and the practical application of this important national +policy. And this splendid Congress today, assembled in this progressive +and developing city, is an evidence of the fact that the interest in this +question is by no means subsiding. + +I welcome you to Missouri and voice the sentiment of her people when I +say we hope that your deliberations and discussions will contribute to +the practical and effective application of that great public policy that +you are gathered here to consider. + +President WALLACE—This is a right good looking audience. We want it to go +down in history, and if you will just be quiet, we will have a flashlight +picture taken before I respond to this eloquent address to which you have +just listened. + +[After the flash light picture was taken the Congress proceeded.] + +President WALLACE—I assure you that it is a great privilege as well as +pleasure to respond in behalf of this Congress to the cordial address +of welcome of the Governor of the great State of Missouri, the Mayor of +Kansas City and the President of the Commercial Club. The people of the +West generally know Kansas City only as they see it from the stations, +and have no proper conception of the magnificence of its buildings, the +beauty of its streets and surroundings, and still less of the remarkable +enterprise of its citizens. I confess that all this was a great surprise +to me on a recent visit here. + +The real greatness of your city lies in the agricultural resources. With +the great State of Kansas on the west, with the great State of Missouri +on the east, with Oklahoma and Arkansas with their undeveloped resources +on the south, its future greatness must be largely measured by the +development of agriculture in these great states, in the great corn state +lying farther north and in the great cotton states farther south. Kansas +City can lay its hand on more possible agricultural wealth than any other +city on the map of the United States. Hence it was early recognized by +the officers of this Congress as the best possible place to inaugurate +a campaign for better farming, better business and better living on the +farm. + +The actual prosperity of any city is largely measured by the foresight, +the breadth of vision and energy of its commercial club. A modern city +may have vast resources; it may have a form of government almost ideal; +and that government may be acceptable to the people and free from any +breath of scandal; but if it does not have an organization of its ablest +and best business men, who can make a careful study of these resources, +who work together—and that, too, often at great personal and pecuniary +sacrifice—for the good of the city as a whole, these resources are +likely to remain undeveloped. The citizens of your city and the whole +state may well be proud of your Commercial Club. Its members are the +eyes through which the citizen sees the possible, and the hands through +which the possible becomes the actual. They are the ears that recognize +the unspoken needs and aspirations of the busy masses, and the voice +that gives them authoritative expression. Without an active Commercial +Club, such as you have, in which the masses of the city have perfect +confidence, you could not realize your possibilities. + +I am no less glad to respond to the cordial greeting of the Governor of +Missouri, a state of magnificent resources of soil, in mineral wealth +of several kinds, and in climate. As “no man liveth to himself,” no +state liveth to itself; but Missouri could better afford to be fenced +off by itself than any other state in the Union. It could feed itself, +clothe itself and enjoy itself, and all from its own resources in field, +forest and mine, “without the aid or consent of any other nation on the +face of the earth.” Its Governor and its citizens may well be proud of +its advance in educational lines and in the development of its many and +varied resources. Kansas City, Missouri, is therefore a fitting place +for the conservationists of the United States to meet and discuss the +greatest of all present problems; how to conserve the greatest of the +resources of the Nation, the fertility of the soil and the life of the +people who live in the open country. I am sure I voice the sentiment of +this Congress as a whole when I return its most heartfelt thanks and full +appreciation of the hearty welcome given by the Mayor of Kansas City, +the President of its Commercial Club, and the Governor of the State of +Missouri. + + +THE DRIFT OF POPULATION. + +It will be my object in this address not to discuss any phase of the +conservation movement exhaustively, but to outline briefly two drifts of +population: the drift from the farm to the city and the drift from the +city toward the land, and the work of this Congress as related thereto. + +Even before the daily press had begun the crusade “back to the land,” the +movement toward the land had already set in. When Oklahoma was opened to +settlement the land seekers stood, serried ranks of horsemen, waiting for +the signal gun; and that great state of undulating prairie, heretofore +only a great pasture, was converted in a few weeks into a state of farm +homes. Congress did not dare to repeat the experiment; but when other +Indian reservations were opened, provided for the distribution of land by +lot, giving the prize to the lucky man rather than to the one with the +swiftest horse and most accurate knowledge of the country. Every opening +since reveals the fact that only one in a few can gain the coveted prize, +so great is the land hunger of the American people. + +This land hunger is not peculiar to any class of people nor to any state. +The merchant, the banker, the railroad official of New York and Boston, +each longs for a farm, possibly only as a summer home, but is willing to +pay for it in investment, in improvements and cost of management, more +than it is worth in dollars or ever will be. He, too, is bitten by land +hunger. Many small business men of our cities, who cannot hope to secure +a farm and live on it, invest greedily in acreage in the suburbs. The +workman in the factory aims to secure two or three acres on which he can +build himself a home, have a garden or cow pasture or place for poultry, +or at least a playground for his children. + +The growth of large cities has ceased to be in the business or even in +the old residence sections, and is entirely in the suburbs. The same +holds true abroad. According to the census for 1909, London in the ten +years previous increased about three-quarters of a million. Yet the +population of the old town, “Old Londontown,” decreased very heavily; the +administrative district just outside that did not quite hold its own; and +the entire growth and twenty thousand more was made in the outer circle +or the suburbs. If men cannot have country life in the country, they are +constantly aiming at “_rus in urbe_,” in other words, to get as much as +possible of the country in the city. + +As interurbans stretch out from the cities, farm after farm on their +lines is divided up into acreage; and thus while the steam railroads +tend to concentrate population, as they have from the beginning, the +trolley lines tend to lure the people back toward the country. Even our +foreign population, the men who dig our coal, mine our ores and swelter +in our furnaces, aim to have a few acres which they can call their own, +where they may live cheaply and die in peace and quiet, when the great +interests have used up their best days and cast them off. + +In fact, latent in the heart of nearly every man, be he man of business, +clerk or other employe, or laboring with his hands, there is a yearning +desire to have a piece of land to call his own. Perhaps they do not +consciously reason it out. It may be a revival of the instinct of the +primitive man, or it may be an instinctive fear of industrial wrath to +come and a feeling that, should it come, should our whole industrial +system be shaken to its very foundation, the family that has a few acres +of its own can at least live in comparative comfort and safety. + + +THE MOVEMENT TO THE CITY. + +Alongside of this movement, back toward, if not always to the farm, the +counter-movement from the farm to the town, which has been going on for +fifty years, continues with increasing and accelerated force. Farmers all +over the older West move in great numbers or retire to the country towns; +and notwithstanding all this constant influx of population, these towns, +as the late census reveals, have barely held their own and often have +lost population, the natural increase of the towns themselves pouring +into the larger towns and cities, in which the majority live with less +comfort than the farmers who remain on their farms. Vast numbers of boys +and girls fall a prey to the alluring vices of the city; and many of them +eventually take their places with “the down and out.” Comparatively few +succeed and become well-to-do. The children of these few become wealthy; +their grandchildren usually spend gaily the fortunes they never earned; +and naturally the family dies out, at least, so far as force and power +are concerned, in another generation or at most two or three. The city +uses up men and families as it uses up horses. And this is true not only +in this, but in the older countries as well. All Ireland, for example, +except Dublin and Belfast, has lost population in the last ten years, as +has also nearly all of Wales and Scotland. + +I regard it as important that you should understand as clearly as +possible the conditions that have caused this world-wide movement from +the farm to the city, as only in this way shall we be able to foresee +and describe the conditions that will cause and are even now causing a +return flow or movement back toward the land. + +This movement townward began with the use of improved machinery, or +the application of science to the operations of manufacturing and +distributing the things necessary for the supply of our ever-increasing +human wants. It has increased in proportion to the success of the +inventions and discoveries. The power loom put all other looms out of +business. The spinning jenny sent the spinning wheel to the attic. The +small industries—the wagon shops, the blacksmith shops, the grist mills +and carding mills found in and around the county seats and smaller towns +fifty years ago—“folded their tents like the Arab and silently stole +away,” when it was found that a large plant and improved machinery, +coupled with transportation facilities, could supply human wants at less +cost. + + +THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORPORATION. + +What followed? Large capital was required for the larger plants. +The individual gave place to the firm; the firm eventually became a +corporation, and finally a trust. At last the workman could no longer +own his own tools, and became an employe. Large numbers of employes +were soon necessary, and for self-protection they formed the union. The +organization of labor followed logically the organization of capital and +gave us one of the greatest and most difficult of modern problems, that +of labor unions. + +In the factory we no longer aim to supply local demands, but state, +interstate, national and even international. For this there must be +transportation, and therefore we have now a railroad problem closely +intertwined with the labor problem, intimately connected with the whole +process of manufacturing and distribution. The products of these great +factories must be used by consumers living at long distances. Hence we +have the problem of distribution, or the problem of the middleman, and +all the direct results of the application of science to industry. Since +the world began the like has never been seen before. We have gone into +this troubled sea without chart or compass. Problems are evolved, for the +solution of which we have neither precedent nor guide. + +While all this was going on, an empire of virgin soil, the counterpart +of which exists in such mass nowhere else in the world, was opened for +immediate settlement, and that settlement was powerfully stimulated +by the homestead law and immense railroad grants. As a result the Old +World and the New were literally sluched with food for man and beast at +the bare cost of mining the soil fertility, the storage of unnumbered +centuries. Had this Mississippi Valley been covered with forests like +Pennsylvania and Ohio, and opened slowly as the world needed food, our +history would have been written differently, and the problems to be met +would have been of an entirely different character. + +With corn at from 20 to 25 cents, wheat 50 cents, oats 15 cents, the +manufacturer could afford to pay higher wages than the farmer and give +shorter hours. The city could furnish plank walks, then cement, paved +streets, light, amusement, society—the joy of living. Is it any wonder +that the farm boy and girls fled to the cities, away from the old-time +isolation of the farm, from bad roads, from lack of society, when offered +better pay and shorter hours? Better pay; shorter hours; larger life; +amusements for all, whatever their tastes might be; what boy or girl +could resist all this? + + +THE EVOLUTION OF MACHINERY. + +The farm itself finally began to use improved machinery. The farmer hung +his scythe in a tree and bought a mower; hung up his cradle and bought +a binder. He used more horses, better tools, and grew more crops with +less than half the labor. All this was natural, logical, inevitable. +The older farming sections do not have so dense a population as of old, +simply because they do not need it as they did when farming under old +conditions. They could not use it with profit when they had to compete +with town wages and town hours. + +What then followed? Inevitably, soil impoverishment. The nineteenth +century farmer was, speaking generally, no farmer at all, but a miner, a +soil robber. There was a good farmer here and there, a good settlement +here and there; but, speaking generally, there was no farming, nothing +but mining. The nineteenth century farmer sold the stored fertility of +ages at the bare cost of mining it. With his gang-plow and his four to +eight-section harrow, he could do more soil robbing in five years than +his grandfather could do in his whole lifetime. The evidence of it: +The now general use of commercial fertilizers from the Atlantic to the +Pacific, which means that the farmer of today is paying good round sums +for the fertility his father literally gave away; and the disappearance +of crops which grow during a short season, and therefore must have +fertile land. Our flax crop, for instance, is now disappearing up into +Canada, spring wheat closely following, and our oats crop preparing to +follow. + +We are now nearing a point where we will need practically all our grains +to provide for the wants of our own population. Our export of corn is +merely a dribble; in our last census year 100 million bushels less than +the average ten years before. Our exports of meats and dairy products +have shrunk in ten years over 50 per cent. We sent abroad last year only +about one-third the number of cattle we sent ten years ago. There is not +the slightest indication that this decline will be checked. If checked at +all, it will be but temporarily, due to an industrial crisis. Were it not +for over 500 million dollars’ worth of cotton that we send abroad each +year, the country would be drained of its precious metals to settle our +foreign obligations, and we would be on the verge of national bankruptcy. + + +THE PRODUCTION PER ACRE. + +Is it not amazing that, mainly since our Declaration of Independence, 135 +years ago, we have been able to so waste our fertility that we produce +less wheat per acre than any people of the Eastern Hemisphere, except +Russia and India? Lands in England that have been farmed for more than +a thousand years produce more than twice as much wheat per acre on the +average as we do in the naturally better lands of the Mississippi Valley. +That demonstrates the difference between farming and merely mining the +soil fertility. + +This condition has been greatly hastened by our statesmen. The gift of an +empire of land to railroads to enable them to furnish speedy and cheap +transportation for a vast continent, together with the enactment of the +homestead law, so excessively stimulated agricultural production that the +farmer was often, and in fact generally until about twelve years ago, +forced to sell his products at and often under the cost of production. +This gave the world cheaper food than it will ever see again, and made +possible the wonderful growth of great cities the world over. + +The anxiety of the farmer to find a home market instead of having his +prices fixed in a foreign market under competition led to the continuance +of the system of high tariffs long after the reason for it had ceased to +exist, thus wonderfully stimulating the growth of the cities of our own +land, cities which with all our boasted ability we have never been able +to govern decently. When this undue stimulus is removed, as it will and +must be sooner or later, our manufacturers will have to take the same +medicine which sickened the farmers in the 70’s, 80’s and early 90’s. + +Inasmuch as there are no more Mississippi valleys to be opened, we are +now nearing the turning of the lane. We must from henceforth learn how to +farm. We cannot greatly increase our acreage; will, in fact, be compelled +by the return of normal climatic conditions over our western territory +to reduce it. The only thing left to do is to grow more grain per acre, +better stock in greater numbers per quarter section. Only in this way can +we reduce the cost of living. + + +HOW TO PRODUCE FOOD CHEAPLY. + +Our great problem, as I said to this Congress a year ago, is how to +produce food for our own people at prices which they can afford to pay. +But how? Partly by putting more brains into our farming. There is a great +deal of agricultural labor wasted simply because many farmers do not +have even an elementary knowledge of the forces with which they have to +work. It is hard to convince them that the fertility of the soil is not +inexhaustible. Farmers of this class have been soil robbers too long, and +they continue to grow the same crop year after year, trusting to luck. It +is hard to get the farmers of this class to understand the philosophy +of crop rotation, of the natural movement of water in the soil, or of +the ideal seed-bed, or the fitness of certain soils for certain crops; +in short, of the requirements of plant or animal life, or to persuade +them to active coöperation with each other, or to get them in actual +touch and sympathy with the new agriculture. This is an educational +process, and therefore slow, even when there is a disposition to acquire +the knowledge. Many farmers have more faith in moon signs than in +agricultural colleges and experimental stations; more faith in ordinary +politicians than in college professors and scientists; more faith in +yellow journals than in the best agricultural papers. + +For this reason we now grow on an average two-thirds of a pound of corn +to the hill; whereas the good farmer often grows on no better land +originally two pounds per hill of three stalks, and three pounds are +possible. We grow fourteen bushels of wheat per acre (this year but +twelve and a half), while on land no better naturally, and often not +so good, England grows thirty-two and Germany twenty-eight bushels. We +are now passing through a stage through which English farmers passed +when they grew but twelve and a half bushels of wheat per acre. The new +agriculture has lifted the English and the Danish farmer out of the rut. +It will lift us when we begin to use our brains. Before this Congress +adjourns we will have some illuminating discourses on this branch of the +subject, addresses by men of national reputation, who have devoted their +lives to some particular phase of the problem of conserving and restoring +soil fertility. I would not, even if I could, anticipate what they will +say and say so well. + +The farmer complains that he cannot employ labor necessary to grow full +crops on his land, and therefore that he cannot now engage in intensive +farming. There is just ground for his complaint. The factory, the store, +the railroad, the trolley line outbid him for the labor, even that which +is farm born and farm bred. He cannot use the cheap labor of Southern +Europe, nor the hobo or tramp, nor the ne’er-do-well of the city, because +the farm with its improved machinery and its live stock requires skilled +labor, and a kind of skill that can be acquired only on the farm. He can +use Russian and the Japanese in the beet fields. He can use the emigrant +from Southern Europe in the vegetable garden, in digging ditches or +making roads; but he cannot use this labor in modern farming operations. +He dare not employ an unskilled man in milking, nor in feeding his +cattle, nor entrust to his care the management of either improved +machinery or team. + + +BOYS AND GIRLS AND THE FARM. + +Therefore the very root and kernel of our modern farm problem is how to +retain on the farm all the boys and girls born there, who are fit to be +farmers or farmers’ wives. This can be done only by making farm life +worth living. Making money or owning a farm is not all of farm life. We +have but one life to live on this earth, and we should get out of it all +that is possible. In many sections in the country, with bad roads, poor +schools, poor churches and no social life, farm life is not worth living. +That proof of this is seen in the fact that farm boys and girls flee from +it, and the farmer himself, as soon as he thinks he is able to live in +town. + +The farmer himself is to blame for much of this. He has played on the +roads under pretense of working them. He has hired the school teacher at +the lowest wage and starved the preacher. He has accepted the town ideal +of life, regarding himself as “only a farmer.” His school has not been a +rural school at all, but a poor kind of city school moved out into the +country; and its teacher gaining at his expense the years of experience, +while teaching farm children in terms of the town instead of the farm and +in the spirit of the farm, that will enable her to get a position in the +city. His preacher has been hoping he would get a call to a city church. +If the farmer has got on in the world, his wife, if she is very foolish +indeed, is inclined to boast that her society is not in the country, but +the town. He allows the politician in the city to fix up a slate and tell +him how he must vote. + +All that is needed to convert the farmers of the West into peasants +is to continue this policy for another generation. Fortunately this +policy will not continue. All over the country there is the beginning +of a great social and industrial awakening. The farmer is beginning to +“magnify his office,” to cut loose from partisan bias, to do his own +thinking and act for himself. He is paying better salaries to his school +teachers, and insisting that the teaching have some relation to the +life of the farm. He is buying his own automobiles, and paying cash for +them. He is beginning to realize that farm life is essentially different +from the life of the town. The man who steps high because accustomed +to walking over clods and has the far away look of one who studies the +clouds, is a different type of man altogether from the man who glides +along the pavement and to whom the weather is a matter of little or no +immediate concern. The man who glances over the headlines of his daily +paper while he sips his coffee is a different character from the man who +reads and studies the editorial of his weekly paper. This farmer’s wife +is now organizing her own clubs and giving her town sisters lessons in +club work. The movement to organize life clubs is spreading. The boys +and girls are organizing for games. The country church is beginning to +realize its mission, and in several states country preachers are taking +short courses in agricultural colleges in order that they may teach +morals and religion to farmers in terms of their daily life. + +The conservation of the life of the farmer, using the word in its +broadest sense, is essential to the conservation of the fertility of +the soil; and for that reason the executive committee of this Congress +has invited some of the leaders, men whose hearts are in this work, to +discuss before you its various phases. You have a real treat before you. + +In conclusion, permit me to say that the ultimate prosperity of the +city, its ability to govern itself wisely and well, depend on the +development of rural manhood. More than that, the very permanence of our +republic will depend on the development of the manhood of the farm. Rome +ceased to be a republic shortly after the farmers moved to town and left +their lands to be tilled by mere hirelings and slaves. + +We keep the best wine to the last always, and the last address of this +morning will be a response by Hon. J. B. White, of Kansas City, chairman +of the executive committee of the National Conservation Congress. Mr. +White. (Applause) + +Mr. WHITE—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of this Congress: It is not +necessary that I should reply to the address of welcome, the ground has +been so fully covered by the President of this Association. I feel like +endorsing from my heart everything he has said, but as a matter of form, +because it is expected that the chairman of the executive committee will +have something to say, I want to join as a private citizen of Kansas +City in welcoming the farmers and the conservationists of the entire +country here today, and as the chairman of the executive committee I want +to thank the good people of Kansas City for the admirable and perfect +preparation that they have made. I want to thank the board of local +managers. I want to thank the Secretary of the Commercial Club, Secretary +Clendening, personally, and the organization of which he is the main +worker. I want to thank him for the great work which they have done in +making this Conservation Congress possible. The Commercial Club of Kansas +City has been well spoken of as the eye and the ear of the people of +Kansas City, and it is truly so. + +Now, this Conservation Congress was called here because it was thought +there ought to be special attention given to conservation of farms—to +the conservation of soil. And it was thought that Kansas City was in the +center of the greatest agricultural district in the world. I suppose, +going two hundred miles in either direction from Kansas City, another +piece of ground naturally so fertile is not to be found in the world. +It takes in a part of Iowa, and it takes in the State of Kansas, a +large part of it, and nowhere is there a better. If it were formed +into one state it would be the greatest state agriculturally in the +world. I am a farmer and a lumberman, and there was a time not long ago +when conservation was thought to apply only to forestry, and that the +lumberman was the great and ruthless destroyer of the forest. It was a +matter of sentiment that went all over the country, and they thought +conservation ought to begin by saving the trees. Now, we have passed +beyond that. The lumbermen of the State of Missouri paid thousands of +dollars to help endow a chair of Forestry in Yale College. I see before +me one gentleman here who paid $4,000 toward that cause, and my company +has paid a great deal of money towards a chair of Forestry, and we have +done everything that we could. We invited the students of forestry of +Yale College into our forests. One season I had forty for two or three +months, and thirty-five for another season in my forests. We built them +cabins and furnished them men and horses, and everything we could do to +help them study forest conditions was done. We began it in Missouri over +twenty years ago, and later, as lumbermen, we have taken the greatest +interest in practical forestry and the conservation of the forest, but +we found it true that conservation of the soil must come first, because +it is of the greater importance. There are substitutes for wood for the +purpose of shelter, but there are no substitutes for food, and he that +make two blades of grass grow where one grew before is doing his utmost +for this and future generations. I notice that my friend, Mr. Wallace, +touched on politics. Now, I am not certain whether it was politics, +because the line drawn is so fine. It is so hard to draw a line between +conservation economics and real good politics. I remember I got my foot +into it one time; I used to belong to the Grange—thirty-five years +ago. In order to organize a grange you have to have at least fifteen +members, and four of them must be women, because it was supposed that +in any like proportion, four women to eleven men, gives the women the +majority, and wherever four women, or of that proportion, get into a +convention they are always in the majority. I got up, under the good of +the order, addressed the master of the Grange, and began to tell how +I thought benefit might accrue to the members of the Grange. I stated +some of the benefits that we were then enjoying; that we had 6 cents a +pound protection on lumber, and 6 cents a pound protection on cheese, +$4.00 a ton on hay, and $1.50 protection on straw, and 15 cents a pound +protection on butter. And then I had a complaint, because just then they +had taken the tariff off of lumber, and I said, “I own a saw mill and +I don’t think it is fair to let in lumber free.” (They did it at that +time, back in 1878.) One sister got up and replied, “We can stand 6 cents +a pound on butter, and 6 cents a pound on cheese, and $4.00 a ton on +hay, and 15 cents a bushel on potatoes, but, Good Lord, we ought to have +something free, and I think it ought to be lumber.” And they ruled I was +talking politics and I could not go any farther. That was the situation. +It summed up a good deal like this, that we want protection on everything +we produce, and we want everything to come in free that we have to buy, +and I think that is good economics. That would not be politics. + +Brother Wallace sees a great deal of good in everything, and he can +draw his lesson and illustration to prove conclusively any point he +entertains. I found that out. Why, I did not know that Samson was a saint +until I attended a church here in Kansas City four weeks ago yesterday, +and I listened to one of the best sermons I ever heard. It was shown +conclusively that Samson was a saint, and that it was so recorded in the +Scriptures. There were good reasons for his being a saint; the chief of +these reasons was that he was the best material they had at that time to +make saints of. My friend, Uncle Henry Wallace, delivered that sermon, +and it is the only sermon that I ever heard where politics and religion +were not touched upon at all. And I am sure that he will preside at this +Congress with that same justice; that there will be no complaint that +there has been any offensive politics entertained upon the floor. I want +to thank you again that you are here. And I want to say before I sit +down, that a session of the executive committee, of which I am chairman, +will meet at room 1111 Long Building tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. We +will get here at 10 o’clock, having an hour to confer and pass some +important resolutions and make some suggestions as to matters that will +be presented to this Congress. (Applause) + +President WALLACE—Please be seated just a moment. I wish to announce the +appointment of the following committee on credentials: Prof. George E. +Condra, of Nebraska; Dr. H. E. Barnard, of Indiana; Mr. Ralph H. Faxon, +of Kansas; Mr. E. T. Allen, of Oregon, and Mr. W. E. Barnes, of Missouri. + +Col. John I. Martin, of St. Louis, representing the City of St. Louis, +Lakes-to-the-Gulf-Deepwaterway Association, and the National Rivers and +Harbors Congress, has been selected as the sergeant-at-arms for this +Conservation Congress. He has accepted the office and is now in charge +of its affairs, and you will do just what he says, and do it with great +pleasure, and with great profit to yourselves. + +The secretary has some announcements to make. Before he makes them let me +say that the meeting this afternoon will be at 2 o’clock, which is sixty +minutes past one and sixty minutes before three. This afternoon’s meeting +will be a conference of governors of states and their representatives, +and the presiding officer will be Honorable Herbert S. Hadley, and +tonight we shall hear the President of the United States. (Applause) + +Secretary SHIPP—All delegates or committees that have any announcements +to make are requested to send them in writing to the secretary, so that +they can be read from the platform, and posted at the information bureau. + +The delegates from each state are requested to meet immediately upon the +adjournment of the morning session, and organize by selecting from each +state delegation a chairman and secretary, and a member of the committee +on resolutions, and a vice-president to represent the state at the next +Conservation Congress. The names of those selected should be handed +in writing to the secretary at registration headquarters at the south +entrance of the hall, or on the platform. + +All state conservation commissions, and other state conservation +organizations that have reports to make to the Congress, are requested +to be ready to report this afternoon. The reports will be made as the +roll of the states is called. In view of the number of reports to be +presented, it is suggested that no report be more than ten minutes in +length. + +The delegates from all national organizations represented at the Congress +are requested to assemble at some time during the day and organize by the +selection of a chairman and a secretary, and choose a representative for +membership on the proposed advisatory board of the Congress. If only one +representative of a national organization is present, that representative +should send in his name to the secretary. + +Reports from national organizations are to be the first order of business +Tuesday forenoon. In order that proper provision may be made for these +reports all national organizations that have reports are requested to +notify the secretary, either at registration headquarters, or on the +platform, giving the name and address of the representative who is to +make the report. + +All delegates or committees that have announcements to make are requested +to send them in writing to the secretary so that they may be made from +the platform, and posted on the bulletin board at the information bureau. + +President WALLACE—I forgot to mention one of the greatest features of +this afternoon will be an address by the Honorable Ben B. Lindsay, of +Denver, Colorado, on the “Country Child versus the City Child.” + +Recording Secretary GIPE—The chapters of the Daughters of the American +Revolution of Kansas City will give a reception in honor of Mrs. Matthew +T. Scott, president general and the vice-president, from four to six this +afternoon at the Coates House. All visiting and resident Daughters of the +American Revolution are invited. + +The club women of Kansas City have established a rest room within the +convention building, to which all women delegates and visitors are +cordially invited. + +Delegate J. T. BAUMGARTNER (of California)—In addition to the +announcements that have been made, I wish to ask the California delegates +to meet at the Standard immediately upon adjournment. + +President WALLACE—The Congress is now adjourned to meet at this place at +2 o’clock this afternoon. + + + + +_SECOND SESSION._ + + +At 2 o’clock in the afternoon President Wallace called the Congress to +order. + +President WALLACE—The Congress will come to order, and the Divine +blessing will be invoked by Rev. Dr. R. M. Kerr, pastor First United +Presbyterian church of Kansas City. + + +INVOCATION. + + _Our Father and our God, we pause at the opening of this + meeting this afternoon to ask Thy blessing upon the National + Conservation Congress in this and its other sessions, in all + of its undertakings. We are asking of Thee the wisdom that + is beyond the mind of man, and we come only to Thee. We are + dealing with affairs of national interest and import, and we + dare not come to any one but Thee, because we believe that + in Thy power this land has been made, and in Thy Providence + it has been discovered. And that our forefathers in Thy fear + have established a nation which has often realized Thy signal + blessing. We would recognize Thee as the God, and the giver + of every good and perfect gift. Thou hast locked up in the + mountains, hidden away in the soil of this country those + elements that have made possible our material welfare and + prosperity. We ask Thee this afternoon that Thou wilt grant + unto the officers of this Congress, unto these its delegates + and all of the people in this land interested in these problems + the wisdom that will rightly enable us to appreciate Thy gifts, + and rightly conserve them, to use them for the greatest good of + the greatest number concerned. And we ask for Thy blessing to + be upon our President, and his cabinet; upon the legislative + bodies, state and national, upon all the courts of this land, + that as the people of this country through these officers are + striving to enact and execute just laws, they may do so in Thy + fear, and that the righteousness of a Christian civilization + may become more and more a reality. We would pray today that + Thy material blessings to us have chief value in relation to + human life and human deeds, and human development, and may the + conservation movement that is on foot in this country always + be broad enough and high enough to include the conservation of + human life, the integrity of manhood, the virtue of womanhood, + and the beauty and the innocence and the true worth of child + life. We believe that these blessings will mean the highest + good to our beloved country, and mean the advancement of Thy + kingdom here in this earth, and we ask these favors through + Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen._ + +President WALLACE—I take great pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen, in +announcing Governor Hadley of Missouri as the presiding officer this +afternoon. Governor Hadley. (Applause) + +Governor HADLEY—Mr. Chairman and Members Of the Congress: I was selected +to preside this afternoon in the expectation that this afternoon would +be distinguished by a conference of governors. I say distinguished +advisedly, because nowadays when governors confer there is distinction +to be passed around on all present, and some for others. However, +there were a number of governors here yesterday who were unexpectedly +called out of the city, but who will return during the sessions of the +Congress. There are some who will be present who have not yet arrived, +and consequently it has been decided by the officers in charge of this +Congress that upon this afternoon prior to the address of Judge Lindsay, +there will be a call of the states, upon which call the representatives +of the various states who are here, other than the governors, will speak +for a few moments in reference to the general question of conservation +in their respective states, and the conference of the governors will be +held later. After this call of the states you will have the pleasure, +I understand, of listening to the address by Judge Lindsay. In calling +for the representatives of the several states, those who are here +representing the governor, or those who may have been selected by the +delegates from any one of the states to speak in reference to the +situation in their state relating to the general policy of conservation +will arise, and either speak from the floor, or come forward to the +platform. The representatives of the press, whose requests are always +entitled to consideration, if not to be followed, request that the +representatives come forward so that their names and their remarks can +both be heard and preserved. I will now ask the secretary to proceed with +the call of the roll. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Alabama. Is there a representative from Alabama +present? (No response) Arizona. (No response) Arkansas. (No response) +California. + +Chairman HADLEY—Mr. J. C. Baumgartner of the State of California will +speak for that state. + +[Mr. Baumgartner’s speech will be found in the supplementary proceedings +at back of book.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I am certain we are all glad to know that though +California may be a little short upon water, it is not short on good +society, the possibility of good development. The secretary will proceed +with the call of the states. The secretary calls my attention to the +fact that the number of the states makes it necessary to somewhat limit +the statements from each, and they will be limited to five minutes. The +chairman, however, has a slow watch, so govern yourselves accordingly. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—The next state on the roll is Colorado. + +Chairman HADLEY—Is the State of Colorado represented here? + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Connecticut. (No response) Delaware. (No +response) District of Columbia. (No response) Florida. + +Chairman HADLEY—Is the representative of the State of Florida in the +hall? Go ahead. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Georgia. + +Professor E. L. WORSHAM, of Georgia—I am not the speaking representative +from Georgia, but I will make a brief report as to what conservation is +doing in that section of the United States, or what we are doing along +conservation lines. I regret very much indeed to see so many vacant +seats in the audience from the states to the far south. This is a very +busy time with the people in the south, as most of you know, and there +are a great many conservationists who would like very much indeed to be +present at this meeting, and I think it is safe to say that the fact +that they are not here does not mean that the South is not interested in +conservation, and that they are not doing something along those lines. +Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, it is true, however, that the people of the +southern states are not quite as active in the conservation movement as +the people of the North and West, and why, I cannot see, because there +is no doubt but that in the beginning God smiled more sweetly on this +section than on any other section of the American continent. He did more +for those people than all the rest. He endowed us with resources more +wonderful than those of any of the other sections of the United States. +Those good people have gone on from time to time not realizing what these +resources meant, until they are gradually passing out of their hands. I +cannot speak for other states, but for Georgia, Mr. President, I want to +say that we have enough water to supply California, and a good many other +Western states. That is the least of all of our troubles. As to water +power, we have water power enough running waste to run every spindle in +the southern states. It is simply awaiting the hand of the developer, and +we want to see it properly developed, and not gobbled up as it has been +done in many of the western states. This is one of the big problems that +the State of Georgia has on its hands today. It is a natural section for +manufacturing interests of all kinds, and you can get the cheapest power +on earth on account of this wonderful water power that is stored up in +its mountains. + +We have coal enough to run Georgia and California a thousand years. +We have rich stores of iron that run higher in per cent of iron than +those of the Birmingham district, and very few people know its value. I +understand the State of Georgia supplies three-fourths of the asbestos +output of the United States. Our marble speaks for itself in monuments +like that beautiful capital of Minnesota. Our granite speaks for itself +in buildings like the federal building in San Antonio, Texas, and other +buildings which I could point out. Our rich stores of bauxite many of +you know about, but, there are numerous other things of this kind, Mr. +Chairman, which I could mention, but I don’t care to dwell on them at +this time. The main thing that we are here to discuss is the conservation +of soil fertility, the conservation of agricultural resources. We of the +South are an agricultural section. You take away from us our agriculture, +and while we are rich in minerals and various other things, in a measure +we would be helpless. It is the only spot on earth, you might say, that +has a monopoly on the greatest crop on earth, and that is the cotton +crop. This I consider by far the most interesting, the most valuable +phase of conservation. The people of the South, while their soil is +extremely fertile, or was in the beginning, have allowed the rain to +wash it down in the valleys, and it has washed into the sea. They had +thousands and thousands of acres of land that would produce anywhere from +25 to 100 bushels of corn per acre, and from one to four bales of cotton +per acre, if it was simply cared for in a proper way. I have visited +the spot which holds the record for the greatest cotton yield on earth, +which produced four bales per acre. In the beginning it was the poorest, +reddest soil you ever saw in your life. It was taken over by a man who +knew his business, and in the course of three or four years he had it +up to a point where it produced almost anything. And there is another +thing, Mr. Chairman, we have a section there that will produce almost +anything under the sun in the way of crops. There is only one other state +in the union that can compare with Georgia in that respect, and that is +California, and, as the gentleman has just stated, they have not water. +Our sections, from blue grass to oranges, will produce all of the various +things in between. + +Mr. Chairman, we of the South have got the biggest problem on earth +to solve, as I see the problem. The problem of conservation of soil +fertility, the conservation of agricultural resources in general, are +undoubtedly among the important questions confronting this Congress, +but we have the biggest part of that problem. Why? It is because of the +much discussed negro problem of the South. There are a thousand and +one solutions of this offered, but the question remains unsolved, and +will pass on to future generations. As long as we have the negro we +are deprived of having other classes of labor, which you have here in +the North. (Applause) Because of his presence, we, of the South, are +dependent on the negro, and he knows it. We have got to get along in the +very best way we can, but we need a better class of labor. I don’t know +what we are going to do. That is the reason that this is such a grave +matter to the people of the South. Mr. Chairman, I see I am taking up too +much time here, but I do want to get back to Georgia, and the part she is +playing in conservation. (Cries of Go on. Go on.) + +Since the Congress met one year ago, at St. Paul, the South has had a +conservation congress, and I think I can say that it was a success. +There are a number of speakers on this program that were there and +noted the interest that was manifest in this meeting. Following that +meeting the Georgia Conservation Association was organized, and it is +taking up a number of these problems which we are so anxious to solve. +The president is a distinguished man in Georgia, Judge John C. Hart. +He is a man who went before the Supreme Court of the United States and +presented on behalf of the State of Georgia one of the most famous +cases in its history. The State of Georgia filed an injunction against +an immense copper plant in the northern part of the state, which was +responsible for a great deal of destruction of property, of vegetation +in general. This company had, at an expense of millions of dollars, put +in this plant, and I understand it is the largest of its kind in the +world. At that time copper was the plant’s main output and the state +filed an injunction requiring these people to consume the fumes that +were destroying vegetation. The case was carried to the Supreme court, +and the injunction sustained, and at a cost of five millions of dollars +the Ducktown copper plant put in a consumer from which they produced +sulphuric acid, and, today, it is one of the largest sulphuric acid +plants in the world. There is one of the solutions to the problem which +your able president presented this morning in the fact that you have, +throughout the West, as well as the South, to fertilize. Georgia, as a +result of that injunction, saved two million dollars last year in its +fertilizer bill. The representative of the State of Georgia Conservation +Association framed a bill creating a state conservation board, not a +commission, but a board that was to be created by special act, taking +up all lines of conservation. This bill was unanimously passed by the +senate, and unanimously recommended by the committee of the house, and +will come up for passage at the next session of the legislature. + +We passed a bill protecting bird life, and wild life generally in the +state, a very strict law, which we have needed for many years. The state, +as a result of the conservation work, has enacted a drainage bill, which, +I think, will result in great good to the people in the southeastern +part, in the drainage of swamp lands, which will make perhaps the +greatest agricultural land on earth. + +Mr. Chairman, I cannot go into details on any of these problems. Other +states in the union, every state in the union has agencies working +for conservation. In the first plant, the United States Department +of Agriculture is working wonderful results in the different states, +along lines of agriculture. The state colleges of agriculture are doing +great work; the experiment stations are doing great work; the various +state departments of agriculture are doing great work, but there is a +certain class of work which these agencies cannot do. There is a great +work for the independent organizations, such as the State Conservation +Association in the different states, and I would urge each state that has +not organized to get busy at once, and begin to take up these problems. +(Applause) + +Chairman HADLEY—Instead of a statement of the resources and developments +in the various states, I would suggest that this call of the roll is +particularly designed to accomplish a statement of what is being done +by public or official organizations in dealing with the question of +conservation in the several states. I think it is a very satisfactory +indication of the modern trend of conservation that this work is now +being done by the people of the several states instead of the national +government. It is an indication that the people do not intend that their +state governments shall sink to a lower level of efficiency. They intend +to exercise every power which they possess under the federal constitution. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Idaho. + +Chairman HADLEY—I have the pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. Holland C. +Day, who will speak for and represent Idaho. + +[Mrs. Day’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I am very glad indeed in listening to the interesting +speech of Mrs. Day to note what a serious attraction a state might have +for a woman by reason of having woman suffrage and caused her to transfer +her allegiance to the Governor of Idaho. I would suggest, however, that +she should not, in her enthusiasm for the horticultural possibilities +of the State of Idaho, forget that she still belongs to a state that is +distinguished as the state of the “Big Red Apple.” + +MRS. DAY—I will also say that the female suffrage movement is going right +straight along in Missouri. (Applause) + +Chairman HADLEY—I do not want to start a discussion right now. This, +being a conservation congress, is a peace conference. I will now call on +Col. Isham Randolph, who will speak for the State of Illinois. + +[Col. Randolph’s speech will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I am certain that every person interested in the general +question of Conservation, and particularly the state ownership of its +water power, is interested in Colonel Randolph’s statement as to what +they are doing in the State of Illinois. And I know that all of you, and +all other friends of Conservation, will be glad to have Colonel Randolph +convey to Governor Deneen the best wishes of the Congress. I would +suggest that on account of the fact that there are a number of speakers, +and Judge Lindsay, whom you are all anxious to hear, that the speakers +will please confine their statements to the official activities of their +various states in dealing with this question of Conservation. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Indiana. + +Chairman HADLEY—Mr. Harry Everitt Barnard, chemist Indiana state board of +health and state food commissioner, will speak for Indiana. I now have +the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Barnard. + +[Mr. Barnard’s speech will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Recording Secretary GIPE—I have a telegram from the Mexican Ambassador: + + “Washington, D. C.—Accept sincere thanks for kind invitation. + Regret exceedingly that official duties here prevent me from + accepting hospitality; would thank you greatly for minutes of + meeting. Gilberto Crespo, Mexican Ambassador.” + +The next state is Iowa. + +Chairman HADLEY—I would suggest that the representatives of the several +states yet to be called come up on the platform. + +I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Thomas H. MacBride, who +will speak for the state of Iowa. Mr. MacBride. (Applause) + +[Mr. MacBride’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I am certain that the representatives of all of the +states present appreciate Mr. MacBride’s not speaking of the resources +of the state he represents; although he did plead guilty to having a +legislature up there, which practically all the representatives of the +other states have to plead guilty to. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Kansas. + +A. W. STUBBS (Kansas City, Kansas)—Missouri has elected from our state, +a native of our state as its mayor, and has also elected a native of our +state as its governor, and Kansas has therefore as its representative, to +speak for it, a most distinguished educator, formerly of Missouri, now +president of the state agricultural college. Kansas has elected today +Professor Waters as representative of that delegation, as president. And +we would like to hear from him. + +Chairman HADLEY—During the sessions of this convention you will have the +pleasure of listening at length to a paper by Dr. Waters, but at this +time, on the call of the roll of the states, Kansas has selected him to +speak for her, and I am advised that during his short residence of a +little over one year in that state he has learned to speak the Kansas +language. (Applause) + +[Dean Water’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I am glad to see that Dean Waters with a few slight and +one noticeable amendments is able to effectively use the speech he used +to use about the State of Missouri when he lived here, and spoke to the +State of Kansas. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Kentucky. + +Chairman HADLEY—I have the pleasure to introduce to you Col. M. H. Crump, +of Bowling Green, Kentucky. + +COL. CRUMP—Mr. Chairman. I am simply here this evening to say that the +president of the University of Kentucky is not here. He will be here +tonight, and I will state that he will tell you tomorrow what we are +attempting to do in Kentucky. We started the conservation movement there +some thirty years ago with Professor Shaler of Harvard, when he was state +geologist. He wrote the first paper I know of in attempting to take care +of forestry. It is found in his report of 1873, about the time I came to +the state. We are, through the university, through the state colleges, +and through the geological survey, making some efforts along that line, +and we are doing all the state can do in that way. But there is a subject +there that we think is too large for the state to undertake. I picked up +a circular when I came in here, which says that an effort is being made +to take care of and preserve the forests, and the soil at the head of the +Green river. This paper states that some 32,000 acres of timber land, +2,000 of which is virgin forest, the last of a great forest which once +covered the Green river, and in the center of which is Mammoth Cave, we +ask that the Nation come forward and help to take care of that, because +it is too large for Kentucky, and heretofore nothing has been too large +for Kentucky to do. (Applause) That is all I have to say. (Applause) + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Louisiana. + +Chairman HADLEY—Mr. Fred J. Grace will speak for Louisiana. + +[Mr. Grace’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman HADLEY—I know that all true conservationists will be glad to +know that Louisiana is looking after the conservation of her shrimps and +oysters, and we will all be glad to hear whether Maryland is interested +in her terrapin and canvas backs. + +Secretary GIPE—The next state is Maryland. + +Chairman HADLEY—I have the pleasure of introducing Hon. Bernard N. Baker, +president of the first Conservation Congress. (Applause) + +MR. BAKER—Fellow delegates. I will only detain you a few minutes. I know +you are all waiting to hear Judge Lindsay. The governor limited us to +what we were doing to preserve the oyster. Maryland is doing her duty +in that respect, and if you will do your part, we shall all enjoy them +in using the oyster when it is opened. I know you want to hear Judge +Lindsay, and I am going to only speak a word. I thank you for this, and +we will wait for Judge Lindsay. + +FRED J. BREEZE of Indiana—I move that the report on the call of the +states be laid over until tomorrow. + +The motion was duly seconded. + +Chairman HADLEY—I think the Chair will declare that motion carried, +and on tomorrow morning where there is an order on the program for the +response of chairmen of organizations concerned in conservation there +will be statements of the representatives of the several states. It +is important in the consideration of this question that we should not +lose sight of the fact that conservation is a means and not an end, +and the real end is the formation and promotion of the happiness and +welfare and prosperity of the people. Consequently the most important +question of conservation is the question of the conservation of human +health and life. There are various phases of this question before the +American people today that are of commanding importance; the immense toll +that modern industry makes upon its workers amounts to ten every sixty +seconds; the number of deaths from unhealthful occupations has presented +a record as tragic as any that was ever written in times of war. There +is another phase of this question, of conservation of human life, in the +manner in which society deals with its deficient and dependents. Any +system devised for the prosecution of crime and the protection of society +against its enemies that deals only with the question of punishment +and revenge is a mistaken system, and does not accomplish anything of +permanent results in its benefits to society. They talk of the system +in the conduct of penitentiaries and jails and eleemosynary institutes, +but unless they send those they heal out into the world better men, +women or children, physically, intellectually or morally than when they +received them, that system is a mistaken and misguided one. One of the +most distinguished representatives of a modern system in the enforcement +of our criminal law for the conservation of human life and character is a +man who I now have the pleasure of introducing to you, Judge Ben Lindsay, +of the State of Colorado, and of the City of Denver, (Applause) who will +speak on the subject of the “Country Child vs. the City Child.” Hon. Ben +B. Lindsay. + +JUDGE LINDSAY—Governor Hadley and delegates, ladies and gentlemen: I am +sure it is a great honor to have the privilege of appearing here at this +National Conservation Congress to consider some phases of the problem +of the child. I do not know whether at past congresses the subject of +the child has had a part in the program, but I do know that upon this +occasion I feel a great deal as I think a particular boy friend of +mine must have felt once in a little episode that happened in my own +court nearly ten years ago. We found that when we made an appeal to +the loyalty, even of the street boy, the state might find a helper and +defender instead of an enemy. I recall when a certain policeman could not +capture a certain little rascal of the streets. He went by the nickname +of “Moochy.” He came in one day to say to me that another little imp of +Satan, as he was supposed to be, by the name of “Mickey,” knew where +“Moochy” was, and if he could enlist the services of “Mickey” in the +capture of “Moochy” he thought he might save this little citizen. It +was with some difficulty that I had to explain to “Mickey” that we were +trying to save “Moochy,” in order to get him to tell me where “Moochy” +was. When he found we had come to save, to help, and not to hurt, that +loyalty for his chum turned to loyalty to the state, and he said, +“Judge, I know where the kid is, and I will get him.” In about fifteen +minutes down in the wing of a cheap theater in our town there was a +howl and a growl that somewhat disconcerted the audience. And when they +investigated they found it was “Micky” pinching “Moochey,” as he called +it. With some difficulty my little gamin friend succeeded in getting +the delinquent to the court house, coming in to say to me with more or +less disgust, “that the kid didn’t seem to want to be saved nohow.” A +newspaper reporter happened to come along to write a story based upon +this episode, to be called “The Pinching of Moochey by Mickey.” It was +not complete, in his estimation, without a picture of the two, and he +lined them up outside to take their pictures, when “Mickey” balked. He +would not stand to have his picture taken. And I was somewhat puzzled, +for I rather feared the outcome of this situation when “Mickey” came in +followed by the newspaper reporter, to explain. He said, “Do you tinks I +want to get my pictur took wid de little giek,” as he pointed to “Moochy” +outside? “No,” he said, “I don’t; I got out of his class two years ago.” +Then he said, as he pointed to the newspaper man, “If that guy wants to +take my picture let him take it alongside of you, put both in together, +and I don’t kick.” + + +CHILDREN, THE BIGGEST CROP. + +When the Conservation Congress wanted to put the child in its work I am +certain I am not going to kick, but I am here to avail myself, as best I +can of this honor and this privilege. For after all this conference has +needed no apologies for including in its proceedings the problem of the +child, for there is not any problem that does not, in a measure, have +some bearing, some relation to the home and the child in the home. These +children are our best and our biggest crop. Without a proper conservation +of their welfare there will never be anything else worth conserving. + +There should be a bond of sympathy between the problem of the child +and the conservation of our natural resources because of the rather +interesting fact that the systematic work being developed for both has +had most of its growth and development during the past decade, and when +the history of the first ten years of the twentieth century shall be +finally written the two great revivals recorded will be those concerning +conservation and the child. It becomes more apparent each year that the +children are the most important factors in whatever the future may hold +in store for us. + +Another significant fact is that the growth of popular interest in the +problems of the children has been almost identical with the amazing +growth of urban population for the past two decades. + +[Illustration: PROF. E. LEE WORSHAM, Chairman of the Executive Committee] + + +CONGESTION PROBLEMS. + +The cry of “Back to the soil”; the stimulus given by the conservation +movement and the various activities that have grown out of it to promote +the pleasures, advantages and opportunities of farm life together with +all the modern inventions, telephones, electric light, rural mail +delivery, the trolley, good roads and the automobile, I am sorry to say +have not served to check the onward march to the cities. The proportion +of our people living in rural districts declined from 63.9 per cent in +1890 to 53.7 per cent in 1910, and our experts in social economy assure +us that in all probability much more than half of our population will +be residents of urban communities before 1920. In many of the older +states beyond the eastern center of population more than 90 per cent +of all the people live in cities and towns with a population of more +than 2,500. During the past decade alone, according to the census of +1910, the increase in the urban population of the entire country has +been at the rate of 34.9 per cent as against only 11.1 per cent of +the rural population. In six states this increase of urban population +as against rural population has been over 100 per cent, and while not +one state has failed to show a large increase of urban population, the +increase of rural population has been negligible in many states and has +actually shown a considerable decrease in seven states. Unless some new +and unexpected change shall come it is reasonable to assume that the +next generation will find more than half the children of this country +in urban communities. There is a temptation to follow that diversity +afforded by a subject like that assigned me, which may lead us more +into the pleasantries that are supposed to be a part of the life of +all country boys. The field, the farm, the orchard, the meadows, the +babbling brooks; those recollections recalled in the rhymes of a Riley +from the jam and the pies over to old Aunt Mary’s, to the joys of the +old swimming hole or of these fall days when the frost is on the pumpkin +and the fodder’s in the shock. The pity of it is that most of these +legends of the country boy are too much legend and too little reality. +If it were not so we can scarcely account for the growing disposition of +country boys to flock to the city. I regret to say that I believe that +the call to the city that is reaching the country boys of the Nation +will prove to be more effective than any call to the country or “back to +the soil” movement that has so far been inaugurated. One of the chief +complaints we hear on every hand among the farmers of this country is +the difficulty of the problem of farm labor and the indisposition of +the boys and young men in any such numbers as there should be to become +interested in the farm. I remember listening to the almost pathetic story +of one farmer of the Northwest, who told me that every one of his five +sons had gone to the city, and he had been unable to induce one of them +to remain. He said they either complained of the hardships and the lack +of opportunity, or pined for the excitement, pleasure and possibilities +of the city. The very advantages that we had hoped would make farm life +more attractive to the youth of the Nation is also proving to be one +of the factors that would seem to emphasize its monotony. The daily +newspapers, the magazines, the trolley cars and automobiles and good +roads are bringing the youth in such complete touch with the city that +instead of promoting that satisfaction and contentment with the country +as we had expected these city advantages would do, it often has just the +reverse effect. I am not prepared to say that these modern conveniences +upon which we depended so much in the “back to the soil” movement will +not in the end increase rather than decrease the numbers of country boys. +I recently visited a city of about three thousand population in one of +the most rural of states. What did I find? It has its moving picture +shows along its Great White Way, limited to two or three blocks, with +a roller skating rink, dance hall, and other forms of excitement and +amusement—almost a perfect miniature of the larger city. The fact that +the youth of the farming community, through trolley cars and automobiles, +had convenient access to the city, where before it would have been more +difficult, I was assured only whetted the desire in the country boy for +the city life. It would seem then that we are booked for disappointment +in the hope that the extension of city conveniences to the farm is going +to increase the rural population and therefore the number of country +children. + + +COUNTRY AND CITY BOYS. + +But except as it shall present difficulties in the growth and evolution +of modern civilization, I am not sure whether this condition, if it be +the condition, need be viewed with any great alarm. There is a gregarious +and sheep-like tendency in mankind to flock together. The phenomenon +presented by urban and rural growth must be a natural one or it would +not be so. It is simply presenting in the course of its natural growth +an occasional difficulty in the body politic as we have an occasional +disease in the growing body of the individual. It becomes our duty then, +in the one case just as much as in the other, to remedy the difficulty, +to direct the growth along natural and wholesome lines, and this calls +for work and coöperation among those factors that have to do with the +life of the city or country boy—home, school, neighborhood, church and +state. + +It follows then that our difficulties, as they must develop from time +to time, will be with the city rather than the country boy. This is +not because the country boy is inherently any different from the city +boy—don’t forget that—any better or any worse, nor in my judgment +because he is capable of greater possibilities. It is rather because of +the environment and condition under which a great number of our boys +must in the future development of this country necessarily be reared. I +once attended a powwow of some Indian chiefs in North Dakota. There was +present old John Grass, the successor of Sitting Bull, and Red Tomahawk, +the slayer of the same old chief. I asked these Indian chiefs about +Indian children in their primitive days, in the days of the real country +and the wilderness. Did they lie? Did they steal? These chiefs assured +me that such things were practically unknown among Indian boys in the +days of their own childhood which was before the white man came. “But,” +said one of the chiefs, “when white man come Indian boy he steal, lie +just like white boy.” + +I asked one of these Indian chiefs why it was that in their primitive +state stealing was unknown among Indian boys—and surely they were the +original country boys. The old chief grunted and a smile actually lit +up that otherwise stolid Indian face as he replied: “It is very simple, +there wasn’t anything to steal. The child’s wants were few and he had +what he wanted.” Neither was there any poverty, any crime. This virtue +of the original country boy in America was acclaimed without a taint of +pharisaism. For it was admitted that the honest little savage was no +better than his dishonest little progeny. It was rather a problem of +condition, of occasion, of environment, than one of inherent viciousness. +The wants of the little savage were few and generously supplied by +nature. There was no temptation, no occasion to steal. + +This fact no more favors savagery than it disproves the advantages of +civilization. It is the law of nature that men should multiply and +populate the earth, and the instinct among the greater numbers to flock +together in cities is precisely the same as it was in the days of +savagery when smaller numbers flocked together in smaller groups more +widely distributed. We must meet the change by doing two things: + + +HOW TO MEET THE CHANGES. + +First. Perfect our system of education. We need to improve our methods of +moral training. We must more and more develop heart and conscience that +our children may be equipped for moral as well as industrial efficiency. +Boys need strength, but most of all the strength that comes from within; +self-control, self-restraint; a yielding of more obedience to authority +and respect for law and the rights of others. + +Second. The application of a system of real justice among men which means +an industrial, social and economic world in which every man shall really +have an opportunity to develop the best that is in him, and be assured +that he shall reap the joys, rewards and profits to be derived from his +own honest toil. + +This means that the boy to keep pace with our modern civilization must be +better supplied with certain opportunities that are now largely denied +him. + +New conditions necessarily create new problems. It is the law of growth +and development. Since these new conditions are to be found principally +in the cities, and since most of the boys who need our attention and +interest are in the cities, it follows that the problem of the child is +largely the problem of the city. But as the country becomes more closely +in touch with the city and many of its difficulties reach into the life +of the country boy, we will also in time find the difficulties of the one +are the difficulties of the other. + +Whatever the city does for the child is done for the community as a +whole, for the child cannot profit without equal profit directly or +indirectly inuring to the entire community. It is difficult to put any +limit on the duty of the community to the child. It is coextensive with +that of the parent, if there be no parent, or if the parent be helpless, +or the child suffers from the parent’s neglect. This duty of the +community, once recognized and accepted, is bound to be extended until +indeed the community shall become one great family possessing some of the +attributes, duties and responsibilities for the child that in original +country life were limited to the particular family or family group of +the child. The first general and accepted duty of the community towards +the child was its education. Then came the demand for playgrounds, +natatoriums, baths, trade schools, recreation centers, medical +inspection, visiting nurses, dental clinics, and finally the school free +restaurant. That is as sure to come within the next ten years as the +playground and the recreation center has come in the past ten years. In a +word, there is absolutely nothing that the child needs which the parent +for any fair reason cannot furnish, which it is not the duty of the +community to supply. This is so because it is simply the struggle of the +state for itself. The child is the state; when the child is neglected the +state is neglected; when the child suffers the state suffers; when the +child is lost the state is lost. To say that the child is the chief asset +of the state is undoubtedly true, but it is short of the real truth. The +child is the state. It is, therefore, futile to oppose the movement going +on in this country for the conservation of childhood on the ground that +it is paternal. If there is anything in the scriptural injunction that “A +little child shall lead them,” it is surely making itself felt at this +period of our civilization. If we would conserve the real interests of +the children of the Nation, we have simply got to be paternal. The state +has got to be the over-parent. It cannot escape if it would; it would not +escape if it could. + + +PALLIATIVES AND CURES. + +The last decade of agitation in behalf of the boys of the city was for +what is becoming more and more to be regarded as the palliatives. We +first asked for playgrounds only in certain bad neighborhoods, on the +theory that the children in that neighborhood were bad. We know now that +the children were no different from other children, and if they need +playgrounds, then all children need playgrounds, whether they be country +children or city children. The play instinct needs to be wisely directed +as much in one child as in another—in the country as truly as in the city. + +We first asked for child labor law forbidding children to work in certain +industries, and we are realizing more and more that it is not a good +thing for the Nation to draw on the manhood of tomorrow by sacrificing +the childhood of today. (Applause) The recent report of the National +Bureau of Labor on juvenile delinquency and its relation to employment +makes perfectly clear the extra hazards and dangers to which children are +subjected from being too early forced into economic competition with men. +It demonstrates the necessity for not only more stringent child labor +laws, but the better enforcement of those we have. It explodes the idea +that the working boy and girl under 16 years of age is freer from dangers +of delinquency than the non-working child. It would seem indeed that the +playing child in the street is much less likely to go wrong there than +while engaged in those occupations in which they are mostly employed. + +From what is undoubtedly a very thorough investigation and study of 4,839 +cases of delinquents (of whom 561 were girls and 4,278 were boys), we +have carefully worked out for us interesting tables showing 2,416 working +as against 1,862 non-working delinquent boys, and 251 working as against +210 non-working delinquent girls, or a total number of 2,767 working +delinquent children as against 2,072 non-working delinquent children. +Added to these interesting figures is the further fact that the ratio of +working delinquents is very much larger than the non-working in all these +cities, varying in different cities from three to ten times as great as +the non-working, with the disproportion even more striking among the +girls, making it perfectly clear, as one chapter of the report concludes, +“that putting children to work prematurely is not an effective method of +training them for good citizenship.” + + +THE VALUE OF THE REPORT. + +Another interesting fact brought out by the report is that the repeaters +or recidivists (those apprehended for the second to the tenth offense +as carefully tabulated in the report) are to be found mostly among the +working children with the proportions much larger among the younger +working children between 9 and 14 years of age. Up to this point the +scale in this respect constantly ascends, beginning to descend as the +working age approaches maturity. + +The report is unusually fair in making every possible concession to a +variety of details and difficulties that might discredit its conclusions; +but even with all such concessions there isn’t any room to dispute its +final demonstration that working children not only contribute more +in actual numbers but in an alarmingly larger proportion than do the +non-workers to the criminal classes, and among repeaters or recidivists +the same condition is even more marked. No such interesting or reliable +set of tables has ever yet been added to the literature on this subject. +It forces upon us the idea that the virtues necessary to good citizenship +are not so much inherited as they are to be acquired. It follows that we +are doing hideous injustice to our children in unnecessarily subjecting +them to temptations which their untrained, immature souls are not yet +able to withstand. These temptations naturally enough are greatest among +the six groups of working boys who furnish the most delinquents. They are +well known to juvenile court officers. These six groups represent the +six classes of occupations yielding the greatest number of delinquents +out of the total number investigated. Proportionately they are, delivery +and errand boys 491, or 20.3 per cent; news-boys and bootblacks 449, or +18.6 per cent; office boys 46, or 1.9 per cent; street vendors 66, or 2.7 +per cent; telegraph messengers 73, or 3 per cent; employed in amusement +resorts 51, or 2.1 per cent; or a total of 2,416, more than one-half of +the total number of 4,278 cases of delinquent boys investigated. The +greatest proportion of offenses among the boys are of course larceny. +This one offense constitutes more than half of all the offenses reported. +Putting these immature souls to work simply violates the supplication of +the Christian’s prayer “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from +evil.” The temptation of dishonesty constantly besets the working child, +much more than the non-working child. The results shown are rather to be +expected. The next in order of popular offenses are incorrigibility and +disorderly conduct, terms so indefinite as to frequently include larceny. +Truancy appears only in the cases of 185, and begging in the cases of +only seven. Every juvenile officer will appreciate the more than probable +accuracy of these tables, for, with one or two exceptions of minor +importance, they are confirmed by their common experience, for which +heretofore reliable tables are rather scarce. + + +A FALLACY EXPLODED. + +The tabulations concerning the parental condition of the delinquents +show equally creditable work. They are interesting as exploding another +popular fallacy (which indeed was long since exploded by Miss Jane +Addams and other champions of child labor laws) that most of the working +children were sons and daughters of widows. Only 419 boys or 17.3 per +cent of the entire number investigated were sons of widows, and only 185, +or 8.7 per cent, were orphans; while 1,318, or more than one-half of the +entire number, had both parents living. And again, curiously enough, the +tables show that proportionately the great majority of these delinquent +boys, employed or unemployed, came from average good homes. Seventy-six +and two-tenths per cent of the delinquent working boys are recorded as +coming from “fair or good homes,” and 71.6 per cent of the working and +non-working boys (that is, of the total number of delinquents) enjoy +the same favorable conditions in so far as their homes are concerned. +The results seem to prove what has often been emphasized by juvenile +officers, that a good home is not as complete a guarantee of a good +boy or girl as it would seem we ought to be entitled to expect. The +influences of the home—while of course the most important influence and +the one that counts most—is by no means the only influence under which a +child is placed, especially in that kind of city life that has come to +this country only in the past fifty years and which in every particular +is to become more terrific in the next fifty years, unless there be some +unexpected changes. It is furnishing in many respects a new kind of +environment under which most of our children are expected to be reared. +It means we have got to make war against the street, the conditions, the +environment, the causes, if we are to perform our full measure of duty to +our children. + +Forty-four and seven-tenths per cent of the delinquent boys are children +of native born parents as against fifty-five and three-tenths per cent of +foreign born parents. Considering the far greater ratio of native born +parents, this clearly indicates that there is less control over their +children by foreign than by native parents. + +But I do not wish to be misunderstood. I firmly believe in work even in +childhood. By this, I mean the right kind of work. It is not so much +a question of work as the amount of work, the kind of work and the +conditions under which that work is performed. This need not lessen our +belief in happiness in childhood. I want to say very candidly, that there +are a great number of children in this country from fourteen years of age +upward about whom I feel more alarmed at their failure to do or to know +how to do any kind of useful work than of any possibility of their being +overworked. + + +THE DANGER OF IDLENESS. + +In our zeal for the protection of our boys subjected to extreme or +unnatural conditions, we must not lose sight of the dangers and +difficulties of idleness. There are thousands of boys in the cities of +this country who, if not employed at some useful thing, are generally +on the streets or in the alleys in the downtown public pool rooms and +bowling alleys, engaged not always in wholesome play, but too often in +idling, cigarette smoking and dirty story telling, with absolutely no +thought of work or the serious side of life. They are too constantly +occupied with thoughts of “having a good time,” and some rather perverted +notions of what a good time is. Too many of our boys especially reach the +age of moral and legal responsibility without the slightest conception of +work. They are too often more concerned as to how much they earn than how +well they do their work. In dealing with a certain class of youth in the +juvenile court, I say without hesitation that the most hopeless fellow +in the world is the boy who will not work—the boy who has not learned +how to work, or the value and importance of work. There is always hope +for the boy who works, especially the boy who likes to work. I believe +in the “strenuous life,” and I think its importance should be taught our +boys and girls at an early age. There are too many young people in this +country looking for “the life of ignoble ease.” I can say all of this +to persons sincerely interested in the protection of the children from +degradation or unnatural labor, and yet not be understood as depreciating +the importance of wise child labor laws and their rigid enforcement for +the protection of the children of the Union. But we must be careful, +in doing this, never to underestimate the importance of work—the right +kind of work, a certain amount of work—in the life of every child, and +especially that teaching which inculcates good impressions in the life +of every child as to the necessity and importance of labor. On the other +hand, my experience is that most boys will work if given any kind of +an encouraging opportunity. The lack of a chance is often responsible +for idleness. At least 90 per cent of our boys and girls are forced out +of the grammar school to fight the battles of life. They must have a +chance to earn a living under such reasonably favorable conditions as +not to destroy all chance of happiness or else they must become idlers +and loafers. My own experience is that our common school education too +often fails to equip them for earning more than the most scanty wages. +An opportunity between the sixth and eighth grades in our city schools +for children of the toiling masses to learn some kind of useful trade +or valuable work with the hands—to learn to do what their fathers do—is +a reform in our educational system which the champions of child labor +must, in my opinion, espouse if they would round out a systematic and +consistent plan of battle in this fight for the salvation of the children. + + +PLACES FOR THE BOYS. + +I want to see the time come in this country when a boy of fourteen years +of age up may be a valuable help to the plumber, the carpenter or the +printer at a decent wage, instead of going to the messenger service and +the street. I do not believe that juvenile labor should trespass upon the +legitimate occupations of men and women, but we must equip these children +for some kind of industrial efficiency and usefulness, or enlarge our +reformatories and prisons for their care and maintenance. One of the +saddest things in my experience as judge of the juvenile court has been +the little fellows who have requested me to send them to the reform +school in order that they might learn a trade. The principal of a school +once said to me: “Judge, why don’t you send that boy to the reform school +so that he can learn a trade?” On behalf of the boy, I replied: “In +God’s name, why don’t you people on the Board of Education give him an +opportunity to learn a trade at home?” + +I ask you, is it fair, just or decent that in most of the cities of +this country an American boy has no opportunity to learn a trade, to +capacitate himself for joyous, useful work with his hands, unless he +commits a crime? And yet, I am compelled to say to you, that such is the +condition in a very large section of this country. + +But there are wonderful changes just ahead of us in our educational +system. These changes are bound to come if we are to make progress, and +we are making progress. + +If the Nation is to do its real duty to its boys—whether they be city +boys or country boys, its children, city children or country children—it +should pass the bill that has for the last six years been repeatedly +offered in Congress providing for the establishment of a children’s +bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor. + + +CHILDREN VERSUS ANIMALS. + +It is a kind of protection that is sadly needed in this country, and +especially from the government we need a systematic scheme of national +investigation of all matters pertaining to the welfare of children and +child life. It would in no manner interfere with the activities and +agencies provided by the states but, on the contrary, through the help +and assistance that would come from the national government, do much to +strengthen all such agencies. Such a bureau would be of equal if not +superior importance to those now existing in several of the departments. +For instance, the Department of Agriculture, where we have a bureau of +animal industry, plant industry, of soils, of chemistry, and the like. +The Government spends annually millions of dollars investigating the +diseases of animals, the inspection of cattle, hogs, sheep, etc., and +the results obtained by the able experts are published and circulated +generously to the farmers and stock raisers of the country. The work +of these bureaus has more than justified the expenditure of money by +the Government. If we have a somewhat analogous bureau dealing with +the welfare of the child life of the Nation, it would be doing no more +for them than we are now doing for cattle and hogs. We have no right +to neglect the child crop of this country. It is scarcely necessary to +repeat that it is our most valuable crop, for there are born every year +in this country over two million children. What the state is, what the +Nation is ten, twenty, or thirty years from now depends not so much on +our business, our ranches, our great industries, as upon the kind of +men we have directing the great industries, the business, the farms, +the ranches of this country, and what these men are then depends upon +how well we care for our children now. If there are diseases among the +cattle of the Nation, or decrease in some of the staple cereal crops +of the Nation, the Government immediately becomes interested and its +investigators and experts are busy everywhere to ascertain the causes, +to furnish the remedies, to coöperate with the people for the protection +of the material wealth of the Nation. Now, the child crop of the Nation +is not to be measured in dollars and cents for as important as such a +standard may be it is insufficient to furnish a scale for measuring +the value of soul stuff. Yet if there is a large increase in infant +mortality, of the dependency or delinquency of the childhood of the +Nation, there is no bureau under the Federal Government that is even +required to become interested in the matter. And, indeed, there are +very few states that provide sufficient and adequate agencies to carry +on the work that must be done if we are true to our children. It is +freely admitted that of the 300,000 little children—out of the 2,000,000 +born annually—that die annually, one-half of the deaths are preventable +by the knowledge and application of preventive measures. If through +the dissemination of proper information about children, such as is +disseminated concerning cattle, an appreciable per cent of these children +could be saved as they certainly would be saved, such a bureau would more +than justify its establishment. + + +SOME PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS. + +I remember recently, when the Children’s bill in England was being +considered, receiving a letter, I think, from one of the under +secretaries, to get certain facts, and it was simply impossible to +provide the information that was needed and expected that this Government +could furnish; and I, as a judge of one of the courts of this country +dealing with children, felt very much embarrassed that we could not say +that our Government was able to furnish such information. + +We have found, in our efforts to help these 100,000 children annually +that are dependent or delinquent, that nothing is so important as facts. +In my humble judgment—I may be wrong, and that is just why we want a +bureau of this kind, in order that I may know and you may know whether I +am right or wrong—in my judgment there are 100,000 children, dependent +and delinquent, coming to the courts of this country every year, and +that means 1,600,000 children coming to the courts of this Nation in +every generation of childhood. Is this great government of ours, with +sufficient facts already gathered in this imperfect way to demonstrate +the necessity, going to neglect this opportunity of spreading useful +information concerning the children of this country? + +I recall a certain city in which I asked the chief of police how many +children had been in jail that year. He said 100. When we investigated +the records, we found there were 650 boys alone brought to the jail in +that city of less than 200,000 people. In another city I asked the jailer +how many boys had been in jail, he said five or six hundred. When we +investigated the records, we found there were 4,000 arrests in that city +among the boys alone under twenty years of age and over 2,000 brought to +the jail were under seventeen years of age. + +But finally any work for children of the city or country must bring us +face to face with many of the social, economic, industrial and political +conditions that concern us as a people. There is no real problem of the +child that is not also the problem of the parent. We cannot do our duty +toward the children of this Nation without attacking the conditions that +deform the lives of the children. This must take us so far afield that +I do not dare attempt to follow now lest it take me so far beyond the +immediate scope of this paper as to find for it no satisfactory ending. + +The fight for the childhood of today is the fight for the parenthood of +tomorrow, the manhood of tomorrow; it is after all the supreme battle +for the country, the city, the state, for justice for all men and women, +and that means a day of better things, a happier country, a more perfect +civilization; the dawn of a tomorrow, a new day, a new time in which the +scriptural promise shall be more than fulfilled, for the little child +shall lead, shall teach, shall save the world. + +Chairman HADLEY—The audience will remain seated a moment. There are a few +more of the states that will be called, and as it is necessary for me to +attend to some official duties, President Wallace will now take charge of +the meeting. + +President WALLACE—The Congress is not yet adjourned, and we have +some good things in store. Please come to order as soon as possible. +I wish to announce Hon. B. A. Fowler, president of the National +Irrigation Congress, of Phoenix, Arizona, as chairman of the committee +on resolutions. Now, we want every state that has not appointed a +committeeman on resolutions to do so at once, and report to the clerk, +and Mr. Fowler will announce when and where that committee will meet. + +Another thing. Any of you that have resolutions will please turn them in +to that committee at the time and place of meeting. The committee will +consider the resolutions and present them and their final report on next +Wednesday. It is to be regretted that many of the governors could not be +here this afternoon, but some of them have sent representatives. + +President WALLACE—I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. D. M. +Neill, representing the governor of Minnesota. + +[Mr. Neill’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—The Honorable George Coupland of Nebraska is here as +its representative, and has been asked to speak next. Mr. Coupland. + +[Mr. Coupland’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—When this meeting adjourns, which will be at 5 o’clock +sharp, it will adjourn to meet at 8 this evening, and will be presided +over by Hon. B. A. Fowler, the president of the National Irrigation +Congress. Mr. Condra has an announcement to make. + +Professor CONDRA—I wish to announce a meeting of the credential +committee as soon as I leave the stage about ten minutes to 5. Another +announcement: There are about a hundred state conservation commissioners +present, and they will meet in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel +tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock for a conference. + +President WALLACE—This Congress intended to get Hon. Woodrow Wilson +of New Jersey to address us. He was unable to come, but has sent a +representative, Mr. Edward A. Stevens, Commissioner of Public Roads, and +he will be heard as soon as the secretary makes some announcements, which +will close the program for this afternoon. + +After announcements by Secretary Gipe, President WALLACE continued: +We will now hear from the representative of Hon. Woodrow Wilson, Mr. +Stevens. (Applause) + +Mr. STEVENS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I did not come prepared +to represent the Governor of New Jersey, or to make a speech. That had +been entrusted, I believe, to somebody better fitted than myself. I find +in the West the State of New Jersey is considered and known for its +mitigation of corporations which do not meet the approval of the United +States Supreme Court. But it is not that industry I wish to interest you +in, or in fact any New Jersey industry. All I can do today is to give a +slight enumeration of the work being done in one of the smallest and most +densely populated states of the Union. We have commissions or officers +in charge of the following branches of conservation work: Forestry; the +oyster industry; the conservation of flowing water; the geological survey +of the state (which is one of the most complete and most accurate yet +carried out by any state of the Union); of agriculture; of public roads; +of inland waterways; the regulation of public utilities; the watching +over health by the State Board of Health, and also special institutions +for the care of tuberculosis, of epileptic and feeble-minded children. We +have a fish and game commission, because with us the ocean furnishes a +vast source of wealth in its fisheries. We have besides that a commission +for the regulation of factory labor, and especially for the regulation of +child labor, for children in New Jersey cannot enter into work without +passing an examination and without special permits. I am sorry that I +cannot do much more than merely enumerate the branches of activity which +the state is undertaking. I am only familiar with one of them, that is +public road building. If I can be of any service in that technical line +to this Congress I hope I will be considered at its disposal. (Applause) + +President WALLACE—Prof. F. W. Rane, State Forester, will speak for the +State of Massachusetts. + +[Prof. Rane’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—The Congress now stands adjourned until 8 o’clock, +when the conference of the states will be resumed. We will meet tomorrow +morning at 9:30 promptly. + + + + +_THIRD SESSION._ + + +In the absence of President Wallace, who was attending the dinner given +to the President of the United States, Prof. Condra acted as chairman of +the meeting. + +Professor CONDRA—Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention: We will +continue the program this evening from 8 o’clock until the arrival +of the President and his party. We will have reports from a number +of the states. The states which are represented should send their +representatives to the platform. If I understand it, we are now to hear +from Michigan, Montana, New York and a number of other states, and in +addition to that we will have a short talk which will please you I am +sure. The first thing on the program is a flashlight picture. + +After the flashlight picture was taken, the Congress continued as follows: + +Professor CONDRA—Are there any announcements to be made by the members +of the different committees? Has the chairman of the committee on +resolutions an announcement to make? + +I wish to announce that there are a good many scientific men present +who are representing various bodies and they are going to hold a number +of important meetings. One of these will be held in the Coates House, +room 244, at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The question is, “What should be the +relation of Conservation to Science, to the Discovery of Truth?” We must +not divorce the two departments. They are identical when we understand +the two. All chemists, geologists, agriculturists, and others who are +ready to assist in this work and wish to meet with the scientists are +invited to do so tomorrow morning. I understand Dr. Shinnick of Iowa is +to preside at that meeting. He represents the American Association for +the Advancement of Science. + +Another announcement: We have gathered here about one hundred state +conservation commissioners. The conservation commissions of the various +states are not political bodies, neither are they partisan, but they +are men and women who are studying the truth underlying conservation. +The conservation commissioners, together with the various scientists, +namely, geologists, agriculturists, chemists and others, will hold +meetings tomorrow. I ask you to take notice. And representing these +various scientific bodies, the meeting of the conservation commissioners +and the friends of that kind of work; those who want to get at the +details of state conserving, including what we should investigate and +give to the people as the basis of conservation activity, how we shall +do soil survey, geological survey, what kind of maps must be prepared, +what is the truth of dry farming, what is true drainage, how shall we +make up the various inventories, what kind of forest study should be +made in the state—in other words, in what manner are we to coöperate +in the various states, and in what manner are we to coöperate with the +Federal Government in getting at the conservation facts? We ask all of +you interested in these subjects to join us in the white room at the +Baltimore Hotel tomorrow. We will have talks by such men as Prof. Holden, +Dr. Hawarth, W. J. Spillman, of the Department of Agriculture, and I +might name a number of others, men practically engaged in this line of +work. I would like to know whether there is anyone to speak for Michigan? + +At the meeting of last year there was not full opportunity to hear from +the men representing the states. We want these men to come forward and +tell us what they are doing. Michigan has not responded. Is Montana +represented? Is New York? New Mexico? We ask that you will come here to +the platform. Will the representative of Pennsylvania please come to +the platform? I ask those of you who are scattered here and there in +this great building to be as quiet as you can, because there may be some +who are not used to speaking before so many persons and it is rather +difficult to speak from this position. Mr. Emil Gunther, representing +Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia in particular. + +Mr. GUNTHER—The chairman has just announced I may have five minutes. +Realizing the importance of time, I wrote out my remarks so that I could +not speak more than five minutes if I wanted to. + +[Mr. Gunther’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman CONDRA—It is quite possible that the people throughout this +Middle Western country and all of the western part of the United +States may fail to realize the different phases of activity that are +maintained in the great empire state of New York. That state has recently +established a conservation commission, with three scientists as members, +paying those men $10,000 a year for the difficult task of organizing the +various lines of conservation activity in the state. I have the pleasure +of introducing one of the state commissioners of New York, Mr. John D. +Moore. + +[Mr. Moore’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman CONDRA—Is the representative of South Carolina, Dr. M. W. +Twitchell, present? + +A DELEGATE from Kansas—We have tried to hear two speakers from the East, +but in Kansas City, half way across the continent, we have been unable to +hear them. If you have any more Eastern speakers, California, perhaps, in +the rear end of the hall, would like to hear something they say. + +Chairman CONDRA—I would call attention to the fact that people are coming +in. I know that those who are here are as quiet as you can be, and I ask +that those in the rear on this first floor will call the attention of the +ushers to this fact so they may request people to enter more quietly. We +realize that this is a very large building, and you ought not to require +every man to speak to all of you. They haven’t all got lungs strong +enough to make everyone hear, but we hope Dr. Twitchell has. + +[Dr. Twitchell’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman CONDRA—We will postpone the reports from the states until +tomorrow. The first speaker represents the National Soil Fertility +League, who will speak for ten minutes. After that we will have a talk by +Bernard Baker, our old conservation friend, the man who was the president +of the Congress at St. Paul during its last Congress. If President Taft +should enter during either one of these speeches, I ask that the band may +start up “America.” I think it would be appropriate to sing “America” +when the President of this great country enters such a great hall filled +with such an audience. (Applause) I understand that the gentleman who +is to speak is able to talk to the uttermost parts of the gallery. I +now introduce Howard H. Gross, president of the National Soil Fertility +League. Mr. Gross, of Chicago. + +Mr. GROSS—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to thank you +kindly for the applause, for it may be the only occasion when it would +be proper. (Applause) I want to say as president of the National Soil +Fertility League that it is an organization formed to do a specific +definite work, and to work with this great Congress, and all who are +striving for a better agriculture. I have been doing considerable +institute work, and I made this observation: that the farmer was very +quick to see and demonstrate how some of these half-baked theories +that he was asked to subscribe to did not appeal to him, or, in other +words, that we are all from Missouri, and it was necessary to be shown. +(Applause) We know that we are not getting out of our farms what we ought +to get. We know that Europe is getting two or three times as much per +acre as we are. So, in the organization of the National Soil Fertility +League I felt that two or three things were necessary: First, we must +have an organization that would command the respect of the people, and +when I give you the names of the gentlemen who make up the advisory +committee I believe you will agree with me that they have been wisely +chosen, and we are under obligations to them, all of us, for joining in a +great work of this kind. On the advisory committee are Mr. James J. Hill +of St. Paul, whom I regard as one of the greatest men who it has ever +been my privilege to meet; the next is our most distinguished, our first +citizen, William Howard Taft (applause); Franklin MacVeigh; Missouri’s +great son, Champ Clark (applause)—gentlemen, this is not a political +convention. Dr. James, of the University of Illinois; William Jennings +Bryan (applause)—now, gentlemen, it would not do for me to read the +other names if you are going to break over like this. It is against the +rules. Mr. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Agriculture of the State of Kansas +(applause); Benjamin Franklin Yoakum; William George, banker and farmer; +Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation of Labor (applause); Alvin +H. Saunders of the Breeders’ Gazette; J. M. Studebaker, of wagon fame; +Samuel Allerton; Henry Wallace, you all know (applause), and W. D. Howard +is no less distinguished. The speaker is the only cheap skate in the +crowd. (Applause) + +Now, gentlemen, the National Soil Fertility League was formed for +a definite purpose. It will have a paid organization. We will be +Johnny-on-the-spot every minute during the year, doing business. What we +propose to do is this: to supplement the great work that is being done +by the agricultural colleges, and insist that the state and the nation +shall recognize these great institutions with adequate contributions, so +that they may do extension work and reach every community in the land +from Maine to California. (Applause) We mean to have Congress appropriate +a million dollars to start with, and increase it to eight or nine or +ten millions if necessary, and every man who has anything to say in +Washington is committed to this proposition from top to bottom, and we +are going to get the money. Then we propose to have bills introduced at +the next meeting of the Legislature in forty-four states, and get the +people back of those bills, to the end that the money will be forthcoming +to enable the college of agriculture to take up this great work and +carry it forward. The plan will be to take a soil chemist, a skilled +agriculturist, and put one in every county in the state. That man is +responsible to the state university of where the county is situated. He +will help the farmer solve the problems of a larger field, coöperating +with him, studying the local conditions, to the end that we may establish +a permanent agricultural college, and get the largest returns possible +and maintain soil fertility. In Europe where they have been farming +for a thousand or fifteen hundred years they are raising two or three +times what we get, and our land originally was better than theirs. Now +there are several problems that are collateral to this. Let me know, Mr. +Chairman, when my time is up—and one is farm labor, how to keep the boy +on the farm. The new agriculture showing the boy that we can use his +brain as well as his brawn, that farming is profitable, far more than he +thinks, that he can make dollars out of dimes by proper manipulation, +and so he will see that the largest field of opportunity for a man of +brawn and brain is in treating with the soil. Show him also that it is a +high and noble and splendid business avocation. Also we must have better +schools in the country. (Applause) + +There is no reason why the boy and the girl on the farm should not have +as good educational advantages as those in the city schools. The greatest +product that we have on our farm is not cattle, hogs and alfalfa, wheat +and oats, but the boy and the girl in the farm home. (Applause) Upon +them depends the future of this great country. So let us realize the +personal equation and take care of the boys and the girls; give them the +education that they want and let them get it at home instead of going +to town. Home life is a great deal more pleasant. You must have good +roads, consolidated schools, fill your homes with the best there is in +the land, and there is no place on God’s green earth where society and +civilization can reach a higher plane and a better one than upon the +great plain of Illinois and Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and all these +great states. But let the young men realize that they can learn something +from the green leaves of the field, as well as from the yellow leaves +of the library. When we get to doing business, and we are doing it now, +we want you all to help us get the legislation that is necessary, so +that we can provide abundant and cheap food supply for the country, and +have plenty to ship abroad, without impairing one single dollar of the +farmer’s income, but make it twice what it is today. (Applause) + +Chairman CONDRA—I wonder if you really believe what this gentleman has +said? (Sure we do. Yes.) + +In the course of my work I have run on a few individuals who have an +idea that it is not necessary for the state to be concerned with the +materials of conservation, or with the conditions that obtain in those +states. I hope that the time will come when the people on the farm, in +the factory, all the citizens in the state will realize that an American +state that does not have a full survey of its climate, its topography, +its structure, its drainage, its resources, is behind the times. I want +you people to pledge me, though not orally, that you will go home, return +to your places, and stand by the men like Professor Holden, like Dr. +Hawarth, like Dr. DeWolf, and those men who are farmer boys who have +gone to the land to study the real value that they may give of their +knowledge of farm management. Do you believe that? (Sure. Yes, sir. You +bet.) Well, suppose as delegates we might bring in a resolution which +says that conservation in these states must be based on that basis, +on the material, on the conditions, would you vote it down? Would you +believe that these men are sincere? Would you think those men are put in +a glass case, that they represent a museum curiosity, or would you think +that those men that are huskies, those men of brawn, would you think that +those men are your friends, that they mean what they say and they know +what they are talking about? They are the ones who have seen this thing +from the practical side, and they must work with you. Let me sound this +note: I make the plea that you may, in the conservation of the various +states, stand for conservation based on fact, not on conservation based +on dogma without foundation. Will you stand for that? (Applause) I wish +to assure all now I am not now making an argument for the man who does +the geological survey, the agricultural survey, the nursery survey, the +industrial survey; I am making an argument to the people for the people +who ought to have the truth of the situation, the benefit of those +surveys. We have seen too many concerns floated without basis. We have +seen altogether too much promotion without basis. The time is when our +agriculture will flourish according to the conditions that obtain. We +will not misrepresent for the purpose of drawing a population from one +section of our great country to an unfavorable place in another section. +We are going to take the land as it is. We will take the climate as it +is. We will take the resources through and through as they are. And the +state will place its stamp of approval, based on the fruits, and the +people can go here and there according to the light that is found. And +we condemn any concern in the state that goes into another state and +misrepresents things to the people, taking them to a place for which +they are not fitted, and to land which they do not understand. I do not +want to discourage you, and here let me clear up a thought. We stand as +conservationists for reclamation. We intend to make more of these dry +lands, those sandy lands, those wet lands, and the various other kinds, +and we want to get more out of these trees, out of that coal, out of that +gold, out of that iron. + +Let us stand on the basis of truth. Let us stand against +misrepresentation. May I sound another warning? There never was a state +that misrepresented industrial facts and attracted factories to those +unfavorable places, or attracted people to an unfavorable locality, +which they did not understand, there never was a state that permitted +that but suffered for the same sooner or later. We must take truth as +it is. We must abide by the facts. We must, as people of the state, +loyal to our state and our country, put our forces against all kinds of +misrepresentation, because they end up badly. (Applause) Now you don’t +understand that, all of you. The farmer gets occasionally into some +one of these concerns that ends badly. Then he objects to all kinds of +business, and he objects to the railroads, and he objects to the men in +the factory, and he thinks all business is illegitimate. We have reached +a time in the conservation of our states when we will base our industry +on investigation and reliable report, made by one who will not pad the +facts. + +I ask Mr. Baker to tell us a little about the Panama Canal. + +Mr. BAKER—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject is not one +as Prof. Condra said, that covers the subject of conservation to most +people, but to me it means a great deal. It means that your government, +your people are spending today some four hundred millions of dollars for +the purpose of conserving the interests of transportation between the +east and the west coast of the United States of all this great country, +the enormous commerce that has been absolutely and almost entirely in the +control of the railroads for so many years. So serious has this control +been that for nineteen years the transcontinental railway pool paid to +the owners of the Panama Railroad Company $1,080,000 a year for nineteen +years to induce them not to do business. Think what that means. Not +only that, but for many years they paid the United States of Colombia, +which formerly and originally was under the Republic of Panama before +it seceded, $10,000 a year to prevent the extension of that line, to +deepwater, so as they could utilize that route to develop the commerce of +the United States. Your Government, you people, are paying for that. I am +going to tell you a little, while we are waiting for the President. I +have just had the honor of being with him at dinner. He was unfortunately +detained, but I expect him every moment, and it is not necessary for me +to say that when he appears I shall retire. + +They started out with that wonderful enterprise—the Panama Canal—by +meeting the opposition of all the railroad interests that were determined +that it should not be completed. Many, many times able articles, which +many of you have read in the magazines, were written and paid for by the +most eminent engineers to prove how totally impracticable the building +of the Panama Canal was. It was a dream. A long dream, they used to say. +It began in the early days of Spain when Columbus came to the Panama +Canal. He was the first one to visit it. There was located on the west +side of the canal what is known as the Treasure House of Spain. When our +Government took hold of it, and employed the engineers to make a thorough +survey, the question came up of building an open waterway free right +down to sea level. When it was suggested that they build lock canals—and +as many of you farmers to whom I am speaking may not understand that, I +take a few minutes to explain exactly how they work. You come in on the +level of the Caribbean sea, and the ship is elevated about thirty feet by +sliding into a lock, the water pouring from the upper lock, sixty feet +above, into this lower lock, thirty feet, and on this the ship rises. +That occurs three times, until they bring the ship up to a level of +eighty feet above the Caribbean sea. There is very little rise or fall in +the tide of the Caribbean sea, only about eighteen inches, maximum and +minimum. Then it enters into what is going to be—and now when I was there +in November, had about twenty-eight to forty feet of water in it—a most +beautiful fresh water lake some twenty-nine miles wide and some thirty +long, bordered with the most beautiful mountain ranges. The ship will +sail through that lake and will come into what you have all heard about, +the wonderful Culebra cut, a cut straight through the mountains. One of +the greatest difficulties, one that you have heard so much of, is the +slides, the land constantly sliding down into that cut, was due to the +character of the soil, it being a volcanic ash. + +Now, the most wonderful thing has happened, due to modern invention, +which has brought to work what is known as the cement gun, a gun that +will fire cement into those banks and make them practically solid and +prevent sliding. So they can go on and dig the canal without further +interruption. There is no question whatever that the waterway will be +opened to the people of the United States by the shortest possible route, +saving 7,000 miles of water distance between the Atlantic and Pacific +oceans, all the way around the Straits of Magellan, by June, 1913. +(Applause) Not only have they made the cement gun, but they have made +the cement boat. I am an old steamship man of many years’ experience. I +can remember some years ago when they talked about iron boxes floating +as being impossible. Then they came to a steel box floating. Now, ladies +and gentlemen, they are floating a stone box there, and putting on this +stone box the gun which will fire the cement. It is made of cement. The +steamer will proceed through that large cut, which is covered with the +most wonderful vegetation that ever was written about, right in the +tropics, within eight degrees of the equator. The ladies here—all ought +to go to Panama and see the wonderful flowers, blooms—things that we see +here in our greenhouses—there growing as trees—magnificent, wonderful—and +the parrots playing through the woods. If you go a little way off you +can also see the monkeys playing in the woods. All those things will be +open to travel, and there will be the big fine passenger steamers going +through there. + +When you get over to the other side of the canal you meet first what is +called the Piedro Miguel Locks. Peter McGill was an Irishman, but they +called him, in Spanish, Piedro Miguel. A number of things down there +are named after him. A short distance below you come to two more locks, +lowering you to the level of the Pacific Ocean, which has a rise and fall +of nearly eighteen feet. That is known as the Miraflores Lock, or many +flowers. Now you have reached the Pacific Ocean. I want to go back just +a moment, however, and tell you why it was necessary to make this lock +canal. An old steamship man’s ideal way is simply to sail through without +any destination whatever, but there is a river down there, you know, the +Chagres river. Up to the time I was last down there they never had yet +found the source of the river. The vegetation was so rank it was almost +impossible to get through. That river has been known to rise sixty feet +in forty-eight hours, and yet I have seen it when you could almost walk +across the river bed. Imagine that kind of a flood being taken care of +in an open waterway constituting a ship canal. I would not like to be on +the ship that undertook to go through a canal that might possibly meet +that condition of floods in Panama. I want to tell you another thing that +to me is the most wonderful work I have ever seen, and that is the way +everything is managed and controlled by one man, Col. Gilfos. He is a +wonder. You can go among the engineers, the laboring men, constituting +all the nationalities of that part of the country, a great many of them +Jamaicans and West Indians, Spaniards, and everywhere you will hear, “We +are working for Col. Gilfos.” No mistakes of any importance have been +made. They all live there in the most perfect socialism, if I may call it +in the true idea of socialism, the brotherhood of man, having everything +in common. + +When a lady wishes to give a dinner, she asks by telephone—Government +telephone—for a carriage to be sent. It is a mule wagon generally, by +the way. But now they are getting some automobiles. It takes her down to +the commissary headquarters. She picks out what she wants to entertain +her friends with, and she uses no money. It all comes up promptly just +at the hour, and many times at prices which it would be impossible +today to duplicate in some of our Western and Eastern cities. When the +baby is sick she sends for the Government doctor. Everything is done in +that way by the United States Government. Why, they even run the most +wonderful hotel in the most wonderful way, the Hotel Tivoli. It is a +beautiful place, a marvelous place, and a remarkable arrangement they +have there. If you stay one week it is a fixed price per week. If you +stay two weeks it is at proportionate reduction, and three weeks again a +reduction, so as to encourage people to come there and stay in the hotel. +They are now adding to the Tivoli a very large $500,000 addition, just +to accommodate travelers, and everything is run by the Government. You +never hear a word of complaint, never any differences. There seem to be +no social bickerings or differences among the people. One goes everywhere +and finds absolute social enjoyment. I never in my life have seen such +a marvelous community. There is where we ought to raise our children. +Little figures running about with very little on them, there is so much +bright sunshine and beautiful weather they do not need clothes, and they +seem to be perfectly healthy. When you think of it, an old saying used to +be that when they built the railroad across there every tie cost a human +life. Disease was terrible. For five years there has never been a case of +fever—yellow fever—and it is the statistical record that it is one of the +healthiest places today in the United States. + +Of course it is not in the United States, but compared with any place in +the United States. There was, by the way, one death, I understand, in +Panama that was due to the curiosity of one of our dear women. She came +down as a nurse, a trained nurse from New York, and did not believe that +the mosquito could possibly convey fever. In the physical laboratory +of the hospital at Ancon were a number of them in a glass case for +experimental purposes. Talking to some of the other nurses when the +doctors were not about, she put her finger in and allowed one of the +mosquitoes to bite her. She was bitten all right. In five days she died +of fever, proving beyond any question that the mosquito was the one thing +that made all this unhealthfulness in the past. But not satisfied with +that, the Government has drained in the most effectual way all the entire +canal zone of some fifty miles long and ten miles wide. At the head of +every small stream where there is any possibility of drainage or stagnant +water producing mosquitoes, they place a small barrel of oil, with a +drip. That drip is regulated just in proportion to the flow of water. Now +today it is one of the most pleasant places in fair weather I ever saw. +There are few or no flies on account of this strict sanitation, which +includes also the removal of garbage. Everything of that kind is done +by the Government in the most sanitary and most effective way. All the +houses belong to the Government—they have single men’s apartments, and +married men’s apartments, and houses for the different officers. There +is provided a special can for the removal of all the garbage and refuse +from the houses. If anyone leaves that open they are fined very promptly. +No one does. An inspection officer is going about. So today I know of no +more pleasant place in the world to spend a month or so than at the Hotel +Tivoli, Panama. + +Another curious thing may possibly interest you. The first time I went +over to Ancon, which is on the west, the Pacific side—and I might +explain about Ancon—there are three towns. There is the town of Panama, +which stands on the Bay of Panama; a little distance off and connected +with it, you can hardly tell where, is the American town of Ancon, and +then across over a big hill is Balboa, the part in which the United +States is making all its improvements—getting ready to take care of the +transportation question. Now when I got down there, and I arrived rather +early in the evening, I had a beautiful room assigned me. All the rooms +have balconies. I went out and sat on the porch and looked at the Pacific +Ocean. What, to my surprise, did I see? I didn’t know what had happened, +but I saw the moon rising out of the Pacific Ocean. Now take that in if +you can. It was in the east—the Pacific Ocean was to the southeast of +Panama, and the moon was rising out of the Pacific Ocean, as the sun did +the next morning. I was completely turned around. The Isthmus of Panama +almost describes the letter “S.” We do not realize that unless we take +an atlas and put it before us. If you ever see a drawing or illustration +of the great work going on down there you will see how they always place +Panama on the right-hand side of the map as you look at it. It seems all +wrong. It ought not to be there. It did to me when I first saw it. I +think I have talked about Panama long enough, and you must be tired, and +I am quite sure the President will be here in the next few minutes. He is +trying to get here as rapidly as possible. What he will tell you about +conservation will be so much more than I can do. I thank you very much. +(Applause) + +Chairman CONDRA—I have a note from the director of the band saying that +they can sing a certain song to be dedicated to the President. Dr. Hiner, +have you the soloist there? Can you favor us with the song? It is to be +sung next Saturday at Sedalia, I believe, and it has been dedicated to +the President by his permission. + +After the singing of the song, the President entered, accompanied by +his official party and members of the Commercial Club and others, the +audience rising and singing “America,” after which long and loud cheering +took place for several minutes. + +President WALLACE—Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Conservation +Congress: It is my high privilege and duty to introduce to you tonight, +Hon. William H. Taft, President of the United States. (Loud applause and +cheers) + + +ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. + +President TAFT—Your distinguished President, Dr. Wallace, a month or two +ago wrote me and asked me to come before this Congress and advocate and +talk about the conservation of the soil. If that subject does not address +itself to you as a proper one in this Congress, you must blame your +president. If what I say is not orthodox, you must blame him, because he +called on me. But I am going to read you the best view that I can make +from the consideration of the best authorities that I can find on that +subject. And if you will bear with me, I will promise not to keep you +long, for the reason that my knowledge on the subject will not consume a +great deal of time. + +At last year’s convention of this Congress I had the honor and pleasure +of delivering an address on the subject of conservation of our national +resources, and therein attempted to state what the terms “conservation +of our natural resources” meant, what were the statutes affecting and +enforcing such conservation, classified the different public lands +to which it would apply, and suggested what I thought was the proper +method of disposing of each class of lands. Nothing has been done on +this subject by Congress since that time, but it is hoped that the +present Congress at its regular session will take up the question of +the conservation of government land containing coal and phosphates or +of furnishing water power, adopt some laws that will permit the use +and development of these lands in Alaska and in continental United +States, and evolve a system by which the Government shall retain proper +ultimate control of the lands, and at the same time offer to private +investment sufficient returns to induce the outlay of capital needed to +make the lands useful to the public. The discussion did not invoke the +consideration of any question which directly concerned the production of +food. + +Tonight, however, I wish to consider in a summary way another aspect of +conservation far more important than that of preserving for the public +interests public lands, that is, the conservation of the soil with a view +to the continued production of food in this country sufficient to feed +our growing population. + +We have in continental United States about 1,900,000,000 acres. Of +this the Agricultural Department, through its correspondents, estimate +that 950,000,000 acres of this are capable of cultivation. Of this, +873,729,000 acres are now in farms. The remainder, about 1,000,000,000 +acres, is land which is untillable. It is reasonably certain that +substantially all the virgin soil of a character to produce crops has +been taken up. It is doubtful how much of the part not included in farms +can be brought into a condition where tillage will be profitable. + +The total acreage of farms in the last ten years, although the pressure +for increased acreage by reason of high farm prices was great, was +only about four per cent, or about 32,000,000. There are upwards of +25,000,000 acres that will be brought in under our irrigation system, +and perhaps more, and the amount of lands which can be drained and made +useful for agriculture will amount to about 70,000,000 acres. + +The total improved farm lands in the United States amount to 477,448,000 +acres, which is an increase in the last ten years of 62,949,000, or +fifteen and two-tenths per cent. The product per acre actually cultivated +increased in the last ten years one per cent a year, or ten per cent. The +total product increased in ten years nearly twenty per cent. + + +INCREASE OF POPULATION. + +The population in this same time increased twenty-one per cent. If the +population continues to increase at its present rate, we shall have in +fifty years double the number of people we now have. It is necessary +then that not only our acreage but our product per acre must increase +proportionately so that our people may be fed. We must realize that the +best land and easiest land to cultivate has been taken up and cultivated +and that the additions to improved lands and to total acreage in the +future must be of land much more expensive to prepare for tillage. The +increase per acre of the product, too, must be steady each year, and each +year an increase is more difficult. Still, even in the face of these +facts, there is no occasion for discouragement. We are going to remain +as a self-supporting country and raise food enough within our borders to +feed our people. When we think that in Germany and Great Britain crops +are raised from land which has been in cultivation for one thousand +years, and that these lands are made to produce over two and three times +per acre what the comparatively fresh lands in this country produce in +the best states, it becomes very apparent that we shall be able to meet +the exigency by better systems of farming and more intense and careful +and industrious cultivation. The theory seems to have been in times past +that soils became exhausted by constant cultivation, but the result +in Europe, by which acres under constant use for producing crops for +ten centuries are made now to produce crops three times those of this +country, shows that there is nothing in this theory, and that successful +farming can be continued on land long in use and great crops raised and +garnered from it if only it be treated scientifically and in accordance +with its necessity. There is nothing peculiar about soils in Europe that +give the great yield per acre there and prevent its possibility in the +United States. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the +application of the same methods would produce just as large crops here as +abroad. + +One of the great reasons for discouragement felt by many who have written +on this subject is found in the movement of the population from farm +to city. This has reached such a point that the urban population is +now forty-six per cent of the total, while the rural population is but +fifty-three per cent, counting as urban all who live in cities exceeding +2,500 inhabitants. This movement has been persistent, and has made it +very difficult for the farmers to secure adequate agricultural labor, +with an increase in the price of labor which naturally follows such +a condition. Still we ought to realize that enormous advances in the +machinery used on the farm have reduced the necessity for a great number +of farm hands on each farm. + + +THE COST OF FARM PRODUCTION. + +Mr. Holmes, of the Department of Agriculture, in the Yearbook of that +Department of 1899, points out that between the years 1855 and 1894, the +time of human labor required to produce one bushel of corn on an average +declined from four hours and thirty-four minutes to forty-one minutes, +and the cost of the human labor to produce this bushel declined from +thirty-five and three-fourths cents to ten and one-half cents. Between +1830 and 1896 the time of human labor required for the production of a +bushel of wheat was reduced from three hours to ten minutes, while the +price of the labor required for this purpose declined from seventeen +and three-fourths cents to three and one-half cents. Between 1860 and +1894 the time of human labor required for the production of a ton of +hay was reduced from thirty-five and one-half hours to eleven hours and +thirty-four minutes, and the cost of labor per ton was reduced from $3.06 +to $1.29. + +In 1899, the calculation made with respect to the reduction in the cost +of labor for the production of seven crops of that year over the old-time +manner of production in the fifties and sixties, shows it to have been +$681,000,000 for one year. But while it is possible to say that there may +be in the future improvements in machinery which will reduce the number +of necessary hands on the farm, it is quite certain that in this regard +the prospect of economy in labor for the future is not to be compared +with that which has been effected in the last thirty years. Hence we +must regard the question of available population and available labor +in that population for the cultivation of the fields as an important +consideration. My impression from an examination of the figures is that +the change in this last decade from farm to city has not been as great +in its percentage as it was in previous decades, and if this be true, +it indicates that there is in the present situation an element that +will help to cure the difficulty. Farm prices are increasing so rapidly +and the profits of farming are becoming apparently much more certain +and substantial. While the acreage of the improved land only increased +65,000,000, or fifteen per cent, and the total acreage only four per +cent, the value of the farms in money increased from $20,000,000,000 to +$40,000,000,000 in ten years—an enormous advance. This, of course, was +due somewhat to the investment of additional money in the improvement of +land, and somewhat to the increase in the supply of gold which had the +effect of advancing all prices, but the chief cause for the advance is +in the increase in the price of farm products at the farm. So great is +this increase that the value of the average farm has now gone from $3,562 +to $6,440, while the average value per acre has increased from $19.81 to +$39.09. In addition to this, comfort of farm life has been so greatly +added to in the last ten years by the rural free delivery, the suburban +electric railway, the telephone and the automobile, that there is likely +in the next ten years to be a halt in this change toward the city, and +more people in proportion are likely to engage in gainful occupation on +the farm than has heretofore been the case. Such an effect would be the +natural result of the actual economic operation of the increase in the +value of the farm product, and the increase in the certainty of farming +profits. It is the business of the country, insofar as it can direct the +matter, to furnish the means by which this economic force shall exert +itself along the lines of easiest and best increase of production. Of +course the Government by furnishing assistance in irrigation increases +the amount of tillable land, and the states, if they undertake the +drainage of swamp lands, will do the same thing. The cost of such +improvements will be considerable, and will affect the farming profit, +but the result generally in such cases is to yield such great crops per +acre that the farmer can well afford to pay interest on the increased +investment. Increased acreage from any other source is likely to be, +however, in more stubborn land, calling for greater effort in tillage and +producing less per acre. We may reasonably infer from the high prices +of the decade immediately passed that everything was done by those who +owned land to enlarge the acreage where that was easy, or practical, +and that what is yet to be brought in as tillable land presents greater +difficulties and greater expense. The way in which the states can help +to meet future increased demand is by investigation and research into +the science of agriculture, and by giving to the farming community a +knowledge which shall enable them better to develop the soil, and by +educating those who are coming into the profession of farming. It is now +almost a learned profession. + + +CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL. + +The first great step that has to be taken in reformed agriculture is the +conservation of the soil. Under our present system the loss to the farms +in this country by the erosion of the soil is hardly to be calculated. +Engineers have shown how much is carried down the great rivers of the +country and is deposited as silt each year at their mouths. The number +of cubic yards staggers the imagination. The question is how this can be +prevented as it must be because the soil which is carried off by this +erosion is generally the richest and the best soil of the farms which are +thus denuded. + +Of the rain or snow which falls on the land, a part evaporates into the +air; a second part flows down the slopes to the streams and is called the +run-off. The third part soaks into the soil and subsoil, and thence into +underlying rocks, perhaps to reappear in springs or seepage into streams. +This is called ground water. The fourth part is absorbed by organisms, +chiefly by trees, grasses and crop plants, either directly through the +tissues or indirectly through the roots penetrating the moistened soil. +Erosion is due to the run-off, and its quantity is dependent on the +slope of the farm and also the nature of the soil and its products. Any +reasonable slope, and any full cover of forest or grass with an abundant +mulch, or a close crop on a deeply broken soil, or a friable furrow-slice +kept loose by suitable cultivation, will absorb rain and curtail the +run-off, or even reduce it to slow seepage through the surface soil +which is the ideal condition. Now the ground water is the most essential +constituent of the soil, because solution, circulation and organic +assimilation are dependent on water. All the organisms and tissues are +made up of this solvent of water, and it constitutes a large percentage +of the bodies and food of men and animals. The question of the amount or +ratio of ground water in the soil is a vital one. If it is excessive it +makes a sodden mass, sticky when wet, but baked when dry, so that there +is no possible absorption further into it, and it sends on the water that +falls on it to erode easy slopes. + +The erosion begins on the farm and should be remedied there. Deep +cultivation tends to absorb the product of each rainfall and to reduce +the run-off. Deep cultivation brings up fresh earth salts to the shorter +rootlets, but carries down the humus and mulch to thicken the soil and +feed the deepest roots. In flat lying fields and tenacious soils, tile +drainage is the best method of relieving the farm from the danger of too +great run-off. Deep drainage permits both soil and subsoil to crumble +and disintegrate and through mechanical and chemical changes to become +friable and capable of taking on and holding the right amount of moisture +for plant growth, while the water which runs out through the drain is +clear without carrying the soil with it, and therefore without erosion. +Of course different farms require different treatments. Certain farms +require what is called contour cultivation, by which each furrow is to +be run in such a way as to level and to hold the water. On hilly lands, +strips of grass land are grown, called balks or breaks, separating zones +of plow land, and they should curve with the slopes, and the soil being +carried by the water will be caught by them and constitute them a kind of +terrace without effort. The use of forests, of course, in foothills and +deeply broken country is essential and should be combined with grazing. +They will prevent the formation of torrents by making the mulch and soil +deep and spongy. Of course over all mountain divides, the retention of +forests greatly helps to prevent the carrying off of the good soil to +the valleys below. The proper selection of crops has much to do with the +stopping of erosion. + +I gather these facts from the reports of the Secretary of Agriculture +as to the best method of preventing erosion. They are simple and easily +understood, but they need to be impressed upon the farmers by education +and by reiteration. Then the productivity of the soils might very well +be increased by more careful use of commercial fertilizers. In 1907 +$100,000,000 was expended in fertilizers, but the Agricultural Department +is of opinion that one-third of this was wasted for lack of knowledge as +to how to use it. + +Careful crop rotation is essential because it has been found that the +remains of one crop has a poisonous effect upon the next crop if it is +of the same plant, but such remains do not interfere with the normal +production of a different plant. Then a kind of crop should be selected +to follow which will renew that element in the soil which the first crop +exhausted. + + +FARM ORGANIZATION. + +Then there is the organization of the farm on plain business principles +by which the buildings and the machinery are so arranged as to make +the movement of crops and food and animals as easy and economical as +possible. A study as to the character of the soil and the crops best +adapted to the soil; the crops to be used in rotation for the purpose of +strengthening the soil—all these are questions that address themselves +to a scientific and professional agriculturist, and which all farmers +are bound to know if the product per acre is to be properly increased. +We have every reason to hope, from the forces now making toward the +education and information of the farmer, as to the latest results in +scientific agriculture, that the country will have the advantage of +improvement in our farming along the proper lines. Further agricultural +development is to be found in the breeding of proper plants for the +making of the best crops, while the growth of live stock is made much +more profitable both to the owner and to the public by improving the +breed and the infusion of the blood of the best stock. + +The improvement in agricultural education goes on apace. All the states +are engaged in spending money to educate the coming farmer, and this +system is being extended so that now we have the consolidated rural +school, the farmers’ high school, and the agricultural college, and one +who intends to become a farmer is introduced to his profession soon after +he learns to read and write, and he continues his study of it until he +graduates from his college and applies for a place upon the farm. + +The land-grant colleges established by the Federal Government have +vindicated the policy in making the grant. Now the department employs +eleven thousand persons, many of whom are engaged in conducting +experiment stations and spreading information all over the country. The +coöperation between the state agricultural school system and the Federal +Government’s publicity bureau and experimental work is as close and fine +as we could ask. It is difficult to justify the expenditure of money for +agricultural purposes in the Agricultural Department with a view to its +publication for use of the farmers, or to make grants to schools for +farmers on any constitutional theory that will not justify the Government +in spending money for any kind of education the country over; but the +welfare of the people is so dependent on improved agricultural conditions +that it seems wise to use the welfare clause of the Constitution to +authorize the expenditure of money for the improvement in agricultural +education, and leave to the states and to private enterprise general and +other vocational education. The attitude of the Government in all this +matter must be merely advisory. It owns no land of sufficient importance +to justify its maintenance of so large a department or of its sending +into all states agents to carry the news of recent discoveries in the +science of agriculture. The $50,000,000 which has been spent in the +department, however, has come back many fold to the people of the United +States, and all parties unite in the necessity for maintaining those +appropriations and increasing them as the demand shall increase. + + +EXPERIMENTS FOR EACH COUNTY. + +It is now proposed to organize a force of 3,000 men, one to every county +in the United States, who shall conduct experiments within the county for +the edification and education of the present farmers and of the young +embryo farmers who are being educated. It is proposed that these men +shall be paid partly by the county, partly by the state, and partly by +the Federal Government, and it is hoped that the actual demonstration on +farms in the county—not at agricultural stations or schools somewhere +in the state, but in the county itself—will bring home to the farmers +what it is possible to do with the very soil that they themselves are +cultivating. I understand this to be the object of an association +organized for the improvement of agriculture in the country, and I do not +think we could have a more practical method than this. It is ordinarily +not wise to unite administration between the county and state and federal +governments, but this subject is one so all-compelling, it is one in +which all people are so much interested, that coöperation seems easy and +the expenditure of money to good purpose so free from difficulty that +we may properly welcome the plan and try it. On the whole, therefore, I +think our agricultural future is hopeful. I do not share the pessimistic +views of many gentlemen whose statistics differ somewhat from mine, and +who look forward to a strong probability of failure of self-support in +food within the lives of persons now living. It is true that we shall +have to continue the improvement in agriculture so as to make our +addition to the product per acre one per cent of the crop each year, or +ten per cent each decade; but considering what is done in Europe, this +is not either impossible or improbable. The addition to the acreage in +drainage and in irrigable lands will go on—must go on. The profit to +the state or to the enterprise which irrigates or drains these lands +will become sufficient to make it not only probable but necessary to +carry through the project, and we may look forward to the middle of this +century when 200,000,000 of people will swear fealty to the starry flag +as a time when America will still continue to feed her millions and feed +them well out of her own soil. + +At the conclusion of the President’s address, President Wallace declared +the Congress adjourned until tomorrow morning, 9:30 o’clock. + + + + +_FOURTH SESSION._ + + +President WALLACE—The Congress will come to order and be opened with +prayer by the Rt. Rev. Dr. E. R. Hendrix, of Kansas City, Bishop of the +Methodist Episcopal Church (South). + + +INVOCATION. + + _Let us pray. Oh, God, our Heavenly Father, we bless Thee + that Thou hast been made known unto us as a God that works, + and that Thy Son coming into the world, declared, “My Father + worketh even until now, and I work.” We know that the gods of + the heathen do not work. They idle, they quarrel, they dishonor + the very name of a god, and a decent man is better than any + of the false gods. But our God is revealed to us as one ever + employed, active mind, best and highest motives, noblest, most + wide-reaching plans, and honors man greatly by making him a + fellow worker. Grant unto us the wisdom to work together with + God. Give breadth of view, give clearness of perception of what + needs to be done. Give responsibility to the best motives, and + give plans that are as wide-reaching as the great plans of God. + Upon this Congress, upon all its methods and its plans, grant + Thy richest blessing, our Father. We ask in the name of Christ + our Savior. Amen._ + +Recording Secretary GIPE—A great number of states have not yet reported +their members to the committee on resolutions. I ask for the names of the +various states now, and let the chairman of the delegation kindly rise, +and give me the name, as I call the state in order that the chairman of +that committee may immediately assemble these gentlemen to get to work +at once. Alabama; Arizona; Arkansas; Delaware; Florida——this is for the +committee on resolutions. There is a delegate here from Florida. Georgia; +Idaho; Indiana—— + +H. E. BARNARD of Lafayette—I have not the report from Kansas. + +Delegate POTTER—Kansas is here in force, but her officers are out on +committees. As they come in we will see that you have the names. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Do you know who was elected as a member of the +resolution committee from Kansas? + +Delegate POTTER—I was—Thos. W. Potter from Peabody. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Kentucky is here. Louisiana; Maine; Maryland; +Massachusetts. + +A DELEGATE—William P. Wharton, of Massachusetts. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Michigan—Is Michigan here? This is the committee +on resolutions; we want your member from Michigan, please. + +A DELEGATE—He has not turned up yet. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Will you not kindly see that the Michigan +delegation meets at once and names its member for the committee on +resolutions? The next is Minnesota. + +A. W. Guthridge, Minnesota. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Missouri; Montana; Nevada; New Hampshire; +New Jersey—New Jersey is represented. New Mexico; New York; North +Carolina—they are represented. North Dakota; Oregon. + +F. J. Kinney, Oregon. + +Pennsylvania—Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president of the University of +Pennsylvania, and delegate from Pennsylvania. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; +Tennessee; Texas—J. B. Smith, of Texas. Utah; Vermont; Virginia; +Washington—Everitt Gregg. West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming. + +President WALLACE—Mr. Fowler, the chairman of the committee on +resolutions, would like to make an announcement. + +Mr. FOWLER—Mr. President and Delegates: I hope you all realize what +the work of the committee on resolutions may be. Many states have been +called here this morning and no names have been given and no one has +responded. This is a conservation congress. There are representatives +here from these states, from every state I trust in the Union, and there +is not a state in the Union that is not interested in the question of +conservation. I hope then that the delegates from every state will +see to it that a good man is upon this committee on resolutions. The +committee is not near full. Many states are not represented, and you must +remember, my friends, that the work of the committee on resolutions is +the crystallization of the work of this Congress, and the resolutions +speak for the Congress, and speak for all the states of this great Union; +hence, we must have some one represent every state. I have had some +experience with resolution committees in other congresses, and many of +you have had the same, and you know that it is a working committee. It is +the committee that is compelled to sacrifice about everything else after +the work of the committee begins. Consequently, we want working men upon +this committee on resolutions, men who are willing to give their time and +make a few sacrifices of their own pleasures and own enjoyment during the +rest of the sessions of the Congress until the work of the committee is +done and the resolutions presented to the Congress. (Applause) + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Is Prof. Condra of Nebraska here? If so, he will +kindly come to the platform. + +Sergeant-at-arms—Ladies and Gentlemen: President Wallace desires me to +make this announcement: “Cincinnati, Ohio, September 26, 1911. President +Conservation Congress, Kansas City, Missouri. Will arrive on Alton, 7:45 +tomorrow morning.—W. J. Bryan.” (Applause) + +President WALLACE—I would like to make one suggestion. We are going to +be very short of time. We are now coming to the call of states. We want +every state to be heard from, but we want you to confine yourselves to +five minutes, and to tell us, not what your resources are, not what you +are going to do (applause), but tell us what you actually are doing in +the way of conservation. If you have a conservation association, as you +ought to have in every state, tell us about it, or anything that bears +upon it. Boil it down to five minutes. We will ring the bell on you if +you don’t stop at the end of five minutes. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—I understand that some of the states reported +last night while you were at the dinner given to the President, and +I hope, that since I do not have the names of those states, that the +gentlemen will advise me when I call the roll. We do not want any +duplicates. The next state is Maine. The next is Mississippi. Is Dr. Lowe +in the room to respond for Mississippi? Missouri? + +President WALLACE—I now introduce to you Mr. George B. Logan, secretary +of the Missouri Waterways Commission, who will speak for Missouri. We +will hear from him for five minutes. + +Mr. LOGAN—The Missouri Waterways Commission was created by an act of the +General Assembly in 1909. This act provided for a commission of five +members, who were to investigate “the various problems associated with +the navigable waterways of the state and the reclamation of land subject +to overflow; the construction of levees; the benefits to be derived from +proposed navigable waterways, and the reclamation of lands subject to +overflow or inundation.” The result of these investigations, together +with all obtainable statistics, was to be reported to the succeeding +General Assembly. The commission was allowed $5,000 as expenses. None of +the members were to be compensated for their services. + +At the time the Missouri Waterways Commission presented its statement +to the Second Annual Conservation Congress, the report which was last +January submitted to our legislature had been prepared. The commission +was very successful in obtaining information of a detailed nature +pertaining to conservation of the state’s resources, and from this +information extremely valuable statistics have been compiled and were +included in the report transmitted to the General Assembly. + +Because of the small amount of funds, the commission was forced to do +almost all of its investigating by correspondence, inasmuch as original +research was not possible, and they were gratified to find a widespread +interest in the state which caused its correspondents to answer promptly +and fully. The investigations were conducted under four heads into which +the subject of water conservation in this state seems to be naturally +divided. The uses of the water being in the order of importance: First, +water supply in which the water is consumed in maintaining life; second, +agriculture in which the water is consumed in the growing of the crops +yielding food and other necessaries of life; third, power in which the +water is employed in aid of, or as a substitute for, human labor, and +is not consumed; and fourth, navigation in which the water is used for +commerce and is not consumed. + +[Illustration: HON. HERBERT S. HADLEY, Governor of Missouri + +Strauss Studio, St. Louis. Mo.] + + +WATER SUPPLY. + +Under the first head the commission delved deeply into the sources of the +state’s water supply, consisting of rainfall and watershed drainage. From +this point of beginning, the commission went into the question of water +supply of the various municipalities, considering the character of the +water used, the state in which it was used, and the available quantity. + +In the conservation of human life, which is the ultimate end of all +conservation, the commission felt that nothing was more important than +the securing of a permanent and proper water supply for the inhabitants +of the state. Sixty-five communities in the state have been investigated, +and from the findings presented to the General Assembly the commission +hopes that much needed and beneficial legislation will result. As was to +be expected, the investigations of these communities showed conclusively +that the community water supply is nearly everywhere closely involved +with community sewage disposal. The legislature will be asked to pass +such laws as will encourage or compel municipalities to dispose of their +sewage as not to endanger the lives of their own inhabitants, or of those +who by geographical location are forced to have the same source of water +supply. + + +AGRICULTURE. + +While the quantity of rainfall remains approximately the same from year +to year, the effects on the soil, and the subsequent benefits resulting +to the soil from the rainfall, change materially. By improper methods +of agriculture, hillsides and slopes have been denuded of trees and +pasturage with the result that the soil on the hillsides is no longer +absorptive, and the rain falling thereon is lost to it. This is +especially true in this climate where a very large percentage of the +annual rainfall comes in hard or excessive rains, taxing the absorptive +capacity of any soil to its fullest extent. By proper education and +agitation it is hoped that this natural fact will be borne in mind by the +agriculturists of the state who have it in their power to be leaders in +this work of conservation. + +The converse of the problem of too little water is found in Southeast +Missouri, where a very great area is burdened with an excess of +water. The solution of this problem has been drainage which is being +accomplished by drainage districts organized either in the county or +circuit courts. Already 1,271,470 acres have been thoroughly drained +and will be valuable agricultural land as soon as the heavy timber is +cleared off. The average cost of drainage has been approximately $5.00 +per acre, which is paid in small annual installments. The increase of +the value of the land thus drained has been many hundred per cent, while +the benefit to the health conditions has been great. Drainage is being +fostered and encouraged by the state authorities, and as fast as the +necessity for working laws is shown, these laws are forthcoming from the +General Assembly. There is need for further drainage, but the energy +and enterprise of the people in the communities where it is needed will +probably suffice for the solving of this problem in the future as it has +in the past. + + +NAVIGATION. + +Missouri is blessed with magnificent opportunities for vast conservation +of transportation cost, by reason of the presence on and within her +borders, of the two greatest rivers of this country. Accepting the +figures of unofficial investigators, the commission has estimated that +the demand for water traffic indicates that the through freight movements +between St. Louis and Kansas City alone would amount to four hundred and +sixty-eight thousand tons annually, while that through the Mississippi +in and out of St. Louis would reach a million or more tons. The surplus +products of the soil and mines of this state aggregate fully ten million +tons. If even forty per cent of these products could be moved by water +at the large water cost of one-quarter that of rail transportation, the +aggregate saving to the producers would amount to $11,250,000.00. This +saving, or the adding to the wealth of the state, is too important to be +disregarded. + +The commission feels that the sentiment among this state’s law-makers is +already strongly in favor of coöperating with the National Government in +any systematic effort to permanently improve our waterways. + + +WATER POWER. + +From the investigations conducted under this head the commission +believes that herein lies one of the greatest and least understood +of the state’s natural resources. Only ninety-nine water power sites +are in use, and one hundred and twenty-three formerly in use have been +abandoned. The abandonment is due chiefly to two causes: First, economic +conditions in agriculture have so changed that there is no longer need +of a manufacturing or consuming point at the place of production. It is +more profitable to ship the products of the soil and buy whatever flour, +meal and sugar is necessary than to have these small quantities ground at +local mills. Hence, grist mills and sugar cane mills have disappeared. +The second cause for abandonment of water power sites is the failure of +the streams, due, as mentioned above, to the changed soil conditions. +However, the advance in electro-mechanical appliances has created new +uses and put a new value on water power sites. The point of application +of the power may now be many miles from its point of generation. Sites +abandoned years ago have “come back” and have greatly enhanced in value. +Properly exploited, the value of resources in this state is incalculable. +One of the chiefest aims of the commission in its present work is to +sufficiently impress upon the people and upon the General Assembly the +great value of this natural resource. While more expensive to produce, +undoubtedly the greatest latent power in the state is in the Missouri +River. The commission has planned to investigate in detail some site on +the river which has the most natural advantages and using this as an +illustration to demonstrate what can be done in this state. + +At the recent session of our Legislature the report of the commission +covering these topics, giving in detail the information meagerly outlined +above, was presented to the General Assembly and copies of this report +were widely distributed throughout the state. The $5,000 appropriation +for four years has increased to $17,000 for two years. The resignation of +members and political differences arising outside of the commission have +temporarily impaired and hindered the work of the commission. + +However, since the presenting of its last report the commission has put +in the time of its executives in bringing up to date and supplementing +the statistics gathered the preceding year. Practically nothing is +now lacking in the figures concerning community water supply, water +works and sewage disposal. Pending the beginning of actual engineering +investigation of a water power site, the commission has studied the +water power laws of all the states of the Union to the end that accurate +information may be presented to the General Assembly when legislation +in this state on these subjects is asked for. The delays and petty +hindrances touched upon are undoubtedly temporary, and with the very +recent completion of the personnel of the commission we have great +hopes and expectations for the work which may be done in the cause of +conservation during the coming year. + +During the reading of a list of telegrams, Mr. W. A. Beard of Sacramento, +California, assumed the Chair as temporary chairman. + +Temporary Chairman BEARD—The secretary will continue the call of the roll +of states. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Montana; Nevada; New Hampshire; New Mexico; New +York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio. + +President WALLACE—I now introduce to you Mr. C. P. Dyar of Marietta, +Ohio, who will speak for Ohio. + +Mr. DYAR—I have no speech to make. Ohio simply sends greetings to this +Congress, and wishes it Godspeed and a large measure of success in +the work before it. Ohio has always been a great conservation state +throughout its entire history; it has had presidential, gubernatorial +and senatorial timber, and other minor political timber, sufficient for +the entire consumption of the United States. Ohio felicitates her sister +states on the scope and energy of this movement and she voices the hope +that has been expressed in this meeting, that the lesson of the parable +of the talents shall not be forgotten, that conservation shall not be +interpreted to mean simply to save, but development through wise use, +which creates wealth, not only for the present, but future generations. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Oklahoma. + +President WALLACE—I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Milton Brown, +who will speak for Oklahoma. + +[Mr. Brown’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman BEARD—We are getting down to business this morning, and I +think we are getting the meat out of the cocoanut. These addresses have +been directly to the point. I now have the pleasure of introducing a +representative of the State of Pennsylvania, Mr. A. B. Farquhar. + +Mr. FARQUHAR—Pennsylvania is a state of such gigantic resources it +would take all the rest of our session to begin to describe them, a +good portion of it, and tell what we are trying to do to conserve them. +It is only within the last month or two we created a state branch of +the National Conservation Association, and they wanted me to be its +president, I suppose because I have been interested in conservation for +about twenty years past, and was a director in the National Association. + +[Mr. Farquhar’s paper is in the Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman BEARD—We will now listen to Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president of +Lehigh University. + +Dr. DRINKER—It would seem that this third National Conservation Congress +in ordering its deliberations cannot do so more wisely than in giving +heed to the closing words of President Taft’s luminous address at St. +Paul last year, when he said: + +“I am bound to say that the time has come for a halt in general +rhapsodies over conservation, making the word mean every known good in +the world; for after the public attention has been aroused, such appeals +are of doubtful utility and do not direct the public to the specific +course that the people should take, or have their legislators take, in +order to promote the cause of conservation. The rousing of emotions +on a subject like this, which has only dim outlines in the minds of +the people affected, after a while ceases to be useful, and the whole +movement will, if promoted on these lines, die for want of practical +direction and of demonstration to the people that practical reforms are +intended.... I beg of you, therefore, in your deliberations and in your +informal discussions, when men come forward to suggest evils that the +promotion of conservation is to remedy that you invite them to point +out the specific evils and the specific remedies; that you invite them +to come down to details in order that their discussions may flow into +channels that shall be useful rather than into periods that shall be +eloquent and entertaining without shedding real light on the subject. The +people should be shown exactly what is needed in order that they make +their representatives in Congress and the State Legislatures do their +intelligent bidding.” + +It would seem well for us here to take account of stock of what has been +done, of the agencies that have been utilized and of those that have been +neglected, as well as to exchange views as to what we think that others, +or the interests we individually represent, should do. + +I have the honor of representing Pennsylvania as a state, and the Lehigh +University as an educational organization deeply interested in the +promotion of the cause of forestry and of conservation in general. We +have an efficient and active forestry association. Pennsylvania, as we +all know, has been, and is, famed for her deposits of iron and coal, and +for her pre-eminence in the iron and steel industries. The resources in +these directions are so great that it would be wearying to attempt even +to inflict on you a summary of them in these short talks, but what the +state has learned in conservation of mineral resources is of direct and +pregnant interest. Forty years ago the movement for stopping the waste +in coal was begun at the organization at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, +in 1871, of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, an institution +whose membership now runs into the thousands and whose influence for +good is world-wide. As a young engineer I had the privilege of attending +that meeting. Among the things done a committee was appointed to study +the question of waste in the mining, preparation and transportation +of coal. This committee was followed by, and, in fact, incited the +appointment by the Pennsylvania Legislature of a coal waste commission, +which made a valuable and exhaustive report, and we thus see that in one +phase of conservation, and a very important one, that of mining, our +engineers have been doing their duty, and that forty years ago work in +conservation was being done to which the public is only just awakening. +Our government officials are doing most intelligent and good work in +pointing out the way. + +Perhaps one of the best summaries of this great conservation question +now before our people, and in which the engineering profession is so +interested, and in regard to which our mining profession has so great a +duty to perform, was given by Dr. C. W. Hayes, Chief Geologist of the +United States Geological Survey, in an address some time ago at the +University of Chicago, when he defined conservation as “Utilization with +a maximum efficiency and a minimum waste,” and said: + + The reform that is needed throughout the country as a whole + must gain its motive power not from sporadic instances where + true business methods prevail, or from the well-intentioned + enthusiasm of the few, but from the well-informed intelligence + of the many. The campaign for conservation must be one of + education. + + There appears to be an unfortunate confusion in the minds + of certain advocates of conservation. They have apparently + confused conservation of natural resources with destruction + of the trusts, and the mixture has resulted in pure + demagoguery.... Anyone who has studied conditions attending the + development of mineral deposits must have been impressed by + the fact that those deposits held by large companies are being + developed and utilized with a view to prevention of waste, + in accordance with the principles of conservation, to a much + greater extent than are the deposits held by small companies or + by individuals. + +I was much struck, as I think we all were yesterday, by the statement +of our President followed by that of the chairman of the executive +committee, that at this Congress we were to discuss conservation without +any infusion of politics, and I take it that we use the word “politics” +in its broadest sense, and are to see how we can best use capital and +labor, and intelligently directed industry, all to the common end of the +promotion of conservation; and that we can and will recognize what I have +quoted above from the Chief Geologist of the United States Geological +Survey in regard to the proper recognition and utilization of capital in +conservation as highly important. + +In the report of the National Conservation Commission, made through +President Roosevelt to Congress in January, 1909, Mr. J. A. Holmes (now +director of the United States Bureau of Mines), in reporting on our +mineral resources, said: + + In considering the conservation of resources, it should be held + in mind that: + + (1) The present generation has the power and the right to use + efficiently so much of these resources as it needs. + + (2) The Nation’s needs will not be curtailed; these needs will + increase with the extent and diversity of its industries, and + more rapidly than its population. + + (3) The men of this generation will not mine, extract, or + use, these resources in such manner as to entail continuous + financial loss to themselves in order that something be left + for the future. There will be no mineral industry without + profits. + +In his message to Congress, 1910, President Taft, speaking of the +anti-trust law, said: + + It was not to interfere with a great volume of capital which, + concentrated under one organization, reduced the cost of + production, and made its profit thereby, and took no advantage + of its size by methods akin to duress to stifle competition + with it. I wish to make this distinction as emphatic as + possible, because I conceive that nothing could happen more + destructive to the prosperity of this country than the loss + of that great economy in production which has been and will + be effected in all manufacturing lines by the employment of + large capital under one management. I do not mean to say that + there is not a limit beyond which the economy of management by + the enlargement of plant ceases; and where this happens and + combination continues beyond this point the very fact shows + intent to monopolize and not to economize. + +Let us consider these questions as business men, weighing the good as +well as the evil that the different powers can afford that bear on +conservation, and utilizing and encouraging all that will promote the +great ends which the conservation movement was started to serve. + +President WALLACE—It was expected that the National Grange would be +represented on this platform. Neither the president nor the gentleman +whom he recommended could come. I have therefore taken the privilege of +appointing Mr. B. G. Holden of Iowa, who will give us an address this +morning, not on the Grange itself, but on the Grange and other movements +that tend to the uplift that we stand for. We will now hear Mr. Holden, +who is the evangel of the corn gospel in all these inner states. We will +hear him for half an hour. + +Mr. HOLDEN—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of this Congress: +You came here to listen to the great people of this country, and you are +anxious to hear them, so I will take just as little time as possible, +for I have already been warned by the president that I must be brief. I +have laid my paper upon the table, and I am going to forget all I can +and say the rest to you. I am going to be something like the Irishman +who was painting a fence. He was working as hard as he could putting +on the paint. A neighbor Irishman came along down the street and said, +“Pat, what are you hurrying so for?” Pat kept right on putting on the +paint. And he said, “Begorra, I am trying to get my job done before my +paint runs out.” I am trying to get through before my paint runs out this +morning. + + +SOCIAL LIFE ON THE FARM. + +To conserve humanity—to make humanity worth more to itself; to direct +human forces so that each person wastes the least possible energy, and +accomplishes the greatest good for himself and for others—this is the +most vital problem before our country today. + +No nation can long remain great whose rural people are oppressed, or for +any reason have degenerated. + +It was Goldsmith who said: + + Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey, + Where wealth accumulates and men decay; + A bold peasantry, their country’s pride, + When once destroyed can never be supplied. + +It is not that country life on the farm is bad in the United States, for +it is not, but it can be greatly improved, and in my opinion it is the +greatest question before the Nation today. I am sure that when history is +finally written it will place foremost among the many good things that +President Roosevelt did, the inaugurating of the Country Life Movement. +Three things are necessary: First, and most essential, is an awakened +and serious interest on the part of the rural people themselves; second, +there must be encouragement by both the nation and the states in the way +of better laws and financial aid; third, there must be leadership—men and +women who are willing to devote their lives to this great work. + +Just how is this work of bettering country life to be worked out? In +my opinion it must be done largely by the following agencies now in +existence: + +First. The church, and allied organizations, such as Y. M. C. A., Boy +Scouts, etc. Second. The schools, libraries and county superintendents. +Third. The Grange, farmers’ clubs, and other organizations of the +kind which have for their main object the betterment of farm life +educationally and socially. + + +THE GRANGE AND THE FARMERS’ CLUB. + +The president has asked me to put particular emphasis on the Grange and +farmers’ clubs as factors in the improvement of the social life of the +farm. It is my opinion that one of the most important steps in this +great forward movement, especially in the corn belt, is the organization +of granges and farmers’ clubs in every community. There is need of a +tremendous awakening to the importance of organization as a means of +agricultural advancement. The effect of these organizations on the +community is most remarkable. Men and women in such communities grow +up with strong attachments not only for the business of farming and +home-making, but for the people of the community in which they live. They +remain on the farm instead of moving into town or out of the state. But +these organizations do more than this. They furnish exactly the social +and educational advantages so much needed by the rural communities. They +enable young men and women to discover themselves and their powers of +usefulness to humanity. + +Michigan has nearly nine hundred such organizations, most of them +granges, with a membership of 70,000. In each of the forty agricultural +counties there is an average of twenty-five live, active organizations. +New York granges have a total membership of 90,000. Quebec has nearly six +hundred clubs with more than 55,000 members. In strong contrast to this, +the corn belt, peculiarly and above all else agricultural, has but a few +dozen such organizations scattered throughout the entire area. + +President Roosevelt, in his address at the Michigan Agricultural College, +said: + + Farmers must learn the vital need of coöperation with one + another. It is only through such combination that American + farmers can develop to the full their economic and social + power. Combination of this kind has in Denmark, for instance, + resulted in bringing the people back to the land, and has + enabled the Danish peasant to compete, in extraordinary + fashion, not only at home but in foreign countries, with all + rivals. + +Few people in the West realize what a tremendous influence the grange +and agricultural clubs of the eastern and middle states have exercised +on national legislation directly affecting the agricultural and social +conditions of farmers. As an illustration, attention is called to the +following laws which either had their origin in the granges and clubs +or were enacted largely through their initiative: The Department of +Agriculture; the position of Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet +was created; the state experiment stations established; free rural mail +delivery provided for; the Grout Pure Food Bill, the Sherman anti-trust +regulations, the Interstate Commerce Act, the Denatured Alcohol Bill and +the Postal Savings Bank Bills all now enacted into laws. + +These organizations through their lecturers, legislative and promotional +committees are exerting a tremendous influence in moulding public opinion +and crystallizing it into definite form for new laws. + +These associations are now urging the election of United States senators +by popular vote, national aid for establishing agricultural high schools +and the introduction of agricultural and domestic science into the rural +schools; the establishment of the parcels post, postal telegraph and +telephone service; and national and state aid for highway improvement. + +While these influences have been great beyond calculation, yet by far the +greatest effect has been in the betterment of the social and intellectual +conditions in the home and in the community. + +Mr. G. A. Gigault, the Minister of Agriculture, Province of Quebec, in a +letter to the writer makes the following statement: + + The Province has today 591 farmers’ clubs. Among the members of + these associations are to be found the persons the most devoted + to and interested in the development of our agricultural + resources. Most of the agricultural improvements of such + locality are due to the initiative of the officers and members + of the clubs. In every new locality where farmers’ clubs have + been organized, a butter or cheese factory has been erected + and other improvements have been made. This organization + causes progressive ideas to pervade everywhere, as well as + contributing towards the betterment of agricultural methods. + +The movement will undoubtedly assume widely different forms in different +communities, ranging from local institutes, men’s clubs, women’s study +clubs and reading circles on the one hand, to agricultural clubs and +granges on the other. It is to be hoped that this latter form of +organization (granges and clubs) will predominate, for it is only when +the entire home is represented that we find the highest standards and the +greatest progress in the community. + + +THE PLAN OF RURAL CLUBS. + +The plan of operation with which I am most familiar is as follows: The +membership is made up of twelve to fifteen families. The meetings are +generally held every two weeks in the homes of the various members of +the organization or in halls built for this purpose. During the winter +months the meetings are held during the day, the program beginning about +10 A. M. At 12:30 tables of planks or boards are prepared on which the +lunch is spread. Every family brings a basket of provisions. The family +in whose home the meeting is held is not allowed under any circumstances +to prepare a dinner, excepting to possibly furnish some coffee, popcorn, +etc., as this would be a serious burden. When the picnic lunch is over, +some of the little tots are boosted up on a box or chair, or on the +table, to speak a piece or sing a song; thus every member of the family +has a part in the meeting. + +These organizations are nerve centers of progress. They develop, they +educate, they push their members out of the old into the new and better +ways. They set their members, young and old alike, to studying their +business. This means interest in the daily work, a love for the farm +life and the home life. This means a useful and happy life. It means +intelligence. It means freedom from drudgery, for drudgery is “labor +without thought.” + +This meeting together, talking together, working together, and acting +together for mutual protection and improvement brings us nearer to the +great law of “loving our neighbors as ourselves.” To know that others are +depending upon us, have faith in us, love us, and hope for us, is a tower +of strength, of courage and of happiness. + +It is not my purpose to criticise our school system. However, our rural +schools can and must be improved and redirected. They do not meet rural +needs. They do not interest the boy and girl in the things of the farm +and home. Frequently the teachers are town girls without farm experience +or sympathy. The farm children must either go without high school +training or get it in the town or city. Our present system educates away +from the business of agriculture instead of towards it. + + +THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THINGS. + +The following axioms will aid us in a clearer understanding of the +failures of the present system and the remedies: + +1. Education is that which trains or fits for the duties of life. +To illustrate, let me ask what are to be the duties of our girls? +Ninety-nine per cent of them must make homes, cook, sew, scrub and nurse. +How much are our rural schools doing to equip our girls for this greatest +of all duties, home-making? + +2. The whole boy should be trained, not simply his head. + +3. We should teach in terms of the child’s life and surroundings—things +that concern him and his home. He will then be interested and will like +his work, will put the best he has into his work. But instead of teaching +in terms of the boy’s lifework, our schools teach in terms of brick +pavement, bank notes, yards of cloth, foreign exchange, partial payments, +etc., etc. + +4. Boys and girls should be taught to think in terms of action, of +accomplishment. There is a more or less well founded prejudice that our +high school and college graduates are impractical and theoretical. They +have not been dealing with the real problems of life. At any rate, few +of these graduates return to the farm. The agricultural colleges are +helping some through their short course schools, farmers’ institutes, +literature sent out, etc., but it is a mere drop in the bucket. What we +really need is a system of schools suited to rural conditions. We must +pay better prices for teachers. This will be done gladly when the school +sends back each night to the home boys and girls better fitted for their +work and interested in it. Teachers must be especially trained for the +rural schools. They must live in the community and be a part of it, +helping Saturdays and Sundays to guide, direct and stimulate. Not only +this, but the farm boys and girls must get their high school work under +agriculture and not city conditions and surroundings. In other words, we +must have rural high schools within the reach of every boy and girl on +the farm. These schools should become the social and educational center +of the rural community. + +It is true that the rural church has exercised great influence upon +the people of the country socially and morally, helping to create and +maintain good standards of life, but it has not kept pace with progress +in other lines. It does not measure up to its great opportunity. There +must be put into it not only more vitality and life, but there must be a +new and broader attitude towards life. The rural church must be as broad +as the rural community in which it exists, interesting itself in every +question which concerns the life of the people. + + +THE MINISTER’S DUTY. + +The minister, like the teacher, must teach in terms of the life work of +the people. The minister should be interested in agriculture, not only +_interested_ in agriculture, but should really know something about it +as well as other questions which concern the community. The minister of +the future will be required to take a course in agriculture along with +his theological work. He must, like the teacher, be specially trained +for his rural work. The field and opportunity of the rural minister is +as broad as humanity itself. The minister should help the teacher in her +work. He should help organize granges and farmers’ clubs and be an active +member. He should help with their short courses and farmers’ institutes. +He should help with the county Y. M. C. A. work and the Boy Scouts’ work. + +Think of the service a minister can render a rural community, by +organizing and directing the amusements and sports of the neighborhood. +If he could not direct them in person he could help the boys select a +capable, wholesome leader. He could develop or work out in time a plan +by which, during a part of the year at least, the boys would be given +one-half day every two weeks for baseball and other sports. + +As it now is the country boys have no intelligent leadership. While the +pastor is preaching a sermon to a small audience in the church the boys +have joined the little clique and are taking their first lessons in card +playing, smoking, etc. + +The pastor must be a leader or he will accomplish but little. One of +the things he should do is to clean up around the church, mow the weeds, +repair the fence, set out shade trees and put some pictures on the walls +of the church. The pastor should live in the community and become a part +of it in every way. + +What we need is a rural society that belongs distinctly to the country. +Its schools, its churches, its clubs and its amusements must be so +directed and organized as to meet the real needs of the people who live +in the country. + +Many illustrations can be given of the splendid work now being done in +various localities and sections of the United States. I wish I might tell +you of the work which some of our ministers and their country churches +are doing. Men like Rev. M. B. McNutt of Plainfield, Ill., Rev. Clair S. +Adams of Bement, Ill., Rev. C. S. Lyles of Logan, Iowa, and many others. + +It is remarkable what some of our county superintendents like Miss Jessie +Field of Page County, Iowa, have done and are doing through the schools +for better agriculture, better homes and better citizenship. There are +the rural high schools such as the one at Albert Lea, Minn. How I wish I +could tell you of the county Y. M. C. A. work which Mr. Fred Hansen of +Iowa is doing with the boys; how he has organized them into clubs and is +directing not only their religious work, but also their amusements and +sports, and even has them studying corn, stock and other agricultural +subjects. + +The Country Life Commission has done a great work, but the movement has +only begun. We must have more state “Country Life Commissions.” There +must be national and state aid so that the commissions can bring to +the people the knowledge of what has been accomplished in the various +localities throughout the country. + +President WALLACE—Be patient a moment, and please come to order. We have +two splendid speeches to be delivered this morning and I am very sorry +to announce that Mr. Barrett of the Farmers’ Union, who intended to be +here, cannot be here on account of sickness in his family. We will hear +a gentleman for five minutes who is about to leave for Europe and must +speak now or not at all. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—I would like to announce that Mr. R. A. Long +will speak as the representative of the wholesale lumber dealers and +yellow pine manufacturers. + +Mr. LONG—I understand that Mr. Wallace said that I expected to leave +for Europe. I am not going to Europe and have no thought of going to +Europe. Permit me to suggest this: it is rather an imposition upon you +and embarrassing to me to be called on so short a notice to speak in +the midst of men who have carefully prepared papers, and yet I want to +suggest to you some thoughts that occurred to me, that were put into my +mind by the last speaker. We are having many important problems before +us at this time. The problems before this Congress are certainly most +important and have to do with the people of today and of the future. +We are to have in this city within a few weeks another convention not +pertaining to the conservation of the soil or water, or the forest, but +to a conservation that has to do with men, and I am wondering whether +or not this audience is going to place more stress upon the problems +that are involved in this Congress, or the problems that are involved in +the one to be held a few weeks hence. That problem has to do with men +and religion, and in my judgment no problem on the face of the earth +will have more to do with the conservation of all the problems of life, +this man and religion forward movement, and I trust that the men and +women—(applause) I only have five minutes, don’t disturb me—and I trust +that the men and women involved in these problems will see to it that +these teams which commence the first of October and continue throughout +the winter until May of next year are supported with their means and +with their presence. The gentleman who just took his seat stated that +he would like to preach a sermon on what the preacher ought to do with +reference to the child life. I would like to have each of you assembled +here this morning ask yourself the question, and answer it if you please, +what are you doing in your own home. What are you doing, what is the +example that you are setting your children? Sunday morning I imagine the +large majority of you, instead of going to the Sunday School and setting +an example to your children in order that they may follow out the life +this gentlemen speaks of that you ought to live, are remaining at home +and reading your newspapers. Bear in mind, my dear friends, fathers and +mothers, the school teacher or preacher cannot do that which you ought to +do for yourselves. And I want to speak this word on behalf the preachers +of our land: when they stand up in the pulpit, when they beseech us to do +the things we ought to do, and then we fail to rally to their support, +ought we to censure them? Ought we rather not engage with him arm in arm +in this great conflict, that has to do with the elevation of mankind, +rather than stand aloof and say we want to preach to the preachers? I +want you to ask yourselves that question, whether or not you stand arm +in arm with your preachers, and carry on that conflict that has to do +with the uplift of mankind all over the world. How much time have I got? +I cannot take the time to talk about the other problems which I had in +mind, connected with the timber interests of this country. But I want +to say this to you, that the forests of this country ought to be taken +care of better than they are. The reason why the forests are not being +conserved better than they are is because of the extremely low price of +lumber compelling us who manufacture lumber to leave twenty per cent of +the trees in the woods because we cannot get price enough out of it to +pay for the labor to produce it, and the transportation, to say nothing +about the logs. And so long as we have intense legislation, leading +almost to persecution against the interests, even getting together and +talking over the problems pertaining to their industry, so long will the +price of lumber be so low as to prevent us from bringing in at least +twenty per cent of these trees, thereby prolonging our forests to an +almost indefinite period. + +President WALLACE—We will now have an address by the Hon. W. A. Beard of +Sacramento, California. I have asked him to prepare an address on the +subject of “Coöperation,” one of the most important subjects that can +secure our attention. He will speak a half hour and no more. + +Mr. BEARD—Coöperation, as your chairman has said, is a very hard term. +It is so hard that I have found it difficult to determine the particular +phase of the subject which should be presented for your consideration. +I believe I was expected to talk on coöperation among farmers, but upon +careful consideration I was impressed with the fact that coöperation +among farmers is fundamentally the same thing as among persons engaged in +any other pursuit. + +It has seemed to me that what should come out of this Congress is not +an exhortation, addressed either to farmers or to any other class of +citizens, but a careful and complete statement of the facts—a review of +the progress made in coöperative development and a discussion of the +principles underlying successful coöperation. I shall speak, therefore, +of this movement. + +I refer, of course, to coöperation in business. By this term, I mean the +growth of coöperative societies in which individuals are associated for +mutual benefits and mutual profit. The ideal society is one in which +the benefits and profits are distributed equitably among the members in +proportion to their respective interests. + +Coöperation is little understood by the great majority of our citizens; +the full measure of its possibilities is comprehended by comparatively +few. Because there have been many and conspicuous failures, and because +abuses have marked the administration of some so-called coöperative +societies, the average citizen is disposed to regard coöperation as an +impractical dream, and in consequence, the really excellent progress is +being made in the face of distrust that should be removed. + +A knowledge of the facts will dispel this impression. Coöperation is +a demonstrated success. The movement is a world movement. Coöperative +societies are doing business successfully in every civilized country on +earth. In this country they are doing business in almost every state. +Everywhere the coöperative society, properly conducted, contributes to +the material welfare of its members; in most places it is an important +factor in social and moral advancement. + +The modern coöperative movement commenced less than a century ago and +began to assume importance about 1840. The earliest beginnings of +coöperative business enterprises as we know them were the establishment +of a little store at Rochdale, England, in 1844, and the founding +of a coöperative credit society in Germany in 1849. The pioneer in +agricultural coöperation was the rural credit society of Germany, the +first of which was organized in 1862. + +I mention these dates because they were the starting points from which +has grown, in the comparatively brief period of sixty-five years, a vast +web of coöperative enterprises encircling the earth. + + +SMALL BEGINNINGS LEAD TO LARGE SUCCESSES. + +Each of the movements began in the smallest way. The German credit +societies, both rural and urban, were founded for the purpose of +providing credit to men who had no security to offer beyond their +collective honesty, industry and business ability. The purpose was +to help the very poor, and the success attained is attested by the +comparative prosperity of German artisans and farmers, and by the present +vast extent of the coöperative banking system. The Rochdale society +was organized by ten poor weavers with a cash capital of twenty-eight +pounds sterling, and from it has grown the great system of coöperative +distribution of Great Britain. + + +THE COÖPERATIVE BANKS OF EUROPE. + +The coöperative credit society, or bank, is the most common form of +coöperation on the continent of Europe. Following the success of the +system in Germany, it has been introduced, in varying forms and with +varying degrees of success, in nearly all of the countries of continental +Europe, rural banks usually preponderating in numbers and in importance. +There are coöperative rural banks in Italy, France, Russia, Switzerland, +Belgium, Holland, Austria and the Balkan states, also in Ireland, India +and Japan. They have been introduced into Canada, and one such bank has +recently been established in the United States. + +Mr. Henry W. Wolff, in “People’s Banks,” says, “The year 1849 saw opened +two vastly different roads to wealth—the California gold fields and the +principles of coöperative banking.” + +The advantages of the coöperative bank lie in the fact that it is +operated in the interest of the borrowers and its sole purpose is to +provide cheap credit. The members are the managers, the borrowers and the +recipients of the profits. + +It is estimated by competent authority that there are forty thousand of +these banks in existence, with a total of more than three million members +and assets worth more than a billion dollars. + +In Germany more than one-half of the independent agriculturists are +members of these banks. + +Altogether there are 24,000 coöperative agricultural societies in +Germany, of which about eighty per cent are federated in one great +organization, and all of which are closely associated with the rural +coöperative banks to which they owe their origin. + + +THE ROCHDALE SOCIETY OF ENGLAND. + +The society formed at Rochdale, England, was wholly different from the +credit organizations of Germany, which it preceded. Its purpose was not +to provide credit, but to furnish the necessaries of life at low cost. +Unlike the German societies, which were started by philanthropists for +the benefit of the poor, the Rochdale society was started by the poor +themselves. The mite of capital employed at the outset was secured by +saving of two pence weekly from a starvation wage. Even this small saving +meant sacrifice to the Rochdale pioneers, but it paid, for out of it has +grown a great system that provides the British workman of today with all +he requires at wholesale and manufacturer’s prices. + + +LARGEST BUSINESS IN THE WORLD. + +The Coöperative Wholesale Societies Limited, of London, England, is +said to be the largest business concern in the world. In 1908 it did a +business of 570 million dollars. It is the central federation of the +coöperative retail associations, one of which is in almost every village +and town in England. It is a producer, manufacturer and shipper, as well +as merchant. It owns plantations in various parts of the world; it sails +its own ships; its chain of purchasing depots encircles the globe; it +manufactures almost every article of household use and supplies the wants +of more than eight million people. It is purely coöperative, all of its +profits being distributed among the consumers in proportion to their +purchases. + +We of America pride ourselves on the giant enterprises on this side +of the Atlantic. Even while we condemn the systems which have made +them possible, we marvel at the genius of the captains of industry and +finance who have built them. Yet here is a concern, said to do a business +four times greater than the Steel Trust, which is without a captain of +industry, a great financier or a merchant prince. It is a product of a +system, one of the best features of which is that it does not concentrate +great wealth in the hands of a few. + + +WHERE COÖPERATION IS A NATIONAL TRAIT. + +Agricultural coöperation finds its most complete development in Denmark. +Almost every Danish farmer is a member of one or more coöperative +societies. Coöperation is almost a national trait. So general is the use +of coöperative methods in Denmark that some one has said when a Dane +wishes to buy or sell anything his first impulse is to form a society to +do it. + +Yet coöperation is of comparatively recent growth in Denmark. There +have been coöperative stores since 1866, but it was not until 1881 that +the first coöperative dairy was established, while bacon curing and egg +societies date from 1887 and 1895, respectively. + +There are more than a thousand coöperative dairies in Denmark; there are +five hundred egg societies, and numerous other coöperative producing and +selling price associations. Eighty-three per cent of the cows milked in +1909 were in coöperative dairies; 66 per cent of the bacon was cured in +coöperative factories. + +The coöperative societies are thoroughly organized into federations, +and the whole business of production and sale is systematized. The +federations exercise the closest supervision over production. High +standards of excellence are required and long lists of rules are rigidly +enforced. A bad egg is occasion for a fine in a Danish egg society—and +there are no bad eggs in Denmark. + +In the twenty-five years from 1881 to 1906, Danish exports increased from +$11,840,000 to $77,800,000. Behind these figures is a story of a nation’s +progress from poverty to prosperity, a progress in which coöperation has +been the principal and dominating factor. + + +THE COÖPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AMPLY DEMONSTRATED. + +To tell, even in merest outline, of the successful coöperative movements +of Europe would require more time than is at my disposal. I have cited +these because they are the most conspicuous and far-reaching, and +because they afford three wholly separate and distinct and entirely +different demonstrations of the correctness of the coöperative +principle. Coöperation in Europe has been in most cases the resort of +dire necessity. It does not follow, however, that coöperation can be +successful only under circumstances of poverty and want. If it will raise +men from poverty to a competence, it will add to the prosperity of the +already prosperous. + + +RISE OF COÖPERATION IN AMERICA. + +The coöperative movement in this country began to assume importance +about 1850. Prior to this time there had been many associations for the +advancement of various interests, but these were, as a rule, educational +in purpose. Real progress in business coöperation began after the +close of the Civil War, and may best be described as a series of great +movements in which the farmers were usually the principal actors. These +culminated in the Grange movement of the early seventies in which +millions of farmers, united in a great national society, undertook to +revolutionize the existing economic system by taking over to themselves +the functions of middleman, merchant, baker and manufacturer, and to form +a great agricultural trust that would dictate the price of farm products +and combat growing railroad and other monopolies. + + +THE GREATEST REVOLT IN HISTORY. + +This was probably the greatest revolt of farmers in the history of the +world. It is simply astounding to read of the enterprises, colossal in +the aggregate, that were launched. Millions were invested in banks, +stores, warehouses, implement and other factories, railroads and selling +agencies, nearly all of which collapsed within a few years leaving only +experience and deficits behind. Of those that survived, the greater part +soon adopted the methods, aims and purposes of ordinary corporations. +Here and there, however, a coöperative enterprise continued to live, and +some of these are doing business to this day. + +Following the Grange movement came a number of state, interstate, and +national organizations, which grew steadily more political in their +aims until they culminated in the Farmers’ Alliance and People’s Party. +The adoption of the main planks of these by then older political +organizations marked the close of an epoch in agricultural agitation +and opened the way for a more strictly economic development of the +coöperative idea. + + +THE FIRST GUN IN A GREAT FIGHT. + +While the great movements of the twenty-year period between 1870 and 1890 +did not accomplish all that was expected of them, they did accomplish +much. They were the pioneers in organized opposition to the growth of +monopoly in this country. The organization of the Grange was the firing +of the first big gun in the fight against special privilege, a fight +which will go on until equal privilege prevails. + +The Grange has never ceased to be an active factor in agricultural +affairs. It has been a principal agent in the development of agricultural +education and in the improvement of agricultural practice, a strong local +force in country life, and a constant factor in the later growth of +coöperative endeavor. + + +PROGRESS OF PAST TWENTY YEARS. + +Since the period of great organizations, the coöperative movement has +attracted less attention, but has accomplished more in the world of +business. The results are manifested principally in three classes of +coöperative enterprise, stores, marketing associations, building and loan +associations. Other forms of these societies that are making progress +include industrial plants, supply societies and insurance associations. +The coöperative credit society that has attained such proportions in +Europe is practically unknown here, but there seems to be an excellent +field for it, especially in the South. + +In all branches of coöperative activity in this country there is a +lamentable lack of coördination. The stores are as a rule isolated from +each other or associated in small groups, and they lose the advantage +gained by the British societies from the concentration of their wholesale +business. The marketing associations are for the most part separate, +although there has been some movement toward federation in certain lines. + + +MOVING ALONG RIGHT LINES. + +While federation would, in most cases, work to mutual advantage if well +managed, the fact that such federations are rare does not argue against +the associations or the movement of which they are a part. On the +contrary, it is to the advantage of the coöperative movement that it is +developing for the most part in small units, each of which must learn to +stand on its own bottom. Federation, with its great advantages, will come +when coöperation in this country is ripe for it. + +According to a recent bulletin of the International Institute of +Agriculture, this country leads all others in coöperative marketing. +Coöperative dairies exist in every state where dairying is an important +industry; there are six hundred in Minnesota, three hundred in Wisconsin. +There are about sixteen hundred warehouses in the grain belt. There +are marketing associations in almost every important fruit district. +There are insurance societies in many states, coöperative associations +for handling cotton and tobacco. Coöperative irrigation has proven so +successful in the West that Uncle Sam is building irrigation systems to +be operated coöperatively and private capital is doing likewise, some of +the largest private projects selling the water system with the land with +coöperative ownership and operation by the farmers as the ultimate aim. + +The largest and most comprehensive farmers’ society is the Farmers +Educational and Coöperative Union, a national organization which follows +more nearly than any other now in active existence the early idea of +development by propaganda. It has branches in twenty-five states and a +total membership of about 3,000,000 persons. It is especially strong in +the South, where it operates 2,000 cotton warehouses and 6,000 cotton +gins. In other sections it owns and operates large numbers of grain +warehouses, also fruit handling and marketing agencies, coal mines, +fertilizer factories and numerous other enterprises. + + +THE CALIFORNIA FRUIT GROWERS’ EXCHANGE. + +We have in California what is probably the largest and most successful +coöperative association of producers engaged in marketing a single +line of production. This is the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange. It +maintains what is said to be the most efficient selling organization +in the world, having agents in all of the principal cities and many of +the smaller points of the United States, also at important centers in +Europe. It handles now about 75 per cent of the orange and lemon crop of +California and returns to its members, after deducting all expenses, more +than $20,000,000 a year. It has been in business several years and is a +demonstrated success in every particular. It has standardized the fruit +pack of the state, reducing packing and marketing costs and increased +selling values to the growers, and freed the citrus fruit growers from +the exactions of the fruit marketing companies. + +The exchange is purely coöperative. It is organized under the +corporation laws of California with a capital stock of $10,000, but no +dividends are paid on this stock and no assessments levied. Money for +operating expenses is secured by levying an assessment on the growers at +the beginning of the season in proportion to the estimated crop of each. +When the crop is sold the proceeds, less the expenses actually incurred +and paid, are paid to the growers. + +The organization consists of a central exchange, which is the marketing +concern, sixteen district exchanges and 104 local associations. The +locals elect the directors of the district exchanges, which in turn elect +the directors of the central body. The fruit is gathered and packed by +the local associations, which are independent units and usually own their +packing houses. It is shipped through the district exchange. The routing +and sale is in the hands of the central exchange. + +It is worthy of especial note that the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange +has succeeded by the merit of its business methods. It does not now and +it never has had a monopoly of the California crop. It began with less +than a third of the crop, and for some years handled less than half of +it. It now ships about 75 per cent of the oranges and lemons grown in the +state. + +It should also be stated in this connection that there are a large number +of men in the business of growing fruit in California, who have had +extensive business experience before becoming tillers of the soil. They +were not afraid to unite, not afraid to adopt modern business methods, +not afraid to pay large salaries for the skill necessary to succeed. I +understand that the manager’s salary is upward of $10,000 a year. + +Viewed in the large, the coöperative movement in America is making rapid +strides. It is handicapped by lack of knowledge of coöperative methods, +and by lack of adequate laws governing the organization and conduct of +societies. + +The most crying need is a more widespread knowledge among coöperators +themselves of the true principles of coöperation. There are hundreds of +so-called societies in which coöperation is by the many for the benefit +of the few. In some instances they are actually controlled by the +concerns which buy their products; in many more an excessive profit is +secured by a small coterie, usually in the form of dividends on stock. + +Stock dividends are the rock on which many promising coöperative efforts +come to grief. It has been customary in many states to organize under the +corporation laws, the members taking stock. Where no restrictions are +placed upon the number of shares which one person may hold, or upon the +dividends that may be paid, the tendency is for the stock to concentrate +in a few hands, when dividends on stock are likely to be more sought than +profits for members. I know of instances where so-called coöperative +enterprises have paid as high as thirty per cent per annum in dividends +to a small ring of stockholders. + + +A CALL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMANSHIP. + +Where special statutes are enacted providing for the formation of +coöperative societies, there is often a lack of wise restrictions in the +interests of the average member. The laws are sometimes excellent in what +they permit coöperators to do but inadequate in what they require them to +do. The enactment of laws adequately fostering coöperative enterprises +and safeguarding the interests of the coöperators calls for the best +constructive statesmanship of the Nation. + +Among the provisions that should be inserted in every state law +authorizing the formation of coöperative associations are the following: + + That no person shall hold more than a stated number of shares + of a stated aggregate value. + + That dividends on stock shall be limited to a fair interest + return. + + That all profits, in excess of interest on capital and such + reserve as is deemed necessary, shall be distributed equitably + among members in accordance with business done or work + performed. + + That an annual report be made to the Secretary of State showing + the nominal and paid-up capital, the assets and liabilities, + the dividends paid on stock, the profits and how they are + distributed. + + That the word “coöperative” shall be made a part of the name + of any concern licensed to do business under the provisions of + this act. + + That all concerns doing business in the state at time of this + enactment which use the word “coöperative” in their titles + shall be required to reorganize under this act or change their + name. + +A great stride forward will have been made when in every state of the +Union there are laws requiring the equitable distribution of the profits +of coöperative endeavor, control of societies by members, publicity of +all important acts, and confining the use of the word “Coöperative” to +concerns that meet these requirements. + +Good laws alone will not solve the problem. Some associations are +eminently successful under the ordinary corporation laws, some will fail +under any legal system that can be devised. The successful conduct of a +coöperative society requires intelligence, business capacity and honesty. +I know of no plan of coöperation that is “fool proof” nor do I know of +any legal safeguards that will render it safe from those whose methods +are of the dark lantern and the jimmy. + + +WHAT A COÖPERATIVE SOCIETY IS NOT. + +The coöperative society in its best sense is not a revolt against +oppression or unjust exactions. It is a business system. Its purpose is +the promotion of the three big “Es”: economy, efficiency and elimination +of waste. + +Coöperation is not a cure-all; it will not solve every problem; it will +not solve any problem unless it is handled properly and wisely. + +Successful coöperation does not mean monopoly. Few attempts by +coöperators to monopolize their product have been successful; I know of +none that have been successful for an extended period. + +Coöperation is not communism. It does not mean collective ownership of +property, but collective activity by individual owners of property. + +A coöperative society resembles a corporation in that the capital and +services of a number of persons are united for the purpose of carrying +on a business. It differs from the corporation in two very important +particulars as follows: First, the recruit in a coöperative enterprise +is the man and not the dollar; second, the purpose of the coöperative +society is not to build a profitable business, but to add to the profit +of the individual businesses of its members. + + +CAUSES OF FAILURE. + +Failures in coöperative enterprises have usually been due to too much +confidence and too little actual knowledge of the business undertaken. +Men engaged in production have undertaken the business of distribution on +a large scale without any previous knowledge of distributive methods. In +many cases coöperators have expected too much and have been dissatisfied +with moderate returns; in others there have been no returns because +the business was neither well conceived nor well conducted. In many +instances success at the outset has led to unwarranted expansion that +spelled disaster. Personal likes and dislikes and petty jealousies have +led to disruption; a good manager has been discharged to make room for +a favorite of a dominant faction, or a poor manager has been retained +because the membership did not know he was a failure. There is a strong +tendency among coöperators to resent high salaries, and low grade +managers are often the result. Members are frequently disloyal and weaken +the society by doing a portion or all of their business with its rivals. +Members of marketing associations frequently coöperate as some men +pray—only in times of impending disaster. + +A coöperative enterprise, to be successful, must be one for which there +is a place and an opportunity. Sound business judgment must characterize +its management. There must be a responsible head and a definite policy. +The manager must be capable and experienced and the one test of his +work must be the results he is able to show. There must be a system of +accounting that will show these results in detail. Dependence for success +must be upon the merits of the methods employed, never upon the mere +right of coöperators to do their own business in their own way. Most +important of all, the membership must be intelligent and willing, on +occasion, to suffer temporary loss for the greater gain to be secured +by loyalty to the concern. It must be borne in mind that a coöperative +enterprise in entering a competitive field has got to compete, and its +strength lies in the loyalty of its membership. + + +SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS. + +The American people need to be educated regarding the principle and +practice of coöperation. It should be taught in the schools, especially +in the agricultural schools, as it is now in some of the agricultural +schools of Europe. There should be state and national conventions for +the discussion of coöperative principles and methods. There should be +organizations of coöperators for the consideration of mutual problems and +mutual interests. Every great library contains the history of all of the +coöperative movements down to the present time, and the experience of the +world is available to those who will use it. + +What Americans most need is the coöperative point of view. We are +accustomed to extravagance and speculation, but the time is at hand +when we must practice the virtues of economy. We have been a nation of +individualists, each sufficient unto himself; we must learn to unite with +our fellows and consider their welfare as a part of our own. + +Do we need coöperation? Consider the wide margin between the price on the +farm and at the kitchen door! Consider the difference in cost between the +boot at the factory and on your foot! Consider the enormous wastes and +duplications of our system of distribution! Consider the fortunes that +have been amassed by the concentration of profits that would have been +widely diffused under coöperation! + +We complain of the concentration of capital in the hands of a few; here +is a system of business that will keep the profits of the people’s +business in the people’s pockets where they belong. + +We are concerned about the resources of Alaska lest they pass into +the control of trusts and syndicates and serve to enrich a few at the +expense of the many, as well we may be; but here is a wealth more vast, +a tangible, visible, present wealth, many times greater than that of +all the mines and forests of the Territory of Alaska, that is slipping +through our fingers day by day and accumulating in the coffers of those +who already have too much. The American citizen everywhere is paying a +tribute from which there is but one avenue of escape—the adoption of +coöperative methods of doing business. + +During the reading of Mr. Beard’s paper Mr. J. B. White assumed the Chair. + +Chairman WHITE—Mr. B. A. Fowler, chairman of the resolution committee, +desires to make an announcement. + +Mr. FOWLER—Members of the resolutions committee having been selected, +the first meeting of the committee will now be held, and I invite the +members selected for that committee to meet in the room back of the +platform. This meeting will be for the organization of the committee, +and I suggest to the chairman that if nothing has been said on that +particular point, this a working committee, and you get results. Those of +you who have resolutions to present should present them at the earliest +possible moment. I will leave to you the lateness of the hour when they +may be presented, but it would seem as if they all ought to come in to +the committee some time today. I also suggest that anybody who desires to +present a resolution should not send it up to the committee unsigned, +and in the crudest sort of way; but that you prepare your resolution as +you would like to have it presented, sign your name and send it to the +committee. + +President WALLACE—If I were the chairman of the committee I would not +consider any resolution offered after this evening. It is unfair to the +committee to throw resolutions at them at the last moment. Now, we must +have a report of this committee the first thing after dinner tomorrow. +Therefore, get your resolutions in. + +We want the members of the committee on resolutions to go up to this room +at once. + +Gentlemen, we will now hear an address from Mr. Herbert Quick, of +Madison, Wisconsin, editor of the Farm and Fireside of Springfield, +Mass., on the subject, “The Farmer and the Railroads.” + +Mr. HERBERT QUICK—Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: It is rather a +difficult task which has been assigned to me, that of following such men +as have spoken in the last two or three addresses, and that, too, at +a time of day when the imperative calls of bodily sustenance begin to +make themselves manifest. I cannot undertake to emulate in the matter of +interest, in the matter of inspiration, any of these gentlemen who have +just preceded me and addressed you. It is utterly impossible to be very +interesting with reference to the subject of the railroads and the farmer +unless you trench on the subject of politics, and they are barred here; +therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I beg leave to be dull in my talk to you +today, very dull indeed. I am, however, hopeful of giving you something +to think about with reference to the very important matters of the +relation between the railroad and the farmer. + +The relations between the farmers and the railroads are not always +amicable, but they are always close. When capital was first solicited +for the building of our railways the capital that responded was in large +measure that of the farmers. Enterprise came from the cities, but before +it could successfully appeal to the bond market, it was obliged to show +something in the way of local aid. The history of railway exploitation +in the Mississippi Valley, and in the whole country at the period of +most rapid development in railway building has not yet, so far as I am +aware, been adequately written. When it is written, it will show an +astonishing array of facts relating to the extent to which the farmers +of the land really built the railways—by stock subscriptions, by votes +of aid, by donations of right-of-way, and by outright gifts of cash. And +a depressing phase of the story will be the tales of bonds issued and +upheld by the courts, although no railway was ever built, and of the +almost automatic manner in which the farmer’s interests were closed out +by receiverships. During the time when investments in railway buildings +were uncertain, donations of public lands, gifts of rights-of-way, and +votes of bond issues in the way of local aid gave them standing in the +money markets. So to a great extent, the farmers built the railways—and +were then neatly beaten out of their interests. + +That, however, is not the story of the farmers of today and the railways +of today. It belongs to the past. Our task relates to the future. In that +future, the relations between the railways and the farmers must continue +to be close, whether they are amicable or not. The two parties belong to +each other. One cannot exist without the other. When the farmers succeed +in wresting a good crop from the earth, stocks go up in Wall street. +A hot wind in Montana affects Great Northern and Northern Pacific on +’Change; and when the railway fails to furnish cars for the carrying +of the crop, that failure affects the notes of the farmer at the bank. +For better or for worse, the farmers and the railways are irrevocably +wedded. A little careful and dispassionate consideration of their marital +relations may assist in the maintenance of that peace which is necessary +to happiness—and as a mere outline of the broader principles governing +such consideration, this address has been prepared. + +The great railway men of the United States have always felt the burden of +a duty towards the farmers, even when denying any legal claim back of it. +Fifteen years or so ago an enthusiastic believer in the semi-arid West +worked out a plan for moisture-conserving farming—one of the greatest +steps in conservation ever taken in this country. The management of the +Northern Pacific helped him educate the farmers in the principles of his +science. The managements of the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, the Soo +Line and the B. & M. in Nebraska also gave him assistance. They foresaw +the development which would come to Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas and +all the semi-arid country if “dry farming”, as it has come to be called, +could be made to succeed. They saw a duty to the stockholders—saw it +clearly; and I believe there was not lacking to their vision a glimpse of +the duty they owed to the Nation through ministration to the prosperity +of its farmers. + + +HOW THE RAILROADS LEARNED. + +The management of the Great Northern, though since enthusiastic, could at +that early time see nothing in the Campbell method of farming to enlist +its sympathy or its dollars, nor could the Northwestern line, though +both of these systems ran through hundreds of miles since reduced to the +settled state through dry farming. But at that very time Mr. Hill was +showing his interest in agriculture through the introduction of improved +breeds of livestock along the lines of his system. And the Northwestern +officials withheld their aid from Campbell, because it was believed on +their part that it was better to leave the semi-arid regions in the +condition of unbroken prairie from which they might receive trainloads of +cattle, than to encourage its opening to an agriculture which was likely +to be unsuccessful. Perhaps that was the controlling opinion in Great +Northern circles, too. In any case, the railways were exerting an almost +monarchical power over farming in their spheres of influence. Nothing, it +seems to me, more clearly shows the power of the railways over farms and +farming, than these instances of both action and inaction at the critical +stage of development. We do not see it so plainly in regions long settled +and in agricultural equilibrium, but the power is always there and always +exerted for all that. + +Beginning, so far as I am informed, with Mr. Hill’s livestock activities, +and the aid of Mr. J. W. Kendrick to the great dry farming movement, +railway aid to agriculture has grown to a fashion. The Pennsylvania +maintains its demonstration farms on Long Island; the New York Central +strives to bring back to their old-time headship in farming the Empire +State’s half-abandoned farms. Scarcely a railway system can be mentioned +which has not run its educational trains for the purpose of bringing +agricultural science into touch with the farmers along its line. +“Dairy specials,” “corn specials,” “bacon specials,” “fruit specials,” +and dozens of other special trains have moved leisurely from station +to station with agricultural lecturers aboard and cars fitted up as +laboratories and auditoriums for the farmers. These are sure to be +increasingly frequent as the demand grows on the part of farmers for +accurate and authoritative teaching, and as the railway officials come +to understand that the most profitable thing to sow along the line is +knowledge, and that nothing gives such profitable crops as science. The +great Burlington system now hires one of the noted agricultural experts +of the world to work with the farmers, and another eminent agricultural +college professor has gone into the service of that system which, while +it may not reign, rules over the industrial destinies of “The Rock Island +States of America.” The railroads everywhere, are doing excellent work +in educating the farmers. This work is wise, and is sure to bring the +results the railroads desire. The introduction of good agricultural +methods, like the implanting of truth in any form, is one of those +germinal acts that go on of their own accord when once the initial +impulse is given. Dry farming will be practiced centuries hence better +than now, and the Northern Pacific will carry its tonnage. + + +THE DOMINANCE OF TONNAGE. + +But all these fine things have been done and are still being done with +a eye single to tonnage. The railway officials who are doing them would +strenuously deny any other motive than that of filling trains with +agricultural produce. “What justification,” says the old-fashioned +stockholder at the annual meeting, “can be given for using money of the +railway for such new-fangled flub-dub as this special train filled with +college professors and farmers?” “It’s a cold business proposition,” says +the general manager. “If we can get the farmers to grow steers that will +weigh a ton as against the present ones that weigh a thousand pounds, +our livestock tonnage is doubled, and at the expense of a few special +trains and an agricultural department, we obtain on the present lines all +the results of a greater mileage. Better agriculture means more freight. +That’s the justification, and the only one. It’s a plain business +proposition!” + +We may trust the enlightened selfishness of good business to push this +sort of activity to the limit of its profit; and it is a fine thing to +think that the railways cannot benefit themselves by spreading the light +of agricultural science without benefiting the farmers and the whole +nation. Favors of this sort bless him that receives quite as much as +him that gives. But does the duty of the railway end with tonnage? Can +we ask the railways to do anything for the farms and the farmers beyond +the things which mediately or immediately will fill trains of cars with +profitable freight? In the great task of conservation do the railways owe +any duty to the farms beyond what they are now performing? This phase of +the subject has yet to be worked out. + + +SOME HISTORIC PHRASES. + +A few striking phrases have thrown on the screen of history the views of +the generation of railway men who denied, and some of them still deny, +anything in the way of duty of the sort hinted at. Some of these may +be apocryphal utterances, but they tell the truth for all that. It is +recorded that a Louisville & Nashville official, on being asked whether +or not the people on his lines had any alternative other than to pay +what the railway exacted, answered, “Yes! They can walk!” The historic +Vanderbilt aphorism is “The public be damned!” It has been related of +Jay Gould that his cynical rule for the making of rates on agricultural +produce was that the farmers should always be allowed to retain enough +for seed. Such opinions as these were the prevailing ones until recently. +They were based on the view that the railways were purely private things. +Under their sway railway men claimed the right to decide what cities +should flourish and what decline, where towns should be built and where +not, what shippers should be prosperous and what fail. They claimed +these rights and they exercised them. To men of that school the things I +shall say will seem like nonsense. They do not see that the control of +the highways of a nation carries with it the rulership of the people; or +if they do see it, they refuse to recognize the right of the people to +say how that rulership shall be exercised, how long it shall continue, +and when it shall end. And this is the lesson of the present and the +immediate future for the railroads of America. A railway official is +of right a public official, and he is nothing else. His duties to his +stockholders are important and call upon him for scrupulous fidelity, +but they are subject to his duties to the public. For on the highways +depend the welfare of the whole people; the stockholders are a part only +of the people; and the whole is greater than any part. In the last +analysis, the stockholders and bondholders of the railways must come to +a realization of the fact that they have placed their interests in the +keeping of the people of the Nation, and that their profits must depend +on the sense of justice of that people. Fortunately, there is no reason +to expect from the people the slightest failure to respect the real +rights of capital. But that modifications of railway policy are likely to +be insisted upon, is not only likely, but inevitable. These modifications +will be along the line of revisions of rates, the adoption of the +principle that the railway must be used as a tool in the development of +the Nation along rational and just lines, and not arbitrary ones, and in +the conservation of the national resources—among which one of the most +important, if not the most important, is the fertility of the soil. + + +RATES AND LIVING COST. + +First, as to rates. There has been a good deal written of late for the +purpose of securing for the railways an acquittal of every charge that +has been or ever can be brought against them of having anything to do +with the increased cost of living. Inasmuch as the cost of transportation +is a part of the cost of every article consumed, freight rates may, and +doubtless do, conceal much that makes for high prices. A Johns Hopkins +professor says: “The claim of the railroads that the rates on foodstuffs +are not high enough to enter as a factor in fixing the selling price +is fully substantiated by the dealers in such products.” And again the +same authority says: “The average weight of a carload of food products +is 30,000 pounds. If the freight on such a carload be $300 the rate per +pound would be only one cent, and there is scarcely a commodity upon +which a freight rate of one cent per pound makes any difference in the +selling price.” + +When one considers the staples on which a cent a pound constitutes from +six to twenty per cent of the selling price, these extremely sweeping +statements must be admitted to need a lot of verification. Those who feel +most keenly the pinch of high prices live mostly on things which sell at +from four to twenty cents a pound—of which price an average of a cent +a pound freight is a considerable increase. But the efforts mentioned +have not been confined to arguments of the sort above quoted. We are +called upon to believe not only that no appreciable freight charge is +added to the burdens of the consumer, but that nothing worth mentioning +is deducted as freight from the prices to the producer. We thus have +the great incomes of the railroads very neatly palmed and effectually +concealed somewhere between the professor of economics and the Secretary +of Agriculture. For Secretary Wilson asserts that: + + With approximate accuracy it has been determined that when + the farmer receives 50 per cent of the consumer’s price, the + freight charge on butter is about 0.5 of 1 per cent of the + consumer’s price; eggs, 0.6 of 1 per cent; apples, 6.8 per + cent; beans, 2.4 per cent; potatoes, 7.4 per cent; grains of + all sorts, 3.8 per cent; hay, 7.4 per cent; cattle and hogs, + 1.2 per cent; live poultry, 2.2 per cent; wool, 0.3 of 1 per + cent. + +These things are very convincing. And they are, no doubt, reliable as +to averages. The trouble with them is that they are averages, and that +they have the merits and defects of averages. One of the defects is that +they do not tell the real truth. I have in mind a farmer living at New +Rockford, North Dakota. He grows wheat as his staple crop, and about +the only crop upon which it is at all safe to depend. His task is to +help feed the world. As this is written, his wheat is worth in New York, +if for export, a dollar a bushel, if for milling in this country two +cents more. In addition to the cost of handling, the New Rockford farmer +must submit to a deduction of twenty-four cents per bushel in price +for freight to New York if for export, and of twenty-six cents if for +domestic use. Something like 35 to 40 per cent of his returns is deducted +for freight. It may satisfy the city consumer of bread to be told that +this freight does not add “materially” to the cost of his living, but the +New Rockford farmer is stubborn, and merely because his freight charge is +a third or more of his returns, he is not mollified by Secretary Wilson’s +statement that all grains “on the average” get to market with a deduction +for transportation of three and eight-tenths per cent. In Johns Hopkins +and at Washington, the freight charge may not amount to much. It is far +otherwise at New Rockford. + +A North Dakota station and a low grade staple are selected for the +purpose of putting a finger on the point where the railways and the +farmers clash crucially. They clash thus in the heart of the continent +where distances to market are long, where there has been no rate +structure fixed under competition, and where the farm produces in the +main cheap and heavy staples. Whether grain, hay, root crops, or live +stock, the case is the same—prices at the railway station are reduced to +the point of vanishing profits by freight charges; and the cost of living +on the farm is proportionately increased by the same agency. + + +HOW TO DEVELOP THE REMOTE PARTS. + +The greatest transportation fact faced by the American people is the +problem of developing the remote parts of the continent under conditions +which are new to the experience of the human race. In the past mankind +has been content to develop its great civilization near waterways. The +sites of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Phoenicia and Carthage were determined by +ease of transportation. Whether or not it is possible for the interior of +the North American continent to be fully developed industrially by land +carriage only is a question which is as yet an open one. It is safe to +say that such development cannot take place without the adoption by the +railways of some new transportation principles, applied for the express +purpose of national welfare. And if the only alternative—the building of +a national system of waterways—be resorted to, the aid of the railways +must still be demanded if success is to be attained. + +Rates as a deduction from the income of the farmer are even on the face +of the averages quoted, considerable; but in the interior and on things +produced at a close margin of profit, they are decisive of the matter +of agricultural prosperity. On butter they are so inconsiderable as a +proportion that the output of Dakota creameries has not infrequently gone +on the market under conditions which enabled the Western butter-maker +to pay his entire freight bill with the difference in his favor in the +matter of quality. On eggs the burden of freight is similarly light. But +on potatoes the freight is, according to the figures of the Secretary of +Agriculture, 7.4 per cent of the consumer’s price, or about fifteen per +cent of the farmers’ returns, as a national average. It is quite clear +that the Montana or Nebraska potato grower must often find the freight, +over the great distances to market, decisive of the question of profit or +no profit. An acre of onions takes the labor of two or three persons a +good part of the season. The cultivation is largely done with hand tools +manipulated while the worker kneels and bends his body to the ground. +His produce should be about a carload. If on this he pays the railways +$300 freight it is a not inconsiderable contribution on the part of one +gardener and one acre of land to the transportation system of the Nation. + +Just what is included in these professorial and secretarial calculations +is not quite clear. The word “freight” may or may not include such items +as the charges for refrigeration and of refrigerator car companies, fast +freight lines and the like, and until we know as to these items, we are +unable to decide on the worth of the statistics. But one item of expense +which through the policy of the railway companies the farmers are obliged +to pay is clearly not included—I refer to the charges of the express +companies. + +The railways of the United States have enormously retarded the +agricultural development of the country, and added to the expense of +living, by permitting the lodgment in our transportation system of that +industrial parasite, the express company. Just what are the financial +inter-relations which have contributed to the willingness of the railways +to allow parcels carriage to pass from their hands, while sufficiently +obvious in a general way, cannot now be detailed. The glaring fact is +that the express companies, save for certain services which they have, in +violation of the criminal law, usurped from the postal system, perform +absolutely no functions which do not properly belong to the railways, +and no functions which the railways of other lands do not assume. Every +dollar of the huge profits which the express companies make is a burden +upon industry which is unnecessary and unjust. But instead of seeking to +remedy or lessen this burden, the railways pursue the policy of making +it greater. They practically abandon the field of parcels carriage to +the express companies. They allow their agents everywhere to work for the +express companies on commission, so that their wages are increased as +express business increases, while their interest in the growth of railway +business is reduced to a minimum by the receipt from the railway of only +a small fixed salary. Thus the railways not only turn over to the express +companies the parcels business, but saddle on that business, and on the +shippers by express, a good deal of the burden of their own payroll. + + +THE TOLLS ASSESSED ON AGRICULTURE. + +The effect of this policy on agriculture is not to be measured by the +amount of express tolls paid on shipments made. That is a great burden, +but it is inconsiderable as compared with its injury to the farmers and +to the Nation by reason of the immense volume of potential traffic that +does not move at all. Under the paternal governments of the Australasian +colonies of Great Britain, agriculture is fostered by low railway +rates and a carefully studied policy of encouragement to the small +shipper. Packages of poultry, eggs, meats and other farm products are +collected on the remote railway lines, brought to concentration points, +refrigerated, shipped to the world’s markets, sold and remitted for +to the great benefit of the remote farmers, who otherwise would have +no way of marketing their little shipments. But here the trucker and +poultryman and the fruit-grower are in most localities relegated by the +railways to a third party—the express company—who seems to have no office +but the exaction of tolls which the railway itself could not charge, +but which it divides with the railway. This is unjust and is rapidly +becoming intolerable. The farmer must be placed in such position that he +can work up trade in the city and ship in small packages direct to the +consumer at just rates. The head of one of our great railway systems has +delivered several powerful addresses recently, in which he has asserted +that the farmers, and not the railways, are to blame for the spread of +from 30 to 75 per cent between the price received by the producer of +food products and that paid by the consumer. He advises farmers to “cut +out the middleman.” Good counsel, but let him follow his own advice. Let +him, and let all railways cut out the express middlemen, the private car +middlemen, the fast freight line middlemen, and the ordinary farmer will +be placed in better position for taking his advice. These agencies have +no place in a rational system of transportation. They are parasites, +which suck blood and confer no benefit. Transportation by rail should +be a simple transaction between the railway and the shipper, and with +no third party whatsoever. Whatever there may be in the way of parcels +transportation which does not properly belong to the railways should be +assumed by the government in the form of a general parcels post. + +With the way cleared to simple relations between shipper and railroad, +the matter of rate-making in the interests of national development may +be taken up, and the railroads enlisted in such policies as may be +dictated by patriotism. In these the farmers are entitled to so much of +special consideration as is commanded by the importance of agriculture +as the basic industry of the world—no more, no less. In many schedules +the railroads have favored agricultural development. These instances are +those in which farming interests have been controlling in the matter +of dividends. Perhaps we should expect nothing more of the purely +individualistic philosophy of the past, but of the future we must demand +much more. + + +RATES AND DEVELOPMENT. + +Instances of the influence of railway policies on agriculture may be +found in almost every country of the world. The beet sugar industry +of Austria has been built up through the adjustment of railway rates. +Huebner says of the German policy in this regard: + + With the deliberate purpose of regulating industry and + commerce through the powerful medium of freight rates, 63 + per cent of the traffic is given rates generally about half + as high as classified rates and seemingly unusually low as + compared with rates enforced in neighboring countries. These + rates are given to build up particular industries, to promote + specified districts, to protect German railways against foreign + competition, to overcome emergencies, to build up German + sea-ports, to promote German export trade, and discourage the + entry of specified imports. + +We have been told over and over again that the acquisition of the +railroads of Germany by the government has been dictated by consideration +of military strategy; but the world is just awakening to the fact that +it is rather industrial strategy which has impelled the Germans to +government ownership. The time is coming when the German railways will +be freed from the fixed charges of both bonds and stocks, and German +agricultural products will go to market, with her manufactures, at +rates based on actual cost of service. The fostering uses of properly +adjusted rates as applied to remote agricultural districts in Australia +and New Zealand have been known to the world for years. Protection to +home industries through tariffs has failed to benefit our farmers in any +direct way, and the policy of attempting longer to maintain such tariffs +seems to be in process of abandonment; but Van Wagenen has pointed out +that agriculture may be stimulated and fostered through railway rates, +and given all the benefits which clearly accrue to protected industries +through tariffs. It might be no more than fair to the farmers if some +of the taxes exacted from them through tariffs in the interests of +manufacturers, were returned to them in such freight rates as would +develop their agriculture along the intensive lines made possible by +nearness to market; but it might be unfair to ask privately-owned +railways to do it. + +The whole structure of rates as they now exist is devised to favor the +long line to and from market, and made up with reference to the demands +of certain trade centers, and certain powerful financial interests, +some of which are closely allied to the ownership of the control of +railways. A striking instance of this is to be found in the history +of the rates on the border line between the Gulf trade basin, and the +territory of the railways running to Chicago and the Atlantic ports. +From Kansas and Oklahoma points the distance to tidewater on the Gulf is +only from a quarter to a half the distance to the Atlantic. The farmers +of that region, and of a great part of Nebraska, Colorado, and much +other territory, are entitled to an outlet by way of the Gulf. It is +nearer. It is over cheaper track. It is on easier grades. It should be +in every way more economical. But when the battle between the old lines +and the new began with the building of the roads to the Gulf, it was +fought out, not along lines of what was best for the Nation, not along +lines of what was best for the farmers whose stake in the controversy +was the right to a fair price for their grain, but with sole reference +to the interests of the railways themselves, and of the grain trade with +which the railways have always maintained so intimate a friendship. Such +agreements were made that grain would be as likely to go from Kansas +City to the Atlantic as to the Gulf. In other words, the building of +the Gulf lines was robbed of its benefits to the farmer. Rates were so +adjusted, and still are, as to make the Gulf lines as bad for the farmer +as the Atlantic lines, instead of making the old lines as good as the +new should be. This is equivalent, as an economic futility, to the plan +of handicapping the binder so as to restrict its work to the amount done +by the same force in the old days of hand binding. Financially it may be +wise—for the elevator trade, and the railway community of interest—but it +is an economic crime as much as the breaking of the power looms by the +old weavers. The present railway situation is full of such anomalies. One +could spend days in their discussion. They are familiar to the shippers +of the nation. They are apologized for by the wise men who write great +tomes on transportation. But they must sometime be so corrected that +trade will go on the railroad which can perform the transportation task +most economically, without regard to the historic channels of traffic and +the private interests concerned in the use thereof. + +[Illustration: DARIUS A. BROWN, Mayor of Kansas City] + + +“TAPERING RATES.” + +I have spoken of the difficulties which confront the people of the deep +interior of the continent in working out their complete industrial +development. By complete industrial development, I mean that full growth +in industry which has come to such seaboard locations as Great Britain, +the Netherlands, our Eastern seaboard, our lake regions and the like. One +can scarcely conceive such complete development in Iowa, Nebraska, the +Dakotas, or Oklahoma. And yet it is merely a question of transportation. +The problem of the future relates to the question of the ability of land +carriage of any kind to furnish it. If it cannot be accomplished by land +carriage, the Nation will have recourse to waterways. New Rockford +and her sister hamlets will reach the sea, either by the way of the +railroads, or by the Missouri river. If the railways are to give New +Rockford—and in her I typify all the interior—what it must have if it is +to develope completely, they must find some way to compensate the place +by means of rates for its remoteness from the sea. + +This may be done by what is called “tapering rates”—that is, by rates +which increase not with the distance, but on some basis which gives the +remote point a less tariff per ton a mile than the nearby point. The +railroads have made such rates always when the demands of profit called +for them; and their policy has resulted in great benefit to the interior; +but the diverse ownership of the different lines and restrictive laws, +as well as the lack of a national policy in rate-making, conspire to +prevent the full application of the principle. Congressman D. J. Lewis +of Maryland has laid down the principle that rates along a line should +increase with the square root of the distance, instead of with the +distance. Thus, if the proper rate per hundredweight for twenty-five +miles is ten cents, for 625 miles the rate should be not $2.50, which +would be the increase directly with the distance, but twenty-five cents, +the increase over ten cents according to the square root of the distance. +The value of this formula may lie principally in the emphasis of the +economic justice, as well as the necessity, of tapering rates for long +hauls. As it is, rates taper from New York to Chicago, not according to +the square root formula, but in a manner not very much at odds with it; +but then they are increased by the fresh start from Chicago as a basing +point. Under a national policy in rate-making, these rates would continue +to taper to the point at which it would be more economical to ship in +some other direction—to the Pacific, or to the Gulf. + +The influence of tapering rates on the industrial development of a +people may be seen strikingly manifested in Texas, which has long had +a rate system peculiar to itself. This system is said to be the fruit +of the statesmanship of Judge Reagan, and was devised expressly in the +interests of a population deemed to be permanently agricultural. It is +exactly the opposite of the general policy which has built up a few +great cities at the expense of the rest of the country, and the best or +worst example of which is perhaps the case of Chicago. Chicago is fed by +livestock shipments which sweep past the very doors of packing houses +quite as well equipped to slaughter the stock as any in the Windy City, +and the livestock rates are only a sample of the system of tariffs that +keep in Chicago’s hands the headship in commerce to which in the natural +development of things she would not be entitled. Railroad rates keep +the great centers great by decreeing that the primary products shall be +sold there, and that the supplies of goods ready for consumption shall +be bought there. This is done by depriving other trade centers of the +natural advantages over Chicago, of their nearness to the farms, while +leaving them handicapped by their remoteness from water transportation. +And wherever a great city is found in the United States, the same sort +of rate structure is found. The economic result is that long hauls are +favored for the railroads, with greater profits to them perhaps; but the +farmers are deprived of the benefits of the home markets which nearby +large cities afford. The state of Iowa is Chicago’s back field; and +Iowa’s population is shrinking. This fact alone is enough to condemn the +rate system which permits it. And Iowa’s case is glaring merely because +she is an almost purely agricultural state. The farm populations of the +other states on Chicago’s back fields are shrinking, also. And while I +do not think it fair to attribute all this to rate mal-adjustments, I +feel sure that if the Texas system of rates had been in effect in the +Chicago-St. Louis basin, the phenomenon of decreasing population would +have been long postponed, and might never have appeared. + + +THE TEXAS SYSTEM OF RATES. + +The Texas system, as perfected by the Texas State Railway Commission, +is based on the theory that many medium sized towns and cities are to +be preferred, for the agricultural welfare of the state, to one or two +overgrown municipalities with rates made to stimulate their growths at +the expense of the rest. This has been accomplished by the establishment +of a maximum freight charge, above which there can be no increase, no +matter what the distance—with the exception of certain remote points +in the cases of which additions are made, not according to the entire +length of haul, but according to their distance beyond the limits of the +zone which is established about every shipping point. Thus merchandise +taking the class rates pays a tariff from any shipping point according +to distance, up to 245 miles, beyond which the rate for 245 miles is +paid no matter what the distance. The maximum rate on cotton is reached +at 160 miles from any station; on flour, grain and hay at 140 miles; +on coal, 790 miles; on fruits, vegetables and melons, 180 miles, and +thus for all shipments. The result is that the remote truck farmer is +as close, so far as rates are concerned, to the city 500 miles away, as +to the one 180 miles off—and the principle is applied to all producers, +with variations as to distance. This gives him a wide choice in markets +and rates, which equalizes conditions so far as rates can do so, between +the interior and the coast. And it fosters the small and new city by +enabling it to compete in jobbing and manufacturing with the large and +old one. Thus, while such places as Galveston, Houston, Dallas, Fort +Worth and Waco are among the most prosperous towns of their size in the +country, they are constantly meeting the competition of that numerous +class of smaller Texan cities the unsuspected presence of which in the +interior is such a constant surprise to the traveler from the North. +Business is decentralized to an extent nowhere else seen in the United +States in an agricultural community. And decentralization, while opposed +to the immediate interests of the railways, is clearly profitable to +the farmers, better for the people in general, and in all probability +will prove in the end better for the railways themselves. For after all, +railroad prosperity must depend on national prosperity. + +It may be said that the Texas system has been tried out on a small and +a state scale only. On a state scale, truly, but not on a small scale +by any means. From El Paso to Texarkana the distance is almost exactly +that from New York to Chicago, and from Brownsville to Texline is as +far as from Kansas City to Winnipeg. Moreover, Texas has most of the +problems which confront the Nation itself in working out a national +system of rate-making—a coast well settled and old in development with +all the wealth and power that the conditions imply—a hinterland ranging +in conditions from fine farming land like that of Iowa, through semi-arid +to desert. The Texas rate system may not be the last word in rate-making, +and probably is not; but it seems to work well, and is certainly worth +study. As will be seen at a glance, it is a modification of the systems +of tapering rates suggested above—in which rates taper to a point where +a maximum is reached, and then cease to increase at all. It is also a +modification of the zone system in effect on certain foreign railways, +under which within certain territorial limits railway rates are flat, +like postage. The economic basis for such rates lies in considerations of +national welfare, coupled with the well-known transportation principle +that the terminal charge which makes up so large a portion of most +shipments, is the same for a long haul as a short one. + + +THE DECLINE OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. + +For purposes relating to the fostering of such interests as seemed +necessary to the welfare of New England and New England’s tonnage, the +railroads have themselves put in effect with reference to that section +a system of rates which in some ways resembles the zone system of +Europe, or the maximum distance tariff of Texas. Cut off by the tariff +on imports from her natural hinterland, Canada, the decline of New +England’s agriculture under the competition of the prairie lands would +have brought to her a permanent industrial decline, had she not turned +her attention to manufacturing. And even as to that, she was placed +at a disadvantage as soon as the development of the Middle States and +Middle West brought that great region to the manufacturing stage. For New +England’s manufactures had to go to market through New York, and most of +her raw materials had to be imported from the West and the South. The +railways used their powers of rulership in the interests of this whole +group of states, as they are constantly doing in the case of cities—they +decreed prosperity to New England’s manufacturers through a rate system. +They made of New England a flat-rate zone for raw materials, with the +same rate to all points, and practically the same as the rate to New +York. This applies to all raw materials coming from west of a line drawn +from Buffalo to Pittsburg through Wheeling. For out-going shipments, +they gave all New England points a flat uniform rate to all points west +of a line drawn from Cleveland to the Ohio river. That the wage earners +of New England might be favored in cost of living—a feature reflected in +low wages—the food products from the West are given a rate practically +the same as that to New York—and thus the ruin of the old New England +agriculture, already probable, was made certain. Had it not been for +these imperial measures, New England’s headship in manufacturing would +have been lost, first to the Middle States, and then, perhaps, to the +Middle West. The expedient differs from the Texas system in the fact that +it is applied partially and in the interests of manufactures, with New +York as a center, while the Texas system is applied for the purpose of +decentralizing business by making every shipping point the center of its +own flat-rate zone. + +But the most striking illustration of the power of the railroads to +foster or to blight industry, lies perhaps after all in the field +of agriculture. And it so happens that it is also the instance of +the application on the broadest scale of the zone principle in which +all rates are the same to all points within certain territorial +limits. I refer to the rate structure which has been built up for the +transportation of the citrus and other fruits and vegetables of the +Pacific coast and the Pacific Northwest to the markets of the eastern +half of the continent. While the principle is applied with more or +less completeness to shipments of deciduous fruits and truck, it is +best studied in its relation to citrus fruits. Oranges and lemons go +to all points east of Denver at a flat rate. From Cheyenne, Wyoming, +to Eastport, Maine, the rate on citrus fruit is the same. The effect +has been most beneficial to the agriculture of the Western quarter of +the United States, to the people at large, and to the railways. Whether +or not the rates are just, the principle upon which they are made is +conducive to the development of agriculture and is, perhaps, essential +to such development, when the industry is hampered by land carriage over +great distances. And nothing need be said in addition to citing these +instances of the determinative effects of our railway rates on the course +of prosperity, in spite of the averages which seem to show the economic +unimportance of rates. + + +SOIL DEPLETION. + +Thus far, I have discussed the influence of railroad policies upon the +farmer as a man engaged in one of the many industries which make up +the sum of industrial activities. But there are certain respects in +which the farmer represents the everlasting welfare of the race, and +certain demands which he may legitimately make on the transportation +agencies of the land which are based on every man’s heritage in the +soil, and interest in its continued fertility. The depletion of the soil +by cropping is largely accomplished through transportation, and its +restoration to fertility must be accomplished, where such restoration is +necessary, in large measure, through the same agencies. + +The soil is a reservoir of plant food. Most of the dozen or so elements +used by plants in building themselves up from the soil are found in +it in such great abundance that we need take little care for their +conservation. Only three—or possibly four—are so scarce as to call for +anxiety. These three are nitrogen, potash and phosphorus. + +Potash is ordinarily found in soils in such quantities as to render its +application unnecessary and yet there exist localities in almost every +state where a marked poverty exists in this element. Peaty soils are +always deficient in potash, and as the swamps of the Nation are drained +the potash problem will grow in importance. Commercial potash is mostly +imported from Germany, where the government’s conservation measures have +already brought its export into the field of somewhat vexing diplomacy. +The German supply would seem adequate for the world’s demands for many +centuries. The deposit underlies more than a million acres, and in the +Strassfurt district, where it was discovered some fifty years ago, +the total thickness of the potassium-bearing strata amounts to the +astonishing depth of 5,000 feet. It is estimated that this wonderful +supply at the present rate of mining will last 190,000 years. It should +be remembered, however, that reclamation activities are likely more and +more to be directed to swamps as the arid regions are brought under +irrigation, and that the drain on the German potash deposits is likely to +increase in a geometrical ratio. Our Government does well, therefore, to +push diligently the search for potash deposits at home, which it is doing +with some prospects of success. In any case, we are not dependent on the +German deposits as an ultimate fact; for the waters of the sea are the +source from which these great deposits originally came, and there seems +no reason to doubt the ultimate feasibility of obtaining potash for all +future time from that inexhaustible source, if the geological deposits +fail or are denied us. But the matter of getting potash to the land, from +whatever source it comes, is a railroad problem in most cases. + + +IMPORTING FERTILIZERS. + +Since the guano deposits of the Pacific islands, and the nitrate deposits +of Chili were opened to the agriculture of the world, the carriage +of nitrogen to the soil has been a great transportation feature. For +nitrogen is often the limiting element in the soil. It exists in the +earth in small quantities only, and though all cultivated plants are +bathed in a limitless sea of it in the atmosphere, they have not the +power of using any except that which is fixed in the soil. They starve +for nitrogen, while blown about by winds filled with it. Not all plants, +however, are so helpless in the matter of taking nitrogen from the air. +The plants grown as crops are utterly unable to help themselves to the +plentiful atmospheric supply, but certain minute plants called bacteria +have the power denied to those of higher organization, and it is certain +that almost all of the fixed nitrogen in the earth’s crust, in the guano +beds, in the nitrate deposits of Chili and elsewhere, has been taken from +the air by these bacteria, aided perhaps by certain fungi which grow +about the roots of plants like the oak, and by the negligible fixation +of nitrogen by lightning. These bacteria are coöperators with certain +plants of the bean family—clovers, alfalfa, vetches, sweet clover, beans, +peas, velvet beans, cowpeas and the like. The microscopic plants grow on +the roots of these legumes—and to some extent free, or associated with +non-leguminous plants—on the basis of mutual aid. The bacteria reach out +into the soil and fix nitrogen for the legumes, and the legumes furnish +a host on which the bacteria live, just as we furnish a host for the +bacteria of disease. And when a crop of any legume is plowed down into +the soil, it is found to have added to the land nitrates to the value, +sometimes, of more than twenty-five dollars per acre. Thus by setting in +motion the forces of nature, the farmer may draw nitrogen from the very +heavens above his farm, without money and without price. This is perhaps +the most vital agricultural discovery of the ages. + +But how, you may say, is the nitrogen supply a matter of concern to the +railroads, if nitrates may be drawn from the air? Unfortunately, there is +work for them to do in assisting the farmer to adapt conditions in his +soil to the needs of these bacteria. For some reasons, the bacteria of +the clovers and their leguminous cousins will not do well in a soil that +is acid; and soils tend to become acid through cultivation. Acidity is +the bane of the older farms of the United States. When acid phosphates +are applied for the purpose of furnishing phosphorus to the crops, the +very process of fertilization tends to produce acidity. Most of the +prairie soils were originally alkaline, and finely adapted to the growth +of the favoring bacteria of the legumes, but plants that thrive on acid +soils—especially the sorrel—are appearing in the prairie states of the +Mississippi Valley, and wherever they appear, clovers cease to thrive. + + +THE VALUE OF LIME. + +Nature’s remedy for acidity in the soil is lime. The basis of the great +alfalfa industry in the West and Southwest is the high percentage of lime +in the arid soils, which have retained this precious element through +that very dryness which, until irrigation redeemed it, made some of it a +desert. Now lime is needed over a great part of the United States east of +the Mississippi. Even where the soil is of limestone origin, it may have +become acid by the dissolving of the lime out of the surface soil. In +Wisconsin a great area of otherwise good land has been found to be acid, +though a stratum of limestone lies only a few feet below the grass roots. +The abandoned farms of New England need lime. The old farms of New York +and Pennsylvania, and all the South, need lime. Wherever the legumes +fail to arrive, lime is a prime need. Carbonate of lime is the basis +of legume culture, and successful agriculture everywhere—in China, in +Japan, in India, in the highly cultivated nations of Europe—is based on +leguminous crops. The supply of nitrogen to these states of ours in which +agriculture has languished must be restored through lime in the soil and +rotations in which legumes shall have large part. And the supply of lime +is essentially a transportation question. + +Lime is one of the most plentiful of the elements necessary to +agriculture. Its application to the land has in some periods achieved +such bad repute that there is a maxim among farmers that lime makes +the children rich but the grandchildren poor. The evils referred to, +however, arise, I believe, from the application of caustic lime, and are +not necessary to the use of lime. It has now been determined, I believe +it is safe to say, that raw ground limestone is the best form of lime +in which it can be given to the soil. It may be applied in any amount +without injury. If raw ground limestone could be spread an inch deep over +the farms east of the Mississippi (and in many localities west of it) +it would bring about a condition which would soon swamp the railroads +with tonnage; and while there are some favored soils to which it would +do no good, it would nowhere do any harm. It would put the East on a +parity with the alfalfa lands of the West in the matter of the production +of legumes, and would bring hope to the discouraged farmers who strive +against the obscure evils of increasing soil acidity. + +Limestone occurs along the lines of every railway. It is almost as common +and cheap as gravel. It can be ground cheaply, and cheaply shipped. It +should be furnished to the farms at gravel prices. Burned lime is sold at +almost prohibitive prices, and thousands of farmers who know their needs +are deterred from satisfying them because of poverty. This is a problem +which enlightened statesmanship should solve in the interests of the +Nation, and one to the solution of which a railroad system operated in +the interests of the national welfare would surely address itself. + + +PHOSPHORUS. + +Phosphorus is the element which is perhaps most commonly lacking when +a soil is infertile. A good soil should contain not less than 2,000 +pounds of it in the top foot of ground. Many so-called exhausted soils +are reduced to less than a sixth of this amount. A crop of corn of a +hundred bushels to the acre takes from the soil of each acre twenty-three +pounds of phosphorus; a fifty-bushel wheat crop takes sixteen pounds, +a two-bale cotton crop takes thirty pounds, and other crops in like +manner subtract from the phosphorus supply. Only about one per cent of +the supply is available to the crop of any one year—that is, in their +hunt for phosphorus the rootlets are unable to find more than one atom +in a hundred. Thus we see that a good soil provided with 2,000 pounds +of phosphorus to the acre within reach of the roots cannot produce a +100-bushel crop of corn. Such a crop must have twenty-three pounds of +phosphorus, and the roots can find only twenty—and the next year the +supply will be reduced to 1,980 pounds, and the roots will be able +to find but nineteen and eight-tenths per cent of phosphorus for the +dwindling crop. The 2,000 pounds of phosphorus would be quite adequate +to the needs of the fifty-bushel wheat crop, but it would fall short +by one-third of meeting the demands of the two-bale cotton crop. As so +of all crops. They draw on the supply of a limiting element, and as +successive croppings reduce this supply, the crop falls off until we have +the four-bushel wheat crop, the ten-bushel corn crop, the third-of-a-bale +cotton crop, which marks the ruin of the farmer—and the railway. + +There is no way to supply phosphorus to the soil save by carrying it upon +the land and applying it. It is not found, like nitrogen in the air. It +may be brought back in manure and the bones of slaughtered animals, and +the process of depletion retarded, but this game is inevitably a losing +one like those gambling games in which there is always a percentage in +favor of the house. The fertility flushed into the waters of the earth +through sewers, the waste of manure, the leaching of soil by rains—all +these are the percentages in favor of the house, and against the players. +The players are we—the human race—and the house is the massed forces +of nature. There seems to be no way to play this game of life without +losing. If the earth ever becomes unable to sustain human life, there is +good reason to believe that our doom will reach us through failure of the +supply of phosphorus in the soil. + +There is no phosphorus in the air, and in the waters the supply is +negligible. It is an element, and until we discover the secret of the +transmutation of elements we cannot make it. As it disappears from the +soil there is no source of replenishment of the supply, except in the +phosphate rocks of the earth. And while the failure of the soil to give +its increase, and the depopulation of the earth through the exhaustion of +this element of plant food may seem remote and speculative, the necessity +of transporting the phosphate rocks from the quarries to the farms is +an actual and present one. And it is a matter which lies within the +relations between the railroads and the farmers. + + +PHOSPHATE RESOURCES. + +Fortunately for the permanent agriculture of the United States, the +largest known deposits of phosphorus in nature are within her boundaries. +Guano, which is merely the manure accumulated on rainless islands where +seabirds congregate, is of very limited importance in the long run, +though for so long the source from which most of the world’s commercial +phosphates were derived. The phosphate rocks of the world are, so far as +known, preponderantly in the United States. All the phosphate rock now +mined, I believe, comes from the three states of South Carolina, Florida +and Tennessee—whence the rock is now shipped at a rate which will exhaust +them about the year 1930. On three Pacific islands are known deposits of +high grade rock of about the same amount as that still remaining unmined +in these three states—about 60,000,000 tons in each case. These rocks +contain from sixty to eighty per cent of calcium phosphate. As they +fall off in output, and the need for phosphorus becomes more bitter, +the farmers must use rock of lower and lower grade, and the task of +transporting it will become proportionately greater. + +Indeed, the task of transportation will begin to increase long before +it becomes necessary to resort to the low grade rock. For far from the +depleted lands, in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, are the greatest high grade +phosphate beds in the world—something like half a billion tons of rock +practically in sight (according to Van Hise), and averaging over seventy +per cent tricalcium phosphate. The existence of these great deposits, +and of the low grade beds known to exist elsewhere, together with the +probability that other beds will be discovered, justifies the highest +optimism as to the future of agriculture—if transportation facilities +can be afforded which will place the phosphates on the ground on terms +tolerable to the farmers and profitable to them. This is a railway +problem. As a mere matter of tonnage it is potentially greater than any +other transportation item, save the one of supplying the fields with lime. + +At present this sole supply of available phosphate rock is being carried +off to Europe as fast as the mills can grind and the railways carry it to +the ships. Nothing is being done to conserve the supply, so far as I am +aware, in emulation of Germany’s statesmanship in conserving her potash +beds. It would be unfair to blame the railways which only act as common +carriers in these shipments. But it might not be too much to expect of +the patriotism of the men who have these great interests in hand to ask +them to reverse the policy which they have adopted as to many other +commodities, and to make higher rates for export on phosphate rock than +for home consumption. The real remedy for the drain of phosphorus lies, +of course, with the Government. We are forbidden by the Constitution to +stop shipments abroad by means of an export duty, but we have the right +to stop exports entirely, or to limit them. Our ethical right to refuse +to divide the phosphate treasures with the needy agriculture of the world +may be open to question; but we might surely demand that the foreign +deposits be worked first for the foreign demand. The shipment of our +phosphates abroad, with the certainty confronting us that at some future +time we shall have to re-import the same commodity, involves an economic +waste to which the world should not be subjected. And the railroads +ought, in their own interests, to adopt every policy legally open to them +to keep the phosphate rock for the use of the farms within their own +transportation territory. + + +RATES AND FERTILIZERS. + +It has just been suggested that the railways might discriminate in +their rates on fertilizers, in favor of the home market, and against +the foreign. Most railway men are probably unaware of the extent to +which they are contributing to the exhaustion of our soils by their +discrimination against the American milling of American grains and in +favor of the export of the whole grains instead of the milled product. +For generations we have had a tariff on wheat, ostensibly for the +protection of the American farmer; and all the time the railways have +made rates for export wheat lower than for domestic milling. Flour is +largely denied the benefits of water transportation on the lakes, in +part because it must go to market over the docks which are to a greater +and greater degree controlled by the railways, while the great elevator +companies with their terminal houses standing at the water’s edge, and +many of them provided with their own lines of boats, send wheat and +other grains to tide water so cheaply as to make the shipment of flour +a thing practically under the control of themselves and of the railways +with which they have been traditionally closely affiliated in business +interest. The result has been that, while there are mills enough in +America to grind all our grain, most of our exports go unground. + +This will be intolerable to public opinion when once enlightened upon +the subject. The export of flour, of course, constitutes a drain +of fertility; but the phosphorus content of the grain is largely +concentrated in the bran and shorts. In the bran of every bushel of wheat +exported goes phosphorus in its most readily available form of the value, +at the ordinary rates paid by farmers for phosphates, of from twenty-five +to thirty cents. A system of transportation based on considerations of +national welfare would sedulously seek to retain that fertility for our +depleted farms. Where grain is milled there grows up a large local use +for bran, shorts and middlings—the by-products of milling. These are used +in the feeding of dairy cattle and other live stock, furnishing what is +needed in animal nutrition to balance the corn ration. Farms to which +they are carried for feeding increase in fertility. The fertility of the +prairie states has been sapped by fifty years of grain shipments. This +era should be succeeded by the golden age of American milling. The wheat +fields of Canada stand ready to send us fertility to replace that which +we have shipped to Europe; and our transportation system should be used +to the end that it should be retained here. The Hudson Bay basin would +thus, during its period of soil exploitation, return to the Mississippi +Valley what we have sent to the hungry soils of the old world. + + +RAILROADS AND POPULATION. + +The existence of overgrown cities is to a large extent attributable +to the policies of the railroads with reference to them. The Texas +system has, I believe, shown the power of transportation influences to +decentralize population, just as the history of Chicago, Kansas City, +the Twin Cities, New York and almost every large city proves their power +in the direction of centralization. As a farming factor, the large city +is a drain on fertility. These great towns are flushing out through +their sewers the goodness of the Nation’s farms. In the carriage of +lime, phosphates, potash, cottonseed meal, bone meal, and of all the +fertilizers of commerce, the railways as national tools of right living +should be used to restore to the lands the fertility of which they have +inevitably, in some instances, mistakenly in others, deprived them. But +in considering the so-called commercial fertilizers, the coarser manures +should not be forgotten. The enormous waste of manure about the great +cities should be stopped. A German farmer of my acquaintance told me the +other day that he had never sold a load of hay or straw from his farm +in all his life. “Often,” said he, “I have had more than I needed, but +I have held it over, even when the price was high and I needed money. +It seemed to me as if that hay and straw didn’t belong to me, but to +the farm.” Under the renting customs of many British and other European +localities the tenant agrees that whenever he hauls hay or straw to +market he will haul back to the farm an equal quantity of manure. + +This custom is based on the highest wisdom. The German farmer was +right—that hay and straw do not belong to the farmer, but to the farm. +And whenever hay or straw, or any of the vegetable substances which are +made into manure, are taken to the city, they should be considered as +lent, not sold. Getting them out to the farms—not the identical farms, +of course, but the farms—is a railway problem. And it should rest on the +conscience of the people and of the railways, as did the similar problem +on the conscience of my German friend. + +I am aware that the railways of the country are not entirely oblivious +to the wisdom of the policies here urged upon them. In some places they +are making commendable efforts to get the manure of the cities out to +the farms. In other instances, they are making what they probably regard +as very low rates on fertilizers and lime. Just recently a railway in +Virginia has made a rate of from one-half to three-fourths of a cent per +ton mile on lime. But I do not find that they have anywhere made any +such heroic efforts to cut down the cost of carriage of fertilizers and +manures for the farms, as they have in the case of coal from the mines +to the docks on Lake Erie, or grain from the elevators at the foot of +the lake to New York, or ore from lake ports to Pittsburgh, or packing +house products from Missouri river points to Chicago. In my opinion, true +national welfare demands that the fertility of our farms be sustained +at all costs, and that no freight is entitled to rates as low as ground +phosphate rock, ground limestone, and manures. + + +THE GREATEST RAILWAY FOLLY. + +The demands made here upon the railways may be regarded in some quarters +as unwarranted. I am quite aware of their scope and character as +innovations. They go deeper than the relations between the railroads and +the farmers, and rise to the point of an outline for a national rate +policy for our railways. In what I have said I have regarded the railways +as public utilities in the strictest sense of the word. I have scarcely +more than alluded to the rights of investors in railway properties, and +I mention them now for the sole purpose of stating that in my opinion +no demands will ever be made in the interests of the public welfare, or +should be made, inimical to the rights of investors to a proper return +on their investment made for the purpose of serving the transportation +needs of the Nation. None of the things which I suggest are at variance +with these principles. The railways may properly adopt the policy of +hauling, or may properly be forced to haul certain public necessities +at or for less than cost, so long as on the whole job of transportation +they are allowed to earn legitimate profits. I do not believe that +in the long run the profits on the fertilizer traffic should be made +directly out of their haulage. I do believe that the time will come when +no transportation folly will rank as greater in the eyes of our railway +managers than that of allowing rolling stock to remain idle, while +there is a chance to get loads of ground lime, ground phosphate rock +or manure at almost any rate. I am not unaware of the various private +interests which would demand and secure monopoly prices if the railways +should transport these things at low rates or even gratis, if that were +possible; but this is not the time for the discussion of these things. +They must be dealt with by the statesmanship of the future. Institutions +must be gradually moulded to the end that the agriculture of the Nation +may be enabled to flourish; for on its agriculture and the status of its +agricultural population rests in the last analysis the welfare of the +Nation and its railroads. It may be urged that the present railway system +of the land will not permit of the exercise of the beneficent functions +outlined here. If that be so, it is no affair of mine. My task is to +follow truth as I see it, wherever it may lead. If the railway system +under which we happen to be doing business be at variance with the final +demands of national welfare, there is ground for optimism in the historic +fact that nothing changes more readily than railway systems. They have +been almost revolutionized in the past decade—and these considerations of +national welfare of which I am here privileged to speak will take many +decades in coming to a final decision. + +Mr. Quick closed by reading the following telegram from O. C. Barber of +Akron, Ohio: + + Regret exceedingly my inability to attend Conservation + Congress. I note from several different programs there will + be distinguished speakers on the question from all over the + states. I hope as a result of the meeting something more than + speeches will be accomplished in conservation of the equities + of all American citizens. Things vital for their comfort have + been transferred to corporate power by unjust legislation, + without adequate legal restraint on corporate power compelling + fair play and justice to all interested. A special interest + should be elicited to compel a rate of freight on all + fertilizers for land from which we all derive our sustenance. + Not more than four-tenths of a cent per ton mile should be + permitted for long hauls, nor five-tenths of a cent per ton + mile for short hauls. Any well managed railroad could haul + fertilizer for that price at a profit—referring to all kinds of + fertilizer, lime, phosphate, rock, etc. If you would take such + action as would accomplish this one thing, you would do more + for the good of mankind than all the conservation efforts have + accomplished to date. Wishing you great success, I am sincerely, + + O. C. BARBER. + +President WALLACE—I have appointed the following committee on +nominations: C. E. Condra, E. G. Griggs, A. B. Farquhar and H. C. +Wallace, and B. N. Baker, Chairman. + +Get together and be ready to report nominations promptly tomorrow. +Remember, we will have a very busy Congress. I want you to be here at +2 o’clock promptly, because we will commence at 2 o’clock if there is +anybody here, and some of you will be. This afternoon, I am very sorry +to say, we will not have the privilege of hearing Brother W. H. Page. +I have a letter stating that sickness prevents his attendance. Instead +of that we will take up the report from conservation committees, and as +far as possible from the states. Let me urge you to cut your speeches +down to five minutes, or I will shut every man off after five minutes, +no matter who he is. Don’t tell us about your resources. We know about +them. Tell us what you are doing. Make it specific and to the point, and +then this Congress will hear you patiently, but they won’t hear you after +that, and I won’t either. We must come down to business. This afternoon +we are to have Professor Mumford on the subject of live stock and soil +fertility, a matter of immense importance. The ladies will come in after +that, and I hope you will all bring your wives and sisters and cousins +and aunts. We will have an address on the “Farmer’s Wife,” who you have +heard is the most important person on the farm and the one who bears the +greatest burden—by Mrs. Ashby of Iowa, followed by Mrs. J. N. Lewis of +Kansas. Tonight we are to have a great treat. Mrs. Moore of the General +Federation of Women’s Clubs; then the “Church and the Open Country,” by +Dr. Warren H. Wilson, New York City, superintendent of home missions of +the Presbyterian Church, and then finally, to round up, an address by Dr. +Harvey W. Wiley, Washington, D. C., Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, +United States Department of Agriculture, of whom you have all probably +heard. That will be the closing address this evening. Be here promptly at +2 o’clock. The Congress will now stand adjourned until 2 o’clock. + + + + +_FIFTH SESSION._ + + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Will the Congress please come to order. The Rev. +Dr. George Hamilton Combs will pronounce the invocation. + + +INVOCATION. + + Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this + world in which we live; for its beauty, for its adaptation + to our needs, for the skies that arch it over, for the grass + beneath our feet, for the seasons with their lessons, for + all the wonderful stories of life. Thou hast made it for man + and Thou art in it now. Help us to realize that this world + is instinct with Thy life, and may we see and hear God, not + only in the skies and in the singing of the stars, but in the + humbler things beneath us, and in that stiller music of all + growing things. May we seek this priceless heritage, may we + preserve this good world unimpaired, handing it down enriched + and beautified, to our children, those who shall come after. + We thank Thee for this Congress and for the great purposes + and ideals for which it stands, and upon the men and women + gathered here we pray Thy blessing, upon their homes while + they are absent, that their children, their wives, their all, + may be defended from harm. Upon them, in their deliberations + here, grant that in wisdom they may plan and in strength they + may execute, and that they may have a vision, not only of the + day, but of the years that shall come after. We thank Thee for + this good work, and oh, do Thou help us that we forget not that + while in the pursuit of this material good we do err; that + after all and that above all the riches of our people are not + in the mines, in its fertile fields, in its forests, but in its + men and in its women, and so send us the greater harvest, not + merely of corn and wheat, but of charity, of goodness, of the + great and patient fidelities of life, and help us all to live + that we shall have advanced at least a little the coming of + the day when righteousness shall cover the earth even as the + waters cover the sea. And so upon this earth of ours may God’s + sovereign will be done even as it is in Heaven. Amen. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—I am asked by Mr. Baker, the chairman of the +committee on nominations, to announce that a meeting of that committee +will be held at 3 o’clock this afternoon at room 775 of the Baltimore +Hotel. I now have the honor to present Governor R. S. Vessey of South +Dakota, who will address the Congress and remain in the Chair after he +has finished that address. Governor Vessey of South Dakota. (Applause) + +Governor VESSEY—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Conservation +Congress: I have no set speech to make this afternoon, and I think, if I +remember aright, the president said we would be permitted to talk five +minutes on what we have done in our state in regard to conservation. So +I just want to enumerate a few things that we have done up in our new +state, practically only of age, twenty-one years old, in the past half +a dozen years. We have reclaimed, by drainage, several hundred thousand +acres, and we are reclaiming by irrigation something like a quarter of a +million of acres, and nearly one-half of that is a Federal enterprise. +We are in all parts of the western part of the state planting newer and +similar individual irrigation plants that will develop a large part of +the state. We have in the past been endeavoring to conserve the fertility +of our soils. We are endeavoring to conserve manhood and womanhood by +making them more efficient in the great agricultural work, by sending out +into their community and out in their neighborhoods teachers along the +line of agricultural and domestic science, and other matters pertaining +to make the home more efficient and more modern. We believe that the +time is coming, and that very soon, when every rural district will have +a social and educational center for the upbuilding of that community. +And when that is done, I look to see the day when the people will not, +as soon as they have accumulated some wealth, move into the city for the +purpose of giving their children an education, largely so they may enter +vocations in life other than the farm life. We believe also that the +heart should be educated the same as the mind. A committee of educators +in our state has reported, not only along this line, favorably, but they +have compiled a text-book and are introducing it into our schools, and +we expect that our teachers will be trained along the lines of giving +to our students ethical as well as material education. So that we can, +at the same time we are improving the mind, build a character that will +mean more to us in the future than the accumulation of dollars and cents. +We have, I think, a progressive state, and we want to create conditions +so that people from the further East and the more congested centers of +population will find a haven of rest and a place where they can come +and not only better their financial condition but better their social +condition as well. I appreciate very much indeed having this opportunity +of saying these few words in the interest of the conservation of our +resources. I think that we have been looking so long upon the land that +has been turned over to us by the United States Government, as something +that is only for use for our own material well-being. We are beginning to +learn that we are only here for a short time, and that if we are going to +be honest with those that are coming after us, that it is our duty not +to rob that soil, but to turn that soil over to our children, and from +them to their children’s children, in just as good a state of fertility +as it comes to us in its virgin state. And when we do not do this, we are +robbing our posterity of something future generations are entitled to, +that they are just as much entitled to as they are to our good name. And +this, I believe, is a wonderful revelation. And it seems to be taking all +over the country, to know that in farming a section of land that I have +an obligation to those who may farm it a hundred years from now, and that +it should be my intention, that it is my duty, and I am under obligations +to keep that in just as good state of fertility when I leave it as it is +when I take the responsibility of taking the products that are needed +to sustain life from that land. It is a pleasure to meet the people of +this Congress, the Third Conservation Congress. Now we will listen to the +further program by the secretary. + +President WALLACE—I have great pleasure in reading to this Congress +a letter from a man you have heard about, commonly known as “Teddy.” +(Applause. Hurrah for Teddy.) I wrote him a month ago and asked him to +address this Congress. He declined to do so, but I would not accept his +declination. Then I had a letter from him, a personal letter, which I did +not care to read to this Congress without his permission. Unfortunately, +I do not have it here, but expect to get it this afternoon or tomorrow +from my office in Des Moines. So I will simply read you the letter giving +permission to read another letter which I do not have, but you shall have +if I get it in time. Here is the letter: + + My Dear Mr. Wallace: I greatly wish I could attend the + Congress. You are very welcome to read as much of my letter as + you desire, or as much of this letter as you desire. I most + emphatically believe that there is no movement in our country + at the present time of such importance as the developing of a + higher country life. This was the object of the Country Life + Commission which I established. What we need most is good + citizenship; that is, a good family life, a high quality of + individual manhood and womanhood; and above all things, we + need these in the country districts, for in the long run every + nation’s welfare must primarily depend upon the welfare of + those who till the soil. The man is greater than his work. + The farm can only be made what it should be by paying chief + attention to the securing of the right man and woman on the + farm. To develop soil fertility, we must develop rural manhood + and rural womanhood. We must have a social life on the farm far + better worth living than such life has been in the immediate + past. Pray accept my heartiest sympathy and good will. Very + sincerely yours, + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + +(Applause) + +Recording Secretary GIPE—We are now going to have brief reports from some +of the national organizations. Mr. W. E. Mullin of New York will report +for the National Board of Fire Underwriters. + +Mr. MULLIN—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The National Board of +Fire Underwriters has been interested for many years in every element +of conservation. They believe in the conservation of the soil, the +conservation of the waterways, the conservation of the mines, the +conservation of childhood and the conservation of our homes. We believe +in everything that savors of practical conservation, but they are +specially concerned in the conservation of our utilized forces. + +[Mr. Mullin’s paper in full will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—I must ask a favor. I will not ask the Congress to +listen to more than three-minute speeches on these reports, and I wish +all the speakers to understand that when that bell rings it is time for +them to quit. They must learn to boil down. (Applause) As I said before, +we do not care about the resources of your states. We can read that in +books. We want to know what you have done in the way of conservation. You +can say all you ought to say in three minutes. Moody used to say that a +man had no business to pray more than three minutes, that he could ask +the Lord all he really wanted in three minutes, and then it was time to +quit. (Applause) + +I take pleasure now in introducing Major E. G. Griggs, president of the +National Lumbermen’s Manufacturers’ Association, who will give the report +for that association. + +[Mr. Griggs’ paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—We will now hear from Mr. W. J. Rushton, of the American +Association of Refrigeration. I have pleasure in introducing him to you. + +[Mr. Rushton’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—We will now hear a report from Hon. E. T. Allen, Forester +for Western Forestry and Conservation Association, entitled, “Private +Conservation on the Pacific Coast.” + +Mr. ALLEN—The Western Forestry and Conservation Association, for which +I report, is a league or alliance of a dozen coöperative forest fire +associations maintained by timber owners in the Pacific forest states: +Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California. + +These five states contain over half the standing timber in the United +States. Already furnishing a fifth of the Nation’s lumber, they +constitute its great remaining storehouse of future supply. In other +words, they contain the mature timber which must bear the burden of +bridging national shortage until an adequate new crop is ripe. Because +of climatic conditions and rapid growing species, they also contain +the deforested land which, by reason of adaptability, most demands +encouragement to produce this new crop, to which you must turn in the +future for timber as you do to this region for iron and to the South for +cotton. This is why you are directly and vitally interested in what every +agency is doing to protect and foster these forests of the West. + +Believe as you may concerning division of responsibility between state +and nation, or policies of controlling the development of natural +resources; but never forget that the forest ranger is actually on the +job, saving the forests for the rest of us to talk about. If he had not +been there for the last ten years, the national forests would be mostly +old burns not worth arguing about. We want more, not fewer, of him, and +we want Congress to spend more money to hire him and build trails for him +to use. + +The states, too, are waking up, but progress in this direction seems slow +when we consider that of the tremendously important forest resources in +the West the majority is in private hands, and that it is the attitude of +the commonwealth that governs the ability of the private owner to manage +it to best advantage for all concerned. + +All these conditions I have hinted at—failure by Congress to give the +forest service adequate funds, slow awakening of state responsibility, +and realization that the Pacific Coast is both the last and the most +promising field of forest industry—have inspired the most vigorous and +efficient private movement for forest conservation ever known—the allied +coöperative associations of timber owners in the Pacific Northwest. They +fully realize that the control of such a stupendous community resource +entails grave responsibilities; that their ownership is largely a public +trust and that they must account for their stewardship. They also know +that no new fields remain and that this is by no means inexhaustible; +that to avoid heavy loss they must guard the forests they have, and +to perpetuate their business they must have new ones coming on. +Self-interest, more potent than philanthropy, demands abandonment of the +wasteful methods prevalent in the past history of their industry. + +With this new point of view, the Northwestern lumberman, far from being +an element requiring regulation by the public in the interest of forest +preservation, has become the leader in reform. It has been chiefly +through his aggressive campaigning that state laws have been improved, +bearing as rigidly on the careless member of his own brotherhood as +upon anyone else. He gives his financial support to educational work +directed at both lumbermen and public. He hires professional foresters +to help him try such better management as conditions will permit. But +particularly, through coöperative associations, he has taken the lead +in fire prevention. And admitting his motive to be largely selfish, the +benefit to the consumer is none the less. To the man who needs lumber, to +keep it from burning up is conservation that counts. + +After so much preamble you may wonder what we have actually to report; +what we can offer in the way of results. Here are some of them: Last +year was one of the worst for forest fires in American history. Loss +of life and property was terrific. But the private protective systems +allied with the Western Forestry and Conservation Association carried +safely through the season fully 16,000,000 acres of forest, containing at +least the stupendous amount of 300 billion feet of timber. They kept the +loss of private timber in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, the three states +hardest hit, down to one-fourth of one per cent. How did they do this? By +raising and spending $700,000 for patrol and fire fighting, and actually +extinguishing 5,580 fires. + +It was a telegram from the president of the Western Forestry and +Conservation Association, with the standing of our work behind it, +that caused the ordering out of the United States Army to assist the +undermanned forest service on the national forests. + +This year’s records are not compiled, but will be quite as interesting. +Through their alliance the associations turned to account every lesson +each learned in 1910, and spread increased patrols equipped with new +advantages of perfected organization, telephone and trail systems, +supply storage, and automobile and motorcycles where these could be +used. Organization permitted close and systematic coöperation with +state and federal forces. Every association ranger served as a police +officer and one Washington association alone got over thirty convictions. +Offending lumbermen were made the first examples. Hundreds of fires were +extinguished but not one was allowed to become serious in 1911. + +Our association serves as the one and only common meeting ground for all +agencies for forest protection, including state and federal as well as +private fire officials, and employs a trained forester to collect and +disseminate for all information that will assist in solving problems of +reforestation, legislation, education and like matters demanding expert +knowledge or central facilities. It thus had the chief responsibility +for forest legislation in several Western states last winter and did more +than had been done in all preceding Legislatures. + +It has published the first comprehensive book on reforestation and forest +management in the West ever issued, now used as a text-book by the Forest +Service and forestry schools. + +It furnishes all newspapers in the Northwest with regular bulletins +throughout the fire season, not only giving reliable news but keeping the +necessity and method of precautionary measures before the public. + +It issues hundreds of thousands of fire circulars and stickers, with a +highly perfected system for putting them where they will count. This +year, with the aid of state authorities, it put an illustrated folder +with simple questions and answers on forest protection in the hands of +every school child in the Pacific Northwest, an enterprise requiring the +printing and complicated distribution of thousands of pounds of material. + +It furnishes state officials and others with practically all the mottoes +and catchy material used for posters and other publicity matter in the +West. It has even placed this kind of thing in the time folders of every +railroad traversing our forest regions. + +I cannot take your time to recite the many other activities of our +coöperative movement, but these will indicate its scope and method. The +Northwestern timber owner is doing his part to protect your resources +that he holds in trust. If Congress, state and public will do as much, +you have little to fear. + +Chairman VESSEY—I now take pleasure in introducing Mr. Ferdinand G. +Schwedtman of St. Louis, chairman of the delegation of manufacturers of +the U. S. A. I have the honor to present him to you. + +[Mr. Schwedtman’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—The next speaker is William Edward Coffin of New York, +vice-president of the Camp Fire Club of America. + +[Mr. Coffin’s paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—I wish to introduce Dr. George W. Field, representing the +National Audubon Society. + +[Dr. Field’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—Is Mr. McBrien, representing the National Educational +Association, here? + +Is Mr. Edward R. Taylor, representative of the Electrochemical Society, +here? + +Mr. TAYLOR—It is my pleasure to represent the American Electrochemical +Society. There are ten thousand chemists in the United States. They +are largely concerned in the working out of economic problems and the +best utilization of all substances capable of adding to our material +prosperity. Many of these chemists are members of the American Chemical +Society, the American Electrochemical Society, the American Institute of +Chemical Engineers, and the Society of Chemical Industry, all of which +societies are deeply interested in the best conservation of our natural +resources and are in full sympathy with the objects of this Congress. + +Chairman VESSEY—We will next hear the president of the Iowa Federation of +Women’s Clubs. Is Mrs. M. H. Weller present? Those who have papers that +will take five or ten minutes to read can just speak on a short synopsis +of their papers, and have the papers filed. They will be able to say +more, so that the people will understand it better than if they only read +part of the paper. + +Mrs. Weller was not present. + +Chairman VESSEY—Is Mrs. Carl Vrooman, representing the D. A. R., here? + +I am very much pleased to present her to you. (Applause) + +Mrs. VROOMAN—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel weighted with +a heavy weight of responsibility, as I am here to represent 77,000 +Daughters of the American Revolution in general, but the chairman of the +conservation committee of this organization in particular—a woman who +has, I venture to say, done more for the cause of conservation than any +other woman of our day—I was about to say than almost any man—since she +is the very proud mother of Mr. Gifford Pinchot. + +This society of women, “federated and organized”—to quote Mr. Pinchot, +“spells only another name for the highest form of conservation, that +of vital force and intellectual energy.” These 77,000 women do indeed +represent a perfect Niagara of splendid ability and force—enough, if +intelligently harnessed and directed, to furnish the motive power to keep +revolving all the wheels of progress in this country. + +But to revert from what we might do and ought to do in general, to +what we have done and intend to do in particular, for conservation, a +remark made by the Right Honorable John Burns of England, concerning the +American people, might apply perhaps with equal force to our two-year-old +conservation committee: “The American people,” said Mr. Burns, “is a very +young colt in a very large field.” + +The very able first chairman of this committee, Mrs. Amos Draper, +inaugurated and carried on during the first year a most energetic +campaign, a report of which you had submitted at the last Conservation +Congress in St. Paul. The next year, however, illness compelled her +resignation, when Mrs. Orton, of Cleveland, O., whose work in behalf +of children is well known, took the chairmanship for the ensuing six +months, during which time the committee concentrated its chief energies +in efforts to help secure legislation for the protection and conservation +of that greatest asset the Nation has—its children. + +Now that we are standing well on our feet, a committee with Mrs. Pinchot +at our head, with over one hundred women on the National Committee, +representing each state, and a state chairman for every state, with +every chapter represented on the state conservation committee, we hope +we have the country well honeycombed with women who will take an active +and intelligent interest in conservation. And aided and abetted by the +National Conservation Association, which has promised to furnish us +with all the ammunition we need, we intend to carry on an aggressive +warfare, or, to speak less militantly, an active campaign of education. +For we feel, in the words of our President General, that women today—even +without any articulate voice in the councils of state—without the vote +that so many are striving for, and think is essential—women today, when +thoroughly aroused and awake to their present unquestioned opportunities +and responsibilities, as well as to their problematical rights, can wield +an incalculable influence, and become most potent and resistless factors +for good in helping create a healthy public sentiment—in stimulating +to higher activity that organ of the body politic (so often prone to +paralysis) known as the civic conscience. + +But since education, like charity, should begin at home, we intend, +first of all, to educate ourselves. And, for this purpose, a number of +our members have come from different parts of the country to attend this +Congress and learn all we can about this problem of conservation. + +We are glad to know that an officer of this association has written such +a capital book on conservation, and we shall make it a point to advertise +Mr. Price’s book, “The Land We Live In,” among the women of the country. + +We hope soon to have a department on current conservation news in our D. +A. R. Magazine, giving every month items of conservation interest, which +can be supplied later to the local papers. + +We expect also to have something to say about the importance of teaching +conservation in the public schools—not necessarily as a part of the +curriculum, for children are fairly swamped these days with a surfeit of +extra studies—but we do feel that conservation as opposed to wastefulness +everywhere (especially in the form of domestic economy) should be +emphasized and inculcated as are other virtues—such as truth, patriotism, +obedience. + +Conservation in the kitchen is one of the most important problems in +American life, and I believe I am safe in saying that that modern knight +errant, Dr. Wiley, and his board of conservation of human health by means +of pure food, has the enthusiastic and whole-hearted support of every one +of our 77,000 daughters to a unit. + +I should like to say in passing that another man we are behind—heart and +soul in his fearless fight with the beast in our modern jungle—is that +man who has made it his business and his mission to reclaim not waste +lands, but waste lives—that great-hearted champion of the children, and +of the people—Judge Ben Lindsey, first citizen of Denver and one of the +first citizens of the United States. + +I am aware that this is far from being an orthodox report, as it is more +prospective than retrospective, and deals rather with what we intend +to do than what we have already done, but we are drinking in so much +inspiration here, and getting so many new ideas, that next year you may +expect from us a _bona fide_ report, fairly bristling with businesslike +facts and statistics. + +May I say just one more word? In addition to this definite program of +tangible things we want to carry out, we pledge you something else, +which, although it cannot be weighed and measured and appraised at +its face value, after all may be as worth while as the sum total of +what we actually achieve in a concrete way, and that is our unswerving +loyalty to the spirit of what this association stands for—to put it +rather pompously—our moral backing and support in this business you have +undertaken to help conserve the best interests of our country—a business +in which we have no intention of being altogether “silent partners,” +although we are women! + +We may not, it is true, formulate any new policies for you, or launch +any issues, or make any very original contributions to your program, but +there is one thing women can bring into a movement of this kind, and +that is—to use a very much overworked word—“atmosphere.” Even if women +don’t dig down into the earth—even if we daughters don’t actually dig +down into the earth, like you horny-handed sons of toil—women may yet +bring with them, when they put their hearts, as well as their hands, into +a thing, an atmosphere that, like the air and sunshine, is absolutely +indispensable to a good crop, to a bountiful harvest, an atmosphere that +makes ideas sprout and grow, and ideals expand and develop and take +deeper root in the subsoil of the masculine mind! + +So, then, we bring today to this Congress our heartfelt sympathy with +its ideals—a sympathy that is born of a certain intuitive perception +we have—not by any means of all the intricate problems involved in +this question of conservation—but a perception of the principles which +are at stake, and we promise you our whole-hearted allegiance to those +principles, as well as our contagious enthusiasm, in this splendid +crusade, to conserve not only the vast natural resources of this country, +on which depends our national prosperity, but those ideals of public as +well as of private morality, which we realize we must sacrifice for, +and defend and conserve and make to prevail, if, in the words of the +Athenians, which might well be the motto of the Apostles of American +Conservation, “we would transmit our fatherland not only not less but +better and greater than it was transmitted to us.” + +Delegate BAUMGARTNER of California—I want to extend a vote of thanks on +behalf of the entire audience by your leave, to the Lord High Chancellor +of the Bell for not having rung it on the last speaker. All in favor of +the motion say aye. Carried unanimously. + +Mr. T. L. MCBRIEN—A while ago my name was called to speak for the +committee representing the National Educational Association. I would like +to say that the committee of five representing the National Educational +Association met and unanimously selected Professor J. M. Greenwood to +speak for our association. We want to call attention to the fact that he +is the senior in educational work, having been thirty-eight years at the +head of the Kansas City schools, and there is no other who has such a +record. + +Chairman VESSEY—We have a request from the National Educational +Association that it be represented by Mr. Greenwood. Shall we hear from +Prof. Greenwood now, or go on with the program? + +(Cries of “Hear him now.”) + +Chairman VESSEY—Prof. Greenwood. + +Professor GREENWOOD—I would suggest you go on with the regular order of +business. + +(Cries of “Greenwood! Greenwood!”) + +Professor GREENWOOD—Ladies and Gentlemen: The National Educational +Association of the United States is the largest educational association +in the world. The last session held in San Francisco enrolled 18,000 +teachers from all parts of our country, and at the Boston session in 1905 +there were 35,000 teachers in attendance. This organization represents in +the broadest way the interests of the children of our country, and for +more than fifty years it has been endeavoring to solve the great problems +confronting our people. It represents the people of the South, of the +North, of the East and of the West, and it has been one of the most +important factors in bringing our people closely together when they were +divided, not only by armies facing each other when homes were destroyed, +but sadness was at every fireside. This was the organization that +immediately after the Civil war brought our men and women who are working +for the interests of our entire Nation together. This organization is +represented here by a representative from the State of Arkansas, and by +one from the State of Nebraska, and by one from the great State of Iowa, +and by another one from the State of Kansas, and by another from the +State of Missouri, and we have got to be shown. Mr. President, we will +draft and submit a resolution to your committee at the proper time. There +are just three things, it seems to me, that a public speaker who comes +upon the platform ought to know—what to say, how to say it, and when to +quit. (Applause) + +Chairman VESSEY—We will now present on the regular program Dr. Frederick +B. Mumford, dean of the University of Missouri, at Columbia. + +Dr. MUMFORD—Ladies and Gentlemen: The limits of the time allowed for +this subject are such that I shall have no time for the general subject +of conservation. I hope, therefore, you will bear with me through this +paper. I will confine myself somewhat closely to it, because in so doing +I will say what I want to say in the shortest possible time. + +[Dr. Mumford’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Chairman VESSEY—Next on the program is Mrs. Harriet Wallace Ashby of +Des Moines, on the subject, “The Farmer’s Wife.” I have the pleasure of +presenting to you Mrs. Ashby. (Applause) + +Mrs. ASHBY—The conservation movement, of which this National Conservation +Congress is the exponent, has for its object the transmission of our +natural resources, unimpaired, to posterity. + +Any movement for the promotion of the farmer’s interest must, if it is +to be a success, receive the support not only of the farmer, but also of +the farmer’s wife. The first problem of the farmer is how to increase +farm products through better farming; the first problem of the farmer’s +wife is how to improve the condition of the farm home. The mistakes of +the husband in his sphere during one season may be corrected in the next; +the mistakes made by the wife in rearing her children are never entirely +corrected. + +Believing as I do, that the great problems of farm life as they pertain +to us wives and mothers can only be solved through coöperation and +organized effort, I wish to advocate the union of farmers’ wives in +country women’s clubs with the object of breaking up the monotonous +routine of farm life and for the discussion of anything and everything +pertaining to the betterment of farm home. + +The salvation of most families depends on the mother; she is the one +who does so much to make for the happiness, health and long life of +her family. The health of any mother is liable to fail under her +responsibilities; the farm mother is especially subject to physical +breakdown, for she not only bears the responsibility of rearing her +family, but she also shares the anxieties of her husband if, as should +always be the case, the farmer’s wife is his business partner and +assistant farm manager. + +The farmer’s wife is a most important factor in the conservation of the +soil, for she will in a large measure determine the efficiency of the +farmer. Then, too, the attitude of the wife towards the farm, and her +success in making a happy farm home largely determine whether or not the +country boy remains on the farm. + +The average country boy is devoted to his mother. How that mother would +like to clear the obstacles from his track, and to give him the best the +world affords. If the mother feels that the farm offers no future for her +boy, the chances are the farm will lose the boy. The training which the +boy reared in the city must secure before he can be an efficient farm +worker, and for which he must spend time, money and enthusiasm, is the +very training which the country boy absorbs from his infancy, and which +makes him the most valuable tiller of the soil. + +The farmer’s wife has for so many years taken no thought for herself +that her now misguided conscience reproaches her if she leaves home when +there is work to be done, to attend a club meeting, or if she spends ever +so small a sum of money to save herself. A neighborhood club with its +exchange of experiences with labor saving tools will teach the folly of +expending strength and energy when by spending a little money to secure +convenience and ease in work, the farm mother may be conserved to her +family, and continue to be a help in the busy world. All farm women have, +in a large degree, the same experiences, and therefore they can and +should help each other. They should meet to discuss problems of mutual +interest; they should organize country clubs with the object of securing +the best conditions in their home life; of broadening the outlook of the +home; of encouraging a social spirit and of elevating the character of +farm life. + + +THE FARMER’S DAY’S WORK. + +One of the most vital problems with which the farmer’s wife has to do is +how to shorten the farmer’s workday. The practice of working from sun up +to nightfall and afterwards doing the chores is driving the boys from +the farm. If all the farmers in a neighborhood would quit work in time +for a 6 o’clock supper, a long stride would be taken towards making the +farm home an ideal home. Most business men’s work closes with the day, +but how about the farmer and his family? When townspeople are at leisure +our husbands and sons are milking the cows, bedding the horses, and doing +the rest of the chores. They wear overalls so many hours of the week that +they are not entirely at ease in other clothes. They are too tired to +keep up their interest in the outside world, frequently falling to sleep +over the newspaper. Indeed, to bed is about the only place this exhausted +man of the early evening is fit to go, for a tired man is not a social +creature. + +Washing dishes after a late supper with a nodding husband in the next +room and your nearest neighbor from a quarter to a mile away does +not foster love for the farm. It need not be wondered at that we are +insisting that the farm day must be shortened and some time be given to +the development of the mental and spiritual, as well as the physical side +of the family. + +You may remember how the little waif, Glory Maguire, as she looked +through the windows at rich children’s parties use to lament: “Oh, the +good times going on in the world, and me not in them!” We farmers’ +wives want some of the good times that are going on in the world for +our children; we want a social center; a club room where neighborhood +gatherings can be held. We want a neighborhood library, a live church +and an up-to-date school. If our children are to be more than little +animals, they must go to church and Sabbath school; they must have a well +ventilated, well lighted school room and an experienced teacher. + +Men and women of mature judgment are placed at the head of town schools, +where suitable courses of instruction and the most approved methods are +pursued. The graded school teacher refers any case of insubordination, +any report of vulgarity, any question of discipline, to her +superintendent, yet these same teachers have been required to take months +of training and practicing on country pupils before they were permitted +to teach in town under a superintendent. + +The country schools should have trained teachers; teachers of sound +judgment in understanding the nature of the child and tact in dealing +with him. A live, progressive teacher in every country neighborhood is +often the little leaven which “leaveneth the whole lump.” We need fewer +classes in the country schools; the long study periods are productive of +inattention and mischief. If a child is permitted to spend this study +time in idling and reading inferior fiction, he loses the power of +concentration on his lessons and his taste for solid reading. + +We need a well selected library planned for systematic reading; we need +recitation benches and desks which will not produce spinal troubles. +We need attractive school rooms, better furniture, good pictures and +instructive maps. Part of the returns of the farm invested in the school +is one of the farmer’s best investments, for all the improvements in +the condition of farm life must come through education. Many helpful +innovations on the farm have come about through a discussion of what the +child learned at school. + +We also need better playground facilities. Thousands of country children +don’t know how to play. When they are at school there is nothing to play +with; when they are at home there are chores, unending chores, to be done. + +There is work right here for country women’s clubs to do in supplying +the school grounds with tennis, croquet, and any other equally Wholesome +and good sports which children can enjoy. Hence we must plan to meet and +discuss our mutual problems. We need the stimulating influence which an +exchange of ideas and the enthusiastic coöperation of club membership +bring. We can accomplish much by the concerted effort which can only +follow a reasonable getting together on the part of the farmers’ wives. +Working the handle of a dry pump won’t bring results that a little +priming brings. Women won’t attend a club unless they get results; they +must have something to help them through the week—reading courses, and a +study program, as well as the social half hour. We should study dietetics +and learn how to balance the day’s food; to provide such articles as +will feed as well as fill the family stomach. Man must eat to live, but +he need not eat nearly so much if we give him the right kinds of food. +The more we study our business, the more attractive it becomes; when we +cease studying it, we lose interest in our work. So country women are +organizing clubs for discussion and study. When a club is conducted in +an orderly manner, and every member made to feel personally responsible +for its success, when its membership is small enough to seem like a big +family, yet large enough to gain and hold interest of the members, it +will work a revolution in a country neighborhood. Wherever a country +women’s club has been organized, the women report that it gives them +new energy for their home work. Out of a small club at Adair, Iowa, +have grown so many smaller clubs that a joint picnic of the members and +friends brought out a crowd of nearly 1,000 persons. These ladies have +issued a cook book, with the proceeds from which they are enlarging their +sphere of usefulness. + +Another club, the Daughters of Ceres, at Bedford, Iowa, issues a calendar +for the year’s work, which compares favorably with the work of any club. +Country women’s clubs are usually short of money, and difficulty is +sometimes experienced in securing books for study. Would it not be well +for every state to supply a reading course for farmers’ wives after the +example of the Cornell Reading Course? If the Government would send out +a bulletin containing the essential rules of order for country clubs +it would be a great help in conducting meetings. A meeting must be +regarded seriously and conducted with dignity to get the best results. +A little time and money expended in helping the women is well spent. +When Secretary Shaw lived in Iowa he owned a number of farms. It was his +practice to give to his tenants’ wives pure bred cocks and turkey toms. +A neighbor remonstrated with him, saying: “You are making our tenants’ +wives discontented. We cannot afford to give away pure bred poultry.” +Secretary Shaw replied: “When I help the women with their poultry, I +always get my rent.” + +[Illustration: 1. GIFFORD PINCHOT, Executive Committee, 1911-12. 2. +GEORGE C. PARDEE, Executive Committee, 1910-11-12. 3. HENRY D. HARDTNER, +Vice-President, 1909-1912. 4. MRS. PHILIP N. MOORE, Executive Committee, +1909-12. 5. WALTER H. PAGE, Executive Committee, 1910-12. 6. D. AUSTIN +LATCHAW, Treasurer. 7. THOMAS R. SHIPP, Executive Secretary. 8. JAMES C. +GIPE, Recording Secretary. 9. A. B. FARQUHAR, Vital Resources, 1911-12. +10. L. H. BAILEY, Chairman Lands Committee, 1911-12. 11. W J MCGEE, +Chairman National Parks Committee, 1911-12.] + + +FARM ORGANIZATION. + +The organization of the farmers has long been the end desired by those +who are seeking to promote the country’s welfare. By reason of all his +previous years of training when he has been acting on his own judgment, +and working alone, the farmer is not accustomed to organized effort, and +does not fully recognize its value; hence the influence of his wife in +this matter is of special help. The farmer knows if he leaves home for +any length of time that weeds spring up, fences fall down, cattle get +off their feed and cows fail in their milk. Hence he stays at home year +in and year out getting deeper and deeper in the rut unless educational +and social privileges are brought to him. This the women can and will do. +Through the united efforts of the women the farmer is going to think +less of his taxes and more of his schools; he is going to be one of an +army of country men united to secure conservation of the soil through +longer leases, conservation of the child through better educational +facilities; conservation of the wife through the relaxation of meeting +with those of her own sex, and shall I not add: conservation of the few +hard-earned dollars in the purse by parcels post? The farmer’s wife, in +order to conserve to the fullest extent the best interests of the farm, +must be filled with the conviction that farming is the most honorable +of any pursuit for a man and is a career worthy of his best endeavors +and not merely a makeshift until something better offers. Such a woman +will impress upon her children the thought that no calling or profession +is so worthy of their best efforts; she will see to it that the books +and papers that come into the family are those that treat farming and +the farmer with respect. No one thing probably has had a more invidious +influence in creating a desire among farm boys to leave the farm than the +funny papers and cartoons which make the farmer the butt of their jokes, +portraying him as the victim of the gold brick agent and picturing him +with the vacant look and gaping mouth of an imbecile. + +Cato, the Censor, lived at a time when Rome was at its height as a +military power. He had held nearly all of the great offices under the +Roman republic, yet in his old age he left this record, that: “No +occupation was so worthy of the dignity of a man as that of farming,” +holding that: “Farming makes the bravest men, and thoughts.” The farmer’s +wife should use her influence to see that this kind of literature is kept +before her children in the farm home, in the curriculum of the school, +and in the school library. + +In the time at my disposal I have been able to only hint at a few of +the very many and diverse problems, as well as opportunities which +belong to our women of the farm. I have tried to view them as a wife +and mother of the soil, where, indeed, my life is cast, and my energies +have been engrossed. I have endeavored to advance no fine spun theories, +but to suggest a solution which can be and is being worked out today +in many localities. That these and similar organizations are bound to +come in abundance and that they will work untold good to the cause of +conservation I fully believe. Once the farm wives of our country are +adequately organized there is no divining the power for good that they +may wield. There is an old saying: “Unless a man’s mother ordains him for +the ministry, he won’t make a good preacher.” When a boy’s mother ordains +him for the farm there will be no lack of good farmers. (Applause) + +Chairman VESSEY—I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Mrs. +Matthew T. Scott, President General of the Daughters of the American +Revolution, who will talk to you in regard to the “Farmer’s Wife.” +(Applause) + +Mrs. SCOTT—I have crossed the continent to be present today because of my +interest in the farm and the farmer’s wife—the class to which I am proud +to belong. + +We have considered here every interest of conservation in +creation—vegetable, animal and mineral, and now come to conservation of +the farmer’s wife, the greatest issue before this Congress. + +In the consideration of that problem which so far has baffled the +masculine intelligence, i. e., that of keeping the younger generation on +the farm, the key to the situation unquestionably is held by the farmer’s +wife. + +The call of the country rings out from garden, from forest and stream, +from acres of golden grain, and tonics pure from Nature’s own laboratory. +Back of all of this is the farmer’s wife, who by making the farm home +attractive and interesting is the magnet which draws the boy and girl +back to the farm, from the allurements and disappointments of city life. +The farmer’s wife is no longer the isolated being of years ago—but with +her free rural delivery, and the country’s network of trolleys for her +convenience—good roads, and with the use of modern machinery, a large +degree of leisure to give to her social life, music and books, are now at +her command. If she succeeds in making life on the farm attractive, if +she is able to add the distinctively feminine touch of home charm to the +freedom and zest of country life, who can doubt that this great problem +of retaining the farmer boys on the farm will be solved? + +It is the farmer’s wife also, and she chiefly, who can enforce the only +education that is worth while—that is real and true, that education which +builds character, which educates not the intellect alone, but at the same +time the conscience and the will; an education that means justice and +truth and purity in this selfish work-a-day world. Moreover, few farmers +succeed whose wives do not do their part to see to it that both ends +meet. It is the wife of the farmer who sees where the waste and loss are +eating into the profits of the farm. It is the housewife as a rule who +has ideas of thrift in farm management and who, if she has the chance, +will contribute more than is often realized to make the farm a business +success. + +Upon the farmer’s wife largely rests this great responsibility, and in +this great work, with the help of the noble army of quiet, intelligent, +capable farmers’ wives, we hope to develop the most splendid crop known +on this fertile continent—the boys and girls, the youth of the land. +Largely is this work the prerogative of the farmer’s wife amid the stress +and strain which absorb the energies of modern masculine business life. + +Another duty which devolves upon the farmer’s wife is to exert her +influence and teaching to train her boys so that they will see to it when +they are voters that in these days of political chicanery and corruption +that only honest men and true are sent to Legislatures, to Congress, and +the United States Government, to make the laws that are to govern this, +the greatest Nation on the face of the earth. + +Sociologists and agricultural professors can aid the farmer’s wife in her +work, but, after all, it is upon her shoulders that the responsibility of +success or failure in this great task must ultimately rest. + +Today the great difficulty is that the farmer’s wife is trying heroically +to fulfill the double functions—that of assistant economic producer and +of housewife, mother and the organizer and inspirer of the happier and +higher activities and diversions of country life. + +To free the wife from the burden of money making and educate her in +the more difficult and equally important task of home-making and the +development of the finer and more humane and more enjoyable aspects of +country life, these are the problems we must help her solve and she will +do the rest. + +An old Frenchman once said that farming was the only profession in +which a man works in a relationship of direct partnership with God. The +ministry might object to the words “only profession,” but the fact is +certainly patent that in more than any ordinary occupation of life, do we +coöperate day and night with the sun, and the wind and the rain, and all +the other forces of Nature and of Nature’s God, and I believe that for +women today there is no profession more alluring, healthful, or lucrative +than that of scientific agriculture. If I had my life to live over I +would enter as a student one of our great agricultural universities. I +would familiarize myself with the work of experiment stations, learn +to test soils, know the elements best suited to and most needed by the +different stratas of earth. I would master the secrets of fertilization, +which have for a thousand years made sections of the old world productive +without exhaustion. I would inform myself as to the value and methods of +rotation of crops, the value of dairy and cattle raising on the farm. I +would also inform myself of the comparative cost of nitrogen drawn from +the air in the form of leguminous crops, which imprison the nitrogen in +the soil, and the cost of commercial nitrogen, and their comparative +values. + +I would learn the need of phosphate or potassium as applied to different +soils and the comparative value of tested fertilizers. We have already an +aristocracy of herds—cattle, horses and swine, but I would undertake the +breeding of an aristocracy of seed corn and oats and alfalfa. + +Oh! they are great the possibilities of woman on the farm—if she would +only take advantage of them. (Applause) + +Chairman WALLACE—We will now proceed with the call of the states, and +these organizations who wish to report. + +Delegate C. J. DILLON of Manhattan, Kan.—Can’t we give five minutes more +to discussion by the ladies? We have a lady here I wish to propose, who +has been working in this same line for years, and I would like to have +you hear from her. + +Chairman VESSEY—Send her up to the platform, please. + +Mr. DILLON—I am glad to introduce to you Miss Frances Brown of Kansas, +who has been in active work along the lines of organization of farmers’ +wives. (Applause) + +A DELEGATE—Have her come down on the front platform. + +President WALLACE—She has a pretty good voice, and I think if you will be +quiet you can hear her. + +Miss BROWN—The first speaker on this subject this afternoon outlined +so ably and so well the needs of the farmer’s wife that it will be +my pleasure in just a very few minutes to tell you how we at the +Agricultural College in Kansas have tried to meet these needs of the +farmers’ wives. We have looked over the field as well as we could, and +we saw that in the very first instance the first thing for us to do was +to correct, as far as possible, the errors of those who had gone before +us. And so while it is only morning yet in Kansas, and the department as +organized is only two years old, we went out into the organization that +had already existed in Kansas and began to do work on these subjects that +pertained to the commonest things of life, the very household, taking up +for our very first work a sort of reformatory movement on the subject +of bread and bread making. Then we spread that same movement before the +Farmers’ Institutes, and by visiting every one of the institutes and +meetings that we could, we saw that the cause of dissatisfaction on the +farm lay largely in the fact that there are not the conveniences in +the farm home that we find in the town, and that was the cause of the +exodus from the farm to the town. So we have begun a campaign for the +country homes, and our women in the institutes are so anxious that they +ask us to help them effect an organization which we call an Auxiliary to +the Farmers’ Institutes. Of these during the last year we have twenty +organizations, with a membership of 500, whose women have been studying +the cost of putting in plants for heating and lighting and bringing water +into the homes, and taking care of the waste from the home. Now we are +getting letters every day from farm homes where they are actually making +use of some one of these various systems. + +The next step was to take care of the younger members of the farm home, +and so we had to get something ready that could be used in the public +schools, as well as in the home itself. We have what you may be more or +less familiar with under the title of the Girls’ Home Economic Clubs, +by which we reach the girls through the printed page. These printed +papers are gotten up so that girls from ten to fifteen years of age can +master them perfectly. They are on the subjects that we need every +day, first, cooking, because you know that while man can live without +poetry, music and art, he cannot live without cooks, so we are going +to begin raising each one to be a cook for the future. We have these +courses in cooking out all over the state, not only being used by the +individual girls in the farm home, but being taken up by the public +schools where the towns or the communities are too poor to afford a +department in domestic science and art. During the past year 2,300 girls +took lessons either in cooking or sewing or both from this department +at the college, and already, as the new schools are opening, letters +are pouring in every day asking for more of that work in the various +sections of the state. Moreover, during the last year, due to these +efforts, seventy-five high schools put domestic science or art or both +into their systems where it had not existed before. Wishing to utilize or +bring together the organization that already existed instead of forming +new organizations, we have been getting together a course of domestic +lessons, or demonstrations, if you please to call them so, that can be +used by the women’s clubs that are already organized in the state. That +course is almost completed; and when we have that finished, we hope to +see every single organization of the women in the state adopting part or +all of it, not because they need it so much, because women that have time +for clubs, have more or less leisure through their added efficiency. But +it will mean that they are still thoughtful along these lines, and that +their efforts are going to be with us in spreading this gospel of good +housekeeping throughout the state. + +Now, we have a big work yet before us. We are not going to stop. We are +going to work at every single channel that we have opened, and we are +going to open as many new ones as can be helped, until every roof in +Kansas covers a harmonious home where we will find every single thing +that will tend to the highest efficiency and the needs of every member of +the family in that home. I thank you. (Applause) + +Chairman WALLACE—I know I voice the feeling of this audience when I say +we have already highly enjoyed these addresses from the ladies this +afternoon. The executive committee of this association has some business +that you must transact, and the report will now be read by Mr. J. B. +White, the chairman of the executive committee. + +Mr. WHITE—The executive committee met this morning and adopted the +following resolutions: + + In view of the very effective help which the national + organizations have given the Conservation Congress and the + conservation movement in general, the members of the executive + committee of the Third National Conservation Congress feel + that the national organizations should have more adequate + representation. Therefore, at a meeting of the executive + committee of the Congress today, it was decided unanimously to + recommend that the constitution be amended so as to provide + for an advisory board to be made up of representatives of + the national organizations which have appointed conservation + committees. + + To this end the executive committee respectfully begs leave + to submit the following amendment to Article 5, Section 3, of + the Constitution of the Conservation Congress, by adding the + following: + + “An advisory board, consisting of one person from each national + organization having a conservation committee, shall be created + to act for that Congress and during the interval before the + next succeeding Congress. The board shall report to and + coöperate with the executive committee.” + +The executive committee is also of opinion that the scope of the work +of the permanent committees of the Congress should be extended so as to +cover a larger field. The present sub-committees are those on forests, +waters, land, mineral and vital resources. + +The committee, therefore, recommends that the constitution of the +Conservation Congress be amended as follows: + + Article 5, Section 5. The committee on vital resources shall + consist of members, each selected with the view to becoming + chairman of the sub-committee and that six sub-committees be + created subordinate to the committee on vital resources as + follows: Food, homes, child life, education, civics, general + (including wild life, domesticated animals and cultivated + plants). The chairman of each committee, with the approval of + the chairman of the executive committee, shall be authorized to + appoint as members of these sub-committees, such members as in + their judgment will best accomplish the object sought. + +Delegate BRUCE DODSON of Kansas City—I move that the report of the +executive committee be received. + +Delegate WM. H. DYE of Indianapolis—I second the motion. + +Chairman VESSEY—All in favor of them will say aye. Contrary minded. The +amendments are adopted. + +Mr. WHITE—Mr. President, we invite all those who are here and are +delegates of the different national associations that have conservation +committees to come on the platform, that they may choose their +representatives, if possible, and confer with the executive committee +immediately after adjournment. + +President WALLACE—What now is the pleasure of the Congress? We have +filled up the program of today. I take pleasure in introducing Miss Mame +E. Weller of Nathan, Iowa, of the conservation committee of the Iowa +Federation of Women’s Clubs. + +Miss WELLER—I bring greetings from the Federated Club women of Iowa, who +today stand ready to help in all lines of conservation. + +We have been and are working for the conservation of child life, health +and happiness. We have done much toward procuring sanitation in schools, +and especially pure drinking water. We are trying to have our bird +laws enforced and shall petition our Legislature at its next session +to prohibit spring shooting of ducks and all shore birds, who are our +sanitary commissioners of lake, shore and stream borders. + +We have caused many hundreds of trees to be planted in Iowa, and the +coming year we are to work for state control of the banks of our streams +and shores of our lakes. + +We have done much to prevent the wanton mutilation of trees and +destruction of our wayside trees by telephone companies. Yet much +remains to be done. We have in Iowa a statute that exempts from taxation +almost entirely all woodlands, native or planted, when kept and used for +timber purposes only. + +President WALLACE—We expected until today to have a paper or address by +Dr. Knapp of Washington, D. C., but I am very sorry to say that he cannot +come, but the Department of Agriculture has a gentleman that can take his +place, and I would suggest that Dr. W. J. Spillman come forward and tell +us about the wonderful demonstration work that is going on in the South. + +Is Dr. Spillman in the audience? If not, we would be glad to hear from +Mr. F. A. Guthrie, a member of the Congress representing the city of St. +Paul, Minn. Five minutes, and then I promise you we will adjourn. + +Mr. GUTHRIE—As indicated in the announcement, my work is on a line +somewhat different from almost anything that has been presented. In +connection with charitable and correctional institutions, we have found +that it is necessary to go to the country. This presentation this +afternoon relates to charitable and correctional work. The dreariness of +the country home is very important and has to do with most of that which +we have to treat. The national conferences on this matter have come to +the conclusion that it is necessary for leaders in the country to engage +some person specially qualified to advance social interests, to organize +country meetings of various kinds, or organize musical entertainments, +organize social entertainments, and organize educational work. We present +that to the national conference as something to which we will have to +come in order to bring about agreeable healthy country life, a life which +gives joy in living, as was presented by the President at the opening. I +thank you. + +President WALLACE—We are ready to entertain a motion to adjourn. Ladies +and Gentlemen, remember that the meeting is at 8 o’clock sharp. We are to +have a great program tonight. Mrs. Moore, Dr. Wilson, and Dr. Wiley. + +The Congress stands adjourned until 8 o’clock this evening. + + + + +_SIXTH SESSION._ + + +President WALLACE—The house will come to order. The secretary has a +telegram to be read: + + Returning from two weeks on the firing line of conservation + with Secretary Fisher. I send through you the accredited + representative of the American Civic Association hearty good + wishes for the great movement now being considered and promoted + by those who believe in a continuing and improving America. + + J. HORACE MCFARLAND, + President American Civic Association. + +President WALLACE—We are to be privileged this evening to have an address +on the Community Club, by Mrs. Phillip Moore, St. Louis, president of the +General Confederation of Women’s Clubs. (Applause) + +Mrs. MOORE—Members of the Conservation Congress: I have already said +to the officers of the association that we very much prefer “Community +Center” to “Community Club.” It will cover the ground much better, as you +will see, from my viewpoint: + +It may be a question in the minds of many present why this particular +subject has been assigned to a representative of the General Federation +of Women’s Clubs. I am glad to present the very best of reasons: because +we have studied it for years, and have worked on the findings of such +study. + +At the Second Conservation Congress in St. Paul our honored ex-president +gave in some detail the history of the Country Life Commission in which +he had become much interested. Economic and social questions engaged +his attention; he had given thought to the economic strengthening and +social elevation of the Irish farmer, in connection with the policies of +conservation and country life in our own country. + +The results of the Country Life Commission were of the widest import, but +were never made public, inasmuch as Congress did not appropriate money to +print the findings. + +It was about this time that our interest was specially centered on the +life of the women of rural communities; one of the Eastern publications +supplemented the existing inquiries from the Government by sending out +letters to approximately 700,000 readers. There were answers from nearly +every state in the Union which would have required a large office force +to read and tabulate. The majority of these letters was given to our +general federation board members, representing through their own and +advisory states all the community interest which we wish to bring to you +today. + +The result was extraordinary—answers from a thousand women, with facts, +feelings, hopes, ambitions, possibilities and probabilities. The bulk +of correspondence came from women, whose letters showed that they are +not having for one reason or another what Mr. Roosevelt called a “square +deal.” + +The letters were distributed among the board members, were carefully +read, and they frequently gave an opening for further correspondence—with +most interesting, personal results. The letters were not illiterate; many +of the women have been school teachers and nearly all have had a good +education; many were eloquent in deeper modes of expression than rhetoric. + +The volume of data which these letters presented is of high value +industrially, from a sociological point of view, and with reference to +sanitary conditions; the study of public schools and country churches +would gain largely from this material. + +Our board members represented, and naturally for that reason understood, +the New England and Eastern states, the sandy shores, the Pennsylvania +settlements, the sunny South, the mountain regions, the near West, the +river states, the Northern plains, the prairie stretches, the Rockies and +the Pacific shores. + +Only a fraction of the answers returned could we utilize to assort and +digest; we believe it is beyond the power of any but a commission to +recommend, and such commission might well give its entire time to the +work. + +We have, however, as I said in our reports, made further inquiries, have +come into closer personal relation, have assisted wherever possible, and +have certainly recognized the needs of many outlying, lonely homes. + +You will allow me to give from the experiences of these letters through +our members some few generalizations: + +Iowa and Nebraska happened to be grouped together. The eastern and +southeastern part of Nebraska are geographically one with Iowa in +soil, surface and products, and the two states are allied as to their +inhabitants. Except in isolated colonies, the farmers of Iowa and +Nebraska came from the Eastern and Central states. The foreign born +settlers come almost exclusively from Ireland, the north European +countries and Bohemia. The northwest portion of Nebraska, embracing the +“big Sixth” congressional district with the far western part, is grouped +geographically with eastern Colorado and Wyoming, and the problems of the +farmer there differ materially from those of the farmer in the fertile +and populous eastern division of this section. + + +THE DRAWBACK TO RURAL LIFE. + +Everywhere the isolated and primitive character has been the greatest +drawback to rural life. To those who have depended always upon +companionship and society for their interests and enjoyment, this +loneliness is intolerable. Physical conditions are changing this, the +telephone, the rural mail delivery, the automobiles and the interurban +are bringing the comforts and companionship of the town to the farm. +There are farmers’ families who planned ten years ago to move to the town +as soon as a competence had been accumulated, but who now, with more +than the hoped for income, are content to remain on the farm, the active +management having been turned over to a tenant or a son, and to enjoy the +comforts of the country. + +In the older settled portions of these states the farms are being +divided. The high price of land is driving the farmer to more intensive +cultivation and this will continue to eliminate the more disagreeable +features of rural life. + +Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota were grouped and +the interesting items were as varied as they might be in more widely +separated regions. + +There is no “hard luck” tale to tell of poverty and squalor in this +region, although the conditions differ widely from very poor to very +good. Everyone is already familiar with the stories of the poor wives who +have not been away from the farm for five or ten years. There are too +many such in the Northern plains; these pitiful tales are all too true, +but they are not the whole truth. To get at that it is necessary to know +not only the worst, but the best conditions. The best are especially +worthy of mention because they indicate possibilities, and are an example +and inspiration to those not already arrived at prosperity. + +While there are still to be found one-room sod houses sheltering whole +families, there are others with all the modern conveniences of steam +heat, good plumbing, electricity for light and power, telephones, and the +rural postal delivery bringing each day from the outside world papers, +books and magazines. And these are the fruit of industry and frugality; +and between these two extremes are many homes of moderate means where +conveniences and luxuries are not yet possible, but where there is +wholesome, normal living. + +The great factor in improving rural conditions is education in scientific +farming, and in these states there are excellent educational advantages +offered to the young men and women who wish to make this a business. +Each state has its agricultural college, which is usually a department +of the state university, a school where agriculture and its kindred +subjects rank with the technical or professional courses; the tendency is +to dignify the business of farming, to make it attractive from both the +pleasurable and the practical standpoint. There are traveling libraries +equipped not only with books for entertainment, but books in various +languages for instruction on subjects of rural interest, and these +libraries go to the very remotest corners of the state. + +The women who have answered the questions in the rural conditions inquiry +are agreed that the farm presents great possibilities for happiness, if +they could only have a little more help with the farm work, and more +frequent chances for change and recreation. They rarely complain that +their work is too hard, but only of its dreary monotony. + +Fraternal societies afford the greatest opportunities for social +intercourse for our country people. Clubs—as we know them—are infrequent. +The varied nationalities represented in new states present no common +ground on which people of widely differing habits of mind and modes of +speech can meet, and this condition and the lack of help enhance the +difficulties of social gatherings. + +It is very evident that each section of this great country must present +its own problems. In the part of the country included in “The Rockies” +we find four types of rural life—the small town, the farm, the ranch, +and the mining camp. Answers came from all of these. While the last is +not, strictly speaking, a rural community, it must be so considered in +any effort to brighten the lives of the women who are removed from the +advantages of city life. + + +THE BUILDERS OF THE WEST. + +These people, who are in large measure the builders of the West, have +come from the more thickly settled states, to try their fortunes under +greatly changed conditions; and one of the great hardships that face them +is the fact that their means will not permit their first experiments at +farming—either dry farming or irrigated farming—ranching, or mining to +be a failure. And in the very nature of things, a failure is too often +made the first year. If the family finances permit the partial loss of +the first year’s work, and if the family adopts the methods proved to be +successful, the after years are brighter and not shadowed by poverty. +Poverty in the West is a removable cause. + +Loneliness is a second problem which is being rapidly met in these +states by the organization of women’s clubs and the foundation of local +libraries in the towns, and traveling libraries for those outside. +Colorado has done especially good work with her traveling library boxes. + +For the most part the people are hopeful and happy. They came into this +mountain region expecting difficulties and they have no complaints to +make that their problems are not all solved. They had the grit to come +into a new and unsettled country, and they desire to stay. Every letter +from the “farm women” of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming was a happy +letter. Such rural problems are hopeful. + +The North Pacific shores offer a diversity of agricultural and commercial +interests, and the farmer here differs somewhat from the Eastern farmer +in that he is more of a specialist. He is either a wheat, cattle, fruit +or dairy farmer. He specializes on one thing, and does his work with the +most improved machinery, or under the latest and most modern methods; he +seldom attempts to derive revenue from the hundred and one little things +that, in many districts, are made by the farmer’s wife and hauled to +the corner store to exchange for groceries. In other words, his farming +is more of a business than the old idea of making it a semi-domestic +arrangement. This relieves the wife of much of the drudgery of the +farm and puts her on the same business footing in the home, as the +professional man’s wife. + +With rare exceptions, the farmers have rural mail delivery, farmers’ +telephones, and very often electricity for light and other purposes. The +roads, as a rule, are good, and the automobile is fast displacing the +farm horse. + +The schools of higher education are filled with the children from the +rural districts, and many farmers move into town in the winter, that +their children may have better educational advantages. + +In the smaller towns many farmers’ wives join the women’s clubs. While +this is commendable, it is not necessary to the life or happiness of the +women, for in these states the grange is a great educational factor. It +is perhaps the only secret organization in existence where men and women +meet on an exact equality. In it some of the best legislation originates, +and the probe sinks deep into every proposed measure that affects the +farmer; here the conservation of every resource is discussed, and, +knowing that they must enter into these deliberations, the farmers’ wives +read and keep abreast of the times. The grange meetings are all-day +sessions, with a goodly proportion of the day given over to social +pleasures; the young people enjoy all sorts of healthful sports, while +their elders discuss the prospect of parcel post delivery, the threatened +increase of postage on magazines, or the postal savings bank and many +other things that bring comfort or enlightenment to the rural home. + +The suggestions that came in the letters from New England will be +very helpful whenever needed, and have already come into some recent +government policies. + +The advantages and disadvantages of farm life, in the many letters from +the Pennsylvania settlements, would give thought to the most logical +mind. They have been culled, however, from a more than usually large +number of replies, and due somewhat to the fact that 180 sessions +of farmers’ institutes were held for women in one year throughout +Pennsylvania. + +I think I need not enter further into the details of all parts of the +country, or even give recommendations, which a special committee might +better bring to a future meeting; but there are certainly two policies +which are closely allied—conservation and rural life. When public opinion +is thoroughly aroused, it is but a question of time for the will to +find a way. There must be a voluntary effort, and such volition must be +aroused by education. + +One of the most vital items to those who are specially interested in the +educational progress of a country is the awakened public opinion in the +Middle West shown by the development of the agricultural courses in all +of our great universities and colleges. + +Even public schools in some parts of this region are giving practical +instruction to old and young. Meetings are being held upon the farms; +lectures, experiments and demonstrations are being introduced. + +The church has quickly realized that there must be a combination of +emotion and sanity; the practical and ideal have come into closer +relationship; clubs of young men and of women, sometimes of the two +together, are taking up all subjects pertaining to the farm life; +and wherever these subjects are alive, and the social element is +not forgotten, we find distance makes no barrier. At once means of +communication are increased. The telephone is in every home; the trolley +line goes by the farm—even the automobile becomes a necessity, and good +roads are at once established. Distance is therefore annihilated, and the +lonely life is a matter of the past. + +How short a time it is since insanity was a large concomitant of the +farm life for women! Recently, at a session of the Charity Conference +in Boston, there seemed to be very little reference to the need for +prevention of insanity among isolated farm women. I found it to be +largely a sorrow of the past; but I do not agree entirely with such +statements, when I recall the letters, from the immense prairie farms. +Woods Hutchinson, in speaking of the change that had come into the homes +of all women—the removal of much of the old-time work from the home +to the factory—says that it is a convincing proof of the stability of +woman’s mental powers that generations of that semi-solitary confinement +at hard labor known as “home life” have not made her a candidate for the +insane asylum. “Man would have gone raving crazy long ago.” + + +IDEAL CLUBS. + +A community club, as we would call a club, must be composed of men and +women, for they must, under ordinary circumstances, go together to their +meetings. The Farmers’ Institute is more in the line of this particular +thought, but the community center or grange covers the ground fully. +The institute comes but once or twice a year, while the club might be +regularly intermittent. + +This must mean a central meeting point with the very best and appropriate +reading matter pertaining to equipment of both home and farm; the +solution of the help question (shall we ever reach this millennium?), +certainly demonstrates in cooking and pure food, discussions as to +education of children, and the way to obtain better lighting and heating, +and good roads should be a part of these meetings. + +Where shall this center be—the school or the church? + +The women’s clubs of the nearby towns have attempted in an entirely +friendly spirit to maintain rest rooms for farmers’ wives when on +shopping bent, with a possible creche for the babies and a caretaker and +amusements for young children. This is excellent, but will never take the +place of the community center. + +A change in the attitude of public opinion towards the old question of +town and country means some practical outcome to all this discussion. +The interdependence of the two is real, each having its influence on +the other, the main consideration being human rather than material. The +town representative can talk out his grievances, political and economic; +the farmer has a full stock of grievances, but rarely gives formal +expression to them; and the farmer’s wife acknowledges that her social +life is barren. The two need to bring their problems to each other; and +a community spirit will surely lead to forms of organization for mutual +economic and social advantage. There must be in the rural community such +social life as shall withstand the attractions of the city, if we wish +the farms to remain in the control of their owners, instead of in the +hands of renters. + +What can be done to give the farmer’s wife a little leisure in which to +enjoy the advantages that might be hers? + +The answer to this is the answer to the question which confronts every +one who is striving to improve social conditions anywhere. It is the +great problem of work and the “out of works,” which city and country +are trying alike to solve, working from opposite horns of the dilemma. +With thousands of hands begging for employment at one end, with thousands +of jobs begging to be done at the other, it is not creditable to our +initiative that we have not discovered some way to equalize the supply +and demand of labor. We are already educating our country youth to stay +on the farm; what we need further is a campaign of education to destroy +the lure of the city, to teach men and women that there is plenty of work +under wholesome conditions awaiting anyone who will take it, that those +who cannot go the pace of the city can find pleasant, profitable living +where there is time enough, and work enough for every one, if they will +but go back to the soil. + +The conclusions drawn from the investigations into rural conditions, +which I have been able to make, have changed my opinion very materially. +Life is not so sordid and hard, poverty is not so pinching as I had +thought. That it is narrow and unnecessarily colorless is evident, and +that much can be done to brighten it is certain, but just what form of +help to offer is a grave question. + +There is always needed a plan and the machinery to carry it through. I am +not sure of name or method, but a central force there must be, whether of +men or women—possibly it might be well to appeal to the woman, who makes +the home life, to whom it is of so much importance. + +From all our letters we note that the women love the country life, both +for themselves and their children. They would doubtless be ready to take +up any coöperative plan that might be suggested. Certain I am that no +committee should be appointed to consider ways and means that did not +have in its membership some thoughtful, progressive farm women. Towards +this common end should be included also representatives from all the +agencies making the community life educational and religious. + +It is not difficult to draft a scheme, but it is essential that the +elements most needed to carry it out should feel themselves vitally +interested. + +Horace Plunkett suggests “an institution which shall be scientific, +philosophic, research-making.” His arguments are so entirely to the point +that I quote some few sentences: + + Every social worker knows how the knowledge of what others are + doing will help him. It is strange how little the problems + of the rural population have entered into the study of + sociologists. At leading universities I have sought in vain + for light.... The fact is the subject must be treated as a new + one, and it is urgently necessary, if the work of the Country + Life Movement is to be based on a solid foundation of fact, to + make good the lack of information, which has resulted from the + general lack of interest.... An institute is wanted to survey + the field, to collect, classify and coördinate information + and to supplement and carry forward the work of research and + inquiry. The rural social worker requires as far as possible to + carry exact statistical methods into his work, so that he may + not have to depend on general statements, but may have at his + command evidence, the validity of which can be trusted, while + its significance can be measured. + +In agreeing with his desire for absolute data, let us not forget the +human side, the personal evidence, which can never be obtained through +an institute. + +May we hope that the Conservation Congress, which has ever shown a human +interest in the conservation of vital force, will be the leader in +bringing to its own the vital center of the country! + +President WALLACE—You will all agree with me, Ladies and Gentlemen, that +we have had one choice treat tonight. There are two more coming. The +Presbyterian Church of the United States has taken a very great deal of +interest in the country church. Do you know that if the Presbyterians do +not revive their country church there won’t be a Presbyterian church in +the next generation, for this reason, that the town, while it can get +all the lawyers it wants, can grow them, and all the doctors, can’t grow +preachers enough to supply their own pulpits. (Applause) Now, we are to +have before us here tonight Dr. Warren H. Wilson of New York City, the +superintendent of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church, +and he will give us a new phase of conservation. + +[Dr. Wilson’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—Here endeth the second lesson. (Applause) We have been +told about society. We have heard about the practical everyday religion +of feeding men. And now we are going to be told by Dr. Wiley how to keep +healthy, so that we may enjoy our religion and feed more men. (Applause) + +Dr. WILEY—Mr. President and Delegates of the third National Conservation +Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: My sermon is going to be short. I think +a great many of these country churches were vacated by two and a quarter +hour sermons. (Applause) I want to insist, however, that in this sermon +I am going to preach I want to follow the steps of my illustrious +predecessor. I have been preaching sermons for a number of years, and I +think it is about time I was ordained. I believe in all the principles +of conservation that you have taught this week and many previous weeks. +I was an early and insistent and persistent conserver. I believe I have +the honor of having delivered the first public address that ever took +the term “conservation” as a text. In 1894 I delivered an address on +the conservation of the fertility of the soil, and so, as well as my +dear friends, the Presbyterians, I am a little bit conservative, too. +(Applause) I am sorry that that condition has obtained which he described +here, the empty country churches. But let me tell you they are no more +empty than the country houses of this country. Everybody has been going +to the town. They have taken the greater part of country boys who would +have made good farmers and made pretty poor preachers out of them. On +the whole the country boy thinks it is easier to preach once a week than +it is to plow corn every day and feed the stock on Sunday. And naturally +he chooses the line of least resistance to make a living. That is the +reason that the country is becoming deserted, and just as long as it +is easier to make a living in the city than it is in the country, the +country is going to be empty, and all you preachers can’t fill it up, +and the object of these meetings is to make it easier to make a living +in the country than in the city, and then you will see the tide flow the +other way, and not before. (Applause) One reason people ought to live in +the country is because they can be healthier there. I would rather be +a healthy boy in the country than a sick boy in town. If I have equal +health, I think I would rather stay in town, for a boy has more fun in +town. If you take fun away from the boy you deboyize the boy. Another +thing, there is too much demanizing, and dehorning, in the country life. +I know about this Pennsylvania Dutch people, why they are so prosperous, +because their home life is in their life in the country. It follows the +Pennsylvania Dutchman to the grave. It is a pleasure to go to a funeral +in that community. (Applause) It has got to be a burden, every time I am +invited to a funeral, I don’t want to go. When I was a boy I loved to +go to a funeral. (Applause) They have a good custom up there among the +Pennsylvania Dutch, too. They all go to the funeral, and nobody begins +to cover up the grave until some neighbor goes up, takes off his hat and +says a good word for the departed. Then they can fill up the grave. When +old Jacob Shaffer died he was the meanest man in the community. He was +buried on a cold, rainy day in November, when it was half rain and half +sleet. They stood for ten or fifteen minutes, or half an hour, and nobody +said a word. They had to stay there, and could not leave until the grave +was filled up. Finally one neighbor, in despair, went up and took off +his hat and said, “Well, I can say this about Jake: he wasn’t always so +mean as he was sometimes.” (Applause) Now, I want to say this about the +preacher. He is not always so inhuman as he is sometimes. When I heard +this sermon tonight I almost concluded that a minister of the gospel was +a real human being. (Applause) I want to tell you that he was not that to +me when I was a boy. I did not look upon him as the friend that he ought +to have been to me. And that is the reason one boy did not go to the +country church oftener. + + +CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION. + +I believe in the conservation of the natural resources. I believe in +the conservation of the coal and the forests. But conservation does not +mean hoarding. It means utilization. I do not want to go through life +with cold feet to save the Alaska coal and warm up somebody that is +going to live a million years from now. (Applause) I want to get some +of the benefit out of the coal while I am living, and out of the forest +and out of the stream. My idea of conservation is to use the natural +assets of this country for the benefit of the people, and not for some +syndicate of rich men alone. (Applause) And I hope we won’t spend all +this generation quarreling about who is going to have the coal, but that +we will find some way to get it out and use it before it gets out of +date. Because I want to tell you that we will not need coal much longer. +The scientific men will find plenty of ways of finding heat and motive +power when the coal is all gone. And if we do not use it now, it is going +to become simply a specimen in the near future. (Applause) I want to say +that we want to use the lumber, and use it wisely. There is no economy +in allowing a tree to stand in the forest until it rots. We want to cut +the old trees down just like Nature comes around and cuts down the old +people and gets them out of the way. That is the way that science will +provide lumber and at the same time continue to reduce the forests. Only +the mineral resources are limited. There is just so much coal, just so +much gold, and when they are used up, so far as I know, there is no more +making, and they will be then gone. But do not have any fear. When the +iron is all gone and the silver is all gone and the gold is all gone, +there will be plenty of metals at the disposal of man, because we have +found now how to convert clay into metal. I went into an automobile shop +the other morning where they were making the frames out of pure aluminum. +We have got enough clay in this country to last several years. (Applause) +It will take the place of the steel and the iron and the gold and the +silver and the copper. Have no fear of exhausting these supplies of +humanity, but exhaust them for the benefit of the public. (Applause) If +we could use one millionth part of the force of the wind we could turn +every wheel of industry in the world, warm every house, cook every meal +in this whole universe. And the wind and hot air shops are very abundant +still. (Applause) There are no signs of it giving out in the near future, +either. If the wind is going to blow and turn the wheels of commerce and +industry, there are 24,000 wind mills with a dynamo attached to them and +storage battery guaranteeing to the farmer all the light he wants in the +barn, cooking stove, and turning the sewing machine and grindstone and +engine every day of the year. Do not have any fear, ladies and gentlemen, +that the natural powers of this world are going to be exhausted. They +are here and here to stay, and here to be supplied by the advance of +science in such a way that no matter how populous the world becomes in +the future nobody is going to suffer for warmth or clothing or power in +this world of ours, and we want to get so many people in this country +that there won’t be any complaint of vacant country churches. And there +is no doubt that this country can supply the food and clothing for untold +millions of people yet unborn. We can have every foot of our country as +densely populated as Belgium and still have plenty for everybody, because +advancing science will supply it. The capacity of a man’s mouth is +limited and constant, but the skill of his hands is unlimited. He has two +hands, but only one mouth, and the advancing skill of his hand is going +to fill the mouth. + +President WALLACE—Turn around that way and face the audience, please. +(Applause) + + +HEALTH, THE GREATEST ASSET. + +Dr. WILEY—I would just as leave say it all over again if you didn’t hear +it. (Laughter) Now, there is one public asset of wealth that is rarely +mentioned in these conservation congresses, and that is the public +health. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen (applause), it is worth in +money more than all the gold and all the forests and all the water power +combined. If a man boasts of the wealth of Kansas City he speaks of the +railroads and the packing houses and the great centers of distribution +and the wholesale commercial houses and the value of real estate. He +never says a word about how much a people are worth in health. I asked +the children in the Central High School today how much each one thought +he was worth in money. They did not know. I told them that in a year or +two every one of them would be capable of earning $50 a month. I think +there are lots of parents in this town that would not take $12,000 for +a single child they have. And every single child is worth in money, if +it is developed into a man or woman, $12,000. And if you take all of the +people of the country and value them at $12,000 apiece, all the rest of +the wealth of this country sinks into insignificance. And I am satisfied +that that is the value of every man who is able to earn a dollar. + +Now, some people think women are worth nothing because they don’t get +paid much for their work. Housewives do not get a monthly salary usually +from their husbands. She ought to, but she does not. Practically all of +them ought to get a salary every month. (Applause) But that does not +make any difference in the earning capacity of the housewife. She is +worth more than $50—every one. So I would say that there are 40,000,000 +of people in this country who are capable of earning $50 a month and +do earn it. That, in my mind, will give you a good idea of the wealth +of this country in health. But that wealth consists of health. If you +impair the machine, the human machine, you impair the earning power of +that machine, and thus you diminish its value. If you let the child die +you rob the father of a great asset. And we are letting our children die +every year. You may go into any graveyard in this country and count the +little graves of children under five years of age, and three out of every +five of them ought not to be there. The little body that is crumbling +beneath that tombstone ought to be in the high school of the city or in +the active walks of life. We let these children die and never think of +the responsibility that rests upon us. How can we get to be healthy? +Well, in the first place heredity. We have got to begin away back. That +don’t do us much good, but if we pay attention to it it will do future +generations some good. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes I believe who said, +“You have to begin to make a man when he was a marsupial possibility.” +We have got to go way back now to shape the careers of men and women +unborn. Heredity, a sound body is one of the rights of every human being +who is born. (Applause) I am glad to know that many of the states are +already taking steps to insure that, and to forbid marriages with people +who are physically incapable of producing healthy children. Marriage +we regard as a sentiment, and we do not like to have anybody interfere +with our sentiments. But I tell you marriage is an affair of the state. +If the state has a right to demand a fee for a marriage license, and to +prescribe how it shall be performed, and make laws by which it may be +broken, it has the right to forbid the marriage as well as to regulate +it. (Applause) + + +CONSERVATION OF FUTURE GENERATIONS. + +I say then that our first work for public health is to look after the +unborn generations and to see that they have healthy parents. That does +not help us now, but we must look to it right now. I asked a member of +the school board today if they had medical inspection of the school +children here. He said a partial one. I said: “Do you have a dental +inspection? Do you have a registered dentist come around through the +school and see what kind of teeth the children have?” That is just as +important as whether they come with clean clothes or not. I have no use +for a boy or girl who loses his teeth in childhood. We must begin the +conservation with the children of this country, of the public health. +The time is coming when there will not be a school in our broad land +without competent medical supervision. We demand now that our children be +vaccinated. We also should demand that they bring to school no contagious +disease to spread among their fellows. And there are lots of contagious +diseases that we do not think of as contagious, such as tuberculosis for +instance. And so by beginning with the unborn generation we may add to +the length of human existence. Heredity then, sound bodies in which sound +minds are and may be developed, is one of the primal basic qualifications +for the conservation of human life. + +Then the next thing is, after we get healthy beings into the world, to +see that they are properly nourished, and unless the child and the man +and the woman have the proper food they cannot be expected to maintain +their health. Unless you feed an engine, or boiler, good coal you cannot +expect it to develop the maximum of power. Unless you feed a man well, +nourish him well, you cannot expect him to be an effective machine, +and to do his proper duty as a member of the community. The thing to +do to secure the maximum efficiency of the machine—feed it well. What +are we doing about that? We are making a beginning in that line. And +the first thing we are doing is with the young child. We are saving the +lives of the infants. I may say there has been more progress made along +that line than in any other, and that is the place to begin. Here a few +years ago if 125 children did not die out of every thousand that were +born we thought something was wrong; we rather expected it. And in some +communities a great many more than that died. + +In many communities the death rate has been reduced to seventy per +thousand. There is no reason why over this whole country the death rate +of the children, of the infants and the child under five, may not be +reduced so as to make the death rate per thousand not very much greater +than that of the adult, namely, thirteen or fourteen per thousand in +a healthy community. And I do not know any reason why the children of +this country should die at the rate of more than thirteen or fourteen +per thousand when they are properly cared for at birth, and have proper +fathers and mothers to give them healthy bodies. This will be a great +addition to the wealth of the country, to save the children. And we can +save the grown person by a wholesome diet. I am not one of those who +believe in a starvation diet, cutting down food. There are a great many +preachers of that doctrine in this country. That is a false doctrine. +Nature provides that we shall have enough, and intended we shall have +enough and then a little more. When the engineer fills up the tender with +coal, he does not take just enough to get him into the station. No. He +puts in a ton or two in excess. So Nature provides that when we eat to +get strength to perform the mechanical functions of life, we shall have +just a little more than is necessary, the factor of safety which enables +us to go over the emergency safely. + + +THE RIGHT TO NUTRITIOUS FOOD. + +And, therefore, it is the right of every citizen of this country to +have nutritious food and to have plenty of it. Again, when the animal +does feel sick, it has the right to scientific attendance with good +food; in other words, the sick man has a right to be attended by a +competent physician, and to have remedies administered prepared by a +competent pharmacist and of pronounced purity. That is another thing +we are securing for the people of this country—pure drugs to help them +get well when they are sick. (Applause) And we are trying to keep men +from practicing medicine who have no qualifications to do so except a +facile pen to write an advertisement. The day is coming when a man cannot +practice medicine in Kansas City by the newspaper as he can today. I +looked at your newspapers. They are full of prescriptions, written by +physicians who could not begin to pass the examination of your state +board of health. They are quacks and fakirs, and the advertisements are +worded cunningly to separate your money from your income. And the law +permits it, while the regular physician cannot come to Kansas City and +practice medicine without taking out a license from the state board of +health, and yet you allow a fakir in any other county to come to town +and practice medicine _ad libitum_. We are going to stop that for you +and save your money and save your lives (applause) by securing competent +medical supervision of the sick of the community. + +Then we are going to protect you from contagious diseases. We are +building up now a cordon around this country against invasion, not from +an armed enemy, but from one that has slain a thousand times more than +the armed enemy would slay—the germ of contagious disease. While Europe +has been suffering from Asiatic cholera for a year, we have succeeded +absolutely in wiping it out of this country, except one or two sporadic +cases, and we no longer fear yellow fever. We know it because we know +how to handle the mosquito that spreads it, and we segregate it in the +spots where it breaks out. We are beginning to control that most dread +of all diseases, tuberculosis. And the day is coming when we will have +full control of it. There are people in this house who will live to see +tuberculosis as rare as smallpox is today, in my opinion. (Applause) Why? +Because science has found out how that disease is conveyed, and having +found out the cause, we can proceed to the remedy, and the day is coming +when there will be camps of detention for tuberculosis patients, just as +there are today for leprosy. It looks hard. It looks inhuman. But what +we must care for is humanity, and not the single life. You remember what +Tennyson says: “Are God and Nature then at strife, that Nature sends such +evil dreams? So careful of the type she signs, so careless of the single +life?” + + +THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY. + +The individual must give way to the community, and if he is afflicted +with tuberculosis he must be segregated, so that the disease may +be conquered and kept within bounds. And so typhoid fever will be +conquered—all the diseases which are due to infection and contagion. And +great progress is making along this line today, so much so that we are +encouraged in the belief that other diseases yet unconquered may meet the +enemy and master, like for instance pneumonia and diseases of that sort. +And the result will be that by the advance of scientific medicine and +by the wise control of the state, men will be spared the destruction of +their usefulness and value in middle life. Why, how much does it mean to +die before your time? All the years of preparation, all the money spent +in your education, all that you have done to prepare yourself for the +duties of life, cut off in an instant by an enemy more treacherous by far +than any foreign invader could be, more to be feared than any armed foe +could possibly be feared. We have no need to build sixteen-inch guns to +protect our trade on the Panama Canal. What we have protected are the men +who builded them. The greatest triumph of the Panama Canal is not that it +is a wonderful cut, is not that it is protected by sixteen-inch guns, but +that the men who build it are as healthy as you people who have stayed +here in Kansas City. That is the great triumph of the Panama Canal. +(Applause) + +Then we want to preach sanitation in the outplaces where the church ought +to be built in the country. That is one reason that the country is not +attractive, because there are no sanitary conveniences there. The farmers +are living today in a state of barbarism almost in that respect. What +we need to do is to populate the country in order to make the country +attractive, and it can be done at little expense. There are preachers +today who are preaching sanitation about the country school house, and to +the country farmer, how to make himself comfortable at home. The roller +towels have been abolished in Kansas. The Pullman Company has taken out +its public drinking cups in the State of Illinois, and failed to give any +other, so you can go all through Illinois without any danger of drinking +the Pullman ice water. (Applause) The day will come some time when the +Pullman Company will ventilate its cars. (Applause) On the train coming +out from Washington there were at least five hundred free passengers +called flies that came all the way and enjoyed the trip (laughter) and +never lost a moment from sleep. (Laughter) Think of it at this modern +day, to start a palace car from Washington that cost $20,000 full of +flies! But we are preaching sanitation in out of the way places like +the country home and the Pullman car, and the people are learning. And +you will be able to travel after a while without danger of contracting +a disease in the car where you sleep, or in the hotel where you eat. +This gospel of sanitation goes with the gospel of the country church, +because cleanliness is next to godliness, and sometimes it seems to me it +comes first and godliness second, because a dirty man has a great deal +of trouble in feeling godly. (Applause) So the gospel of sanitation is +coming to our help. Another thing will help, and that is the gospel of +segregation. What are we to do to prevent the influx into the city? I +will tell you one thing that the city could do. Every city wants to have +more people in it. They do not care what kind they are. They want more +than their neighboring city. It is the ambition of the town to pad the +census. Many of them are in jail for doing it today. If I lived in Kansas +City I wouldn’t care whether we had more people than Omaha or not, but I +would love to have, if I were in Kansas City, cleaner streets and purer +water and more segregated houses (applause) than Omaha or any other city. +And you ought to have them here with all your beautiful streets. You have +the principle here of keeping the houses apart. There is plenty of ground +in this country to build houses and have a little spot of green by them +where they can have flowers in the garden and potatoes. That is what we +ought to do to prevent the influx into the city. + + +THE CITY NOT FOR MANUFACTURING. + +I would recommend as a sanitary measure that every city forbid any +manufacturing of any kind within its limits. The city is not for +manufacturing. The city is for exchange only, and if you would banish +the factory you would do much for the sanitation of the city and for +the factory workers. You would get closer to the raw material which +the factory uses. You would save in transportation, and every workman +could have his little cottage with his little piece of land that would +help populate the country and help the church that was built near +the factory, too. I say we can put the people into the country by +legislation if in no other way in that respect, and the moment the +factory starts the farmer is coming to raise garden truck. You will have +growing around the factory a prosperous agricultural community with its +church and it will be a great deal better than having a little church +with a lonely graveyard. The most awful thing in the country is the +graveyard, especially at night, when the boy has to go home past it. That +is the way. We will segregate the population and thus conserve the public +health. + +Last of all, we can crown the work of the gospel of sanitation by +enacting into a law provision for a national board of health with real +power and with real authority, whose director shall have a seat in the +President’s cabinet and advise him in regard to the most precious of all +the assets of our country, public health (applause), and he can guide +and help the authorities of the state and cities, and furnish them the +material with which to work, and that is coming after a while. We are +going to conquer and bring together all the government authorities which +have to do with the public health in the one grand organization which +will conserve the health of this country and have a voice of power in the +councils of the Nation. And then when we do this we will have instilled +into the people the idea that there are things that are more important +than dollars. Every movement of this kind is stopped by the dollars, +the fear that somebody is going to lose some money, while at the same +time it could be easily shown that every single movement of this kind is +for the increase of our national wealth, and the day will come when the +doctrine of graft and greed will have to give way to the doctrine of the +sanitation of the people. (Applause) We have today our Fourth of July +when we celebrate. In some parts of the country the colored citizens meet +and celebrate the emancipation. So I want to live to see the day when the +people of this country will meet together in one grand convocation to +celebrate the emancipation from the reign of greed and graft and for the +establishment of the principles of sanitation which keep them well and +happy and patriotic American citizens. (Applause) + +President WALLACE—This Congress will now stand adjourned until tomorrow +morning at 9 o’clock. + + + + +_SEVENTH SESSION._ + + +Dr. Cyrus Northrop, President Emeritus Minnesota University, presided. + +Chairman NORTHROP—The Congress will be led in prayer by the Rev. Dr. S. +M. Neel, pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church of Kansas City. + + +INVOCATION. + + Our Father, Who art in heaven, we recognize Thy hand in every + good. We are dependent upon the bounties of Thy providence, and + we invoke Thy blessing upon these Thy servants, as they have + met together to consider the best interests that manifest Thy + love and Thy goodness to the children of men. Thou hast taught + us if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth + liberally unto all men and upbraideth not. We pray Thee that + Thou wilt give us wisdom to guide us in this Congress, that + we advise those ways and means that shall be productive of + the interests of our fellow men in their various avocations, + especially to those who are called to labor and till the soil, + and may Thy blessing rest upon them and Thy providence be about + us, sending the rain and the sunshine in season, and that men + may look up to Thee with thankful, grateful hearts, and serve + Thee honestly and sincerely, and finally meet Thee in richest + reward in the world to come, and the glory shall be Thine + forever, Amen. + +Chairman NORTHROP—My instructions were to start the Congress at 9 +o’clock, but it did not seem possible to do that. So I have compromised +by starting it half way between 9 and 9:30. The regular order of business +probably cannot be pursued at this moment. Is Mr. George W. Bailey of +Missouri in the room? + +If Mr. Bailey will come to the platform he may have the ear of the +Congress for five minutes. Mr. Bailey, Deputy State Game and Fish +Commissioner of Missouri. + +Mr. BAILEY—I was highly pleased with the remarks of the gentleman Monday +evening from New York on the conservation of wild life in that state, and +again yesterday we enjoyed another treat from a gentleman representing +the Audubon Society of the Empire State. + +The protection of song and insectivorous birds in this rich agricultural +land of the Middle West deserves more than a passing notice from this +great Congress. + +That the destruction of song and insectivorous birds means the increase +of pests, so destructive to fruit and grain crops, is acknowledged by the +best informed farmers of the day. And what a great pleasure it was to +hear reports like those from the gentlemen representing the State of New +York. + +Here in Missouri we have had some trouble in getting the attention of +farmers to this important subject, but they are beginning to realize that +the insect-destroying bird is one of the best assets to the farmer. + +The present Game Department of Missouri has never cost the tax payers +of the state one penny, but the revenue for the protection of game is +obtained from hunters’ licenses, paid into the State Treasurer’s office. + +In North Central Missouri I have organized districts in several counties +for the protection of prairie chicken and quail, and in these localities +the farmers refuse to permit the destruction of these birds out of +season, and we have now more than fifteen hundred prairie chickens +absolutely protected, and the farmers will remember that in many +neighborhoods of the state during the past season the grasshoppers were +very destructive to late corn, and, as a proof of the usefulness of +the wild birds, there was no complaint of the grasshoppers from the +farmers in the localities where the prairie chicken, quail and other +insectivorous and song birds are so well protected. + +Through the efforts of our efficient Game and Fish Commissioner, Hon. +Jesse A. Tolerton, the Chinese pheasant has been introduced in many +counties of Missouri, and has proven a very great destroyer of insects, +and especially so to the hated potato bug. + +Some time ago I read an article in the Dallas News saying that the boll +weevil had cost the State of Texas $20,000,000 in the last few years, +and the editor called attention to the fact that the boll weevil never +appeared until after the target gun in the hands of the vicious and +ignorant had so wantonly destroyed wild bird life in that state. + +Ladies and gentlemen, this is a startling statement, but true, and what +an object lesson for the great subject of bird conservation. + +Chairman NORTHROP—In the absence of the gentlemen who were upon the +regular program, will you indulge me for a moment or two while I say +something? In the papers in the South there has been for some time +special notice of the fact that a few years ago a small cotton crop +yielded to the cotton planter $240,000,000 more than the larger cotton +crop which succeeded, and the lesson sought to be taught is that the +products shall be kept down as low as is necessary to secure the highest +prices, and to that end if a large amount of cotton has been raised a +considerable portion shall be kept out of the market until the prices +rise to fifteen cents a pound, and then brought forward as fast as the +market will take it. There is some disposition among the wheat farmers +to keep back their wheat until the market is high enough to enable them +to get the best prices. There is nothing wrong in the farmer doing that, +and securing the best price he can, because the cotton and the wheat are +not ultimately lost. At some time or other they come into human use. But +there is another department in which the same process does not meet with +the same results. I refer to that most important and, as it seems to me, +growing important department, fruits of all kinds in the United States. +We talk about the high price of living, and the price is high. Anything +which will relieve the demand upon the most common necessaries of life +will tend to lower the cost of living. Anything that we can introduce +and make a common article of food for a large portion of the people to +take the place of beefsteak is a blessing to the country, and we are +receiving into this country hundreds of thousands of immigrants at the +present time, many of them—perhaps most of them—coming from countries +where the practice is to live largely on fruits—the Italians and others. +Now, you are conserving the resources of the country, and how are we +conserving our resources in the matter of fruits? Why, there are millions +of dollars’ worth of fruits that are permitted to perish every year in +order that the price of fruit may be kept up to a certain grade all over +the country, and the consequence is that this million dollars worth of +fruit that might feed the people, or might take the place of some other +more important food in some way, is all lost to the country. What is the +use of conserving the fertility of the soil if we are going to have our +soil so fertile that we can raise $50,000,000 worth of fruit and let +$40,000,000 perish, in order that for the ten millions we might get the +price of the forty millions? Some way ought to be provided by which the +fruit that is raised in this country shall be made available for food. +I do not ask that anything will be done that will interfere with the +prosperity of the fruit raiser. But that he shall raise a large amount of +fruit and then have it made impossible to put upon the market more than +a quarter of his product, and have that fruit maintain in price the same +standard that the whole of it would, is a wrong, it seems to me, to the +people of this country, and a detriment to its welfare. What we want is +to feed people comfortably and at the lowest rate that is consistent with +existing conditions. + +There is nothing that would contribute more to the health of our people +in a large way than increasing to a very considerable extent the use of +fruit. So many persons use things that are not really advantageous to +health. Fruit would be invaluable, and we are raising millions of bushels +of apples and kindred things that never come to the use of man, but are +permitted to perish. The same is true of peaches in many cases, and with +cherries in some states. It is remarkably true of apples. Those states +on the Pacific Coast, Washington and Oregon, and the region round about +there, are raising apples that are astonishing in quantity and quality, +and they are preparing to produce a great many more. It will be of the +greatest value to the people of this country if we can get them. Twenty +years ago it was doubtful whether Minnesota could ever raise apples. We +have apples by the thousands of bushels this year all around Minnesota. + +Notwithstanding, green apples in the market when I left home were $1.50 +a bushel. That is not necessary. It ought to be so that the laborer, the +man who works with his hands, can have fruit. God has given us a country +that will yield almost everything. It will yield fruit in tremendous +quantities, and the people will eat it if they can get it. What is the +trouble? Why should three-fourths of the crop rot on the ground, while +only one-fourth gets to market and brings the price that the whole should +command? You see my point. It is not to interfere with the man who +raises apples. I want him to get his full reward. But it is that this +magnificent product with which God has favored us shall be utilized for +the needs of this country, for their good, and for the removal of the +stress in the demand for various other products, which are now at a price +that is not within the reach of many people. We are met for the interests +of people in general, for the good of mankind. No man liveth to himself; +no man dieth to himself. If there is not grass enough and food enough to +keep alive the cattle of the country, and a man has a thousand tons of +hay, do you think he has the right to burn up 999 tons, and then ask for +the remaining ton the price of the thousand? Has a man a right to destroy +what is necessary for the lives of his fellow men, when it is needed +for those lives (cries of “no!”) simply in order that by having only a +part he may get the reward of the whole? I say no. We have to look for +something besides ourselves. + +It is not merely a matter of how much money goes into my pocket and how +little comes out. It is a matter of whether I am doing my part in this +world to make the world what it ought to be, and my fellow man just as +comfortable and happy as I can. (Applause) (Good!) I have got to do it +whether I am a farmer or anybody else. We have to so use what we have +that it may benefit others as well as ourselves. I am not proposing +any plan. I do not know what plan should be proposed. But, ladies and +gentlemen, what I want is to see the products of the earth utilized for +the support of men and women and children. And I want some way to be +provided by which the magnificent products of our orchards may be carried +all over the country, and the people may eat and enjoy them and live, and +the returns to the producer of that fruit be all that they could ask. Can +you help to secure this result in some way in the coming years? It is not +secured as it ought to be at the present time. (Applause) + +I resign the chair to President Wallace. + +President WALLACE—I am very much obliged to Mr. Northrop for taking +charge of the meeting in my absence. I have been down to meet Mr. Bryan. +(Applause) I have persuaded him to put off his speech until 8 o’clock +this evening. (Applause) Mr. Bryan will talk on a subject entirely in +harmony with the spirit and purpose of this convention. + +Delegate A. W. STUBBS—I have talked with a number of delegates from +the country and understand that many of them have made arrangements to +leave the city before 8 o’clock this evening, and I know it would be +exceedingly gratifying to them to have Mr. Bryan here for a few moments +some time. Do you suppose that could be arranged? + +President WALLACE—Yes, sir; he will be here and you can get to see him. + +Delegate STUBBS—We want to hear him. + +President WALLACE—You may have a chance to hear him. We have a strong +program; we keep the best to the last (applause), but we want you to +assist us in putting through this program so that every man who comes +here and says something can be heard. We will appreciate it, and push it +through and just as fast as we can. Now, let me ask whether Mr. Curtis +Hill is present? He is to address us on good roads. He is the State +Highway Engineer of Missouri. What other matters have we to come before +the Congress? The next speaker is Mr. White. He is not here, but he will +be here in a little while. We will take up the call of the states. We +do not care about resources or coal mines, but we want to know what you +have done in your state for conservation, and what you intend to do, dead +earnest, honor bright, what you intend to do. + +Recording Secretary GIPE—Oregon (no response); Texas; Utah; Vermont; +Virginia; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming. We have a request, Mr. +President, from the chairman of the Arkansas delegation to be heard. They +were not here when their names were called. + +President WALLACE—I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. F. M. Filson, +president Missouri State Association of Assistant Postmasters, who will +talk to you for five minutes. + +[Mr. Filson’s paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +President WALLACE—Gentlemen: One reason for bringing this meeting to +Kansas City was that we might get the voice from the South. Mr. Knapp, +who has charge of the demonstration work in the South, was to be here, +but cannot come because of illness, and his place will be taken by +Professor W. J. Spillman of the Department of Agriculture, who will talk +to you about fifteen or twenty minutes. Professor Spillman is engaged in +the same work. + +PROF. SPILLMAN—I regret very much that Dr. Knapp could not be here +himself. + +He is in charge of the farmers’ coöperative demonstration work in the +South. It has been suggested that I take his place upon the program. I +cannot tell you of his work. The Secretary of Agriculture has asked me +to develop similar line of work in the Northern states, and we are now +laying plans for its development. I want to discuss a few of the problems +that strike me very forcibly in my study of agriculture in this country. + +Several years ago I spent two weeks in visiting the more successful +farmers in the New England states. I visited ten farmers in that two +weeks, and made a careful study of their methods. I want to say that +while we usually speak of the worked-out, bleak hills of New England, +that I found as good farming there on a few farms as I have found +anywhere in the United States. And one thing which struck me very +forcibly, indeed, was that the oldest boy or young man I saw on any of +those ten farms was fifteen years old, and the youngest man I saw was +forty years old. A short time after that I had the pleasure of addressing +the Vermont State Dairymen’s Association. There were a thousand farmers +there, and in that assembly there were six who were under forty years of +age. I asked those people where their young men and older boys were. They +said they had gone to the city. Why have they gone to the city? Because +they think they can better their condition there. Is that true? “Well, +we suppose it is. Most of them are doing better in the city than they did +on the farm.” I said, “They are wise boys then, to go where they can do +better.” I would advise anybody to do that. The statistics of agriculture +in the New England states show that between 1880 and 1900, a twenty-year +period, there was a decrease of 30.1 per cent in the area of improved +farm land, in New England, a decrease of one-third practically. During +the period of 1890 to 1900, there was a decrease of 10 per cent in the +rural population in New England as a whole. Since that time there has +been a decrease in the rural population of practically all of the states +north of the cotton belt and east of the great plains. + + +SOME STARTLING CONDITIONS. + +During the last ten years there was a heavy decrease in the rural +population of the state of Missouri, which I claim as my birthplace. Why +is that? There are several reasons. One is that farmers are using more +farm machinery today than they used to use, and they do not need as many +men to man the farms as they formerly needed. Another reason is, many of +the farms are not as well managed now as they were before because of the +scarcity of labor, and they are not so profitable. But on the whole farms +are more profitable now than they were ten years ago. There has been a +ten per cent increase in the yield of farm crops in the United States in +the last ten years. These conditions have brought about a movement which +we have heard a great deal of in the papers recently, the back to the +farm movement. Now, I am a farmer myself. I own a beautiful little farm +down in the southwest corner of this state. I expect to be there next +week picking my seed corn, and I am in full sympathy with every effort to +develop agriculture and to improve the lot of the farmer, but I am not in +sympathy with the efforts to make a wholesale migration of city people +to the farm. I do not believe that is the solution of the question. In +the first place we have on the farms of this country already children +growing up who are getting the proper training to be farmers, aside from +the schools they go to. Unfortunately our country schools teach them +everything except farming. And as far as the farm experience is concerned +those are the people who ought to be our farmers of the future. The city +man has too much to learn. It takes too long to get adjusted when he goes +to the land. We have recently made a careful study of several hundred +city men who have gone out to settle on ten and twenty-acre farm tracts. +And I want to say unreservedly that these men have made failures as +farmers, and practically every one of them has his farm for sale at less +than he paid for it. There are a few exceptions to that, but they are +mighty few. I believe the solution of the problem of populating our farms +is to keep a proper proportion of our farm boys and girls on the farm. +(Applause) + +I wouldn’t keep all of them on the farm. Why? Because they are not needed +there. If they were all kept on the farm, in a short while there would +be overproduction in agricultural products in this country. I want to see +enough of them, and some of the very best of them, kept to man the farms +in this country, and at the same time I want to see a small proportion, +the proper proportion of those young men do what they have always done, +go to the city and take the lead in every line of human activity. +(Applause) I one time made the assertion before a body of scientists +that there was something in the life of the farm that had a higher +pedagogical value, higher educational value than the best city schools +had to give. (Applause) I was called down hard for that statement, by a +city scientist. Then I went to work to find out whether I was correct. I +looked up the history of the Presidents of the United States, and I found +that 92 per cent of them were born and raised on the farm; there are only +36 per cent of our population live on the farm—a little more than their +share of presidents. Then I wrote letters to the governors of every state +in this Union asking them if they were brought up on the farm; 91.4 per +cent of them wrote back and said that they were farmer boys. Why is it +that farmer boys become governors? It is because of something in their +early training. We know it cannot be the country school, because that is +a thing to speak of with a blush, generally speaking. What is it then? +I asked those men. I said, “If the country life is advantageous to the +growing boy, tell me why you think it is.” President Lucien Tuttle, of +the Boston & Maine Railway, New England, gave me this answer—(which +seemed to be the answer that most of them gave)—“When I was a boy on +the farm by the time I was 12 years of age I was buying and selling +cattle and feeding stock and taking care of them. I learned a sense of +responsibility, and I never forgot it.” + +I believe that the opportunity of putting responsibility on the farm boy +is the most important feature of his education. I am confident that is +correct. (Applause) We want a proper proportion of the farm boys and farm +girls to remain on the farm and become farmers that are a credit to the +Nation. + + +THE INCREASE IN LAND VALUES. + +Let me tell you another reason why I want that rather than see city +people go to the land. Land is going to become high-priced in this +country in the very near future. The value of the land in the United +States in the last ten years increased from twenty billion dollars to +forty billion dollars. What made that? Was it increase in income from the +land? No. Was it increase in the intrinsic value of that land for farming +purposes? No. It was increase in the demand and decrease in the supply of +free land. That is what did it. We only have to go across the Atlantic +ocean to find farm land selling at from two to six hundred dollars an +acre. Why? Because it is comparatively limited. There is no free land +for sale. As long as a man could homestead 160 acres of good land in +Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, no farm land in America could be worth more +than $100 per acre. But that day has past. We are now to have high-priced +land. I want to see the boys who inherit that land live on it and run it. +(Applause) I would much rather see that than to see the boy who owns that +farm, or will own it, go to the city and become a street car driver and +rent his farm to some fellow who will become a tenant. I want to see the +American farms, so far as possible, peopled by those who own the land, +who can hold up their heads and look any man in the face and say, “I am a +landed proprietor, a free born citizen in a free land,” a thing which the +tenant farmer can’t always do. + +A Delegate—How to keep the boys on the farm is what we want to know. + +Prof. SPILLMAN—That is what I was coming to in just a minute. Let me +tell you what I have to say on that subject. There are lots of men in +this audience that have left the farm. Why did you leave it? Because you +thought you could do better, didn’t you? + +A Delegate—Exactly. + +Prof. SPILLMAN—That is it. Now, let us face the thing as it is. You left +the farm because you thought you could do better elsewhere. Now, there +is only one way to keep a sensible young man on the farm. You can keep +a blockhead there perhaps some other way, but a sensible young man can +be kept there in only one way, and that is to make it advantageous for +him to stay there. You insult his intelligence when you ask him to stay +at a disadvantage. (Applause) How are we going to make it advantageous +for that boy to stay there? Well, I think I know how that can be done. +We have tremendous agencies in this country at work learning how farming +ought to be done. We have agricultural colleges, teaching young men, +but one thing I want to impress upon you is that in order for the +agricultural college to reach and affect every farmer in America, it +would be necessary to graduate every year in agriculture alone 4,000 men +in every college in the country. You know that they cannot reach that, +and the function of the agricultural college is to prepare leaders and +teachers and as many farmers as possible, but not all farmers. + +The agricultural college of Kansas cannot graduate 4,000 men a year in +agriculture. Kansas is a pretty liberal state in the matter of education, +but I do not think she would want to go into her pocket deep enough to +provide educational facilities at Manhattan for that many men. I would +like to see her do it, but I do not think she can. Now, we must reach +the farmer in other ways. These institutions have learned a tremendous +amount. They have discovered the principles in fertilization of the soil; +they have worked out thoroughly the principles of feeding live stock, +so that today it is practically reduced to an exact science. They have +worked out methods of selecting seed corn. How many farmers in Missouri +plant carefully prepared seed corn? You ought to do it. I have just two +minutes to tell you the gist of the scheme. + +The President of the United States the other night told you that he was +willing to approve the appropriation of a million dollars to begin a work +of carrying to the farmer what the scientists already know. Let me add to +that, that some of the most important work these men are to do will be to +carry to those farmers what that farmer knows. I know farmers at whose +feet I would be willing to sit for weeks, and I have done so, and I have +learned more from the men whose farms I have studied than I ever learned +from anybody else. But those men had worked out the methods of putting +into practice what the agricultural scientist knows. We propose to put in +every county in the United States a man to carry on an investigation of +the work of the successful farmers and find out how they do it. A man who +will investigate local agricultural problems and become an agricultural +adviser of the farmers in these counties. (Applause) We are going to +take the best men we can get. Most of them will be men who cannot afford +to take the positions, men who are already making more than $1,500 or +$2,000 a year on their own farms. Most of them will be young men, and +the others, who, if they were a little older, would be doing the same +thing. Now, my time is up, and I just want to add in ten seconds that we +propose to join the state and the county and all divide the expense of +establishing this system all over the United States for you. + +President WALLACE—I will now introduce to you, and it gives me great +pleasure, Mrs. E. R. Weeks of the National Congress of Mothers and Parent +Teachers’ Association, who will speak to you for five minutes only. +(Applause) + +Mrs. WEEKS—I told you to make it three minutes. + +The National Congress of Mothers reports here, not because it has a +committee on conservation, but because it is an association organized for +conservation, the conservation of the home and the child. + +When we gave the call for our first convention in 1897 a whirlwind of +protest swept over the land, that mothers should be called from their +homes and children to attend a convention, and the press, from one end of +the land to the other, ridiculed us as a lot of old maids and childless +married women. + +Today the press is our best friend, and we have taught the world that +a mother can not live for her home and children in the best way unless +she takes into her thought and work all other homes and children. The +wives and daughters of the land have learned through us that a woman’s +duty lies along the avenues by which she may bring into the home the +best from the outside world. We conserve the home and child by our work +in promoting the creation of juvenile courts, both in this country and +abroad, and by sending to this convention as delegates our chairman +of that committee, Judge Benjamin Lindsey. We organize parents’ and +teachers’ meetings in city and rural schools, and to make these meetings +possible we have a committee on good roads for country children’s welfare. + +As a conservation congress for child welfare, we offer you, gentlemen, +our experience and our organization in any efforts which you may put +forth for the betterment of childhood whether in city or country. +(Applause) + +President WALLACE—I take pleasure in introducing to you Congressman Fred +S. Jackson, former Attorney General of Kansas. + +MR. JACKSON—As soils may be exhausted, it is even possible to exhaust the +conservation of soils—by discussion. We have listened to several papers, +each of which has been not only intensely interesting but exhaustive +on the subject of restoring and conserving exhausted soils. I may be +pardoned, therefore, in asking your attention to another great national +subject of conservation; that of conserving our lives and millions of +property from loss by fire. This subject has been already partially +discussed, before this Congress, through and by means of a report of the +National Board of Fire Underwriters, a national organization of fire +insurance companies. + +This report, though good in the main, is one-sided. It calls attention +to the public duty of citizens in general in preventing fire losses. We +desire by means of a national investigation under national supervision +to remind insurance companies of certain of their own public duties, +relative to the causes of fire losses. + +All agree that these losses are enormous and when compared with that of +any other country are excessive and abnormal. In the last decade the +amount of property insured has doubled and in spite of a campaign for +fire prevention by the insurance companies, fire losses have also doubled. + +This disappointing result has led many of the best informed insurance +experts of the country to conclude that the real “bug under the chip” in +our fast increasing excessive and abnormal fire losses is the insurance +rate, for which our insurance companies are responsible. + +I hold no brief in this matter against the insurance companies. I became +interested in the subject merely as a state officer in an attempt to +enforce state laws and to secure state supervision of rates in the +interest of the public. Such laws are now in force in at least four +states of the Union, and are sustained by our courts on the theory of the +state’s right to protect the life and property of the citizens against +loss from fire. + + +POWELL EVANS’ VIEWS. + +The importance of this subject has not been better or more strongly +stated than by Mr. Powell Evans, of Philadelphia, one of the leading +business men of the country, who spoke before this Congress in its first +session, in May, 1908. In a recent magazine article, Mr. Evans says: + + Fire waste in the United States and Canada is about ten times + that of western Europe. It averages broadly $250,000,000 + yearly with $150,000,000 added expense for protective measures + imperatively demanded by this great, continuous, and increasing + loss. + + The 1910 fire waste would pay the total interest-bearing debt + of the country in four years; or would build the Panama Canal + in less than two years. In other terms, it exceeds the combined + cost of the United States Army and Navy and the interest on the + National debt; or nearly equals the combined annual failure and + pension payments in the United States; or exceeds the combined + United States gold and silver production and Post Office + Department receipts—these all annual figures. + + It represents about 40 per cent of either the total unused + United States government receipts or total expenditures, or the + net earnings of American railways; it represents about 80 per + cent of either the United States Internal Revenue receipts or + the United States Customs or the interest paid on the railways + in the country. It exceeds the combined annual value of wheat, + hay, oats, and rye crops, and is twice that of the cotton crop. + It costs about $30,000 for each hour in the Year, or $500 for + each minute. It costs, moreover, more than 1,500 lives and + 5,000 serious injuries annually. + + If all buildings burned last year in the United States were + placed together on both sides of a street, they would make + an avenue of desolation reaching from Chicago to New York, + and although one seriously injured person were rescued every + thousand feet, at every three-quarters of a mile a man, woman, + or child would nevertheless be found burned to death. + + This fire loss averages three dollars per capita in America + each year as against thirty cents in Europe. It is absolute + loss, and not ever transferrence of value. It positively does + no good to anyone. About two-thirds of this waste in life and + property in this country could easily be avoided by means + similar to those employed in western Europe, where the loss is + about one-tenth of ours. + + +INSURANCE COMPANIES IN CONTROL. + +Let me now tax your attention with a consideration a little more in +detail of the part played by the insurance system and the rate in the +fire waste of the country. + +By common consent the control of fire has been left almost entirely +to the care of the fire insurance company. The average man considers +that the company pays the loss and suffers loss in the payment. In his +opinion the company is impelled by fear of loss to exact a high state +of efficiency from all engaged in stopping loss, and that it is also in +position to know what ought to be done at any time to prevent loss or +strengthen the forces that fight fire. From the point of view of the +average man, to pay the insurance premium is to discharge his whole duty +as a citizen. All else is a detail of the business of fire insurance and +none of his business. + +The prevalence of this conception of the interest of the fire insurance +company explains the apathy of the public and prominence of the company +in all questions of public safety against fire. Nevertheless, it is a +misconception, and until the public bestirs itself in its own behalf, +fire waste will never be subdued. While the company pays the loss, +payment is made out of a fund taken from the public in advance. This +premium fund covers not only the loss but about as much more in addition +for the use and profit of the company. Up to the limit of price that the +public will stand for, the higher the losses, the more the premiums and +profits to be collected by the company. Thus the doubling of the loss, +in the face of a ten-year campaign for reduction led by underwriters, is +not the reflection on the leadership that it seems. If losses doubled, so +also did premiums and profits. + +The actual control of the situation lies with the insurance rate. +However, the companies may protest and exhort, little will be doing +unless their admonitions find concrete embodiment in the rate. It was +the rate that doubled premiums during the last ten years, and it was the +rate which maintained the conditions of risk implicated in doubling the +losses. It is axiomatic that premiums cannot be doubled unless losses +double, and that losses will not double unless there is hazard to produce +them. A true rate could have been promulgated ten years ago, which would +have sent much hazard to the discard as no longer profitable and much of +the subsequent loss would not have transpired. But premiums would have +suffered a like shrinkage. + +Mr. Evans’ address before the first Conservation Congress, to which I +have already referred, became the basis of an official utterance by the +National Board of Underwriters, and the public therefore must regard him +as a creditable witness. + + +INSURANCE RATES. + +Here is what he says of the part of the insurance companies and insurance +rates in this great national calamity: + + The world’s insurance bill is the measure of its fire waste. In + the United States insurance costs, on the average, about 1 per + cent of the policy value or one dollar per one hundred, with + three dollars per capita fire waste; whereas, in western Europe + insurance costs on the average one-tenth of one per cent of the + policy value or ten cents per hundred, with thirty cents per + capita fire waste. + + The sound rule follows that, as fire waste is reduced, the cost + of insurance automatically falls in proportion, and from this + cause only. Insurance is not a commodity in the usual term; it + is a tax which distributes the fire waste of the country over + its population. It is fundamentally a nation-wide average. + About one-half of all insurance premiums collected are returned + to the insured for fire losses, and the remaining one-half + goes for expense and profits in the insurance business. Unduly + numerous or large fires, or conflagrations, swell the total + waste bill, and automatically rates rise everywhere within + the national boundaries, until the half of all collections + is great enough to pay these losses. Every inhabitant of the + country contributes an average share of these insurance bills; + higher rents, clothing, and food bills; and through them higher + credit rates and interest on loans. No one can escape. In the + aggregate, it can safely be said that every workman pays this + three dollars yearly for every member of his family, through + either one or all of these channels. + + The insurance interests have limited influence; no power other + than imposing a high rate; and are in a measure, because of + their own commercial interest, indifferent to present fire + waste. It would appear to the layman at first glance that less + fire waste would be welcome to the insurance business, yet + the insurance influence is far from making a united effort to + reduce it. So long as an insurance company does not have to pay + out more than fifty per cent of its premiums for fire loss the + unit profit is good. Therefore one-half of a high rate nets a + greater final profit than the same proportion of a low one. + Hence the automatic yard-stick rate schedule which companies + apply to any property, which totals up the final rate in each + case—having regard to the building, contents, and location + (exposure hazard). This might result in a premium as low as ten + cents on new mills, and stores (not contents); or as high as + ten dollars per one hundred dollars on Southern wood-working + mills. Many insurance managers actually prefer the higher rate + and risk as making higher possible earnings for the company + and permitting a higher absolute payment to the broker, thus + enabling the manager to produce a larger net annual profit, and + to interest and hold a better line of brokers through whom to + distribute his contracts of insurance. + + The broker, who gets from ten per cent to thirty per cent of + the premium, objects even less to the higher rate—although, + as we have seen, it inevitably means higher risk and more + chance of fire, and in fact more fire waste; so the destruction + continues. + +There’s a siamese twinship between premiums and losses that forbids +a knockout. Packing houses afford an apt illustration of the control +of the situation wielded by the insurance rate. Public attention was +attracted last winter by a large loss in the Chicago stockyards which was +accompanied by the death of many firemen. This loss involves a paradox +which few observed. Why should appliances which would have prevented +this loss and catastrophe be absent in the congested Chicago yards, and +yet present in similar outlying plants owned by the same men? No spot on +earth needs precaution against fire more than the Chicago stockyards, and +in none is there a more profitable opening for investment in the means of +safety. + + +SAFETY NOT SOUGHT FOR ITS OWN SAKE. + +The answer lies in the fact that safety is not sought for its own sake by +the average business man. From the small dealer to the board of trustees +of a great university, no more is appropriated for safety against fire +than will pan out profit from the insurance rate. The rate makes safety +pay in the outlying packing house and makes hazard pay in Chicago, and +the packers are governed accordingly. Inquiry would probably develop that +competitive conditions made a reasonable rate possible in the locations +where the plants have been made safe, whereas, in the Chicago yards, +competition does not operate and the rate is made by a board having only +commissions at stake. + +How is this rate, so loaded with import to life and property, made? This +question assumed prominence when regulation of rates was undertaken by +certain states. Inquiries conducted by these states show that rate-making +is neither what it purports to be nor what the public imagines. What it +purports to be is indicated by the title given to schedules promulgated +by associated insurance companies for the formation of rates throughout +the West, namely, an “Analytical System for the Measurement of Relative +Fire Hazard.” It is claimed to be a system of measurement. Something +scientific, accurate and just is indicated by this title. The public +accepts the schedule at the valuation fixed by the title, and believes +that back of its provisions is a great fund of digested information +bearing upon every angle of the problem. It suggests information +collected by the companies with infinite patience and given freely, +so that the making of rates might be done with exact justice to all, +charging to none the burden that rightfully should be borne by another. +What rate-making really is may be inferred from the inquiry of Missouri +as to the reasonableness of the important schedule filed under the rating +law of that state for the formation of rates for fireproof buildings and +contents. Some knowledge of premiums and losses in this class of property +is clearly essential for the making of reasonable rates. + +[Illustration: Convention Hall, Kansas City, where the Third National +Conservation Congress was held] + + +WHAT WAS ASKED OF COMPANIES. + +The companies were first asked by the Insurance Department of Missouri to +furnish their experience in fireproof buildings and contents. Companies +like the Aetna, Hartford, Home and Royal replied that they had never kept +a tabulation of this nature and were unable to furnish any information +which would show what premiums and losses might be expected from such +property. It was explained by these companies that it was their custom, +in keeping track of bakeries, for example, to class together those of +ordinary construction, improved construction and fireproof construction. + +No useful information could be gleaned from such a source, and the +experts who prepared the schedule were called to the witness stand +and requested to justify their handiwork. It appeared on examination, +however, that the provisions of this schedule were prepared without one +iota of information showing what premiums and losses had been experienced +in this class of property. It was not known whether the rates formerly +used had proved unduly profitable or unprofitable, nor was it known with +certainty whether the new rates would increase or diminish the premium +charge as a whole. + +All classes of property receive this arbitrary treatment. In none are +statistics kept to show whether the schedule is producing too much or too +little revenue in comparison with the losses. It is admitted that many +classes pay too much, while others are being carried at a loss, but no +schedule is made to rectify this abuse, although the schedule purports to +be a system of measurement. + +The companies do not keep faith with the public. We are promised that +greater care to avoid fire will reduce the loss and lead to lower rates. +But the rating system is conducted so that the public will neither +know its just due nor receive it, except by resort to other forms of +insurance. When some organized industry undertakes self-insurance, +ratemakers soon find that conditions have improved and that reductions +are in order. + +It is evident, however, that the end of this system of false measurement +is near. Four states are regulating rates under laws which call for +rates in reasonable relation to losses, and the sustaining of the +constitutionality of such regulation by the lower courts makes similar +legislation certain in practically all states. There is urgent need, +therefore, for accurate knowledge on all matters which affect the rate +of burning in the several classes of property. This knowledge does not +exist. It must be acquired by study of data yet to be gathered. The +data in the hands of the companies is worthless. It has been gathered +by plain business men engaged in the insurance business, and, whatever +the purpose of the compilation, it certainly has had no reference to the +formation of reasonable rates. + + +NEED FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION. + +Faulty treatment, and not incurability, is indicated by the persistence +of the high level of destruction by fire in this country. The treatment +is vague and characterized by irresponsibility. Diagnosis is wholly +lacking; the location of the trouble is not known, and the remedies +are applied haphazard in ignorance of the possible effect. No person +connected with the treatment has a definite result to produce, or is even +asked to prove that any result has been produced. The premiums and losses +are reported in bulk to each state. The summation of these reports into +one huge total constitutes all that is done by the insurance company or +the insurance rater or the public to discover the workings of this great +waste. + +Such blind methods can accomplish nothing. Risks must be enumerated. +Those in need of treatment must be singled out and something economically +appropriate be prescribed for each. To find out where and how effort can +be put forth to economic advantage—to define what can be done wisely +by the class and individual to reach the low economic level of loss—to +keep watch of results and register the efficiencies of fire alarms, fire +patrols, fire departments and fire resistants—these are details which +must be wrought out before fire waste can be attacked with definite aim +and for the perfecting of which the Federal investigation and bureau is +proposed. + +The states appeal to the Federal Government to standardize the schedule +for the formation of rates so that it shall become a true measure of +the conditions to which it is applied. Leaving this measurement to the +dictates of the “best underwriting judgment” has proved a costly error +to the people. The underwriter escapes the common lot; the cost of his +“error,” with a substantial addition for his profit, is borne by the +people. + +When the fog that envelops this waste shall become dispersed by the +Federal analysis, the way to its speedy removal will become clearly +visible to the individual states. + +I lay no claim to originality in the presentation of this subject. I have +given you facts and for the most part the comparisons and expressions of +the experts who compiled these facts. They are original only in the sense +that the testimony of witnesses recited in a brief or argument in a trial +are original. + +I have asked the assistance of the Congress of the United States to +secure an investigation of this important subject to the end that power +may be added to the arms of the states to restore natural conditions as +to fire losses in our modern business world. + +President WALLACE—You will now hear the great highway engineer of +Missouri, Hon. Curtis Hill, on the subject of how good roads help the +farmer. + +Mr. HILL—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is no question but +that we have been making as much progress in road work during the last +few years as we have and as we are in other lines of work, and still +in many places we are not making the progress that we road-making +enthusiasts, and I might say road cranks, would like to see made. Still I +do not believe that we can now apply to our highways over the large part +of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys that little poem which, or a few +verses of which, Robert Burns is said to have written upon his arrival at +a little town in Scotland, illustrating that the highways of Scotland at +one time were not much better than they are today of Missouri, I might +say. Speaking of those highways, he left two verses, which run something +like this: + + I am now arrived, thanks to the gods, + Over pathways rough and muddy; + A certain sign that making roads + Is not these people’s study. + + And though I am not with Scripture crammed, + I am sure the Bible says + That you people shall be damned + Unless you mend your ways. + +Now, how good roads help the farmer must always include others, and it +can be best discussed in a short discussion, in a general way under two +heads. First, transportation systems, and the importance of our social +conditions. Referring to Robert Burns in Scotland, you will see that the +road question has been hammered upon for years and years. Man has been +considering it as a means, and as one means of transportation. Now, in +fact man has been forever trying to overcome gravitation, from the first +load that a man carried on his back, or put upon the back of a pack +animal, he has been endeavoring to lighten his burdens by overcoming the +laws of gravitation. And so it has been through all history. The galley, +the sail boat, the steamship, automobile, and air-ship. The good roads +is one line in the endeavor to overcome the laws of gravitation and to +make easier one method of transportation. Transportation charges have +entered more into the cost of living than any other one item. Food, +clothing, building material, all the staple necessities of life have had +to pay the freight. The freight is deducted from or added to the price +of the article which forms the basis of the price which the producer +receives or the consumer pays. The man who produces the commodity, or +he who settles the bill, pays the freight. Neither the producer nor the +consumer has gained by a high cost of transportation. The question of +good roads is therefore at the present time one of the most vital with +which we have to deal. There is no one internal improvement so absolutely +necessary and essential to a state’s progress and prosperity as the +betterment of the highways. (Applause) Good highways are necessary +to a state’s progress and prosperity, as well as that of a community, +because they involve the transportation problem. With transportation is +involved the problem of life, the cost and pleasures of living, exchange +of commodities, valuation of property and the social and moral and +educational conditions. The problem of life is a study closely linked +with the problem of transportation. + +Our very existence as a social and commercial body as a state is +dependent upon transportation to such an extent that without easy, quick +and economic means of transportation we must rank as a second, third +or fourth class state. The greatest assets of the most substantial +nations are transportation and agriculture, neither one of which can be +fully developed without the other. The transportation of the bulk of +agricultural shipments begins at the farm when the raw material is hauled +over the country roads. This country road is the farmer’s own road, which +leads to the collecting points of transportation by rail and water, and +over which he reaches his market. It is used one hundred times to every +other time for all other means of transportation. The good road permits +the farmer to watch his markets and not the road. Many a farmer markets +his grain at harvest time because it is a season of good roads, at a less +price than he would by storing the grain until the markets are better +and less glutted, and when he would have more leisure time for hauling +it to the market. The good road permits him to haul double the load that +he would over a poor one, and he is thus enabled to move his crop in +one-half the time. This, figuratively speaking, picks up the producer +and sets him down one-half the distance closer to his market. You all +know that distance in this age is measured in time and not in miles. The +country road is the people’s own road, their own means of transportation, +and it is the only transportation system that is owned, operated and +controlled by the people themselves. + +It is at the same time the most neglected system of transportation +in the United States, and the most expensive over which to transport +our produce, owing largely to this neglect. Many a pound of freight +originating upon a farm, or destined to a farm, moves over a common +country road at a cost three times as high as it would be if the road +were first class. Often the haul between the farm and the railroad +costs more than the remainder of the journey, and the railroad or any +other means of rail transportation cannot be expected to reach every +man’s farm, and it becomes necessary to provide means for transporting +the commodities to the railroad. The wagon road then becomes a system +of transportation, just as a line of boats or a railroad is a system +of transportation. Water and rail are the means for long distance +transportation; highways for local exchange. The highway serves the +purpose for local transportation, and is a connecting link for local +traffic with the railroads. The condition of this connecting link or +highway may make transportation reasonable or costly. Too frequently, +as I said before, the haul over the highway is the most expensive part +of farm transportation. It requires a tractive force of 125 pounds per +ton upon an ordinary country earth road, and only sixty pounds upon a +rock road. The cost of transportation by water and rail seldom exceeds +one cent per ton mile. That upon a good road is from seven to ten cents +per ton mile. Upon our ordinary country highway, half kept roads, it +is from twenty cents up to anything, depending upon the condition of +the road. The railroad will haul a bushel of your grain thirty miles as +cheaply as the farmer can bring it one mile. If the farmer is situated a +few miles out of town on poor roads, the railroads will haul the produce +and the commodities to cities like Kansas City rather, and the return +merchandise from that city as cheaply as the farmer can haul it to and +from the railroad and to the farm. Now this high cost of transportation +can be decreased by increasing the size of the load. This can be done +by improving the road surface. The high cost of transportation is not +altogether due to the railroad. Good wagon roads are just as important a +factor in the reduction of this high cost of transportation as are low +rates by water or rail. + +By social conditions, in my opening remarks, I meant the pleasures +of community life, the exchange of visits and social courtesies, +neighborhood gatherings, social association, fellowship, and the home, +the school and the church. The roads should be built for some of the +pleasures and comforts of life as well as for their pecuniary interest. +It has been said that the pecuniary benefits of good roads sink into +insignificance when compared with their social, moral and educational +advantages. Man after all is only a social being, and is influenced +by his surroundings. The maintenance of a seat of learning, or of a +good church in and by a neighborhood has its influence upon the people +of that community. The maintenance of anything tending towards better +living has a good influence. The maintenance of a good road or improved +road has a good influence by permitting easier intercourse between the +people of country communities, between rural and urban population, and +unifies social and commercial interests. The rural mail delivery is one +of the greatest means of education today. Good roads facilitate rural +mail delivery, and therefore tend to improve educational conditions. The +improvement of our roads would also facilitate the central high school +idea for country districts, for while our roads are not an impassable +barrier in all of the districts, in some they are, and in many they are +obstacles. If our country churches are to be supplied with good pastors +and our country schools with able teachers, better libraries and other +facilities, it must be by the support of greater wealth therefor, by +the consolidation of the districts being possible only where good roads +exist, where people can be easily and safely transported. The schools and +the churches in many sections of our best land have a decayed, run-down, +neglected appearance. Churches which are practically abandoned certain +seasons of the year because of the condition of the roads, country +schools not accessible in seasons of bad roads, little children plodding +through mud and water and compelled to sit all day in the school room +with wet feet and damp clothing—this may not apparently affect the +children today, but for all the parents know it may be instrumental in +undermining otherwise strong constitutions and laying up many aches and +pains for future life. As someone has appropriately asked, “Why should +a Christian people have heathen roads and a civilized people barbarous +ones?” One thought which possibly you have heard brought out time and +time again at these congresses for several years is that the trend of +population has been from the farms to the cities and the towns. A large +part of the best blood and sinew of the country has been trying to get +away from the farm. If this continues, it is going to sap the farm +industry of its best blood and its best energy. There is something wrong +today with our country conditions, when so many of our best farmers leave +the farms and seek homes elsewhere in order to give their families better +social and educational advantages and when so many of the brightest +youths from the country become discouraged with country life and endeavor +to escape from the farm. A fair percentage of the men and women, boys +and girls must be kept on the farm. This can be done by making farm +life worth living. Good roads will help to do it. Will the best, most +progressive farm ever be developed without these young men and women, +boys and girls to grow into intelligent farmers? Will the increased +yield per acre by means of better farming become fully effectual without +bettering the means for marketing that yield? Can you incite better +farming and maintain a higher order of intelligence and social conditions +in country life without easy means of communication? Can country life be +supplied with the necessary association and good fellowship, without good +roads? + +In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me state that I do not contend that +good roads is the whole solution for happiness and prosperity of country +life, but I do contend that a very necessary and important part of it is +the relation which our public roads bear to our social and moral and our +educational life. The home and the school are the nucleus around which +our social life exists, and this is especially true of country life. + +Neglect your public road conditions and you will not only neglect your +transportation facilities, but you will neglect your social and your +educational environments. + +The articles that we eat and wear must come from the farm, and the growth +and the development of agriculture and the life connected therewith, no +matter how we may view this question of the development of the farm, the +betterment of life and the development of the country community life, +its transportation, exchange of commodities, the basis upon which it +rests will be found a question of good roads. No proposition for the +betterment of country conditions, no proposition for the good country +life is an assured success until good roads are assured. It all rests +upon the question of transportation, and communication, and the basis of +transportation is the public wagon road. (Applause) + +Professor CONDRA—I beg leave to submit the report of the committee on +credentials. + +The Chair announces the appointment of the following committee on +credentials: + + Prof. Geo. E. Condra, of Nebraska. + Dr. H. E. Barnard, of Indiana. + Mr. Ralph H. Faxon, of Kansas. + Mr. E. T. Allen, of Oregon. + Mr. W. E. Barns, of Missouri. + +President WALLACE—If you want to get the proceedings of the Congress, +which will be worth their weight in gold, give your name and a dollar to +the secretary. + +Professor CONDRA—I move that the report be received and the committee +discharged. + +President WALLACE—We will now hear the Hon. J. B. White, of Kansas City, +who will tell us what he knows about lumber in Europe. + +MR. WHITE—In Europe the experience of more than a hundred years in forest +management has resulted in a more or less scientific and practical +policy, although it cannot be said that a well defined, universal policy +has yet obtained. This is largely due to conditions of ownership, with +consequent variance in ideas as applying to various local conditions, +as well as the difference in necessities and financial ability of +individual owners to carry out in successful practice the best approved +methods. Hence there is a growing tendency towards greater governmental +control, whereunder the most economic working system, suited to different +conditions of soil, climate and kind of forestry, would be intelligently +considered and properly installed. + +In the German Empire 47 per cent of the entire forest area is privately +owned, and 32 per cent by the state, 19 per cent by institutions, +communities and associations, and 21 per cent by the crown. Thirty-three +per cent is hardwood and 67 per cent conifers. They are now cutting about +their annual growth, taking an average of hardwood and conifers. + +Austria-Hungary exports more lumber than any other nation in the world. +It covers 46,500,000 acres, or a little over 30 per cent of the total +land area. In Austria the forests are composed principally of conifers, +spruce, pine and fir, only 15 per cent of the acreage being of hardwood. +Sixty-one per cent is in the hands of private owners, and one-half of +this, or 30 per cent of the entire forest, in the hands of small owners. +The state owns less than 11 per cent of the forests; the balance belongs +to churches and communities. The average yearly growth of all the +Austrian forests is said to be about forty-two cubic feet per acre, or +an annual growth of about 1,100,000,000 cubic feet. They are now cutting +annually 250,000,000 cubic feet more than this, or 20 per cent faster +than it is growing. This excess of cut, over the growth, will in large +measure regulate itself, as the increasing demand makes the industry more +profitable and encourages the planting of greater forest area. + +In Hungary about 75 per cent of the total forest area is oak, beech, +maple and other hardwood species, and only 25 per cent of conifers. The +annual yield of conifers is about fifty-eight cubic feet per acre, and +that of oak about forty-one cubic feet per acre. Thus the conifers yield +the largest percentage of commercial lumber and are most valuable as a +crop because of more rapid growth, and because of their larger demand +for building purposes. Sixty per cent of the total acreage in Hungary +is private forests, about 18 per cent is state forest, and 22 per cent +communal and church forests. The annual cut in Hungary is estimated to be +less than the annual growth. + +England has not until very recently deemed forestry profitable, +preferring to buy her supply. Of her 3,000,000 acres of woodlands, mostly +devoted to parks and the chase, the state only owns 2 per cent. France +has 24,000,000 acres of forest, or 18 per cent of its land area, of which +only 12 per cent of its wooded area belongs to the state. + +Switzerland has about 25 per cent of her total area under forest. The +Zurich forest, known as the Sihlwald, containing 2,760 acres, is 85 +per cent hardwood, and is worked on a rotation period of 100 to 110 +years. The forest director claims an annual growth for the Zurich forest +of sixty-five cubic feet per acre, while the general average of all +the forests is only fifty cubic feet per acre. This means the entire +growth—wood, poles, limbs and all. Only 40 per cent of the total cut is +saw timber for building purposes. The net income from this forest for +the past twenty-five years has been from $4.00 to $7.00 per acre, not +including interest charges. It was $4.40 in 1890 and $7.69 in 1907. This +forest has its own mills and saves all profits. + +In Switzerland one pays taxes when the crop is harvested. In Germany and +Austria the method of taxation varies in different states, but laws are +always favorable to encourage private forestry. In some cases one pays no +taxes for twenty years. Then one begins to thin out the poles for use of +telegraph and telephone companies, etc., and get a revenue, and leaving a +stand in destructive forestry which, when sixty years old, will yield in +many cases 20,000 feet of lumber, board measure, per acre. In fact, the +average is 4,190 cubic feet per acre of timber and fuel, which, according +to values prevailing in England and Germany, amounts to about $200.00 per +acre. + + +CUTTING METHODS IN EUROPE. + +It was pointed out to us that mixed growth or conservative forestry is +expensive. The most economical and profitable plan is the destructive +method. That is, a forest is planted and grown like any other crop, and +whenever interest, carrying charges and total cost meet the market value +at age and time of greatest profit, then trees are cut and they are all +about of a size. The entire acreage is cut clean and the cost of logging +is cheap. Trees are again planted and another crop grown. Under the old +plan of conservation of mixed growth and mixed sizes, or the shelter-wood +system, not as much can be grown per acre, and the cost of logging out +the large trees is vastly more expensive, and damage is done to other +timber in falling them, while in the destructive method all is taken and +a large crop harvested. It is nice to view these stands of timber in +strips, side by side, ranging in years from baby trees to stands of ten, +twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and up to sixty and eighty years of age, +when they are ready to be harvested. + +In growing forests in Europe, lands that are better adapted for +agriculture are not used. The degree of utility is considered. And in +determining the value of a forest property, one has to figure compound +interest, as the crop may not be harvested and the capital returned for +sixty or eighty years. Because of absolute protection from forest fires, +capital is regarded as safe, and investors in forests are satisfied with +a low rate. As an investment, forests require less labor than other +crops, if one practices the most economical method of what is called +destructive forestry. In times of temporary high prices, one can take +advantage of the situation and harvest more than the annual growth, and +can then wait and let the trees grow when prices are low, and this is the +usual practice. The rate of interest generally charged to the forests, +and compounded, is sometimes determined by rate yielded by government +securities, which is usually about 2½ per cent. + + +THE ROTATION METHOD. + +It has been ascertained by careful observations that Scotch pine (which +grows rapidly, like our short leaf yellow pine) yields, on medium soil +in every sixty-year rotation in best quality of location, 5,255 cubic +feet per acre, of which an average of 565 cubic feet have been removed in +thinning as the forest has been growing, figuring the thinning out being +done on an average of about every ten years, leaving at the end of sixty +years an average of 4,690 cubic feet per acre. If allowed to remain, this +has increased in ten years to 5,250 cubic feet per acre, besides 536 +cubic feet that have been profitably taken out in thinning in the last +ten years, leaving at seventy years 5,250 cubic feet. Now in the next +ten years there will profitably be taken an average of 493 cubic feet in +thinning as against the 536 cubic feet taken out the ten years before, +leaving at the end of eighty years standing on each acre an average +amount of 5,720 cubic feet per acre. + +These interesting results follow: With average values of lumber products +as in the year 1910, an eighty-year rotation period with Scotch pine +would pay 2½ per cent compound interest on soil value of $97.00 per +acre. With a ninety-year rotation period it would pay this interest rate +on land worth only $94.00 per acre. On a seventy-year rotation period +it would pay such interest rate on land worth $94.60 per acre, and on +sixty-year rotation it would pay such rate of interest on land worth +$85.00 per acre. This shows that the maximum profits at this low rate +of interest come from cutting the forests at eighty years’ growth. The +greater the variation from this eighty-year period the less favorable the +financial results. The maximum age for hardwood trees for best profit +is said to be rotation periods of about 100 years with a low rate of +interest suited to the safety of the investment. These statistics were +prepared by Sir William Schlich, professor of forestry at the University +of Oxford, and published by him this year, and are undoubtedly reliable. + +But it is safer to figure at a compound interest rate of 4 per cent. A +high rate of interest demands a low value of soil, and _vice versa_. +And as Sir William points out, the value is, however, not in inverse +proportion to the rate of interest, as the value of the soil rises more +rapidly than the interest falls. Under a low rate of interest, the +expectation value of soil culminates later than under a high rate of +interest. So that under a 2½ per cent interest rate, the timber could +stand about eighty years; under a 3 per cent rate, about seventy years, +and under a 4 per cent rate it should be cut every sixty years. Or, to +further illustrate, if a party is satisfied with 2½ per cent compound +interest on his investment in European forestry, he could pay $97.00 per +acre for his land, and must cut it at eighty years of age. + +If he desires 3 per cent interest he must not pay over $55.50 per acre, +and must cut his timber when seventy years of age. And if he demands 4 +per cent interest rate he cannot pay quite $15.00 per acre for his soil, +and must cut his trees when sixty years old. + + +PERIODS OF PINE TREE GROWTH. + +Now this is the best than can be done in Europe (which, according to +statistics, is 37 per cent above the average yield), with the best +results as to soil and favorable location, with low-priced labor, with +most favorable consideration by the government as to taxation, and with +the most approved economical methods, where the limbs and twigs are sold +for fuel, and forest products are fully 50 per cent higher than they are +in the United States. So it is fairly well established that from sixty to +eighty years is the most profitable rotation period for growing Scotch +pine forests in Europe. The higher the rate of interest demanded, the +shorter the rotation. + +With advancing age the value of the stumpage increases so that the value +of the soil for forestry becomes nearly positive. But in time a maximum +is reached, and it falls again. This maximum, with 2½ per cent money, is +eighty years growth, and with 4 per cent money only sixty years growth. +The value of the soil under a very brief rotation would be negative, so +that the yield might not even cover the cost of harvesting. And under a +very long rotation, the value of the soil would again become negative, +because it could not stand the compound interest and other expenses for +an excessively long term of years. + +It follows that the expenses during the early part of the rotation +affects the expectation value disastrously, for compound interest is +running against this expense for a long term of years, lessened only by +sale of the thinnings in about ten-year periods. Of course a sudden and +heavy increase in the value of stumpage, at any given period after trees +are large enough to cut, may create a second maximum, differing from +the normal average because of an unexpectedly great demand, causing an +abnormally and temporarily high price. But the cost one has to pay for +the soil is really the true value, chiefly determined by its value for +ordinary purposes of agriculture; and as trees will thrive on land not +so well suited for farm crops, such lands are nearly always selected for +forestry. But if the soil can be more profitably used for agriculture in +the examples just mentioned, then the increased value will enter into the +account to change the length period of rotation of forest crop. And where +the acreage is not stocked to its full capacity (on account of poor soil, +or for any other reason), the rotation, for which the highest probable +value of the growing stock is obtained, can, as Sir William states, only +be determined by experimental calculations based on these special cases. + + +THE YIELD OF FORESTS. + +But this method of calculation is absolutely logical, and shows under +the most normal conditions what we can expect, and it has been proved +by experience. The abnormal conditions that may occasionally present +themselves are governed by these same financial methods of reasoning, +differing only in degree of application, by reason of change of basic +conditions in each special case. A normal yield is what the forest can +permanently be depended upon to produce. It is a permanent interest +investment of greater or lesser rate, where the principal will never +be returned, while the land is kept in forest crops. These figures are +based upon the best yields in the clear cutting of destructive forest +system, which, as has been stated, is 37 per cent above the average. But +the principle of calculation applies equally as well in the shelter-wood +system of different age trees; but the average volume per tree in each +age class in the latter system has to be taken into consideration. On +the whole, it has been admitted by the best foresters that the system of +clear cutting, then pulling the stumps, fallowing or planting other crops +for a couple of years, and replanting again, gives the best financial +results. + +So much for European forestry. Now how will this system apply to us, +under our conditions of taxation, high-priced labor, and low-priced +forest products, and considering the fact that there is little or no +demand for the thinnings until large enough for telegraph poles, and no +market for the tops and necessary waste in manufacturing? We are lacking +in statistics, because we have not sufficient experience along the +lines of growing new forests, at either private or public expense. But +we are soon to be interested in what it will cost to reforest and grow +commercial timber in the United States. And surely our present supply +of old growth timber from 150 to 300 years old is worth more than the +cost of growing timber sixty to eighty years old. The United States owns +in national forests 192,931,197 acres. The state forest reserves of +3,253,185 acres, the national parks of 4,562,265 acres, and the Indian +forests of approximately 10,000,000 acres, make the total of public +forests over 210,000,000 acres. Chief Forester Graves estimates the area +of private forests as over three times that of the public forests, and +containing five times the timber that is on the public lands. + +The countries whose wood exports exceed their imports are: +Austria-Hungary, Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the United States of +America, Norway, Bosnia-Herzgovina, Roumania, and Japan. The countries +whose wood imports exceed their exports are: The United Kingdom, Germany, +France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, Australian +colonies, China, Greece, West Indies, Bulgaria, Servia, and British +possessions in Africa. + + +CONDITIONS TO BE CONSIDERED. + +The climate and other conditions in some countries render them not so +well adapted to growing trees as for growing other crops; and they find +it more profitable to exchange their products for the wood products of +other countries that either have a present surplus, or whose climate, +soil and land values enable them to grow trees at lower cost. This is +true with the different states in our own country. Illinois and Iowa, +for instance, will never grow what timber they require. They can more +profitably grow corn, and exchange for lumber products with those states +which have low-priced and mountainous land with plenty of moisture, so +that trees will grow twice as fast as in those prairie states where land +is very expensive and climate not so well adapted. Trees will be grown +here, as in Europe, where they can be grown cheapest, and they will be +harvested at an age which will bring the greatest net profit. The market +price of the product will be finally and surely governed by the cost of +growth and manufacture, insurance, and risk, and the price of money used +in the business. + +If the Government of the United States itself can get money at 2½ per +cent, as it can, while private owners have to pay 5 per cent or 6 per +cent, then it follows that the states and the Government can, for this +very important reason alone, grow commercial trees cheaper than private +individuals, and can remove the maximum rotation period to a more mature +age, giving better lumber from older trees at the same cost at which +private owners would have to furnish poorer lumber, because coming from +younger trees. But the people pay the cost, whatever it may be, whether +the Government or private interests grow the trees. The consumer is +interested that they be grown as cheaply as possible. It is likely true +here, as in Europe, that forestry will be a more general success with +private owners, if they are in some important methods placed under the +practical rules of government forestry. It will be found here, as over +there, that private forests will not prove so generally productive, or, +as a rule, so economically administered, as the government or state +forests under the management of expert foresters. And parenthetically, is +it not equally true that many farms and farmers would be better off if +directed by government or state experts? + +In Europe they have no forest losses from fire for the reason that fires +are prevented from starting. The railroad locomotive has been the cause +of most forest fires in the West, and I observe that these Western roads +are now equipping hundreds of their locomotives with spark arresters, so +as to prevent the starting of these fires in the future. United States +Chief Forester Graves very truly says: “Private owners do not practice +forestry for one or more of three reasons: First, the risk of fire; +second, burdensome taxation; third, low price of products.” Forester E. +T. Allen has pointedly said: “Forest protection is the cheapest form of +prosperity insurance a timbered state can buy.” It is not the present +generation so much as it is the future generations that will be affected +disastrously by our neglect. The principles of agriculture, horticulture, +forestry, and the science of conservation of soil and trees, and of life +itself, should be taught in our public schools. + + +THE EXAMPLE OF DENMARK. + +In Denmark, a country which fifty years ago was one of the poorest in +Europe, they have erected a statue to Captain Dalgas, who reforested +Denmark and changed a desert heath into a rich farming country. So now +Denmark is said to be, according to its size, one of the most prosperous +nations in the world. It was the patriotism and inspiration of Captain +Dalgas that enthused the citizens. He lectured to the people, and talked +to the children in the schools, and made converts everywhere. He gave +all he had, and begged and pleaded against doubt and opposition of the +most discouraging character, until success crowned his efforts. He will +be loved and his memory cherished by all the people of Denmark through +all future years as one who saved the nation. In many vital respects, for +energy and self-sacrifice, his work reminds us of our Gifford Pinchot. + +We are, as a nation, too young to understand the dangers before us; for +we are just emerging from a condition of burning log heaps to make farms, +from a condition of too much timber for a small population to a condition +of too little timber for a large population. Yet we have enough if we +will now conserve and reforest. Our ancestors did the best they could +under conditions and the light that they had—what now seems waste, had +then no market and was unavoidable. As a nation we are proud of our past +and we should also be more proud of what we expect to become. As was +said not long ago by one of our greatest statesmen, “Conservation of our +resources does not mean that we shall become great in the present at the +expense of the future, but that we shall show ourselves truly great by +striving to make the Nation’s future as great as the present.” (Applause) + +President WALLACE—The committee on nominations is ready to make its +report. + +Mr. BAKER—Pursuant to an announcement made from the stage at the opening +of the afternoon session of the Congress this day, the members of the +nominating committee met in room 775, Baltimore Hotel, at 3:00 p. m., and +unanimously nominated the following officers for election for the ensuing +year: + + President, J. B. White. + Secretary, Thomas R. Shipp. + Treasurer, D. Austin Latchaw. + Recording Secretary, James C. Gipe. + +The report is signed by the following nominating committee: Mr. B. N. +Baker, Baltimore, Md.; Major E. G. Griggs, Tacoma, Wash.; Mr. A. B. +Farquhar, York, Pa.; Mr. H. C. Wallace, Des Moines, Ia.; Mr. Henry S. +Graves, Washington, D. C.; Mr. G. E. Condra, Lincoln, Nebr. + +President WALLACE—You have heard the nominations. Is there a motion made +to accept and approve the report of the committee? + +Delegate BAKER—I move that the report be accepted. + +Motion was duly seconded and, on being put to vote, was carried. + +President WALLACE—I want to thank members of the Congress for their +kindness to me. And I am going to make a confession now. I have been +running a bluff on you, for I never in my life presided over any +convention or association of more than thirty persons, and it is only by +the marvelous patience that this Congress has shown and its endurance +that I have been enabled to carry it through. I thank you, and I want to +say that I do not believe the mantle could have fallen on a better man +than Mr. J. B. White. (Applause) + +President WHITE—I hope the election has been fair, if there has been an +election. Has there? + +Mr. WALLACE—Yes, sir, there has been an election and you are president. + +President WHITE—Has the committee reported? + +Mr. WALLACE—It has, and reported in favor of you, Mr. Shipp, Mr. Latchaw +and Mr. Gipe. + +President WHITE—This is a great honor, and I appreciate it very much, +more than I can tell. I have been in politics before tonight, but not +in this way. I will have to tell a short story. It will take less time +to tell it than it did for the events to transpire. I have got to tell +it straight because I see Governor Stone of Pennsylvania watching me. I +was a candidate one time when I thought it was necessary for someone to +represent some good principles. I published a newspaper. I owned a farm +and a small saw mill, and I was nominated because I was a granger and +because I had the reputation of being a laborer. I got the nomination +of the Democratic party of my state, and the nomination of the National +Greenback and Labor party of my county. Then the Prohibitionists met. +They were not quite sure about me as a Prohibitionist, but they said that +they would support me, and they would not put any ticket in the field +against me. So that I had the endorsement of the Prohibitionists, the +Greenbackers, the Labor party, and the Democratic party, but I did not +have the Republican party because there was another man running in that +party, and I had to have one opponent. The fight waxed warm. I drove all +over the county, to every school house; I met the people, kissed all +the babies in the county, and I was elected by a very large majority. +It was not quite unanimous, but it was very large. This appears to be +unanimous. And the next day after the election a gentleman came down from +the township, I think, of Limestone, up above Warren on the Allegheny +river. He came to see me, and said “I see you are elected.” “Yes,” I +said, “I understand I am. It is very gratifying as it has been a very +hard campaign.” “I came down to see Davis, the treasurer of this campaign +fund,” he said. “Davis is in Warren,” I told him. “Well, I stopped off +at Warren on the way down to see him and Davis was not to home. I spent +$30.00 in this campaign and Davis said to come right down after election +and get my money. I thought maybe you could pay it. You are elected, and +I come down to see you.” “Let us see, what did you spend that money for? +How did you spend it?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “I told Davis I could +carry Limestone Township. The way I done it was that I went and bought a +ten-gallon keg of whisky, and I got down by the ferry. The lumberman and +tie markers from up in that township had to go across the ferry. On the +other side I put the keg of whisky in the ferry house. Every man that +came along I says, ‘Come on, boys,’ and they came in to get their ferry +tickets. And I says, ‘Here, have a drink,’ and I gave them a drink, and +I gave them your ticket. I says, ‘Here is a ticket for White; go right +over on the other side and vote, and then when you come back come in and +get another drink.’ They went right, every one of them, and voted, and +they were so anxious to come back and get another drink that they never +stopped to talk with anybody. And that is the way we carried Limestone +Township solid for you.” + +I said, “Well, that is very gratifying, but you know, of course, I am +somewhat of a candidate on the Prohibition ticket. I think you had +better see Davis about this.” “Well, yes,” he says, “that is all right, +I know; I knew you was a candidate also on the Democratic ticket, and +I thought you might pay this out of Democratic money.” (Applause) So +I think probably Davis fixed it without my knowledge. I will ask the +retiring president to introduce to this audience Prof. Hopkins. + +Mr. WALLACE—Permit me to say that Prof. Hopkins has done a wonderful work +in the State of Illinois, and I have asked him to present the results +of that work, or to tell us about worn-out soils. If your soils out in +Kansas are not worn out, they will be unless you mend your ways. Now +you want to listen to Professor Cyril G. Hopkins of the University of +Illinois. (Applause) + +Professor HOPKINS—As agriculture is the basis of all industry, so the +fertility of the soil is the basic support of every form of agriculture. +Without productive land there could be no American agriculture and no +American prosperity. The most important material problem of the United +States is to restore, to increase, and to permanently maintain the +fertility and productive power of our farm lands. In comparison with this +problem others fade almost to insignificance; and we do well to pause +in the rush and hurry of our business life, to measure the agricultural +record of the past and to consider the possibilities of the future. + +I come before this National Congress of patriotic, progressive and +influential men and women, not to present theories or opinions, but +facts and data, which deserve and should command your immediate serious +consideration and your subsequent persistent and effective action. + +Intelligent optimism is right and admirable, but blind bigotry paraded as +optimism is dangerous and condemnable. “Truth, crushed to earth, shall +rise again; the eternal years of God are hers”; and this Congress has +before it the duty and the right to uncover the facts, to face the truth, +and to plan intelligently for the solution of this mighty problem. + +That vast areas of land once cultivated with profit in the original +thirteen states now lie agriculturally abandoned is common knowledge; and +that the farm lands of the great corn belt and wheat belt of the North +Central states are even now undergoing the most rapid soil depletion ever +witnessed is known to all who possess the facts. + + +WHAT CROP STATISTICS SHOW. + +The crop statistics of the United States now cover two twenty-year +periods, and half a decade on the next. A comparison of these two periods +shows the average acre yield in the United States to have increased only +one bushel for wheat and one-half bushel for rye; while corn decreased +one and one-half bushels and potatoes decreased seven bushels per acre. +These crops constitute the basis of our human foods, even our supply of +meat being largely dependent upon the corn crop. Thus, in spite of the +vast areas of new land put under cultivation during the last twenty +years, and in spite of the improvements in dredge ditching and tile +drainage, in seed, and in implements and methods of cultivation, the +average acre yield shows little or no increase. In striking contrast +the census returns show an increase in the population of contiguous +continental United States from thirty-eight million to ninety-two million +people during the last forty years; and in spite of the fact that to feed +our rapidly increasing population we have extended our area of cultivated +crops beyond the humid and far into the semi-arid regions, and in spite +of reducing our corn exports from 213 million to thirty-eight million +bushels and our wheat exports from thirty-four to twelve million bushels +during the last decade, nevertheless the most common topic discussed in +recent years is the high cost of plain living in these United States. + +These are American facts; and, while there need be no sensation, there +is need for sense in their consideration. A few people can live on +blind optimism or hot air, but something more substantial will be +required to feed the progeny of ninety-two millions, and added millions +of immigrants. It is said that the high civilization of the ancient +Mediterranean countries went down into the Dark Ages with laughter—Dark +Ages which covered the face of the earth for a thousand years and which +still exist for most of our own Aryan race in Russia and in India, where +more people are hungry day by day, and year by year, than the total +population of the United States. + +The problem which now confronts America is nothing less than the +maintenance of prosperity for ourselves and of civilization for our +children; for civilization depends upon education, and only a prosperous +nation can afford the general education of its people. Poverty is at once +helpless, and soon ignorant and indolent. An impoverished people cannot +have adequate schools or schooling. + +No greater problem ever confronted any nation than now confronts the +United States, but the solution is plain: In a word, we must increase +production and limit reproduction, especially the reproduction of the +unfit. To solve half of the problem is not sufficient; and, in passing, +I must emphasize the fact that, with the most practical scientific +systems of farming applied to all the farm lands of the United States, +there is still somewhere a limit to the highest possible production of +food and clothing materials in this country; but there is no limit to +the reproduction and increase of population except the starvation limit, +already reached in Russia, India and China; unless the public sentiment +of this Nation, in these times of education and general intelligence, +will support the inauguration and enforcement of legal laws based upon +the established natural laws of heredity. + +Just and adequate legislation should be enacted by the Nation for the +better control of immigration, and by the states for preventing the +reproduction of every form of degeneracy, whether revealed by insanity, +criminality, idiocy, deformity, or beggary. Half of all the state revenue +is already required in many cases for the support of the non-productive +degenerate classes, upon whose reproduction there is still no check in +most states. + + +CROP YIELDS CAN BE DOUBLED. + +That we can double the crop yields of the United States is not a +prediction, but a fact. To say that millions of acres of abandoned farm +lands in the older states can be restored and increased in productivity +far above the present average for the $200.00 corn belt lands is merely +to speak the truth. To accomplish these objects requires, first of +all, that agricultural ignorance shall be replaced with agricultural +intelligence in the minds of the people of influence in this nation. + +Why should not every influential man and woman in America have a definite +and quantitative knowledge of the basic principles that to increase +and permanently maintain the productive power of our normal soils, in +practical systems of farming, requires the addition to the soil and +permanent maintenance of adequate supplies of only three important +constituents, limestone, phosphorus, and nitrogenous organic matter? + +The limestone is contained in measureless deposits in almost every state. +All it requires is that it be quarried and pulverized and transported at +a reasonable cost. + +The phosphorus is contained in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, the +Carolinas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming +and Montana, in the greatest deposits known to the world. All that is +required to utilize these great stores of phosphorus for soil improvement +in good systems of general farming is to mine and finely pulverize +the natural rock and transport it to the farmer’s railroad station at +reasonable cost. + +With abundant supplies of limestone and phosphorus thus provided, the +nitrogenous organic matter can then be produced upon the farm by the +growing of clover and other legume crops which have power to secure +nitrogen from the inexhaustible supply in the air; and by plowing under +this organic matter, either directly or in animal manures, the remaining +essential mineral plant foods, such as potassium, can then be liberated +and made available from the practically inexhaustible supply in the soil. + +The man who is willing to study this subject will find that these facts +are as true as the fact that the earth is round. + +Normal land contains thirty thousand pounds of potassium in the plowed +soil of an acre, and the air above contains seventy million pounds of +nitrogen; and yet the most common commercial fertilizer sold to the +general farmers in the older states contains both nitrogen and potassium, +with a small amount of phosphorus. The average farmer who buys fertilizer +at all merely accepts the teaching that reaches him, and as a rule this +teaching comes through the fertilizer agents, who are now selling to +the farmers of Indiana 900 different brands of fertilizers, and to the +farmers of Georgia more than 2,000 different brands. + +The result is that the ton of fertilizer for which the farmer pays $25.00 +contains less than a hundred pounds of phosphorus, whereas he ought to +receive and apply to his land a thousand pounds of phosphorus for the +same money. + +Phosphorus is the one element we shall always need to buy—phosphorus, the +master key to permanent agriculture, permanent industry, and permanent +prosperity in America; phosphorus, in which we are exporting, practically +giving away, as a nation, a value which amounts to as much every year as +the total value of all the timber on all the Federal lands. + +In 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert began at Rothamsted, +England, an investigation to ascertain the effect of applying phosphorus +to normal soil where a good crop rotation and a practical system of +farming were followed. The Norfolk rotation, already well known at that +time as one of the best rotation systems, was turnips, barley, clover and +wheat. In these practical field experiments the turnips were fed on the +land and the animal fertilizer thus produced returned to the soil, which +was well supplied with limestone. + + +THE USE OF PHOSPHORUS. + +During the next thirty-six years $29.52 worth of phosphorus was applied +to one part of the field; and in comparison with another part of the +field cropped and managed, the same, except that no phosphorus was +applied, the $29.52 worth of phosphorus produced $98.02 increase in the +value of turnips, $37.45 in barley, $48.93 in clover (and other legumes), +and $45.99 increase in the value of the wheat. The total value of the +crops grown on land not receiving phosphorus during the thirty-six years +was $432.43 per acre, while on the phosphated land the crop values +amounted to $662.82, an increase of $230.39 from an investment of $29.52 +in phosphorus. These statements summarize the results of thirty-six years +of careful investigation in practical farming on normal soil; but not +one American in a hundred knows, utilizes, or imparts this information. +Meanwhile the ten-year average yield of wheat in the United States is +fourteen bushels per acre, while Germany’s average is twenty-eight +bushels and England’s thirty-two bushels per acre; meanwhile the United +States continues to export annually, for the paltry sum of five million +dollars, a million tons of our best phosphate rock, carrying away an +amount of phosphorus which, if applied to our own depleted and depleting +soils, would be worth not five million, but a thousand million dollars, +for the production of food for us for the oncoming generations of +Americans. + +As an average of twenty-four years of carefully conducted field +investigations with a four-year rotation of corn, oats, wheat and clover +on normal soil at the Pennsylvania State College, the addition of $5.04 +worth of phosphorus increased the value of the four crops from $32.55 +to $44.72; and a comparison of the two twelve-year periods reveals +the fact that the average crop value per acre per annum decreased on +unfertilized land under this rotation from $11.05 to $8.18, a decrease of +26 per cent in the productive power of the land. Meanwhile the average +farmer, and even the average business man who owns a farm, allows the +land to be depleted and decreased in acre yield because of the erroneous +and widespread opinion that crop rotation will maintain the fertility +of the soil; whereas the truth, as revealed by every long continued and +trustworthy investigation, shows that the rotation of crops will no more +maintain the fertility of the soil than the rotation of the checkbook +among the members of the family would maintain the bank account. + +The rotation of crops should, of course, be practiced, for it helps to +avoid injurious insects and fungous diseases, and stimulates the soil +to produce larger crops for a time, with the result, however, that the +depletion of the essential plant food elements is even more rapid than if +wheat were grown every year on the land. + +In 1897 the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station began a field +investigation on normal soil with a three-year rotation of corn, wheat +and clover—and as an average of the next thirteen years, the application +of eight tons per acre of farm manure increased the value of the three +crops from $26.21 to $42.79, and the further addition of $1.20 worth of +fine-ground raw rock phosphate increased the crop values from $42.79 to +$53.28. + + +WRONG FERTILIZERS. + +Meanwhile the farmers and landowners of Ohio continue, in the main, to +use high-priced so-called “complete” fertilizers in the same systems of +land ruin that led to the agricultural abandonment of much farm land in +the older states. + +As an average of nineteen years, the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment +Station applied $14.45 worth of plant food, chiefly in organic manures +and acid phosphate, which produced an average increase of $62.25 in the +value of the crops in a three-year rotation of cotton, corn and cowpeas, +oats and cowpeas, grown on the typical much exhausted upland soil of the +South. + +The average yield of cotton exceeded a bale to the acre for the nineteen +years. Meanwhile the average yield for the Southern states is one-third +of a bale per acre. + +I have given you some of the cream of the world’s work in soil fertility +investigations on normal soils, which need for their improvement +phosphorus and organic manures, and sometimes limestone. Abnormal, or +markedly different soils, require markedly different treatment. + +Thus four plots of normal corn belt prairie soil in McLean County, Ill., +produced, in round numbers, only twenty-two, twenty-six, twenty-two, and +twenty-seven bushels of wheat per acre in 1911, although some of them had +received nitrogen and potassium; while four other similar adjoining or +intervening plots, which differed from these only by having been treated +with $2.50 worth of phosphorus, in 200 pounds of steamed bone meal per +acre per annum, during the past ten years, produced fifty-eight, sixty, +fifty-four, and sixty bushels, respectively, of wheat per acre. + +But on the peaty swamp soil of Kankakee County, with the same amount of +phosphorus applied to several plots, the acre-yields of corn in 1903 +were seven, four, five, and four bushels, respectively, on four separate +plots, while on four other plots, which differed from these only by +the addition of potassium, the yields were seventy-two, seventy-one, +seventy-three, and sixty-seven bushels of corn per acre the same season. + +Again, on the sand land in Tazewell County, Ill., four plots, including +some treated with phosphorus and potassium, both singly and combined, +produced eighteen, ten, eight, and eighteen bushels of corn per acre +in 1906, while four other plots whose treatment differed from these +only by the addition of nitrogen, produced the same season sixty-three, +seventy-one, seventy-five, and sixty-six bushels per acre. + +It is truly gratifying to acknowledge that the State of Illinois is now +devoting $100,000 per annum to soil and crop investigations and the +dissemination of the information secured, even though this is less than +one per cent of the revenue of the state, all of which come directly or +indirectly from the soil. It is also gratifying to acknowledge that, +according to the crop statistics reported by the Federal Government and +confirmed by the independent crop statistics of the Illinois State Board +of Agriculture, the last ten-year average yield of corn for the State +of Illinois is six bushels higher than during the twenty-five years +before the agricultural experiment station began to exert an influence +upon our agricultural practice, and also that a similar comparison shows +three bushels increase per acre in the Illinois wheat crop—increases +whose aggregate value for the state now exceeds twenty million dollars a +year; and yet I must confess to you that as an average the farm lands of +Illinois are yielding only half a crop; that by soil enrichment alone the +average crop yields of Illinois could be doubled even with the same seed +as we now plant, with the same amount and methods of cultivation and with +our normal climatic conditions. + +On one of our old experiment fields on the University of Illinois farm +the latest three-year average yield of corn grown every year upon the +same land is twenty-seven bushels, while in a crop rotation of corn, +oats and clover the average corn yield for the same three years has been +forty-nine bushels, and where proper soil enrichment is practiced in the +same rotation the average yield of corn has been eighty-seven bushels per +acre—all grown from the same seed, on the same kind of land, plowed and +cultivated the same, warmed by the same sunshine and watered by the same +rains. + +All these are examples not of theory, but of fact—examples of fact which +should be known and emphasized by all influential men and organizations. +We talk of conservation, but 90 per cent of all the talk during the last +five years about the conservation of natural resources has been directed +toward 10 per cent of the resources. On the other hand, to improve and +to save the soils of America will require more than talk. Thought and +action are required, and the time for thought and action is already upon +us. Not conservation of soil fertility; but amelioration of good soils, +restoration of worn-out soils, and then permanent preservation of all +soils. + + +WHAT REAL RECLAMATION MEANS. + +Our reclamation of land must be more than the continued exploitation of +so-called dry farming and irrigation on virgin soils and the drainage of +virgin swamp lands; we must reclaim, in the truest sense of the word, the +millions of acres of depleted and agriculturally abandoned lands lying +at the door of our greatest markets and already favored with an abundant +supply of unused water in the normal rainfall of our older states. + +If 145 million dollars of federal funds can be wisely and profitably +expended (and I believe they can) in providing irrigation for three +million acres in the arid regions of the Far West, and if 300 million +dollars can be expended annually to support our army and navy, as we are +doing even in time of peace, then what should we do in comparison for the +restoration or improvement of the 900 million acres of farm lands in this +country? I would affirm and emphasize the fact that 145 million dollars, +if wisely and economically used, would make a soil survey of every farm +in the United States and furnish every farmer with definite and much +needed information concerning the composition or invoice of fertility +of every type of soil on his farm and proof of practical profitable +methods for its improvement, and still leave an endowment whose income +would support a permanent experiment field or demonstration farm in every +county in every state. + +Private enterprise has already put twelve million acres under irrigation +in the United States, and the Federal Government has added one million +and has projects concerning two million more. This is doubtless all +good work and ought to go on, but the fact still remains that as a +nation we are penny-wise and pound-foolish, with millions of acres of +agriculturally abandoned lands in states surrounding the national capital. + +The rapid investigation of the soils of every state should be +inaugurated, and this should be accompanied by the wide dissemination of +information by demonstration farms showing by actual field trial the most +practical methods of soil improvement and preservation. This is local +work and is best done by the state institutions directly responsible +to their home people, while the Federal Government must direct and +control the reclamation work on the federal lands. Because the revenue +of the Federal Government is ten times the total or combined revenue of +all the states, the federal appropriations to the state agricultural +institutions should be largely increased for the specific purpose +of increasing and extending the knowledge of practical methods for +restoring and improving the fertility of the soil, and these increased +appropriations might well be made in direct proportion to the acreage of +farm lands in the respective states. + +All public schools should offer practical scientific instruction in the +principles of soil fertility, and every man and woman of mental power +should acquire information and exert influence toward saving the soil, +which is second in importance only to saving the soul. But the fact is +that not one American in a hundred knows what the soils contain or what +the crops require. They know of the rivers of Asia and of all the kings +of England, and perhaps of the wars of Caesar and the orations of Cicero; +but they do not know what is required to produce a grain of wheat or +a kernel of corn. And yet there is as much of culture and more of use +and value and of satisfaction in a study of clover roots and plant-food +compounds than in Greek roots and Latin compounds; and I insist that the +study of soil fertility is so simple and easy and so interesting that any +man or woman of ordinary education can become master of the essential +principles by studying the subject an hour a day for a single month. + +President WHITE—Mr. Wallace will introduce Mr. F. D. Coburn, secretary of +the Kansas Board of Agriculture, who will preside this afternoon. + +Mr. WALLACE—You people in Kansas have all heard of Coburn (applause), the +man who adorns, advises, and advertises the State of Kansas and the state +of the West. Mr. Coburn will preside with you this afternoon. (Applause) + +Mr. COBURN—President Wallace, I thank you for your kindly introduction. +Ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, and delegates: Your temporary +chairman will base his claims to your charitable consideration this +afternoon on the fact that he has no speech to make, and further will go +on the assumption that the program which is provided him and for you will +be carried out. I thank you. (Applause) + +President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen: The Missouri delegation is +requested to meet immediately after adjournment. We will now listen to +Dr. W J McGee, the well-known authority on soils, of the U. S. Department +of Agriculture. (Applause) + +DR. MCGEE—The relation of man to the earth on which he lives forms a +worthy theme for those who think and base action on thought. As it is +now, so it has been in every age; every early people had a creation +epic: the noblest of all recounts that out of the dust of the earth God +made man in His own image. The ancients gave chief thought to beginnings +seen vaguely at the best; moderns to current processes which may be +seen clearly and verified by repeated observation. In this way natural +science arose; and under the guidance of Darwin naturalists learned +that living organisms are controlled and perpetuated chiefly by the two +factors of heredity and environment. Into this scheme of nature man +entered, and through mental power gradually assumed control over lower +nature; for man differs from other organisms in that he adjusts himself +to his surroundings largely by reconstructing them. While still retaining +heredity as a vital factor like lower living things, man is essentially +an environment-shaping organism, and lives by doing. The factors of his +existence are heredity and exercise, and it is his role in nature to +reconstruct the face of the earth, to modify all other living things +for the welfare of his kind, and finally, by growing knowledge, to +progressively improve his own kind and ennoble humanity. + +The conservation movement marks a step in human advancement; for it is a +conscious and purposeful entering into control over nature, through the +natural resources, for the direct benefit of mankind. In truth it means +a revolution (arising, like all other beneficent revolutions, in clear +thinking) against an old order of things, preparatory to the framing of +principles on which a new order may arise; and in essence it reaches +those fundamental relations between man and earth which have stirred deep +thought and inspired high motives during all the generations of men. +Conservation is no passing caprice, no fantastic whim of a day; the idea +expressed by the term runs back to the mainsprings of human existence +and of righteousness, and it is in no way surprising that it has already +spread from sea to sea and found lodgment in millions of minds—albeit +still as seed rather than in the full bloom and rich fruitage destined to +follow as question grows into conviction and conviction into action. + + +THE PRESTIGE OF THE TREE. + +As a vital factor in our national life, conservation began with forests +used and destroyed several times faster than they grew. Now a tree is +a noble object, a sacred thing; “the groves were God’s first temples”; +the apple is the theme of earliest legend, and the vine and fig tree +are emblems of domestic peace; the oak is the symbol of strength and +the pine of perpetuity; the memories and affections of the happily born +cluster about the old homestead trees under which their happiest hours +were spent. And so the material argument for conserving forests was +supported by deep-lying sentiment—and what obstacle can long resist the +united assaults of profit and sentiment? Then as growing knowledge showed +that the woods conserve the waters the force favorable to forests was +further increased. At the critical time the prophet of the forest arose +in Gifford Pinchot, and the gospel of conserving nature’s good for the +Nation’s strength took form. + +Even before the public conscience was awakened to the woodland waste +the farm lands available for homesteads were nearly gone out of public +possession, and a plan to eke out the supply by irrigating arid districts +was framed by John Wesley Powell, soldier and scientist, whose grasp of +the relations between man and earth was stronger than any other of his +generation. His plan was extended and carried out by Frederick Haynes +Newell, engineer and builder, one of the live leaders of the conservation +movement. Thus Powell planted and Newell watered, and the wilderness +blossomed; and the aspiration for an independent home-owning citizenry +which shaped the Nation in its infancy, and then fell into neglect, was +revived. The Reclamation Service virtually extended the habitable and +productive area of the country; but its best gift was a re-awakened +desire for homes on the land, a re-kindling of that home sense which is +the mate of patriotism and handmaid of conservation. + +Through genius fostered by stress of pioneering, this became a country +of invention; and through plentitude of coal and wood and iron, +manufacturing grew as never before, until the riches of one after another +of the forests and coal fields and ore beds were exhausted. Meantime +the contact of free citizens with nature—the common touch of man and +earth—made this a country of science, and scientific surveys measured the +mineral resources used and remaining for use. More than any other, Joseph +Austin Holmes came up as the apostle of better things in economical +exploitation and in the saving of human life in mine and factory, and the +last of these stirred deeper sympathy and evoked wider appreciation than +could the merely material considerations untouched by humane sentiment. + + +THE ROOSEVELT POLICY. + +Though moved directly by desire for better use of the rivers, it was on +these three pillars—forests, lands, minerals—that the original structure +of conservation was founded by Theodore Roosevelt, humanitarian and +statesman, no less than president. Yet—“lest we forget”—it cannot be too +strongly emphasized that while the argument for conservation was and +is statable in terms of board feet and acres and tons and dollars, the +strength of the movement lies in the human feeling behind the material +units: in love of trees, in love of home, in love of country, in love of +family and fellow men. In truth, the material argument merely justifies +and gives formal warrant for the sentimental outgrowth born of increasing +intelligence coupled with increasing interdependence between man and +earth—for even like Anteus of old, modern men gain new life by contact +with earth. + +Largely after the conservation movement was under way came the +realization that the water of the country is the primary resource, +since on it depends that productivity without which the lands would be +uninhabitable, the forests non-existent, and the minerals merely so much +inert and worthless matter. Now, the material basis for appreciation of +water has been largely worked out; the quantity has been computed more +carefully than before; the amount required for the maintenance of life +has been reckoned, and it has been shown that the capacity of the country +for population is only half what it would be if the land were more +freely watered. It has been emphasized that there is no assimilation, +or germination, or tissue growth, or reproduction in the absence of +water—indeed it has been shown that these vital processes are apparently +but manifestations of properties inhering in water; but, except here and +there in arid regions and now and then in its esthetic aspects, water +has not yet fully found that place in sentiment which it deserves as the +final measure of life on the land, the direct medium between man and +earth. + +As the movement proceeded it was realized, even before the National +Conservation Commission reported, that all the natural resources (as +commonly defined) are balanced against that human life in which alone +they find use and value; for without men to enjoy them the earth and +the fullness thereof were as dead cosmic matter. So human efficiency +was recognized as a sort of equation expressing the relations between +man and earth, measured by the powers of accomplishment, the prospects +of perpetuity, and the general welfare of mankind; and the survey was +extended, first by Irving Fisher to the public health, considered with +special reference to industrial capacity and viability, and later +(through another agency headed by Liberty Hyde Bailey) to that rural +living which may and should contribute so largely to national strength +and spirit. Thereby the material field and much of the moral purport of +conservation were rounded out, and the lesson of science that man is +master over lower nature became practical and entered into the daily +thought of millions. + + +THE SCOPE OF CONSERVATION. + +Such, in broad outline, has been the course of conservation to date, +that earlier course predetermining the present and future trend of the +movement. Yet forecast or even current view would be futile without +the fullest understanding that, despite the impressive material facts +with which conservationists point argument and convince contemporaries, +the conservation movement is primarily and fundamentally moral, and is +material only in secondary and empirical aspects; the material resources +form property, but the moral forces make men who create property at +will. It is the quality of human knowledge to advance, not uniformly +but per saltum. In the individual a great idea (perhaps the offspring +of subconscious cerebration) springs full-armed—like the daughter of +Jove—under momentary inspiration, and is gradually adjusted to the +general fabric of thought. In the people, a great idea (conceived in some +individual) sweeps from one to another swiftly, according to its fitness +as a new faith, or doctrine, or cult, or means of life, until enough are +inspired to reconstruct the old ideas and customs. + +Somehow, men need these inspirations; they are essential to advancement, +are indeed the very means of mental growth; and the whole course of human +progress is marked by great inspirations. In the unwritten past of our +ancestry (though in the observed life of other races) the recognition of +paternity came as a luminous idea, and the mother-right of savagery was +shifted to the paternal kinship of barbarism, while the deific powers +were transformed from fearsome to gracious. Within the time of written +record, consanguineal tribes gathered into civic groups, yet civilization +became effective only under monotheistic faith and the great inspiration +going out from Palestine with the injunction, “Do unto others as ye would +that others should do unto you.” Later, Luther and Loyola fired mankind +religiously, and Cromwell politically, through inspirations influencing +all Christendom. And then came, through resistance to attempted tyranny +over a strong people and unparalleled weighing of human rights, the +quickened conviction that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty, +and the pursuit of happiness which inspired enlightenment and gave a +new form of government already spread afar over the lands of the earth. +With each inspiration, the moral impulse quickly rose above material +structures and yielded better institutions on the higher plane. + +Now the conservation idea has spread and is still spreading as an +inspiration for which the national mind was ripe; it crystallizes +intuitive feeling as to eternal fitness—the feeling that the riches of +the land belong not to the few but in due share to all, both living and +yet unborn. So in its essence, conservation is a cult based on deep-lying +moral sense; and, just as in the earlier stages of human progress, all +material structures must be adjusted, albeit gradually, to the moral +foundation. Happily, the new cult is peculiarly adapted to our country, +not only by our plentitude of resources and our constructive genius but +by historical association. Ever the highest human aspirations have been +for liberty, equality, fraternity. Our Revolution was fought for liberty, +and our Constitution was framed for equality; and the end of conservation +is fraternity—a stricter honesty, richer patriotism, broader charity, and +warmer philanthropy ripening in the brotherhood of man. + + +MAN AND THE FOREST. + +Since 1776 and 1787, knowledge of the relations between man and earth +has multiplied. Then forests were but haunts for game and obstacles +to settlement—the waters unreckoned, coal unknown, and iron little +used. Then but two elements of national strength were conceived: +(1) land as both means and symbol of homes, and (2) the home-making +people; and on this balance between lower nature and the higher nature +residing in mankind the Nation was founded. In 1908 the several natural +resources, waters, forests, lands, minerals, were in large use and were +balanced against human efficiency, measured chiefly by public health +and viability; yet in the last three years, under the inspiration of +conservation, the spirit of citizenship has spread more than in the +preceding century, until today it is widely recognized that the earth and +all its riches are for all mankind, and the natural resources as a whole +may now be balanced against human welfare in the individual, the family, +the community, and the state, including commonwealth and Nation. + +In this broad view, conservation deals not merely with the sources of +welfare found in lower nature, but in still larger degree with the +higher powers involved in the relations among men—in human rights and +institutions and laws, social, industrial, civil and political. For it +is not enough for the free citizens of this new era to conserve the mere +materials for national power and perpetuity; the Nation itself, with all +that strength of national character which has given us the lead among +the nations, must be conserved for ourselves, our children, and our +children’s children! This is the chief duty of the day. + +While individual and family and community and state are interdependent, +human efficiency begins in the individual. Only in the individual mind, +howsoever warmed by association, are ideas conceived; only by individual +aptitude, howsoever instructed, are tasks accomplished; only by +individual conscience, howsoever quickened, is conduct guided. Individual +standards of righteousness are higher than those of crowds of communities +or states. In war it is the man behind the gun, and in peace the man with +hand on tool or throttle that achieves victory. No state can be powerful +unless its constituent individuals are efficient. Now, individual +efficiency involves suitable food and clothing and dwelling, with health +and sanitary surroundings assuring normal expectation of life. And in +even higher degree it involves those inspirations of humanity; especially +love of kind and love of country, in which incentive buds and ambition +blossoms. These things are among the rights of the individual on which +the strength of the state must ever rest—the rights to life, liberty, +and the pursuit of happiness, of late expressed in the single term, +“Opportunity.” + + +THE RIGHT AND NEED OF WORK. + +The clearest right and most needful opportunity is for work, that +exercise wherein men rise above lower nature, especially productive +labor in which visible results incite the mind and invigorate the hand. +Despite current clap-trap, there is no “inalienable right not to work”; +none have the right to idleness, and the country owes no man a living +unearned, for it is no less true now than of old that “they who work not, +neither shall they eat”; and neither community nor state can conserve its +strength without opening wide the door of opportunity to its constituent +individuals. + +Within any generation, efficiency is attained by individual work—that +exercise which combines with heredity to shape human progress. Yet it +is only through the run of generations that heredity acts and that +individuals, like communities and states, are perpetuated. Indeed, +the essential human unit is neither the individual nor the social +assemblage, but the procreative family. So the ultimate strength of any +nation, and the progress of mankind in controlling lower nature, hinge on +maintenance of the family triad with its vital angles of mother and child. + +Herein moderns may learn something from the ancients and lower races. +When mankind commenced conquest over lower nature, mother-right +prevailed; the mothers were priestesses and law-givers for their clans, +and they and their daughters were esteemed as the bearers of the line +of life. Under the patriarchial condition, the child-bearers were seen +to measure tribal strength, and were set apart and supported, and often +multiplied, through warfare and polygyny, though sometimes degraded into +slaves and chattels. Under the militant motives of early civilization, +when the strength of cities and principalities was measured by the +fighting men, as shown by Fustel de Coulanges in “The Ancient City,” and +Sir Henry Maine in “Ancient Law,” wives and mothers were debarred from +councils and virtually disfranchised. Although “When Knighthood Was in +Flower” and romance in its heyday, the prolific sex was often both cause +and guerdon of strife; and it is only under enlightenment, with its +broad view of general welfare, that the pendulum is swinging toward that +equitable division of rights and duties and responsibilities between the +sexes and ages of mankind inhering in the family. + +In the light of accumulated experience, it is to the interest of +community and state to vouchsafe mother and child exceptional rights; +the prospective mother has a right to family protection and to freedom +of choice in mating, and the bearing mother to both material sustenance +and the spiritual support of affection during her fruitful period. The +child has a right to be conceived in the inspiration of love (the most +potent force in humanity) and born to a welcome—and then to both material +sustenance and moral sympathy during infancy and early adolescence. +These rights may burden individuals and communities, yet the burden is +essential to the richness of heredity and the fullness of humanity. Now +the rights of the generation arise in the family. Conservation came up +with the new concept of continuity, added to that of present power. It +was first felt that each future generation is entitled equally with +the present one to a due share of the natural resources. Yet already +the moral light has shown that each generation in its turn is no less +entitled to the benefits of happy birth and good breeding, to normally +increasing numerical strength, and to the fittest laws and institutions +within reach of the parents, for each child and each generation naturally +inherit not merely parental traits but their share in the community +and state. Already conservation and eugenics and righteous decrial of +race-suicide are awakening a new sense of generational responsibility; +and it grows clearer every day that our present power and prestige +were of little worth unless assured of perpetuity by due regard for +generations coming up and yet to come. + + +THE GREGARIOUS INSTINCT. + +Under gregarious instinct and desire for strength in union, mankind is +grouped in multifarious communities overlapping and combining in such +wise as measurably to control the action of each individual and family, +and shape the character and career of the state. It is the essence of the +community that each surrenders some share of individuality for the common +good; and the benefits usually vary with the nearness of the constituents +in person and in interest. While endlessly protean, communities may be +classed by purpose as (1) for public benefit, (2) for class benefit, and +(3) for private benefit—of which the first and some of the second merge +in the state. Now, the community may be likened to a miller’s bolt, in +that it grades individuals according to characteristics, and in the +overlapping communities of the country each individual falls more or less +fairly into fit place according to the judgment of contemporaries. Yet +the customary flexibility of the community allows the less designing and +more generous constituents to lose position and permits the designing and +selfish to gain undue power—and partly for this reason the communities +for private and class benefit tend to multiply, while communities for +public benefit tend to become subverted to the ends of shrewd and +self-seeking leaders. + +Despite primary dependence on individuals and families, the power +and continuity of the state are measured largely by the strength and +sagacity of its communities, especially those designed for public +benefit. Yet grave dangers lurk in that multiplication and subversion +of communities tending to subordinate public good to private greed. Two +current tendencies may be signalized as especially ominous: (1) through +an insidious legal fiction certain communities for private benefit (_e. +g._, corporations for profit) have come to be viewed as possessing the +property rights of individuals, whereby their constituents (partners, +stockholders, _et al_) enjoy dual privileges as actual persons and in +the pseudo-personalities of their corporations. So that privileged +classes are arising among us, despite a republican constitution under +which all are equal. (2) Through a development not sanctioned by the +constitution, and most solemnly denounced by that steady balance-wheel +of the constitutional convention, afterward First President, the form of +community known as “political party” grew up, and, though first designed +for public benefit, became subverted through self-seeking leadership +into the machine organization, diverting attention of citizens from +the public welfare and promoting graft and bribery and worse evils, +especially in cities—where the party “machine” is commonly a cover for +corruption. These two unrepublican forces have not unnaturally drawn +together, and often combine, interests in private behalf and against +the public welfare; and in them lies the chief menace to the Republic. +Clearly, maintenance of the integrity and power of the state demands +due regulation of these and other community forces. Largely through +the conservation movement, the public conscience and the spirit of +citizenship have been awakened as never before. Citizens are entering +on exercise of their rights as a sacred duty, and through such community +devices as municipal commissions, direct primaries and the gradual +adoption of initiative and referendum and recall, they are rapidly +restoring government of the people, by the people, for the people—the +only form of government assuring perpetuity to a great and progressive +country. + + +THE GROWTH OF ORGANIZATION. + +In a republic such as this, the state (including commonwealth and nation) +merely sums the constituent individuals and families and communities, +and—theoretically—organizes the popular will. Now, the hardest lesson of +the long course of human progress is that of individual responsibility +for the general welfare, a responsibility first realized by the founders +of the Republic and fully realized today by few of our citizens. But +those are of the salt of the earth. Fortunately, our forebears saw the +way to develop a responsible citizenry united in popular government, +the chief requisite being the independent family home on land producing +the prime necessaries of life; and such was the real foundation of the +Republic. Later, manufacturing and transportation grew until a majority +of our electors became industrial dependents and only a minority were +primary producers. Still later, partly through the influence of a +great governmental department under the leadership of a great farmer +for fifteen years, agriculture has again become respectable, and the +tiller of the soil is once more the exemplar of that citizenship on +which the power and prestige of the Republic must ever depend. Thus far +the movement “back to the farm” is hardly shown in population figures, +though clearly indicated by farm values. During the decade 1900-1910, +the farm area increased only 4.2 per cent and the acreage of improved +farms only 15.2 per cent, while the acre value of farm lands increased +108.7 per cent and the aggregate value no less than 117.4 per cent. This +increase is connected with the high cost of living, especially in cities, +though the advance in prices has thus far benefited transportation and +trade rather than the primary producers. In 1900 we paid our railways +$1,650,000,000 and in 1910 about $2,750,000,000, 70 per cent of which was +freightage—an advance of 67 per cent. Considered as a tax on improved +land (justifiably, in that the cost of transportation limits production), +this was $4.00 per acre in 1900 and $5.76 in 1910, an increase of 44 per +cent, or as a per capita tax it was $21.74 in 1900 and $30.00 in 1910, an +increase of 38 per cent—all of which ratios of increase are far higher +than that of farm prices for farm products. Howsoever the factors of our +recent growth are arranged, it is clear that primary production, fallen +behind during recent decades, must be brought up—which can best be done +by fertilizing the acres with brains, and so controlling natural forces +and materials as to increase production both per acre and per worker. + + +THE FARMER’S RESOURCES. + +It cannot be too strongly emphasized that if there be anything in the +lessons of past human progress or in modern science, this is feasible. +During the generations, natural productivity has been multiplied, and +today the sun-power with which the farmer plays is over 1,700 horsepower +per acre for each crop, so that the farmer has larger command over +natural forces than any other industrian. Nor can it be too strongly +emphasized, in the light of all human experience, that the needful +apotheosis of agriculture will at once revive individual and family life, +relieve the burden of living, and restore that independent citizenship +without which the free government in which we so justly glory may hardly +be conserved for the benefit of coming generations. Herein lies a sacred +duty; it is the duty of the whole people forming the Republic, but +especially of the farmer folk who furnish its strength. + +This vast interior, of which the like is not to be found on earth, is the +bread basket and meat hamper of the country. The career of the Nation +is destined to be shaped largely by the teeming crops of its acres in +foodstuffs and clothing wares, and yet more largely by that richer crop +produced through union of man and earth, the strong manhood and gracious +womanhood and prepotent childhood of the highest type of humanity the +world has seen. Yet this consummation will not come without foresight +and effort. The resources must be developed conservatively; lower nature +must be further subjugated; sun-power must be better directed and water +supply better used. The spirit of free citizenship must be fostered +and the franchise exercised fully; tendencies of communities against +public welfare must be counteracted; transportation must be cheapened by +regulation and by proper use of the finest natural system of waterways +on earth. Statesmen in sympathy with the people—and in a republic he is +not a statesman who lacks that sympathy—must be developed in lieu of +pseudo-statesmen serving special privilege. Laws must be enacted and +executed in behalf of all the people, and special and class legislation +must be checked. Public utilities must be controlled in the public +interest and their conduct kept open to the public; corporations must be +given opportunity second only to individuals, but must not be permitted +to invade individuality, nor must partisan issues be allowed to delude +the unwary. These are among the requisites for the continued welfare +of this interior and for the perpetuity of this Nation. The duty and +the responsibility devolve directly on the people; and it is the aim of +conservation to fan and keep aflame the moral light behind the material +movement. + +President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to adjourn the +morning session. We want you to be back here with all of your friends and +everybody that you can get to come, at two o’clock sharp. The afternoon +session is going to be a very interesting one. Everybody should be +present. The Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Walter L. Fisher, will speak +at 2:30. We stand adjourned. + + + + +_EIGHTH SESSION._ + + +President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, delegates to the Third National +Conservation Congress, we will now come to order. Mr. Coburn will preside +this afternoon, and will now take the Chair. (Applause) + +Chairman COBURN—Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting will be opened with +prayer by the Rev. Dr. Munro, of Kansas City. + + +INVOCATION. + + Our Gracious God and our Father, we thank Thee for the + inexhaustible resources which Thou hast placed at our command. + We thank Thee therefore for the infinite possibilities that + are at our disposal. We pray, therefore, that we may use them + wisely, doing those things that will serve and in themselves + will glorify Thee. Not only do we seek Thy glory but we seek + the betterment of mankind and the advancement of humanity and + the elevation of our much loved land. Direct us therefore in + all that we shall undertake to say or do this afternoon. We + thank Thee that in order to make the best of what we have and + what we are and what we possess, even our very circumstances, + Thou hast sent Thine own dear Son to give His life for us that + we might thus be able to reach the holiest heights. Bless those + who speak to us, and direct us in all our deliberations, we ask + in Christ’s name and for His sake. Amen. + +[Here Mr. Bryan entered the room and was received with loud cheers.] + +Chairman COBURN—The first number on this program as presented to the +Chair is entitled “Practical Methods of Soil Cultivation,” to be +treated by Professor A. M. Ten Eyck, the very capable head of the +Kansas Experimental station at Hays. I have pleasure in presenting him. +(Applause) + +[Prof. Ten Eyck’s address will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.] + +Prof. CONDRA—I have in mind a resolution that I think this Congress, +representing more than 1,200 conservation delegates, would like to +adopt. There is a man in the far Northwest who has done much, in the +way of labor and leadership, for the cause of conservation. Let us send +greetings to the Hon. Gifford Pinchot. (Applause) + +President WHITE—I second the motion. + +Chairman COBURN—You have heard the motion, which has been duly seconded. +All of you in favor of its adoption please manifest it by saying aye. The +motion is unanimously carried. + +Chairman COBURN—Conservation and the National Domain. We are fortunate +that this important subject is to be discussed here this afternoon by the +Honorable, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Walter L. Fisher, whom I +now have the pleasure of presenting. (Applause) + +Mr. FISHER—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates of the National +Conservation Congress: I am a conservationist who realizes that many of +the problems of conservation have not yet been rightly solved, but who +has no apologies to make. I am here by a very strenuous effort and the +cancellation of a number of important engagements, in order to express my +continued adherence to the general principles upon which this movement +is founded, and to offer my assistance, officially and unofficially, in +carrying those principles into execution. (Applause) + +As I said a little while ago at another meeting, my statisticians who are +traveling with me tell me I have covered something in the neighborhood +of 16,000 miles in an effort to get a little better acquainted with a +portion of the Department of the Interior. I presume that many of you +would rather hear from me today about that country in the Far North, to +which allusion has already been made, and upon which national attention +has been so rightly concentrated. I refer to Alaska. However, it is my +opinion that in that, as in all other matters, wisest conclusions will be +reached when all the facts are known. I have spent a considerable amount +of time in traveling through that portion of Alaska in which the most +acute problems have arisen. I have been peculiarly fortunate in being +able to cover much more territory than I had believed possible. And I +think I have reached some general conclusions which, while they may be +wrong, nevertheless are the conclusions which I expect to present to the +President and to the Nation in proper time and form. + +I would be perfectly willing to present them to this audience whose +interests in the question I recognize, were it not for the fact that +I am waiting for two reports upon the coal situation which I have not +yet been able to receive. One of these reports is from the geological +survey and one from the director of the bureau of mines, who is just now +returning from the largest and probably the most important coal field in +that country. I have gone over these matters somewhat in detail with the +President of the United States, and am gratified to be able to say to +you and to the public that there are no differences of opinion between +him and me upon those questions—that he is ready, as am I, to suggest a +solution which will at least recognize our obligation for constructive +recommendations upon this important matter. + +For I believe that the thing which is most important for conservationists +to understand is that they cannot shirk their full share of the +responsibility for constructive legislation. Criticism is justly levelled +at a policy of inaction, and that criticism should be disarmed at once +by the conscientious and sincere effort of men who are identified with +this movement, to find a way out. (Applause) I believe that conservation +in its last analysis means nothing but wise development, in the public +interest. (Applause) And I believe that the first public interest is wise +development, but that the emphasis should be put on the character of the +development as much as upon development itself. + + +MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISREPRESENTED. + +The difficulty with the conservation movement so far has been that it has +been both misunderstood and misrepresented. There are those who profess +allegiance to the principles for which you stand, and yet are quick to +find objection to every concrete suggestion for carrying those principles +into effect. There are those who find that the present situation presents +many difficulties, but who content themselves with insisting merely +upon sitting on the lid. I think the proper place for the conservation +movement is with neither of those parties, but with the men who genuinely +recognize that when we have worked out those principles under which +development can go forward without danger of monopoly and for the public +good, the conservation movement should get behind those policies and push +them with all the strength that the public sentiment which has already +been manifested to be behind this movement can exert. (Applause) + +The topic which has been assigned to me, as was first suggested, is +“Conservation and the Public Domain.” It is a large subject, and as I +have had no opportunity whatever to do more than to make a few casual +notes on the train, you will have to pardon the informality and the +inadequacy of the address which I shall present. + +I will probably make some mistakes in what I say; probably in the wording +of some things I shall not be quite as accurate as I would like; but I +reserve that right now, which I reserve at all times, to change my mind +tomorrow morning if I see things differently then. (Applause) + +In the first place, the conservation movement is a thoroughly +non-partisan movement, and it should be distinctly so understood. +Perhaps the best evidence of that that occurs to me upon the moment +is that when the Conservation League of America was formed, at the +instigation of Theodore Roosevelt, then President of the United States, +he became honorary president, and Mr. Bryan and Mr. Taft became honorary +vice-presidents. (Applause) While the position of president fell to me, +John Mitchell and Gustave Schwab, perhaps representing the two extremes +of industrial interest, were vice-presidents of the organization. In +this way I think we presented in the organization of that particular +association a thing which I wish to bring home, so far as I can, to +the American people, namely, that there is no partisan politics of any +kind in this movement, neither industrial politics, nor any other kind +of politics, but that it is the interest of the people, and the whole +people, and of no one but the whole people, that is at stake. + +The national domain naturally divides itself into the great subdivisions +of lands, minerals, forests and water. If you will pardon me for a moment +I will undertake to present, very candidly, some views of my own upon +each of these topics. Of course, the first to which I have referred, that +of land, embraces the entire subject, because, broadly speaking, the +land is supposed to include the mineral within it, the water which flows +over it, and the forests which grow on it. Nevertheless, there are many +problems included within the public domain which distinctly relate to +land as land, and contradistinguished from the other main subdivisions or +topics that I have mentioned. + + +NOT A NEW POLICY. + +Now, there is a great hue and cry, in certain sections, that in some way +the Nation has departed from its ancient policies, with reference to +land. It is my personal conviction that no change has been made that has +not been necessitated by changed or different conditions. For instance, +when we started out in this country, the forest area as a whole was not +particularly valuable for lumber, but on the contrary it was an obstacle +to agricultural development. The forest had to be cleared before the land +itself could be put under cultivation, and that related particularly to +the most valuable land. It was covered with forests. As we got into the +central West that particular problem began to disappear. We had less +difficulty in removing forests. We found more prairie and upland ready +for the plow, and the result was that the question of forestry, the +question of the removal of the timber became of diminishing importance. +When we got into the extreme West we found a great subdivision in the +character of our federal domain. While we found forested areas in the +mountains, and in the more broken country, we found that the great +territory lying west of the Mississippi river was in the main free from +trees. But we have only recently learned that the land which never had +the tree upon it, which has upon it today nothing but the sage brush, +is after all the most valuable agricultural land which the Nation has +possessed. We have found that the great problem of today in the West is +how to get water upon the desert so that it may blossom like the garden +and may become the most fertile and most productive portion of our +national domain. As a result, the relative importance of the forest from +the agricultural point of view has diminished, and the problem in the +West today, as I have seen it during weeks of travel through irrigation +projects, Indian offices, land offices, is how to get the water on the +land, and the settler to follow the water. And I think if our friends +who are particularly concerned about excessive forest reservations would +devote their attention, first to getting settlers on those lands, which +are worth ten times what their forest area is worth for agricultural +purposes, the development of the West will go forward more rapidly than +in any other way. (Applause) There are, however, many special problems +connected with the land question that it is necessary to solve, and I +shall pass rapidly to some of them. + +Let us take the question of coal. There is a large area of coal reserved +in the Western country from present entry. This coal land, under the +statute which now prevails, is rapidly becoming available. There is +considerable disappointment or disapproval of the policy of withdrawal +of coal lands in certain portions of the West. Usually, as I have found +by personal contact with the people of those areas, and by discussion +at public meetings, the disapproval is on the part of the people who +wish to exploit coal by getting it and holding it without present +development, in expectation of reaping the unearned increment from the +future growth of the country. Recently a letter was written to me, and +given wide publicity by a member of Congress, to which I intend shortly +to pay some attention, and I think perhaps at this time it would be just +as well to discuss one or two of the features that are embodied in this +correspondence. Congressman Mondell, of Wyoming, has written a letter in +which he complains that the present policy of classifying public coal +lands has resulted in increasing the price of coal to the consumer from +fifty cents to a dollar a ton; that it has created a monopoly in the +hands of the government, and that the prices are prohibitive. + + +SOME RESOURCE FIGURES. + +I think that at this time, perhaps, it would be well to give some figures +upon these various points, and I shall take this opportunity to do so. +There are estimated to be, west of the 100th meridian, 620 billion tons +of anthracite and bituminous coal; 650 billion tons of sub-bituminous, +and 720 billion tons of lignite. The valuation which the Department +of the Interior, through its geological survey, has placed upon these +lands, is based upon the theory that the purchaser, instead of paying +a flat rate per acre, pays by the ton for the coal which he buys at +values graded according to the character of the coal. For instance, the +price of land underlaid by anthracite and high grade bituminous coals +is computed at the maximum of three cents a ton, whereas sub-bituminous +coal of only moderate fuel value is rated at one-half cent per ton. An +exception to the tonnage basis is made in cases of lignite in the lowest +grades of sub-bituminous coals. These are valued at the prices fixed by +law as the minimum prices at which coal land can be valued. No lignites +whatever have been given values of hundreds of dollars an acre, as has +been claimed, nor any value better than the minimum, $20, fixed by the +statute if within fifteen miles of a railroad and $10 if at a greater +distance. The tonnage value for coal sold in the ground, according to +the best information obtainable, should be in general from one-fifth to +one-half of the royalty value of the same coal if paid for as mined. +The classification prices used by the Geological Survey are, in fact, +lower—in some cases very much lower. It is plainly impossible that the +result of the classification policy has been to increase the cost of coal +to the consumer as much as fifty cents on a dollar a ton, as claimed, +since the maximum government price is only three cents a ton. + +The State of Colorado charges a royalty itself of ten cents a ton for +coal mined from the state lands regardless of the quality of the coal. +The State of Wyoming fixes royalties for all grades of coal mined from +state lands at from three cents to six cents per ton, depending upon +the quality produced. Private leases in Wyoming require as high as ten +cents, and for small local mines, much higher rates. Fifteen cents, for +instance, is the royalty in the Mills City and Roundup districts of +Montana, and in the Trinidad and Boulder countries in Colorado it runs +from eight to twenty-seven and one-half cents. The government price on +federal lands is in no case more than three cents a ton, and the great +majority of the Western fields are being classified at from half a cent +to two cents a ton. Now, that system of valuation results in prices of +which only a comparatively small part are $150 or more. Great areas +are valued at the minimum fixed by statute, and other great areas at +comparatively low figures. Values running into the large amounts will be +found only in the anthracite and the other high grade bituminous fields. + +In many of the cases the prices fixed are less than the actual market +price of private land of the same character in the same field. For +example, coal lands in the Rock Springs field of Wyoming are reported +to have been sold from $100 to $430 per acre. The government prices in +this field will run from $20 to $465, the high price being for land with +greater tonnage than that which would be covered by the $430 price paid +by private interests. In the Colorado Springs district of Colorado these +private land sales are reported from $100 to $500, while the classified +price in that district ranges from $20 to $50. Now, it is true that in +some of the cases prices by the acre are greater than the prices fixed +for corresponding acreage elsewhere, even in the Eastern field, but the +reason will be found to be in all those cases that the extent of the +coal, the thickness of the vein and the number of the veins is greater. +Land in certain fields of Pennsylvania is selling at $2,000 an acre, on +the other hand, whereas the highest price fixed by the government on any +of its lands is $600 an acre. + + +THE CLASSIFICATION POLICY. + +It has been said that these prices are prohibitive. I have had a table +prepared showing what the results have been in the four fiscal years that +have passed since the adoption of the classification policy as compared +with the preceding four years, and as a result I find that the sales of +public coal land have increased 12½ per cent in acreage and 36 per cent +in value, as compared with the four preceding fiscal years. + +I am giving these figures, and discussing this somewhat dry question at +this time because of the fact that public attention is being attracted +to these questions, and that a certain amount of either misunderstanding +or misrepresentation is going vigorously on. The truth of the matter is +that the government has offered incentive to development along this line +greater than prevails in the private field. Why has it not been more +vigorous? May I put the question to you, whether it may not be that +we are making the mistake which Australia and New Zealand have already +recognized and corrected? And that we should put our coal lands where the +conservation movement, where the National Conservation Association and +the other conservation organizations have advocated placing it, under a +rational leasing system? If I am right (applause) the present objections +largely disappear. + +I was very much interested at the reception which was given to the +presentation of some of these facts to the audiences that I addressed +in Seattle and in other places, and to find that the suggestions made +to them met with hearty concurrence so far as I could judge, when +they clearly understood the facts, when they once clearly understood +what had been the history in other fields where coal was put under a +leasing system. For instance, I find the suggestion made that Canada was +proceeding much more wisely and much more profitably and successfully in +its coal development policy than the United States. But when I read the +statutory law of the Yukon territory, and ascertained that every foot of +coal land that is disposed of in that territory now is under a leasing +system, I found that the argument went home. So it is with all of these +other questions. There are great problems to solve, and it should be up +to us to help solve them, although not entirely to us. The gentlemen on +the other side, who are complaining of delay, have their share; but the +responsibility, gentlemen, is upon us all, and we should all frankly +recognize it. + +What is the ordinary history of coal lands in this country? What has +been the history in the East and the central West? That the coal lands +have been originally entered or acquired in one form or another by +private owners, and that the original private owner seldom developed the +mines. He sold or he leased to someone else. If he sold, the chances +are that the purchaser himself leased the land; until you will find +that a great part of the coal lands of the United States that are now +under development, are being operated under leaseholds of one kind or +another. So in the far West. Take the railroad mines. I had the pleasure +of riding with the officials of some of these railroads in the West, +who have control of the coal lands of the companies. And when I asked +them what their policy was for the development of these lands, without +exception thus far—there may be exceptions, although I haven’t heard of +them—without exception this far, they stated they were developing their +coal lands under the leasing system, and regarded it as the only proper +way. If that is so we should at least pause long enough to consider +whether that policy is not the right one for the Nation, and adopt it if +right, and discard it if it is wrong. + +After this coal is leased what do we find? We find that unrestricted +development, that development which is thrown open to the laws of +commercial competition, does not always work wisely. Our coal fields now +generally throughout the country, are largely overexploited, with the +result that during a considerable portion of the time the coal mines are +empty, the miners are idle and depression reigns, and we find what always +happens—demoralization and frequently disorder; for it takes, gentlemen, +steady work to make steady men. And you have got to get that principle in +your coal fields if you are going to be successful with them. (Applause) + + +THE HISTORY OF THE FORESTS. + +Take the history of the forests to which I must hastily turn. When I +talk with the lumber interests of the country—and inquire about the real +facts as to the condition of the lumber trade—I find that large holdings +throughout this country are being held in private hands and undeveloped, +uncut, although they admit that much of it is ripe and ready for the +ax and the saw. Why? Because of conditions in the market. I find them +complaining of the fact that large areas have been thrown open to people +without capital who have thought that there was a way to quick and easy +wealth, who have made their obligations to the banks, and who have to +meet the interest charges, and the minute that the price of lumber goes +down the only way they can meet it is by throwing upon the market more +lumber, with the result of consequent demoralization of the trade. And +all the while the large interests protect themselves by buying at the +lower prices and holding out of development as much of their areas as +they can. Now, that, it seems to me, is fundamentally unwise. We should +wish to dispose of our national resources in such a way that development +will be absolutely assured and that holding them for future profit will +be absolutely prevented (Applause), because in the last analysis, all of +this burden comes back upon the consumer’s shoulders. We never escape it. +If we sell the coal land to the individual, and he sells to another at +an added price, and he to another, and then finally it is leased to the +fourth, who actually operates, we can depend upon it that the consumer is +paying the carrying charge upon each of the profits that the first three +have successively obtained. If we adopt the policy, as in Australia, that +the mine holder cannot hold his lease unless he develops, that he must +pay a fixed rental of a certain amount in any event, we will create an +automatic check which will work largely to remedy the evil of which both +the public and the honest dealer complain. (Applause) + +Now, I want to turn for a moment to the irrigation question, because no +one can have traveled over this Western territory as I have done and +made personal investigation of the work of the Reclamation Service, and +of the work being carried on by private interests in the same direction, +without being tremendously impressed with the immense public benefit +derived from activities of this sort. And yet that service presents +certain concrete difficulties. For instance, our reclamation law provides +that we must divide our payments into ten annual installments, and that +the settler does not obtain title to his land until he has paid all of +the installments. It requires continuous residence as well as continuous +cultivation. + + +CHANGES OF LAW NEEDED. + +Some examination of the question has convinced me, as I now see the +facts, that a modification should be made in both of those directions. +I believe that the law should be so changed that the settler upon the +irrigated lands who has cultivated his land for a certain period of time, +who has lived upon it a sufficient period of time, to be fixed by law, +to make sure that he is a bona fide settler, should be enabled to get +title to his land and be enabled to borrow money upon it and develop it +as any other individual should (Applause), subject at all times to the +lien of the government for the unpaid installments. (Applause) I find +that that suggestion meets one of the principal, if not the principal +objection which has arisen in the West on the part of men who are +enthusiastic adherents of the policy of irrigation through the government +agencies and who still find that the law has not been completely adapted +to their particular conditions. For instance, suppose the law required +that a settler should continuously cultivate his land during the first +two years, and that he should live upon it the last three years of a +five-year period, and should then be enabled on proof of cultivation, +continuous and progressive cultivation, and of residence for the time I +have mentioned, that he could then acquire title subject to the lien of +the unpaid five installments, I believe that it would be to the great +advantages of the public and to the settler, to bring about that reform. +What will be the result? In many instances the farmer, the settler, +would transfer the burden of the debt from the government to the bank. +He would go to the bank, make better terms than it would be possible +for him to make with the government under the law with regard to the +unpaid five installments, and the result would be that the banks would +be carrying the burden of the indebtedness, as they should as a part of +their legitimate function in the community; while the government would +have released to it those installments for use in some other place where +the settlers are crying for the advent of the Reclamation Service. These +are some of the great questions that come up and which in very definite +form impress me as being the most important that we can consider. I +believe that we should undertake a solution of problems of exactly +that character. I think when we do this that the objection which has +been raised in many quarters to conservation as being theoretical will +instantly disappear. + + +WATER POWER. + +There is only one other topic on which I wish to speak, and that is the +question of water power. I have very little to say about that. At the +last meeting of this Congress in St. Paul, I presented in a somewhat +brief and compact form my views upon that question. I believe that no +solution of the water power question will be worked out in the United +States until state and nation are working together at the problem. +(Applause) Not only is there no necessary or natural conflict between +state interest and federal interest, but those two interests must be +coördinated before we reach a right solution. We find a quite general +attempt on the part of those who have interests that may not be free +from suspicion to arouse a feeling of state pride, of state interest, +as against the federal government. I think that those interests can +be properly worked out and reconciled. I believe that the natural and +legitimate interest of the state, the locality, is in the regulation +of the service, and of the rates at which the power is sold. I believe +that the interest of the federal government is in the development of the +streams as units, and that no other instrumentality can so effectively +work out that portion of the problem. Then why not adjust the two? Why +not adopt, as the cardinal principle in our water power development, that +the federal government shall make the grant subject to the reservation +that the grantee will at all times acquiesce in whatever reasonable +regulations of service and rates may be made by the state or by any +delegated agency of the state. There should be compensation and there +should be periodical readjustment of the compensation paid to the federal +government, so that every ten years, or whatever the period may be, +there will be enforced upon the public authorities, state and national, +an inquiry into the condition of the water power grants, and their +development. If with this we will adopt the fundamental principle that +every dollar of the compensation paid to the federal government, except +that necessary for administration, should go back into the development +of the stream, and the water shed of the stream, from which the revenue +was derived, so far as needed for that purpose, we, in my judgment, +will have reconciled and coördinated those two agencies so that they +will work together like the best team that any of you men drive on any +of your farms. (Applause) And the protection of the public interest, in +my opinion, will to some extent be automatic. For what will happen? If +the federal government at the end of the first ten-year period wishes +to readjust the compensation, it will make an inquiry, and if it finds +that that particular grantee is furnishing proper service at proper +rates to the community, that the state or its delegated agencies have +properly exercised their functions of regulation, there will be neither +opportunity nor incentive to increase the compensation. But if, upon +the other hand, the state has been derelict in its duty, if it has not +protected the public interest, the Nation will be able, by the increase +of the compensation, to prevent undue profits and, indeed, to make it to +the financial interest of the grantee to see that that situation does not +happen again. And always the legitimate interests of the grantee must be +adequately protected. + +Now, these are some of the concrete questions which come up in the +Department of the Interior with regard to the federal domain. They all +relate to the general principle for which we stand. They all come back +to that fundamental proposition, that the purpose of conservation is +to secure wise development in the interest of the public as a whole. +(Applause) + +Chairman COBURN—The powers that be, and over which I have no control, +have seen fit to readjust this program, whereby Mr. Bryan, who was to +have addressed us this evening, will speak this afternoon and again to +this Congress tonight at eight o’clock. He is with us on the platform +this afternoon, and I have asked him to stand up and say a word to you, +in order that you might give him the glad hand. I take pleasure in +introducing the Honorable William Jennings Bryan. (Applause) + +Mr. BRYAN—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. I did not come to this +Congress to speak as an expert. I came merely to testify to my interest +in a great and growing subject. When they told me that the time of +my speaking was postponed from this afternoon until this evening, I +consented on condition that they would appoint others to assist me +in entertaining the audience. I was afraid that I might not be able +long to satisfy the audience assembled. So they have arranged with two +others, with whom I shall divide the time and I know that that may be an +inducement to you to come. (Applause) + +I feel that it is necessary for me to fortify my invitation with theirs. +Now, if this were a subject upon which I had been speaking, I might make +it a condition that no one else would be permitted to speak (Applause), +for there are a number of subjects upon which I can speak at sufficient +length to occupy an evening. But this is not one. I mention it at this +time in order to emphasize the fact that as I have insisted that two +others shall help me tonight you will understand why I do not attempt to +divide my short speech into an afternoon and evening speech. I am afraid +that I will have little enough to say if I put it all into one speech, +and yet I confess to you that I do not know now how long I shall talk +tonight. + +I feel the spirit of the meeting taking possession of me (Applause); +and by night I may ask my associates to limit their time. (Applause) I +find that every time I hear a speech on this subject the subject seems +larger. I am gratified that I could hear the speech made this afternoon +by the Secretary of the Interior. Whatever others may say on this +subject, his speech must of necessity be of paramount interest, because +most of us can only advise without any great assurance that the advice +will be accepted, but the Secretary of the Interior acts, and we are +all interested in knowing the lines upon which he will act. I have been +interested in the brief outline that he has given us this afternoon—the +conclusions which will doubtless be set forth at more length in his +official report. Tonight I want to speak on a little broader line. He +has covered conservation as it commenced, conservation as it relates to +his department; conservation of land, of the forest, of the water and of +water power. These are the things that are in his domain; but I confess +that as I have studied the subject it reaches out until it touches all +parts of our lives, and that is why I am so uncertain as to how long I +will talk tonight. I know the limit of my speaking, the maximum, but I +would not attempt to fix a minimum. (Applause) I spoke once, twenty years +ago, and more, at a little meeting not far from Lincoln. On the train as +I was going out to this place I met a citizen of Lincoln who said that +he did not think a man could be interesting on any subject for more than +one hour. Well, I was in the habit of talking more than an hour, and it +worried me a little to think that anybody believed that I could not be +interesting as long as I talked. (Applause) I combated the proposition, +but he seemed so fixed in his opinion that I soon gave up the discussion. +When I arose to speak in the afternoon he was present, and his presence +embarrassed me, and at the end of an hour he arose and left the meeting. +(Applause) + +I don’t know how many of you entertain his views, and I may hesitate to +run beyond the hour. I heard of a man who spoke in Yale, and just before +rising to speak he asked the chairman of the meeting how much time he +would be permitted to occupy. He was assured that he could speak as long +as he pleased, but the chairman said that a very careful examination of +the records revealed the fact that no one who had ever spoken at Yale had +said anything after the first twenty minutes. (Applause) I do not know +how many of you have received your training at Yale. I have a general +outline in my mind; I want to sum up some things; I want to speak of the +phases of conservation that are most prominently presented, and then I +desire to show how this subject is connected with every large thing, +with these larger things that underlie civilization itself, and I am +afraid to commence on that speech this afternoon, for fear I may become +so interested that I will give it to you now and have nothing to say +tonight. (Applause) + +Mr. WALLACE—A letter from Col. Roosevelt, Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of +the Congress. We have had a great meeting, but we have not had everybody +here that we wanted to get. We wanted Gifford Pinchot, but he had to go +to Alaska. We wanted Mr. Page, but he was obliged to go into the hands of +a doctor instead of starting here. We wanted James Garfield, and he was +expected to come until the last moment, and then had to stop. We wanted +Roosevelt; I wrote him and he declined. I wrote him that I would not +accept his declination, and then he wrote me a letter telling why. Then I +wrote him for permission to read that letter here, as that would be the +next best thing to himself, and here is the letter. + + DEAR MR. WALLACE: + + If only you could be in my office and see the numerous letters + I receive requesting me to speak for matters which I regard as + of very great consequence to the welfare of our people, you + would realize, as naturally it is now impossible for you to + realize, that I simply cannot possibly accept the invitation + to speak at the Conservation Congress. I believe with all my + heart in conservation; I believe in the movement against + child labor; I believe in the movement against the white slave + traffic; I believe in every rational movement to promote the + cause of temperance; I believe in the cause of industrial + and agricultural education; I believe in the movement for + playgrounds in every great city; I believe in the movement + for the betterment of rural life conditions; I believe in the + movement to secure workmen’s compensation acts; I believe + in the movement for bettering tenement house conditions; I + believe most emphatically in something being done carefully + to investigate the increased cost of living, and to see just + how much of the increase paid by the consumer goes to the + producer, and how much is absorbed by the middleman, properly + or improperly; I believe in a very great number of similar + movements, all of them of very real importance. Within the + last month, I have had requests to speak for each one of the + movements I have mentioned, and for very many others; and each + body of men who made the requests sincerely felt that their + movement stood on a very different plane from any other, and + that while they entirely agreed with me that I ought not to + speak generally, and that especially I ought not to speak + for the other movements, yet they were perfectly sincere in + their belief that for their movement I must and should speak. + Now, my dear Mr. Wallace, I cannot speak for one unless I + speak for the other movements. After I came back from abroad, + I felt that I ought to try to show my appreciation of what + the American people had done for me in the only way that was + possible—by trying to visit each section, and if possible each + state, and speaking therein for some one of these causes in + which I believe. In different sections and different states, + I have spoken for all of them, and for innumerable others. In + particular, I have spoken again and again for the cause of + conservation, and as a matter of fact have spoken for it far + more frequently than for any other of the great social and + industrial movements for righteousness in which I so thoroughly + believe. I have found by actual experience that every speech + I make simply means that I am asked to make a hundred others, + and that (and this is notably the case as regards conservation) + instead of the fact that I have spoken with all my heart + for any movement and said all I have to say for it, being + accepted as a reason why I should not speak for it again, it is + apparently accepted as a reason why I should keep on speaking, + and keep on repeating these speeches I have already made. This, + however, is not only true of conservation. In Berkeley, last + year, across the bay from San Francisco, I delivered an address + on the three hundredth anniversary of the authorized version of + the Scriptures, and not only did this result in my being asked + to repeat the address in New York, Detroit and Memphis and a + number of other Eastern cities, but I was actually and in good + faith urged to come back, only one month later, and repeat the + address in San Francisco itself! + + If I had gone on speaking as my good friends wished me to + speak, I not only should have had to abandon all thought of + doing anything else, and have become practically an itinerant + giver of free lectures, but what would be much more serious, I + should have lost all weight and power to do good to any cause + and this purely by yielding to the demand of good men who wish + me to speak for good causes. If I stop at all I have to stop + entirely—at least for the time being. Now I hate to have to + answer you in this way. If you will come on here to New York + and give me the chance to have the talk with you that I would + so like to have, I will show you a mass of correspondence which + I am sure will make you realize that I cannot answer in any + other way than I am now answering. I am very sorry. + + Very sincerely yours, + + THEODORE ROOSEVELT. + +Chairman COBURN—The next number on this program is by Mr. A. P. Grout, of +Illinois, representing the National Soil Fertility League, who will talk +to you on “The Rape of the Soil.” I may say in passing that Mr. Grout is +one of the biggest farmers in Illinois, and this is he. (Applause) + +Mr. GROUT—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am to speak for a few +minutes upon a subject or condition that has been developed in the soil +management of this country. I speak to you as a farmer, one who has not +only had experience as a farmer, but who must plead guilty to the charge +of having been, in the no distant past, no better than the rest, for a +due regard for truth compels me to admit that I have been something of a +soil robber myself. In the course of time my connection and familiarity +with the work of the Illinois College of Agriculture, the Illinois +Farmers’ Institute, and the constant reading of Wallace’s Farmer and +other good agricultural papers, awakened and brought me to a realization +of some of the facts or truths regarding soil fertility. + +One of my first attempts at reform was with a tenant to whom I had +rented a farm, for cash rent, for fifteen years, with full license to +manage and farm as he pleased. On the occasion of the renewal of the +lease after my awakening, I suggested that I have a part in directing +how the land should be farmed, with a view of making a start toward a +better conservation of the soil. One of the first things I mentioned was +that the straw be put back upon the land and not burned as had been the +practice. I was very emphatically informed by the tenant that he would +not scatter straw on the land for any man, and so far as I know he kept +his word. He is no longer my tenant, for having once been converted to +the reform soil conservation movement I had no idea of turning back. From +my own experience in farming and from a longer experience in renting +lands and in watching the methods of many farmers and the results they +obtained, I have formed some very positive opinions in regard to the +subject of soil treatment. + +The maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil is paramount to +all other industrial problems, and upon our ability to solve this problem +and the extent to which corrections can be made in the present ruinous +and destructive methods of soil management, depend the future prosperity +and welfare of the Nation. + +No country in the world has been so favored in those natural conditions +and resources which are necessary for the maintenance of an independent +and prosperous people. This wonderful heritage has been bequeathed to +us, not to dissipate and destroy, but to use and enjoy and transmit +unimpaired to our successors. + +We are tenants in possession of this vast estate, but the obligation to +maintain to the end of our tenancy in as good condition as when entered +upon has been given little or no consideration, but has been recklessly +disregarded. + +We view with alarm the advent of the time when what remains of the +forests, the coal, the iron and other valuable minerals and utilities +shall become exhausted or come into the possession of purely selfish +interests. + + +THE FUTURE AND ITS NEEDS. + +We are solicitous not only regarding our own present wants, but are +beginning to think of the future and of the results that will accrue to +coming generations. + +It is not surprising, therefore, that the conservation of our natural +resources has aroused a deep and widespread interest, but the great +and most important and far-reaching of all our resources, namely, the +fertility of the soil, is the last to receive recognition. While the +situation regarding this most important resource, the very foundation +upon which is based our national prosperity, is most alarming and fraught +with great danger and disastrous results, it is not a new development, +but is as old as the hills. It is the culmination of the customs and +practices handed down to us from the earliest settlement of the country. + +The attempt of a few men to monopolize and profit by the undeveloped +resources of the country is an unimportant and trifling matter compared +with the wanton depredations of thousands and tens of thousands of soil +robbers in every part of the broad domain who are madly striving to mine +and forever remove from the soil those natural deposits without which our +once rich and fertile lands must become a barren waste. + +We are now reaping the legitimate harvest of blindly and persistently +following the traditional methods handed down from father to son. +Traditions and practices based upon no scientific knowledge, but founded +upon the belief that all of agriculture, all of the necessary knowledge +and wisdom for its successful practice, is vouchsafed only to him who +drives the team and follows the plow. + +The fertility of the soil, the most important and valuable asset of this +or any other country, is being dissipated, squandered, stolen and carried +away to an extent that calls for serious and thoughtful consideration. + +It is not an easy matter to discover or to frame an excuse for the +dissipation of the thing that is now, and ever has been, the foundation +of all our prosperity and upon which we are absolutely dependent for food +and clothing as well as the comforts and luxuries of life. Perhaps the +most charitable view of the situation is to attribute it to ignorance, +to a lack of scientific agricultural knowledge, or to the fact that +those who have classed themselves as farmers have been attempting to do +business with little or no fundamental knowledge of the business in which +they are engaged, and may be denominated only as “near farmers.” + +Surely it never was contemplated in the great plan of the universe that +the provisions for the support and maintenance of millions of inhabitants +should be gradually diminished until starvation and destitution are the +ultimate end. + + +THE WASTE OF RAW MATERIAL. + +Science has come to the rescue and demonstrates that the enormous waste +and destruction of raw material, of the elements which go to make up what +we denominate soil fertility and which should continue unimpaired for the +benefit of future generations, is not only unnecessary but fundamentally +and perniciously wrong. Who are the conspirators in this wholesale +robbery, which sooner or later must result in national calamity? Contrary +to every business principle and to every known law of compensation, and +almost without exception, every land owner, whether he be a farmer, a +banker, a professional or business man, all have been imbued with the +idea that the soil is an inexhaustible asset from which they can continue +to draw indefinitely and without replenishment. + +The banker is accustomed to look upon the ownership of land as a +safe investment, and if he can rent it and make a fair per cent on +his original investment he is content and takes no thought of any +encroachment that may be made by the tenant farmer upon his principle, +upon that which constitutes the real value of his land. + +The same is true of most business and professional men who own farms. +They do not appreciate or understand that every crop requires that +certain essential elements must be in the soil for its growth and +development, and that the removal of each crop takes away a certain +amount of those elements, and the future productive capacity of their +farms are thereby lessened. As a rule these men do not profess to have +very much knowledge either of the art or science of agriculture, but they +are guided in the management of their farms by the methods and customs of +those who claim to be farmers and make farming their business. + +They are led to do this on the presumption that the farmers know and +understand the business of farming just as thoroughly and completely +as the business man knows his specialty. They have overlooked the fact +of the old prevailing idea that education, preparation, and even very +much ability, is not only unnecessary, but a positive detriment to the +business of farming. + +The renting of land has, by long usage and practice, been construed as a +license to rob and pillage without fear or hindrance. + +The problem at this time is to combat the customs of long standing +and introduce sane and scientific methods of farm management and +soil treatment. The real offenders in this great wholesale scheme of +soil robbery and dissipation are the farmers themselves. The men who +are supposed to possess a thorough knowledge and understanding of +the business of farming and who, above everything else, should most +scrupulously guard, preserve and protect the thing that denominates +and is the unquestioned and absolute measure of their success. When +we judge of their qualifications as farmers by showing they have +made in permitting the farms intrusted to them to deteriorate in +productive power, the true situation reveals itself. There is no use in +sugar-coating the situation. These men are not farmers, but soil robbers. +I speak as a farmer or I would not dare to make such a statement. We +have mined and shipped away the valuable constituents of the soil until +its productive capacity has been, in a comparatively few years, reduced +far below that of many European countries that have been farmed for a +thousand years. + + +THE BUSINESS OF FARMING. + +What further proof is wanted that there is urgent need of reformation in +farm management? We cannot disguise the fact that many men have adopted +the vocation of farming, and have thereby undertaken the conduct of a +business which requires not only intelligence of the first rank, but more +fundamental, scientific knowledge, better judgment and greater ability +than any other industrial calling in the world, with few or none of the +necessary qualifications for the business. To be more explicit, in the +great majority of cases, the man has not made good in his calling. + +The business now demands a higher order of qualifications and more +knowledge than is possessed by the majority of our farmers. I do not +mean by this that the farmers of this country are incapable of better +things or that they have not the ability, when properly directed, to do +intelligent and scientific farming, but quite the contrary. + +The farmers of this country need and must have more education and +scientific knowledge along the line of their special business. They must +learn what the farmers of the older countries learned through force of +circumstances many years ago. + +We have heard from this platform during this Congress that average yield +of crops in some European countries is more than double the yield in this +country, although their lands were originally not so rich and fertile as +ours and they have been cultivated and cropped for a thousand years. + +There is one fact in connection with this statement that must not be +overlooked. Mark it well. Those countries that are now excelling us in +crop yields and are being referred to as proof of the assertion that all +soils are inexhaustible and contain the necessary plant food for all time +to come, have imported from this country millions and millions of tons of +phosphate and applied to their lands to take the place of the phosphorus +removed by the growing of crops and to supply in sufficient quantities +the food necessary for plant growth, the plant food that has enabled them +to double and even treble our yields. + +This importation and use of plant food has not been confined to the +phosphate imported from this country, but they have procured and used +whatever elements of plant food their experience has taught them was +necessary for maximum plant growth. They have fed and not starved their +growing crops. They have replenished what they have removed from the soil +and made it richer instead of poorer. + +The importation by these countries of millions of tons of those elements +which enrich their soil should cause us “to sit up and take notice” and +then explain why they have been permitted to invade our shores and carry +away such enormous quantities of phosphate when every pound is needed in +this country and is just as valuable to us as to them. The intelligent +use of this element, which has been allowed to get away from us, would +have doubled the yield of our crops and proved the greatest investment on +record. How shall these facts and the requisite knowledge be brought home +to the farmer? + + +SOIL ROBBERS. + +The great majority of the men who own and farm their own land fail to +“play even” in the matter of soil fertility and must therefore be classed +as soil robbers. + +The retired farmer who has moved to town and rents his farm, as a rule, +is a soil robber of a still higher degree. The renter who meets the +exactions of the landlord and can make a living for his family has got to +be an expert and accomplished soil robber. If our soil is to be conserved +and not wasted as at present, there must be a universal or nation-wide +campaign of education that will enlighten and bring home to the people, +including the land owner as well as the tenant, the real facts of the +situation. + +The work of our colleges of agriculture, experiment stations, farmers’ +institutes and various agricultural organizations are doing a great work, +but this work as yet is only effective in a small degree when we take the +whole country and all of the farmers into consideration. + +The plan proposed by the National Soil Fertility League and others, and +to which reference was made by President Taft in his address from this +platform, of placing a man with scientific agricultural knowledge in +every agricultural county in the United States, to advise, direct and +carry on experiments in every community with the aid and coöperation of +the farmers themselves, and where they can see and know every step and +every process and then note the results, is a most admirable one and one +that will hasten and finally solve the problems of soil conservation. + +As an illustration of what may be accomplished by actually doing +things in a community where all other educational methods have proven +ineffectual, I desire, briefly, to call attention to my experience in +growing alfalfa in Illinois. + +It was undertaken twenty years ago, and at first without marked success. +Later, when inoculation was found to be necessary and dirt was brought +from Kansas to sow upon Illinois land, the climax of folly in the eyes +of neighboring farmers was reached. The idea of sending to Kansas for +anything to put on Illinois soil was ridiculous in the extreme, and the +sanity of the perpetrator of such an act was called in question. + +Nevertheless, the study of alfalfa growing and its adaptation to Illinois +conditions went on until this season I have harvested better than five +tons per acre, in three cuttings, from a twenty-five-acre field, in less +than one year from seeding. And the end is not yet, for it is still +growing, and fear has been expressed that I may have to hay all winter. + +I want to serve notice upon Mr. Coburn, chairman of the meeting, that +Kansas must look well to her laurels as an alfalfa state, for Illinois is +going to grow alfalfa and lots of it. + +When I was preparing this ground for alfalfa and was applying manure, +lime, phosphorus and inoculated soil, and when I was plowing and +following with a subsoil plow and making a perfect seed-bed, my neighbors +were not interested except to regard it as more folly and foolishness +on my part, but when they saw the result and realized that the crop +taken from one acre of that land was worth at least $100.00, and that +it represented ten per cent interest on $1,000.00 as the value of the +land per acre, they were compelled to take notice, and now they are, +figuratively speaking, falling over themselves, to learn how it was done. +There is no mistake about the effect of the demonstration. The farmers of +that community saw the preparations; they saw the alfalfa growing; after +it was cut; in the winrow; in the shock, and on the way to the barn. The +lesson could not have been brought to them as effectively in any other +way. + +I want to reiterate my approval of the plan proposed, of placing a +qualified instructor in every county devoted to agriculture, to do things +on the farms that the farmers can see and show them how to procure the +results they read and hear about. + +I know that the plan is feasible and that it will bring results, for I +have tried it. + +We have reached the point in the extension of agricultural knowledge +where less talk and more demonstration work is demanded. + +If this Congress does nothing more than to get behind this movement and +assist in making it the success it deserves, it will have accomplished +more for the maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil than +any other agency, and helped to solve the greatest of all industrial +problems. + +Chairman COBURN—The report of the committee on resolutions, Mr. Fowler, +chairman of the committee. + +Mr. Fowler read the resolutions (which will be found in full at the +beginning of this volume) to the Congress, framed and unanimously +adopted by the following committee: Arkansas, E. N. Plank, Decatur; +California, L. R. Glavis, San Francisco; Colorado, Dr. Hubert Work, +Pueblo; Connecticut, Prof. J. W. Towney, Hartford; District of Columbia, +W J McGee; Illinois, A. P. Grout, Winchester; Indiana, H. E. Barnard, +Indianapolis; Iowa, J. R. Doran, Beaver; Kansas, Thomas Potter, Peabody; +Louisiana, Oscar Dowling, Shreveport; Massachusetts, W. P. Wharton, +Groton; Michigan, Henry N. Loud, Au Sable; Minnesota, A. W. Gutridge; +Mississippi, H. L. Witfield, Columbus; Missouri, Dr. W. H. Black, +Marshall; Montana, C. Q. O’Neil, Kalispell; Nebraska, Geo. Coupland, +Elgin; New York, Albert B. Sheldon, Sherman; Ohio, Edmund Secrist, +Wooster; Oklahoma, Thos. P. Smith, Muskogee; Oregon, M. J. Kinney, +Portland; Pennsylvania, Dr. Harry S. Drinker, South Bethlehem; South +Dakota, R. Newbanks, Pierre; Texas, W. H. Gray, Houston; Washington, +Everitt Griggs, Tacoma; Wisconsin, Herbert Quick, Madison. + +Chairman COBURN—You have heard the report of the committee on resolutions. + +Delegate POTTER—I desire to move its adoption by this Congress of the +able report that we have just heard read by the chairman of the committee +on resolutions. + +The motion was duly seconded. + +Chairman COBURN—It has been regularly moved and seconded that the report +of the committee as read be adopted. Are you ready for the question? + +Delegate JOHN C. SHOFFER, of Chicago—As one looks over this hall and +compares the number of suggestions made by the committee on resolutions, +it would seem that there are more resolutions offered than there are +delegates here. I think it is an unfortunate thing, sir, that this +platform or these resolutions should go out as expressing the sentiment +of this Congress. There are too many absentees to vote on this question +at this time. If we are going to put this forward as an expression of +this great Congress, the delegates should be here to vote on it, and not +be bound by the vote of the few who are here this afternoon. It is not +fair that this should go out as an expression of this Congress when there +are only a handful of delegates left to vote on it. + +Delegate CONDRA—We have a committee, one from each state. It is perfectly +regular, and there is a pretty big handful here to vote on it. + +Chairman COBURN—Are you ready for the question? + +(Cries of question, question.) + +All in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution as read, signify +the same by saying aye. Contrary no. The motion is carried and the +resolutions as read adopted. + +[Resolutions will be found in front part of this volume.] + +Delegate A. W. STUBBS, of Kansas City, Kan.—I realize what the gentleman +has said, that the resolutions are very long, and I am greatly +embarrassed by the enormity of the subject taken in hand by this National +Congress. There has been one disappointment to me, and I have embodied +that in a resolution which I believe will be appreciated by every +delegate present, as well as by the officers who have had to sit and +listen to some of the addresses, well intended, on this floor, but not +germane to the subject at hand, and I have prepared this brief resolution +to submit now, not as a part of the platform, but more as an expression +from the delegates to this Congress. + +_Resolved_, that we recommend to the executive committee of this Congress +that in the preparation of future programs care be exercised to prevent +the time of delegates being taken up by papers and speeches not germane +to the purposes of the Congress, and that provision be made for brief +discussion of papers presented by the delegates from the several states. + +I move the adoption of this resolution. + +The motion was duly seconded. + +Chairman COBURN—You have heard the motion. It has been moved and seconded +that the resolution as read by the gentleman be adopted. Are you ready +for the question? + +Mr. CONDRA—Will you please read the last section of that resolution? + +Chairman COBURN—Will the gentleman read the last, about the several +states? + +Mr. STUBBS—And that provision be made for brief discussion of papers +presented by the delegates from the several states. Many interesting +papers have been read here, and many delegates have come hundreds +of miles who would have been glad to say just a word perhaps, not +any extended discussion, but express themselves from the body of the +Congress, and expressions from a body like this would be found invaluable +to the entire audience. + +Mr. CONDRA—I asked the question because I misunderstood. I thought that +he meant representation on the program from the various states, which +would absolutely kill this Congress. + +Mr. STUBBS—Oh, no. + +Mr. CONDRA—I hope that the matter he refers to may be taken up and by +departments, thus giving opportunity for further discussion. + +Delegate POTTER—I don’t want any misunderstanding of the intent of this +resolution. The author of it, as I understand it, does not mean to embody +this in the general resolutions, but only as a suggestion of the desire +of this Congress through our committee to make arrangements for the +future. + +Delegate STUBBS—That is correct. + +Chairman COBURN—Those in favor of the adoption of the resolution as read +say aye. Contrary no. Motion carried. + +Chairman COBURN—Our program for the afternoon is now concluded and a +motion to adjourn until 8 o’clock this evening is in order. + +Upon motion to adjourn, duly seconded, being put, was unanimously +carried, and Congress adjourned until 8 o’clock p. m. + + + + +_CLOSING SESSION._ + + +President WHITE—Ladies and Gentlemen of the third National Conservation +Congress will now come to order. I will introduce as the first speaker +Prof. William Hoynes, Professor of Law at Notre Dame University. + +Professor HOYNES—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the limited time +at my disposal, aware as I am that Senator Owen and Mr. Bryan are to +follow, I recognize the need of brevity, and though I shall contend that +the conservation movement is but the fulfillment of a natural impulse +or instinctive privilege as old as the human race, yet I shall do so in +as few words as practicable. In short, what I have to say may be viewed +in a threefold aspect, as conservation in respect to soil fertility, +conservation in respect to waste and extravagance in the affairs of daily +life and the utility of education as a means of furthering the efficacy +of conservation and common sense in these matters. + +As viewed by many the principle of conservation is of recent origin. +But this is a mistake. It is as old as mankind. In reality it amounts +simply to the natural protest of reason and experience against waste and +extravagance. It originated simultaneously with the consciousness of the +need of food, raiment and shelter for the protection and preservation of +life. + +As men struggled in the primitive ages to procure food for sustenance, +the pelts of animals to cover their bodies and the shelter of caves or +rudely constructed huts to protect them from the rigors of the elements +and the incursions of prowling beasts and venomous reptiles, they at +the same time realized the indispensableness of these things and the +necessity and wisdom of conserving them. + +As in the case of our own Indians, the struggle they made to obtain the +necessaries of life taught them to be saving of what they procured in +that line and to be vigilant in providing for the future. They took no +more fish from the waters of lake or river than seemed necessary for +actual use, they did not destroy wantonly the wild creatures of the +forest, and the denizens of the air were free from trap and arrow beyond +the range of hunger and necessity. Thus they conserved carefully the +sources of their food supply, and the pathetic story of a Hiawatha had +rarely to be told. + +It was only on the coming of the white man, who did not specially rely +upon such means of livelihood, that the wild creatures of the air, +forest, prairie, plain, lake and river were heedlessly slaughtered, or +wantonly destroyed in sport, or driven to hiding places in swamp or +mountain. + +It may thus be seen that when things are deemed essential to the +maintenance of life the lesson of care in using and conservation in +protecting and preserving them is brought home to the comprehension and +firmly fixed in mind and habit. But when, on the other hand, things +appear to be measurably superfluous or easy of acquisition, the sense of +their value becomes abated and the spur of conservation blunted. + +And so with the land, which to civilized man is the source of life’s +sustenance and the basis of progress and prosperity. Heretofore in +abundance and easily procured at moderate cost or for the mere taking +of it under the homestead law, but little attention was bestowed upon +the preservation of its fertility. When there came manifest and pressing +occasion for keeping it up by the restoration of its exhausted elements +the owners sold it for whatever it would bring and migrated to the easily +procurable new lands of the great West. But now this movement has met +with a decided check, for there is hardly any more arable free or cheap +land to be had. The most desirable government land has been taken by +settlers under the homestead law, and that which has been reclaimed under +the irrigation system is held at comparatively startling prices. Thus +exists a condition which is measurably responsible for the overflow of +nearly a million of our people into the British possessions on the North, +actuated by the lure of virgin soil and cheap lands. And even this door +is now less ajar through the taking by first corners of the choicest +holdings and the failure of our reciprocity negotiations. + +The comparatively impoverished lands sold by those who sought new homes +in the West were usually purchased by persons who knew little about +farming, or took them as an experiment or for speculative purposes, and +placed tenants on them—tenants whose chief aim was, not to restore the +fertility of the soil, but to make it yield all the profit possible with +the least possible outlay of money and labor. + +But a halt has been called in this state of things, and mainly so, as +it seems to us, through the instrumentality of the many agricultural +boards, alliances and societies, not to mention the Grange and +Department of Agriculture, that appear to have united or coöperated in +the organization of this great conservation movement. There is a marked +tendency, as observers must admit, to look backward to the neglected +lands and abandoned farms. These are being sought again by the returning +pioneers of the West or their descendants, and so probably to a greater +extent relatively in the South than in the East. This counter-movement +is unmistakable and has led to a notable and increasing advance in the +prices of these lands during the past decade. The cause lies not alone in +the acquisition by settlers of all the desirable free and cheap lands of +the West, but also in the expected restoration of soil fertility in the +South and East. + +To this end the deliberations of the present Conservation Congress have +in large measure justly and wisely tended. Much has been said, and well +said, touching the study and utilization of scientific means to restore +soil fertility in the case of impoverished lands throughout the country. +It is a subject of paramount importance. It points to the possibility of +increasing at least twofold the productiveness of our present acreage. + +It will not be considered as digressing if I refer in this connection +to the Agricultural Department at Washington and the state agricultural +colleges, boards and societies as having conferred incalculable benefit +through work in this line on the people and the country. Well would it +be, too, if the suggestion of President Taft, made in the course of his +address in this hall last Monday evening, could be realized and the +Agricultural Department represented among the people by an intelligent +and practical farmer in each county of the several states. It would bring +directly to the notice of farming communities the most approved means of +cultivating the soil and lead to wholesome emulation in restoring its +fertility and insuring abundant crops. + +I am strongly optimistic in regard to the natural resources of the +country and would not venture to set bounds to the possibilities of +our soil and climate. We know historically that for thousands of years +untold millions of people have lived on the same land in China, Japan, +Egypt and Europe. They have treated it as a living thing, feeding it +with the elements requisite for its productiveness. So judiciously and +systematically has this been done that in some quarters it yields twice +as much to the acre as the average of our own land. I venture to predict, +however, that the present movement toward soil enrichment will not fall +short of attaining to a like standard of productiveness. + +While the restoration of soil fertility has fittingly been the dominant +theme of these proceedings, I am pleased to observe that they have +taken a much wider range. Thus are vastly broadened the activities and +usefulness of this body, and correspondingly is strengthened its claim +upon the confidence, approval and coöperation of the public. + +So much has been said in relation to the conservation of health, +morality, religion, municipal government, deep waterways and the public +welfare that it would be superfluous, even if time permitted, to touch +again upon these subjects. + +I may be pardoned, however, for referring somewhat specifically to +education in the light of its saving and helpful influence. It inquires +into, searchingly examines and intelligently determines what to do in +the practical phases of conservation. It penetrates proposed plans and +theories and warns against mistakes, waste and extravagance. + +With the diversification and expansion of labor in the industrial domain +its products became marvelously varied in form and utility. With the +machinery which labor invented and introduced one man could accomplish +tenfold as much in a given time as could previously be done by hand. The +things produced by labor were thus enormously multiplied and cheapened, +and this very fact, as in the case of land superabundance, led to +deplorable waste and senseless extravagance. + +Ignorance may appropriately be called the mother of these evils. +Education is the antithesis of ignorance and may be depended upon +to curb them. Ignorance is imitative rather than original, and the +wastefulness attendant upon it grows with the expansion of luxury. The +wage or income of unfortunates upon whom it has set its mark usually +passes through their hands as freely as water through a conduit, often +going for the purchase of things unnecessary and tawdry, if not actually +harmful. + +But they are not alone in this regard. It happens that no matter what +may be the income of some men it goes promptly forth again on its merry +round, and they are as poor at the end of the month or year as they +were at its beginning. The cause ordinarily lies in absurd vanity or +inexcusable wastefulness and argues lack of self-control and common sense. + +Edison is credited with having recently stated as the result of his +observations abroad that a French family could live comfortably on +what an American family throws away. Other travelers have spoken to +like effect, but with remarks applicable to Europe generally. It must +be admitted, however, that the French rank first in this respect or +in the practical application of domestic science and economy. They +have evidently learned to apply the principle of conservation in the +management of kitchen, dining room, household and purchases in the +market. Were we to use like foresight, discrimination and economy the +cost of living might be reduced from one-third to one-half. Would not +this be an easily achievable and reasonably satisfactory solution of the +harassing problem of high prices? + +The knowledge that creditably adorns the mind and makes for independence +should show the wisdom of such economy and not be humiliated by betrayal +into imitation of the reckless extravagance characterizing the vulgar +rich in pomp, dress and prandial excesses. Intelligently and sagaciously +inculcated along these lines, such knowledge would revolt at the +conditions indicated. To this end education of wider scope and a more +practical turn is needed. It should be of a nature capable of grappling +successfully with such problems and conditions. + +Education, genuine and practical, is the most precious of possessions, +surpassing in value to honorable and useful manhood all the vulgar +hoards of selfish and pleasure-seeking wealth. True education teaches +independence and self-respect and scorns temptation to compete with showy +vulgarism in dress, dining and deportment. It is the key that unlocks +the arcana of knowledge and surpasses all the dross of mine or mountain +in bringing man into soulful communion with God. It makes clearer and +more acceptable the duties we owe to country and to one another. It +teaches courage in adversity and fortitude in affliction. It is a light +that penetrates the gloom of doubt and makes plain the path of honor and +usefulness. It illuminates in all directions the activities of this +great movement and I congratulate you upon having recognized the fact and +so generously acclaimed it in the proceedings of this Congress. (Applause) + +President WHITE—I now take pleasure in introducing to the audience United +States Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma. (Applause) + +Senator OWEN—Ladies and gentlemen, and delegates of the Conservation +Congress, when called on to pay my respects to this great meeting for +the purpose of bringing about a public sentiment which should sustain +the conservation movement, I felt in duty bound to respond, and for that +reason I delayed my departure from this city to spend a few moments to +present my respects, my sympathies, and my support to this movement. +(Applause) I believe in the conservation of our national resources, and I +believe that no government should go beyond the sentiment of the people, +of the Republic, in the direction of conservation, or of any other +important progressive policy. (Applause) This audience, therefore, and +this Congress, have a duty to perform, and that duty is to sustain public +opinion upon these important matters, and give it a concrete form, that +will make its impress upon the legislative and administrative branches +of this government. I believe in the conservation of our forests; in the +conservation of our land; the reclamation of arid lands; the reclamation +of swamp lands; making accessible the lands that we have, by good roads +and by the improvement of waterways. I believe in the conservation +of our water powers, that they shall not pass into private hands for +speculative purposes, but I believe above and beyond all in every form of +conservation that may be well discussed. I believe in the conservation, +above all other things, of human life and human efficiency. (Applause) +It was for that reason that I took occasion to draft a bill, providing +for a department of health with a secretary in the cabinet at the head +of it. (Applause) And I was actuated to do that by the pitiful history +which we had recorded in the last great war, the war with Spain. I +remember so well that over 900 of our chosen young men, those who had +offered their lives upon the altar of patriotism, those who were willing +to fight the battles of the Republic, instead of being able to die in the +service of their country upon the battle field, facing a hostile foe, +were laid in their graves by a malignant disease, at Chickamauga. We +lost nearly a thousand of our best men at Chickamauga. And why? Because +of the gross, unspeakable ignorance of those who were charged with the +preservation of the lives of those young men. (Applause) It is a noted +fact that the flies came from the cesspools where the offal and waste +of the camp was thrown, came from those cesspools, with the slime on +their feet, with typhoid germs on their feet to poison the chosen youth +of our land by thousands. That is not only a national tragedy, it is a +national humiliation, and it is a disgrace to this Nation. Therefore I +desire, together with thousands of other men, to put an end to that +sort of thing by a department of health. I remember Herman Biggs’ map of +lower New York where in a single house twenty-three cases of tuberculosis +were recorded, and in the house next to it eighteen cases. So that those +houses where the poor workmen go, without notice, were in fact nothing +but charnal houses where they went to their death. We ought not, in a +civilized nation, to permit that to continue. And I glory in the man +who has been trying to preserve the health of this Nation. I glory in +our magnificent Dr. Wiley. (Applause) And I feel a sense of personal +happiness that the millions of microbes that move and have their being in +impure food and drinks, did not get Wiley’s goat. (Applause) + +I am reminded in this connection of one of the stories of the champion +of health, Mr. Lutz, of Indiana. It is called the story of the “Little +Mother and the Fat Hog.” There was a little mother in Indiana. She was +only twenty-three years old. She had three children. She began to notice +that she was feeling ill, that the children, in whom she had had great +happiness, were commencing to worry her, and become a care. She knew that +she must be sick, and she went to the doctor. He looked at her and said, +“You are all run down.” He gave a prescription in Latin. It was a little +ginger, and a little alcohol, and a little water and some other things. +She paid a dollar for it at the drug store, and she took it, but did not +get well. She checked her strength out in a little while, and then one +day she felt a sharp pain in her breast, a coughing spell came on and +putting her handkerchief to her mouth, it became covered with blood. She +had a hemorrhage. She sat down and wrote a letter to the secretary of +health of Indiana: “My dear sir:—I am a little mother of Indiana. I have +three children, I would like to raise to be good citizens of Indiana. I +have just had a hemorrhage. Can you tell me what to do or where to go, +so that I may get well? I do not want to die now.” He wrote her back an +official letter right away in typewriting, and said something like this: +“My dear madam, the state of Indiana does not make any provision for a +case like you have described, but in case you die the state of Indiana +will take care of your three children until some good people can be found +who will take them from the asylum. Yours respectfully, Secretary.” +(Applause) + +A fat hog squealed in the back yard of a man, and the hired man looked at +him and he said, “He has got the cholera.” The man said, “Telegraph to +Uncle Jimmy Wilson right away.” And he did. And a man came with a little +black satchel marked D. V. S., with a bunch of serum in one hand and a +syringe in the other, and he shot a load into the hog and the hog got +well. MORAL: Be a hog and worth saving. (Applause) + +Now, last year as a United States Senator from Oklahoma, I had the +opportunity and I sent out 25,000 bulletins on how to take care of the +hog. And I didn’t have a single bulletin on how to take care of babies. +I believe that the babies and the youth of this land ought to be given +the preference, if necessary, over the swine family. (Applause) In New +Zealand they have a death rate of 9.5 per thousand. In this Republic, +where we have the fancy that we know more than other people do, and +where it is largely a matter of fancy and not one of reality, we have +a death rate of 16.5 to the thousand. In other words we lose by death +from preventable causes seven persons to the thousand that we might +save. That makes a vast army of 630,000 human beings who march to their +graves every year from preventable causes. And we have on an average +nearly three millions of people who are sick on an average throughout +the United States from preventable causes. A careful calculation on a +money basis, putting each individual as worth $1,700 apiece, and I do not +think that is a high estimate for an American—it would make a loss of +four thousand million to this Republic every year. And I think that is +worth conserving. (Applause) Therefore in the few moments which I have at +my disposal I call the attention of this great audience to its duty as +American citizens, and I call the attention of this great Conservation +Congress to its duty to this Republic to put on record a declaration +in favor of a department of health. I thank you for your attention. +(Applause) + +President WHITE—Ladies and gentlemen, I now take pleasure in presenting +to you an American citizen who in all this broad land requires no +introduction. (Applause) + +Mr. BRYAN—Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that whatever +you may think of my speech you will agree with me that I was justified +in asking you to listen to these other speakers. (Applause) I believe +in the Conservation Congress. The good that it does is difficult to +calculate. How many of the thousands who are assembled tonight have given +to the subject of conservation the thought or study that it deserves. The +arguments that are presented at such a meeting as this help make up the +public opinion that controls our governments, state and national. A large +number of subjects are brought before a Congress for its attention. The +speeches made present the subject from different points of view, and each +one turns upon the subject the light of his intelligence, and the warmth +of his heart. When we go from such a meeting, we go enlightened, and with +our views enlarged. We go prepared to communicate to others something of +the information that we have received, and to impart to them something of +the zeal that we feel. A number of subjects have been presented here, and +I am sure that this meeting will be worth all that it has cost those who +have brought it about or participated in it. + +Take the thought, for instance, that has been presented by Senator Owen. +I am so glad that I insisted upon his speaking, for his ability and +public spirit are only equaled by his modesty, and if I had not insisted, +I am afraid you would have lost the benefit of the speech that he has +delivered. (Applause) And yet what one of us will forget the splendid +illustration that he has given us in the story told of the difference +we make between the human being with a priceless soul and the animal +that can be converted into dollars and cents on demand. (Applause) We +need to have this matter brought to our attention, and I venture the +assertion that there is not one present in this audience that will not +go from this meeting tonight with the conviction that our Nation could +afford to subtract a little from its appropriations intended to prepare +us to kill people, and spend the money in the preservation of human +life. (Applause) Is it not strange how much more interest we can feel +in the battleship and in the new gun than we feel in the preservation +of the life and health of those about us? We need a speech like this to +wake our consciences to our own neglect, and to give us a better idea of +proportion when we look at things about us. + +You heard last night a speech upon public health from one who has done so +much to arouse the Nation to the unspeakable iniquity of the adulteration +of food. Who will estimate the benefit of such a speech as that delivered +to an audience with such intelligence as this audience represents? + + +AGRICULTURAL EXPERTS. + +The President presented, as I understand it, a thought that has been +emphasized today. The idea that there should be in every agricultural +county of the Nation a representative of the Government, an expert +on agriculture, to assist the people of that community to a better +and more intelligent production of the crops to which the soil and +climate are adapted. An idea like that needs only to be presented in +order to be accepted and approved. The fact is that what we need is +instruction. In Leeds, England, a year ago, I was speaking at a dinner +in the mayor’s office. I was emphasizing the fact that our difficulties +and controversies are largely due to misunderstandings and that +misunderstandings are largely due to a lack of acquaintance with each +other, and there flashed into my mind that quotation from Holy Writ, the +last prayer of our Savior: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what +they do.” And I was impressed, as I had never been before, with the fact +that ignorance is a large cause of sin. It is ignorance that we have to +combat; when the people are once enlightened and understand a subject, +you can trust their patriotism, their good intent, and their sense of +justice. (Applause) These meetings help by instructing, and we go from +them not only with larger information, but with a stronger determination +to do our part in the correction of evils that need a remedy. As I sat +tonight and listened to those who spoke before me, a thought came into my +mind, and I venture to impart it to you. It is a proverb of Solomon’s; +I do not know of a better motto for the conservation movement. It was +suggested by the gentleman from Indiana that necessity compels us to +conserve the Nation’s resources when we become aware that they are being +impoverished, and I thought of this proverb of Solomon’s: “The wise man +foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but the foolish pass on and are +punished.” What is conservation except looking ahead, the making of +provision against coming dangers that may be prevented? Wisdom manifests +itself in foresight. If we had had more foresight we would not have need +of as much energy as is required today to protect that which is being +wasted. I suggest, therefore, as a proper motto for the conservationists +this wise saying of Solomon, “The wise man foreseeth the evil, and hideth +himself, but the foolish pass on and are punished.” (Applause) + +Let me gather up some of the scattered threads of the discussion to which +the delegates have listened. I am not an expert in any part of this +conservation work. I confess that I am one who has been blind, during a +part of my life, to the needs that are now so clearly recognized. I have +had work that has engrossed my attention; I have been busy, but not with +matters of conservation such as have been discussed. Possibly I represent +some in the audience who have not had their attention turned to these +subjects. I am grateful to those who have brought me into contact with +this information, and I shall endeavor to make up for lost time by larger +effort along these lines. (Applause) + +The subject has grown upon me as I have examined it, and have listened to +those who have spoken upon different branches of it. The first thing that +claimed my attention was the preservation of the forest. I found that we +were exhausting our timber supply. I found that it was a matter merely +of calculation, a simple matter of mathematics; that we could take the +number of acres of timber land remaining, subtract the yearly cut, and +calculate how long it would be before it was practically destroyed, and +then, when on the other side, we examined the amount of land planted in +trees and compare that with the yearly destruction, it was easy to see +we were approaching a time when our timber supply would be exhausted. I +became interested at once, as you must be interested, in legislation that +has for its object not only the protection of that timber which remains, +but the replanting of such ground as can be reforested. I am interested, +as you are, in protecting this country from exhaustion of its timber +supply. + + +THE NATION’S WATER SUPPLY. + +Then, my attention was next called to another reason why our timber +should not be destroyed, and I am a little ashamed to admit to you, +that it is not very many years ago since I first began to think of the +protection of our water sheds. I wonder how many in this audience have +felt, until tonight, as indifferent as I felt until a few years ago. I +wonder how many tonight realize how serious a question it is? Two years +ago last June I crossed the crest of the Rockies, and as I went over the +ridge, I saw patches of timber, and then areas of naked land. I found +that wherever there was timber there was snow; and when I came near to +these patches of timber, I found little streams running down to make the +brooks and rivers. But wherever the timber was gone there was no snow; +it was perfectly dry, and then I realized, as I had not before, how God +in His infinite wisdom had established these great reservoirs that never +need repair, while man in his folly has been destroying them, and then +endeavoring to replace them by building great dams, and forming great +lakes that will in time fill up and have to be abandoned. What supreme +folly it is to allow the water sheds to be denuded and these natural +reservoirs destroyed, only to spend money after a while to replace them +with inferior substitutes. What does it mean to have a Nation’s water +supply imperiled? Have you ever been in a city that was threatened with +a water famine? Have you ever been where they discovered the necessity +of a larger water supply? What would it mean to the people living upon +the slopes of the Rockies if these water sheds were destroyed, and the +rain of the winter ran off, and left us with no reservoirs to supply +our surface streams and the veins from which we draw through wells? +When people tell me that the water shed question can safely be left +to the states in which these water sheds are, I tell them that while +I am glad to give every reasonable presumption to the state, I insist +that the people of this Nation have, on the fundamental doctrine of +self-preservation, the right, when necessary, to protect their water +supply in the mountains, and I may add, I have no fear that this will +cause a conflict between state and nation. (Applause) + +My observation is that you very seldom have a conflict between states and +nation unless some private interest is attempting to ignore the rights of +both state and nation. Back of this controversy which we sometimes hear +suggested between the state and the Nation, you will find the interest +of the predatory corporation that is as much an enemy to the people of +the state as it is the enemy of the people of the Nation; whenever we +reach the point where the people recognize that they are greater than +any corporation which they create, the settlement of state and national +questions will become an easy matter, for patriots can then agree. +(Applause) + +After one has acquainted himself with the necessity of preserving the +forests on the water sheds, he naturally comes to the control of the +water that comes tumbling down the mountain side. It is a little more +than two years since my attention was called to this subject; the facts +were given me by one who is in a position to know, and since that time +I have had a fixed opinion that has been freely expressed in regard to +the control of these mountain torrents, the commercialization of these +mountain streams. + + +THE LANDLORD SYSTEM. + +One who has not visited the Old World cannot understand the landlord +system there. If you ask me what I regard as the greatest burden of +the people of Europe I reply “Landlordism.” (Applause) In some of those +countries the people are so situated that those who till the soil +transmit from generation to generation the right to pay rent, with no +possibility of ownership; while a few families transmit from child to +child the right to collect rent, with no disposition to till the soil. I +regard that as the greatest burden of Europe, and one of the blessings +that we enjoy in this country is freedom from such landlordism as they +have in the Old World. I know of nothing that nearer approaches the +system of landlordism in Europe than the proposed giving away of these +mountain streams in perpetuity to great syndicates that through the years +and generations to come could exact their toll from a toiling people. +Therefore, when we consider the use of these mountain streams, the first +thing we must decide is that there shall be no perpetual grant to a +water power. Who can tell what that right will be worth a hundred years +from now? Look back twenty-five years. Who could have estimated then the +value of a water power today? Within the last quarter of a century we +have had a development of electricity that makes it possible to carry, +for hundreds of miles, power generated by falling water. If you visit +Canada you will find in the Province of Ontario great towers carrying +to the various cities the power generated at Niagara Falls. We are now +in the very beginning of the use of electricity. No human being can +measure the value of one of these water falls. What criminal folly, then, +for this generation to barter away the sacred rights of posterity to +syndicates and corporations. (Applause) So, it seems to me, that one of +the important questions to be decided in the conservation of our natural +resources is that the principle of monopoly shall not be permitted in +this country under any guise or in any form. (Applause) + +Let us insist that wherever and whenever a franchise is granted it shall +be granted for a term of years, and that that term shall not be so long, +but that we can reasonably estimate today the value of it at the end of +the term. No other principle is tenable in the discussion of this subject. + +But one cannot visit the mountains; one cannot consider these streams +that we are trying to protect without thinking of the reclamation of the +arid lands. And here I think we have a subject too that is only beginning +to be understood. Go along a road and see on one side a desert and on the +other side a garden, and understand that the only difference is that one +is not watered and the other is, and then irrigation becomes a subject +of thrilling interest. Investigate and find how large a per cent of the +people of the world live upon lands cultivated by irrigation. Learn how +ancient and honorable an industry it is. Visit the communities, where, by +the use of the water under systems of irrigation, a man can make a living +for his family on twenty, thirty or forty acres, or even less. See how +the people are brought together; how every advantage of the city is +brought to the farm, and then you will understand why the country has at +last yielded to the demand that has come from the West, that some money +should be spent in the reclamation of these lands. + +We have next the impounding of water, the building of storage reservoirs. +It is in its infancy. It ought to be continued until not one drop of +waste water is allowed to run down and flood the valleys in the spring. +All of this water should be conserved. It ought to be spread out on the +lands which need it, and then we can invite people from the crowded +cities to avail themselves of the light and liberty and larger life of +the country. (Applause) + + +SOIL WASTE. + +But one subject leads on to another. You begin to reclaim arid lands, +and then you ask yourself, Why should we attempt to bring land under +cultivation at large expense while we waste the land that we have? And +that brings us to the very interesting subject that is presented at all +of these congresses, the conservation of the fertility of the soil. A +farmer this afternoon spoke of some people as robbers, who robbed the +soil of its fertility; I suppose I am one of the guilty ones, although +I have done most of my robbing of the soil through agents rather than +directly myself. (Applause) And yet, I had my apprenticeship upon the +farm, and when I was farming it never occurred to me that I was wasting +the soil. I was one who could claim pardon under the plea, “Forgive +them for they know not what they do.” (Applause) And yet, we cannot be +guiltless hereafter now that we understand of what we have been guilty. + +Here is a subject that must interest every man who owns an acre of +ground. What right has one to impoverish the soil? As was suggested +today, we are not owners, we are merely tenants. The life of the +individual is short. He lives, he works, he passes away. What right has +the tenant of today to impoverish the estate upon which generations to +come must live? Is it not worth while to have these experts tell us? Is +it not worth while to have this fact impressed upon our minds and our +consciences? And when we come to the conservation of the soil on the +farms, we then understand the importance of the agricultural college. I +rejoice that the agricultural college has shown such wonderful growth and +development during the last twenty-five years. The interest which has +been manifested in these schools is wonderful, and what does it mean? +Not merely that our farms are to be better tended; not merely that our +crops will be increased in quality and in value; that is not all. To my +mind two important influences will grow out of this agricultural school +in addition to the material advantages. I expect to see more inventions; +I expect to see a quickened interest in improved machinery; that these +men who go out from college to till the soil will add more and more of +brain to the muscle when they till the soil; that the character of the +work is to be dignified and elevated just as in the factories we have +found the character of the work constantly lifted up as larger and larger +intelligence is brought into play in our industries. I expect to see this +on the farm. But more than that, I expect to see the farmer a larger +political factor in his government with the rising intelligence of the +farmer boy. (Applause) + +The farmer has suffered; if you ask me why it is that we have the young +men drifting into the city, why we have seen so many farms abandoned, or +regarded as less desirable, I say that one of the reasons is that our +consideration has been given to the things of the city, and not to the +things of the country. Our laws have been made for the factory and not +for the farm. (Applause) The men who represent industry in the city have +been more numerously represented in the halls of legislation than the +men who represent industry upon the farm, and one of the results of this +higher education of our farmer boys will be, in my opinion, an increasing +influence of the agricultural classes in all matters of legislation. I +mention these as some of the subjects that are brought to our attention +as we consider the various phases of this work of conservation. I am +a believer in doing everything that can be done to make the farm an +attractive place. It is the nursery of our great men and great women. It +is the place where we train men in industry, in self-reliance, and in +character. The man who comes nearest to nature has a tremendous advantage +in the years of his youth. He deals with the works of the Almighty, while +the boy in the town deals with the work of man. Is it strange that from +the country and from the country life come the strength, the purity, the +character that help to make our city strong, without which our cities +would not be what they are today? (Applause) + + +TO MAKE FARMS ATTRACTIVE. + +The man who lives upon the farm sees the miracle wrought about him +constantly. The man in the city puts his eyes upon a man-made machine; +the man upon the farm comes daily in contact with those irresistible +forces that lie back of all the products of the farm and the orchard. It +is a splendid training; we cannot allow it to be destroyed. Tributes for +the farm have come from the poets of every land: + + “Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade, + A breath can make them, as a breath has made; + But a bold peasant, a nation’s pride, + When once destroyed, can never be supplied.” + +Take from any nation its bold peasantry, and you have impoverished it to +an extent that figures cease to be valuable. + +What will make our farms more attractive? It seems to me that just now +there are a number of things that conspire to add to the attractiveness +of the farm. Invention has already added largely to the comforts and +the conveniences of the farmer. I live nearly four miles from the city. +The telephone enables me to send and receive telegrams; it enables me to +call the physician in a moment. I know of no one thing that hung more +heavily on the mother than the fact when sickness came, or accident, it +took so long to secure a physician. Today, with the telephone, we cut +half in two, at least, the time between the accident and the relief. We +find improvements that can be carried to the farm. Water in the house, +light as good in the country as in the city. The light that I use in the +country is as good as I ever had in the city, and it can now be furnished +in small quantities, so that even the smallest house may be supplied. +We find the rural free delivery grown until now in almost every section +of our land the country is supplied as well as in the city. The good +roads movement is a growing movement, and will grow because the farmers +(applause) will not long be content to have a “mud embargo” upon their +liberty, so large a part of the year. It is not a matter of economy +merely. I believe the good roads movement is a social need as well as +an economic requirement. With the good road you can have the union +school, the community library; you can have a place for the farmers and +their wives to meet other farmers and their wives; where you can have +entertainment brought to them; where more light can be put into the +life, and larger opportunity for social communion be had. Electric lines +are bringing the country and city nearer together. All these things are +possible. All these things are coming, and with their coming I hope to +see the tide turn and the farm population increase rather than decrease +in proportion to the urban population. + +But, my friends, I have saved for the last the suggestion that I regard +as most important. I have mentioned some of these things that have +contributed to the desertion of the farm, some of the things which I hope +will accelerate the return to the farm. I am interested in everything +that has been said by those of whose speeches I have only heard, and +by others to whose speeches I have listened. I believe in all of these +things, but I believe there is one thing that we cannot neglect. I am not +sure but it is the most important factor in this whole discussion, the +great need of the human race, less in this country than in any other, +but a need here as well, is a proper conception of the dignity of labor. +(Loud applause) The struggle of mankind has been to avoid work. It has +been to put the drudgery of life on somebody else, and Tolstoi has well +said that, as soon as we can make somebody else do the unpleasant work we +do not want to do, we then look down upon them and regard them as of a +different class. Lack of sympathy is the chief cause of human injustice +and human misery. I repeat that what the world needs, and we as well as +the rest of the world, though not so much, for we have made more progress +here than anywhere else in the world, is a proper conception of the +dignity of labor. (Applause) Our education is at fault if it separates +the idea of intellectual progress from the idea of moral advancement. +Sometimes our children are taught that they should get an education in +order that they may escape from work that seems unpleasant. Education +will not be a blessing to the world, but instead a curse, if it lifts man +above the willingness to toil. (Applause) + + +THE NECESSITY OF TOIL. + +The most important thought that can be put into the mind of any child is +that his education is to enlarge his capacity for work, not to relieve +him from the necessity of toiling. (Applause) We find in the cities young +men earning small wages in a store where they can wear good clothes, keep +their hands clean and do a work that is considered more respectable, when +they might earn larger wages if they were willing to bear a larger share +of the manual labor of the world. (Applause) Not only do they escape +from manual labor, but they miss the physical development that that toil +brings. We find young men upon the farms taught that, if they manifest a +little brightness, if they are a little more ambitious than those about +them, they should look to the law, to medicine, to journalism, to the +ministry or to politics—that they must get away from the farm. I hope our +conservation congresses will not overlook the fact that we shall make +little progress towards making farm homes more inviting until we teach +men that the farm with all its toil and drudgery gives them a position +where they can be independent, and give their children an environment +that contributes to stature and character. (Applause) I believe that we +shall only be doing our duty to ourselves, to our fellow man, to our +country and to posterity when we emphasize the fact that it is the idler, +and not the man who toils, who is a disgrace to society. + +Here is a place where all of us can work; here is a public opinion which +we can all join in cultivating. The mother who has a daughter approaching +womanhood’s estate can help when she teaches that daughter that she ought +to be more willing to link her fortunes with the fortunes of a poor +young man, with high aspirations, education, ambition, good health and +character, than to seek an alliance with an idle degenerate who spends +the money somebody else has earned. (Applause) The father can do his +duty, and can help, when he teaches the son that he is more proud of him +when he sees him at work, trying to become a useful factor in society, +than when he is simply waiting for some money to be left him that he may +squander it, and be the worse for having had it. (Applause) Every member +of society everywhere can serve in this great war upon the largest enemy +we have to meet. The teacher in the college has his work to do; the +preacher in the pulpit—oh, what an opportunity he has to present to his +congregation, Sunday after Sunday, the idea that Christ Himself made a +living reality, that greatness is to be measured by the service rendered, +and that happiness, as well as greatness, depends on the contribution one +makes to the world. (Applause) Here is a work that is large enough for us +all. Here is something that invites us, an opportunity as large as we can +crave. + + +MAN AND SOCIETY. + +I present, therefore, as the most important thing that the conservation +movement can consider, the raising up of an ideal of life that will give +a man a proper conception of his relation to society. Where better than +on the farm can a man learn God’s law? What is the Divine law of reward? +God wrote it upon the face of the earth; He proclaimed it from the +clouds; He burns it into us through the rays of the sun, namely, that God +has given us the material and that in proportion as man shows industry +and intelligence in converting natural resources into usable wealth he +can rightfully draw from the common store of the world. That is God’s law +of rewards. If a man lack intelligence, God punishes him by failure. If +he lack industry, God whips him into poverty by laws that are inexorable. +That is the Divine plan, but we have allowed the speculative craze to +take its place, and man, instead of earning his bread in the sweat of his +brow, rushes into the city to get some short cut to riches, and society +has given respectability to the man who goes on the Board of Trade at +10 o’clock and by betting on what the farmers raise makes more than he +can make raising it, while it looks down upon the people who feed us and +clothe us. (Applause) + +But, my friends, I have already talked longer than I intended to when I +came. (Cries of Go on! Go on!) + +I am here because I am interested. I am here because I am a debtor to +society. Who in all this land has been placed under greater obligations +than I? Who is more bound in duty to contribute as best he can to any +improvement that is possible? This is one of the great avenues of effort; +one of the great reform movements. It enlarges as you consider it. I am +here to testify to my interest; I am here to listen to those who speak +that I may gather from their matured thought ideas that I can put into +use. My part is an humble part; it is not to discuss any question at +length; it is not to speak as an expert upon any branch of conservation; +it is rather to come and emphasize, so far as I can, the work that others +have done—to show you how large it is, to increase your interest in it, +to quicken your zeal, and to have you go from here determined, as I go +determined, to contribute more largely than in the past, not only to +this, but to every movement that has for its object the elevation of the +human race and the advancement of the civilization of the world. + +I thank you. (Continued applause) + +On motion of Professor Condra, duly seconded, the Congress adjourned +subject to the call of the executive committee. + + + + +SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS + + +LIVE STOCK FARMING AND SOIL FERTILITY. + +BY F. B. MUMFORD, _Of the University of Missouri_ + +The agricultural industry has been and will continue to be the greatest +and most fundamental industry in the economic life of the American +nation. Not only does agriculture supply the means of livelihood to +a larger number of people than any other calling, but because of its +intimate relation to many other arts, it occupies a most important place +among American industries. From reliable statistics, the materials of +manufacture drawn from agriculture constitute 42 per cent of all the +materials used in the manufacturing industries. Any conditions tending to +decrease these necessary materials of manufacture will react unfavorably +on this industry and result in hardship to great number of laborers +engaged in this occupation. + +The dominant place of agriculture in the commercial and economic life +of the Nation is indicated by the enormous aggregate wealth invested in +agricultural enterprises. In 1910, there was invested in lands, buildings +and equipment used in agricultural pursuits $36,703,418,000. The value +of agricultural products for the one year of 1910, according to the +Secretary of Agriculture, was $8,926,000,000. A sum so large that the +human mind is unable to grasp its real significance. + +All this enormous wealth comes directly from the soil. Any factors which +tend to diminish the productiveness of this fundamental resource are of +national concern. + +The fertility of the soil is not inexhaustible, it is not +self-perpetuating. Soil fertility can be mined out of the soil as coal +can be mined out of the earth. When the fertility of soils has decreased +beyond a certain point, then the cost of cultivation becomes too great, +and farming becomes unprofitable and we may have abandoned farms. This +fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in the history of ancient and +modern agriculture. + +But it is also true that soil fertility can be so utilized that the +continuous production of crops on the same land can be indefinitely +and successfully accomplished. It is also a fact that the conditions +of fertility are of such a nature that the natural productiveness of +the average soil can be greatly improved and the total production of +food crops largely increased. Improved systems of farming based on +perfectly definite scientific principles are now being practiced, which +are not only more profitable, but likewise maintain successfully the +productiveness of the soil. + +A permanent agriculture can only be established through a rational system +of soil conservation. The most important factor in all agriculture is +the productiveness of the acre of land. No system of farming can endure +which is not profitable. Any scheme of conservation which aims to benefit +succeeding generations but fails to provide for the necessities of the +people now living on earth will surely fail. + +Systems of farming which are recommended should then fulfill two +conditions; they must maintain or improve the fertility of the land, +and they must be profitable. The failures in agriculture in the past +have resulted from the failure to recognize one or the other or a +combination of these two causes. Either the productiveness of the soil +has been exhausted by unintelligent system or the agriculture has been +unprofitable. In fact, the exhaustion of soil is rather to be regarded as +an economic term which means that the operations of agriculture are no +longer carried on at a profit rather than that the elements of fertility +have been entirely removed from a one-time fertile soil. + +In considering live stock farming, then, it is only necessary to +determine first whether it is and has been successful in maintaining soil +fertility. + +What is needed to maintain and improve the fertility of the soils? +The investigations on this matter are clear. There are four things +needed under existing conditions to supply directly or indirectly to +agricultural lands: vegetable matter or humus, phosphorus, nitrogen and +potash. Does live stock farming, as a system, provide these materials +in sufficient quantity to conserve the fertility of the soil? Without +going too much into detail, it is correct for us to say that in any +well planned system of stock farming, the humus supply can easily be +sustained; the nitrogen can be rapidly increased and the phosphorus and +potash supplied either through the application of fertilizers directly or +by the purchase of foods to be first fed to animals and the manure later +applied to the land. + +In attempting to determine whether or not live stock farming is to +be considered as a system calculated to conserve soil fertility, one +cannot be greatly impressed with the unanimity of opinion in favor of +animal husbandry as a means of soil improvement. When soils have become +exhausted and unprofitable from continuous grain growing, the almost +universal advice is to change the system of farming to stock husbandry +and feed out all crops on the land. Nor is this advice to be regarded as +emanating from theorists whose conclusions have been drawn alone from +the test tube of the chemist, but more often such advice comes from men +who are trained in farm management, and have themselves demonstrated +that a rational system of animal husbandry will not only maintain but +improve the fertility of the average farm located in the corn belt. Live +stock farming carried on for the purpose of soil improvement is not an +untried experiment. Not only individual farms but whole communities have +been brought up from a condition of exhaustion and unprofitableness to a +condition of productiveness by animal husbandry. + +Exclusive grain farming as practiced from New England westward to the +Dakotas has left behind a trail of depleted soils and where carried on +for too long a time ruined farms and abandoned homes have marked the way. + +These same soils are today being reclaimed and profitably tilled as the +result of changing from grain farming to dairy and stock farming. This +change has taken place in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and is now occurring +in Minnesota. The result of profitable system of live stock farming +on even the poorest of soils is to be seen in Holland. On thin, sandy +lands reclaimed from the sea, dairy farming has increased the value of +the farming lands until now they are valued at $500 to $1,000 per acre. +Holland today supports a population twelve times as dense as Illinois, +and yet has an annual surplus of cheese and butter for export amounting +to more than four dollars per acre. + +Fifty years ago Denmark was a wheat producing country. Its soils were +gradually being depleted of fertility and agricultural ruin was imminent. +The system of farming was at that time radically changed to a system +of live stock production, with the result that after forty years of +dairy farming the agriculture of Denmark is regarded as a model of +farm management, both from the standpoint of the conservation of soil +fertility and profits per acre. + +Farmyard manure is now and always has been the greatest resource for +maintaining soil fertility on the typical Middle West farms. Dr. C. G. +Hopkins says that “Farm manure always has been, and without doubt always +will be, the principal material used in maintaining the fertility of the +soil.” + +Director Thorne of Ohio has pointed out that the increased fertility +of English farms as measured in increasing wheat yields has, in his +opinion, been due to the fact that the cattle, sheep, hogs and horses +have increased rapidly per cultivated acre since 1865. In that year Great +Britain was maintaining the equivalent of one cattle beast for each acre +cultivated, while in 1900 the live stock population had increased until +there was maintained on British farms the equivalent of one cattle beast +for each cultivated acre. + +When Great Britain maintained one cattle beast for each two acres of land +cultivated in grain, the average wheat yield was twenty-eight bushels per +acre. When she had increased her live stock population to the equivalent +of one cattle beast to one acre of land cultivated in grain, the yield of +wheat had risen to thirty-two bushels per acre. + +The limits of this paper will not permit me to quote the opinions of all +the leading agricultural and soil experts who have publicly expressed +themselves on the important relations of animal husbandry to soil +fertility. But such national authorities as Henry Wallace, President +Waters, Dean Davenport, Dean Curtis, Governor Hoard and a host of +others have publicly placed themselves on record as favoring live stock +husbandry for conserving soil fertility on the American farm. + +The production of farmyard manure in this country now represents a value +greater than the total value of the corn crop. The estimated annual value +of farm manure produced in America is two and one-third billion dollars. +All authorities agree that more than one-third of this material is +absolutely wasted by the farmers. Here is a source of fertility ten times +as great as all the commercial fertilizers annually sold in the whole +United States. If this manure now wasted could be intelligently applied +to the corn lands of America, there would be added $800,000,000 annually +to the agricultural wealth of this country. + +In planning systems of live stock farming for permanent agriculture, it +is necessary to apply the amount of phosphorus removed in the annual +products sold, either as commercial fertilizer or by the purchase of +supplementary foods. This amount will be comparatively small, and if +added by the purchase of supplementary foods may be supplied at little +or no additional cost, as the profits from feeding will pay for the +phosphorus used. + +No scheme of soil conservation can be successful unless it is profitable. +If live stock farming conserves fertility, but is unprofitable, then it +need not be further considered. But live stock farming is profitable, and +is more profitable than any other system of permanent agriculture which +has been devised. + +The latest census figures show conclusively that the net income per acre +is greater from stock and dairy farms than from hay and grain farms. + +The average annual net income from stock and dairy farms in the United +States for the ten-year period ending with the year 1899 was $11.42, +while the income from hay and grain farms was only $7.72 per acre. + +Not only was the average income in the United States as a whole greater +from stock farms, but in some of the more strictly grain growing states +the same increased profit from stock farms is shown. In Illinois the +income from grain farms was $10.60 per acre; from stock farms, $12.55. In +Missouri, the income from grain farms was $7.69, and from stock farms, +$9.55. In Iowa the income from grain farms was $8.88, and the income +from stock farms, $13.17 per acre. In other words the profits from stock +farming in Illinois were 18 per cent, in Missouri 24 per cent, and in +Iowa 48 per cent greater than from grain farms. + +In any ten-year period of the agricultural history of this country, the +net income per acre from live stock farms has been greater than from +grain crops. + +I think all fair minded students of farm management problems in the +Middle West will agree that the most prosperous and best managed farms +throughout the corn belt today are the farms where live stock is a large, +if not the chief, factor of production. + +The argument that live stock farming can be profitable only on cheap land +is fallacious. The highest priced farming lands in the world are utilized +for stock and dairy farms. + +In all systems of exclusive grain farming which have been planned for +the maintenance of soil fertility, it is recommended that considerable +quantities of clover be plowed under and that all of the straw and +stover likewise be added directly to the soil for keeping up the humus +supply. While this practice unquestionably will accomplish the results +intended it is true that from an economic point of view such materials +are too valuable for the nutrition of animals to be thus employed. When +we remember that at a very conservative estimate, the stover or stalks, +leaves and stems of the corn plant contain not less than 25 per cent +of the total feeding value of the entire plant, and that under systems +of exclusive grain farming, all this material is so utilized that only +its humus value is secured, we must conclude that if there is another +method whereby this valuable feedstuff may be first converted into animal +products, such a method is certainly to be recommended in a convention +assembled to discuss the broad problem of conservation. + +Plowing under green clover likewise is to be regarded as a practice of +doubtful economic value. At the Missouri Experiment Station, for a series +of two years, the average income from such clover pastured off with hogs +amounted to $34.11 per acre. This was estimating the pork product at only +six cents per pound. As a matter of fact during the years in which this +investigation was conducted, the pork was actually worth seven cents per +pound, and the actual income from the clover alone amounted to $40.00 per +acre. + +I submit that when an acre of clover can be so utilized through animals +as to return to the farmer the equivalent of $40.00 in cash, that it +is doubtful economy to use this material solely for its humus value by +plowing under. + +In accomplishing the above result, it was necessary to feed an average of +3,000 pounds of grain per acre with the clover. This grain at prevailing +market prices was charged to the hogs at sixty cents per bushel, the +market price, and the $40.00 per acre is therefore net income. The large +amount of grain fed to the hogs on the clover undoubtedly returned to the +soil as much phosphorus as was removed in the body of the animals, and +the ultimate result of this experiment was therefore not only to secure a +greater profit from the land by this method of utilization, but also to +provide generously for the plant food losses incurred by the storing up +of such materials in the bodies of the hogs. + +On the average Middle West farm, there are now and will continue to be +great quantities of stover, hay, straw, grass and other materials which +are too valuable to be used solely for manurial purposes and are yet too +bulky to be profitably placed on the market. All such materials can be +profitably marketed through animals, and by so doing at least 50 per cent +of the humus value of the materials can be retained and a considerable +profit secured from feeding to animals. + +The development of animal husbandry in modern farm practice is +fundamentally important. Exclusive grain farming has never yet been +satisfactory or permanently successful. History and present practice +have clearly demonstrated the important relation of soil fertility to +the keeping of animals. The productiveness of the acre of land is the +most important factor in profitable agriculture. If it is true that the +productiveness of the acre of land is maintained and often increased by +the large use of domestic animals, this is a sufficient reason for large +attention to live stock farming. + +Animal husbandry is more profitable than grain farming. In any ten-year +period of American agriculture, skillful live stock farming has been more +profitable than exclusive grain farming. It is no argument to say that +the average stock farmer would have secured larger temporary gains by +selling his grain instead of feeding to animals. Statistics have shown a +larger net income per acre from live stock farms throughout the United +States than grain farms. + +The highest type of farming is found in those localities where skillful +stock farming is the rule. In Denmark, Holland, Great Britain, France, +Canada and the United States, it is undoubtedly true that greater +intelligence, skill and efficiency are required for the successful +management of a live stock farm than a grain farm. + +The yield of wheat in England has increased in direct proportion to the +increase of the number of animals per cultivated acre. + +The Middle West farmer will always produce large areas of grass, of +corn stover, cheap hay and other products having little cash value. +The profitable utilization of these materials involves the feeding and +keeping of animals. The permanent prosperity of the Middle West farmers, +and the conservation of our soil resources both require increased +attention to successful methods of stock husbandry. + + +THE CONSERVATION OF THE FARM + +BY EX-GOVERNOR W. D. HOARD, _Of Wisconsin_ + +In the limited remarks I shall have to make on this subject, I wish to +preface by saying that it seems to me that one of the crying needs of +conservation today is to conserve conservation. There is an immense waste +of talk and time and crude unconstructive thought on this subject. Too +many men are crying, “Lo! salvation lies in this direction, or that.” Too +many are talking with an ulterior purpose of personal gain in notoriety +or politics. Forests, mines and water powers claim the principal part of +the thought and attention, when they are not the paramount subjects of +conservation we consider. It is too easy to generalize or denounce or set +up impractical standards of action by men who have not a constructive, +practical thought to offer whereby the desired things we might wish for +may be obtained. But here stands a great necessity, a glaring mistake, +the result of gross ignorance on the part of the farmers of the American +nation for many generations. They have wasted their heritage; they are +continually wasting it. + +Eighty-three millions of people are depending today for food on +the wisdom, the skill, the conserving good sense of seven millions +of farmers. By another decade a hundred million will face the same +dependence. The cry goes up from this vast army of consumers against +the high cost of living. The contingencies of the seasons, serious as +they are oftentimes, are enough for producer and consumer to face. But +we are confronted with the most serious danger of all in the wasting +of fertility, the steady decline in the productive power of our arable +lands. Here stands the question: An increasing demand and necessity for +food and a steady decline in our lands of the power to produce food. How +long shall that reproach to our intelligence continue? + +Before that great and overwhelming necessity all other questions of +conservation pale into insignificance. Study the situation as it exists +today: From the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains the American farmer has +blazed a pathway of destruction to fertility and forests. His is the hand +that hath wrought this great destruction until today vast stretches of +territory are hardly able to produce enough in an ordinary season to pay +the cost of production. + +The Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of New York asserts that +that state alone has lost a hundred and sixty-eight millions of dollars +in thirty years in the decline of farm values. In my native county of +Madison in that state I can buy farms today for $20 to $30 an acre that +once sold for $100 an acre. The same is true of the famous old Western +Reserve in Ohio, of many sections in Indiana and proportionately so +in the southern portion of Illinois. Who hath wrought this fearful +destruction of the original productive power of the state and Nation? The +farmer. Why? Because of his ignorance of the principles of fertility and +of the methods that belong to intelligent agriculture. + +Until very recently the forces of education, all under the control of the +states, have done nothing to educate the farmer to a better understanding +of his duty to himself, his calling as a farmer, and the millions who +must depend upon him for food. The people have gone mad, so to speak, in +the pursuit and worship of so-called higher education, and neglected the +basic subsidiary schools where the main body of farmers must be trained, +if trained at all, into an understanding of what they are about. You +know, as every man knows, that the country district school is the only +school where 90 per cent of all of the farmers of the land have received +or will receive for many years to come the schooling they will get. The +teachers of the state and the political forces of the state are solely +responsible for the character of the country school. There has been but +little vital pushing force among the teachers for the uplift of the +country schools. The politicians have given it the go-by because as yet +there are no votes in it as an issue. The farmers do not believe in it as +a vital energizing principle in their midst for their own enlightenment +and that of their children concerning the things that make for the +betterment of agriculture. + +Do you for a moment suppose that all of this appalling waste of fertility +that exists and consequent destruction of farm values would have taken +place if the country district school had been organized to teach the +farm children the elements of fertility as science and common sense knew +them to exist? We must then charge upon the past and present system of +education the responsibility for this ignorance that has wasted the +productive power of the Nation. And the processes of ignorance and +indifference are going on today with but little, if any, check. Our +schools of agriculture reach but a thousandth part of the farm children +with their corrective knowledge. The agricultural press is doing what +it can, but not more than 50 per cent of the farmers are readers and +students of this vital question. + +We flatter ourselves that we of the Middle West are to be saved from this +tide of destruction because God has given us a soil of such marvelous +fertility. But our farmers are just as great spendthrifts of this +God-given heritage as were the Eastern farmers. The trouble lies in our +lack of knowledge, real helpful knowledge. Think of the millions of acres +of corn stalks in the great corn producing states of Illinois, Missouri, +Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa that will stand next winter unharvested, +and in mute reproach of the lack of a little conserving intelligence +sufficient to store them in silos where the contents might be fed to +cattle and sheep and so produce an abundance of meat cheaply for the +people. An average acre of that corn in an average season, if placed in +a silo, will yield ten tons of the finest meat and milk producing fodder +known on earth. Thirty pounds a day with ten pounds of alfalfa hay is +sufficient to fatten a fifteen-month-old steer to the pink of condition +in a year. Each acre, then, and an acre of alfalfa, would suffice to +feed two steers for the year. What a tremendous feeding power at low +cost is here disclosed, and yet it is annually wasted and not a country +district school or school teacher is telling the farmer and his children +any better. Think of the thousands upon thousands of poor cows that are +kept by the farmers of the dairy states because they do not know better. +Think of the wasted labor to raise the feed to support those cows, the +wasted time and effort to milk and care for them, when, by exhaustive +research it can be shown that not half of those cows are producing enough +to pay for their keeping. You ask: Don’t the farmers know better than to +keep such cows? Can you believe they would continue to breed and keep +such cows if they did know better? Everywhere is seen the appalling waste +of our farming—in fertility, in poor live stock, in lack of breeding +knowledge, in lack of sanitary understanding, in a lack of intelligent +methods of farm management. The discontent of the farmer is great. Let +us be thankful for that, for we are told that “discontent is the vice +of noble minds.” But, likewise, everywhere is he misled by contending +politicians to believe that his salvation lies in politics, in the tariff +up, or the tariff down, in fighting the corporations and the trusts, in +order that certain leaders may have place and power. And all the time +this mighty demon of waste is getting in his work. When will the farmer +see that he must educate himself and his children back in the country +district school to know good from evil, to understand the conservation of +the soil and the great economic laws that underlie his very existence? + +He cannot escape the demand of the millions who wait upon his hand for +bread and meat. He is responsible to his own good citizenship not to +waste the productive energies of the state. He owes it to himself and the +hoped for profit of the labor of his hands that he make of this question +of the conservation of the farm the foremost question of the age, as it +truly is. + +Dairy farming, if rightly understood and conducted, has the power to +“knit up this raveled sleeve,” to re-endow all of these wasted farms with +their original fertility and productiveness. For, understand, the true +dairy farmer must be a wise manipulator of the soil, of plant life as +well as animal life. No man in the domain of agriculture is confronted +with a greater necessity of “knowing good from evil,” at every turn +and in more ways, than is the dairy farmer. Ignorance is at work here +to destroy fertility and profit as well as in all other branches of +agriculture. But there are certain natural advantages that govern here +more than in other lines of farming. + +(1) The dairyman must so handle his farm as to support sufficient animal +life to give him a living profit for his time and labor. + +(2) That animal life is a constant contributor to the fertility of the +soil through the abundant manure that is made. + +(3) As a rule the dairy farmer is a buyer as well as grower of feed, +particularly of nitrogenous feeds. This gives added fertilizing value to +the manure. + +(4) He builds silos and so consumes the coarser roughage of the farm, +enabling him thereby to carry a much larger stock of cattle, hogs and +sheep than he otherwise could. + +(5) He is obliged to build barns and sheds, whereby the forage of the +farm shall be stored with the least possible loss of its nutritive +powers, and consequently this saves waste very greatly. + +(6) He is compelled to become a large producer of legumes, like clover, +alfalfa, vetch, etc., whereby by natural means, nitrogen is more largely +restored to the soil. + +All these are the natural and inevitable things that belong to his +vocation if he is a man big enough to comprehend them. But there are some +things he must do of an extra character if he handles his farm so as to +constantly increase its fertility. He must be a liberal feeder of the +land as well as his animals. He must comprehend that nothing can be grown +on the farm without an expenditure of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash. +The nitrogen, to a large extent, the legumes will evolve and deposit in +the soil. But the phosphorus and the potash must be purchased. He must +know something about these important elements, and he must accept it as +one of his fixed expenses of the farm that these elements, as well as +lime, must be yearly supplies. + +Certain forms of dairying, like milk shipping, cheese making and +condensing, are wasteful of fertility, unless the farmer guards against +such loss, by artificially supplying the lime, and phosphate potash. It +is largely through this taking of the whole milk from the farm without +adequate making up of the loss, that so many farms in the eastern states +became depleted of their fertility. Whenever butter dairying was carried +on, and consequently the skim milk was used to grow calves and pigs, +the live stock complement of the farm was kept up and the manure supply +greatly enhanced. Such sections like Delaware county, New York, have +suffered much less in the depletion of the soil in the past fifty years, +than did Herkimer, St. Lawrence, Madison, Oneida and other of the cheese +making counties of that state. The same a depleting process has been +going on in New England, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and farther +west. The wonderful growth of villages and cities calls for an enormous +consumption of dairy products. This means taking the whole milk from +the farm in a large degree and thereby greatly reduces the growing of +live stock. We well remember sixty years ago how that central New York +produced great crops of clover and a large supply of cattle, hogs and +sheep. The tops of the hills were kept covered with the splendid forests +that characterized that state. The springs and small streams were by that +means maintained and we fished for trout in brooks that have not known +a trout for the past thirty years, and which are dry most of the year. +All this has been changed and sadly so for the worse. Had the farmers +kept the tops of the hills covered with trees it would have conserved the +water supply and helped maintain the side hill pastures. + +Fifty years ago Horace Greeley, through his Tribune, warned the farmers +of New York against the destructive effect of stripping the forests from +the hill tops. Dairying in all its branches of butter production, milk +shipping, cheese making and condensing, must, of course, be kept up for +the necessities of the great army of consumers who demand it. + +But the demand is just as imperative that the dairy farmer know what he +is about and conduct his farm with an eye single to the preservation of +its fertility. He must know more of the scientific side of his calling. +He must be more willing to use some of his revenue in the purchase of +fertilizers to produce against the natural waste that is constantly going +on. He must adopt the principle that it is to his ultimate greater profit +as well as the well-being of the state that he farm towards an increase +rather than a decrease of the fertility of his land. + +These are some of the paramount problems of the day and hour that +confront the dairy farmer. The trouble is that here as well as elsewhere +in this broad field of agriculture, ignorance has held sway. “We all, +like sheep, have gone astray.” The wise live teachers of agriculture are +becoming more obsessed every day with the thought that if the future +millions of this country are fed, the American farmer must wake up, and +that right soon, to the fearful mistakes he has been making through his +ignorance and indifference in destroying the productive capacity of his +land. + +Every man, woman and child in the Nation is vitally interested in the +promotion of conserving intelligence among the farmers of this country. + + +BACK TO THE FARM + +BY HENRY IDE WILLEY. + +This is the slogan of our clan; too long has the farm been deemed the +dumping ground for those whom poverty or mediocre ability has kept out of +the professions, arts and sciences. + +“Anyone can farm” was the ancient idea. Not so the modern maxim. It is +“back to the farm,” with education, intellect and experience that more +than double the production of our soil and elevate the farmer to the same +high plane occupied by others of equal ability and intellect in other +callings. + +Back to the farm is the maxim of our chief executive as he tours our +country in the interest of progress. + +It is not the aim of this article to enter into a scientific dissertation +upon the chemical properties of all fertilizers, or to cover the entire +ground with reference to the art of fertilization, it would prove too +scopey a work to attempt any such a thing within the time and space that +could be prudently allotted upon an occasion like this. + +All that I shall attempt to do will be to touch upon some salient +features of the art, and deal briefly with the most important details +to be kept in view by the progressive farmer, who seeks to get the +maximum results from a minimum area and amount of labor. Also I want +to warn you of the danger of being victimized by unscrupulous dealers +in fertilizers, and suggest some basic precautions to be observed, and +finally to convince you that there is no dearth of fertilizing material +in the United States that should be available at a reasonable price, to +all who may require it. A just and beneficent Deity seems to have wisely +provided abundantly all of the factors required to enable us to equalize +the productions of our country, only demanding that we perform a certain +amount of prefatory labor and wisely use the brains He has endowed us +with. + +Generally speaking we are required to do a dollar’s worth of work to +obtain a dollar’s reward in all vocations. One dollar’s value in any of +the precious metals requires a dollar’s worth of work or outlay; the same +is true with a dollar’s worth of wheat, oats, beans, or anything else. + +Where rains are not abundant and opportune, there are adjacent mountains +with their precipitating possibilities and lakes, or reservoir sites in +which to store water to irrigate about all of the lands capable of being +profitably watered. Just so within our area are vast deposits of calcium, +phosphates and other fertilizing factors, only requiring a certain amount +of labor, to enable us to place them where they will do the most good. + +Florida probably produces the greatest volume and best quality of calcium +phosphates. Tennessee next. Then the Carolinas, Utah and Idaho, the +former only needing railways to provide transportation facilities to +provide abundant and cheap supply throughout the west. + +In 1889, Albert Richter, Esq., discovered these last named deposits which +are gigantic reserves for the future. + +When tillage begins, other arts follow. Daniel Webster says: “The farmers +therefore are the founders of human civilization.” + +Farming is as much a business as any other vocation, and primarily, the +farmer should be a good business man to be successful. In the main he +follows his calling for the money he can make thereby, like other prudent +men, seeking the largest possible return from his outlay. + +It is not enough to raise a crop, a profit must be realized upon the +labor and capital invested. + +He must understand his business, must observe needed economics, yet must +be ever ready to spend a dollar when he can see a fair interest to be +derivable therefrom. + +Farming is not only a business, but equally an art—the art of producing +animal and plant life needful and useful to mankind. + +A true knowledge of agriculture and kindred occupations necessitates a +complete grasp of the principles upon which the art is based. In this +enlightened age such knowledge is indispensable. When our country was new +and only the most fertile soil was tilled, “anyone could be a farmer.” +To sow and reap were all that was required, so lavish was Dame Nature in +giving of the fertility stored up for centuries. But this soon sapped the +vitality of the soil, its tillage ceased to be profitable, and in many +instances abandonment of the farms ere long would follow. + +This unfortunate result is greatly to be lamented, because, by +intelligent precautions the calamity could have been averted. The farming +of the future must be carried on by intelligent, educated men of liberal +training. + +Geology, botany, zoology, chemistry and physics have already done much +toward the conservation of the fertility of the soil, but not generally, +as should be the case. + +Importance of water, as a source of plant food and a conveyor thereof, +is one of the most important factors developed by chemical analysis. The +enormous proportion of water entering into the composition of the plant +and its incalculable value as a conveyor of plant food to the roots. +Nearly 900 of 1,000 parts of the matured corn plant are water, exclusive +of exhalations, which are considerable, or 1,000 pounds of corn during +its growing period use about thirty tons of water. As this amount of corn +can be raised on one-thirtieth of an acre, 900 tons, or an eighth inch +depth layer, would be required for an acre, and about the same amount +being lost by percolation and drainage gains as 1,800 tons of water per +acre, thus proving the need for the conservation of the moisture of the +soil. In fact 300 to 500 times more water in pounds is required, than dry +matter. + +First, as it composes 80 per cent of the mature crop, it is the most +essential plant food. It also furnishes the hydrogen and oxygen found in +dry matter equal to 10 per cent more, making 90 per cent in all derived +directly from water. + +Water also dissolves the plant food, facilitating its distribution. +It stiffens, or prevents the wilting of plants to replace losses by +evaporation, probably controls the temperature of the plants, and water +is indispensable for the movement of food within the plant, constituting +this the most vital single factor in determining the fertility of land, +hence the great importance of irrigation where moisture is not abundant. + +Within the time and space allotted, it would be impossible to deal with +every factor relating to question of fertilization such as carbon, +nitrogen, etc. I will therefore proceed to treat of the most potent and +effective fertilizing compound. Phosphoric acid, tricalcite phosphate +of lime or calcium phosphate. This is present in normal soil, in much +smaller quantities than potash, and experience demonstrates, is more +likely to become exhausted. In fact in some regions no other fertilizer +is used. + +The phosphates may be subdivided into two general classes, natural and +the manufactured phosphates: The natural phosphates have two general +sources—the bones of dead animals, and certain phosphates containing +minerals which will be designated. Raw bone meal is made by the grinding +of raw bones to a powder, and the finer it is, the more valuable the +product. This contains about 22 per cent of phosphoric acid and 4 per +cent of nitrogen. Raw bones contain a small quantity of fat also, and as +this promotes rapid decay of the bone, the phosphoric acid and nitrogen +are quite slowly disseminated to the crop. + +Most of the bone meal of commerce is made from bones previously steamed +to remove the fat, and a portion of the nitrogen compounds. Bone so +treated contains about 28 per cent to 30 per cent of phosphoric acid and +1½ per cent of nitrogen. As these can be ground finer and decay more +rapidly, they are more valuable and effective than the raw bones. + +Tankage is an important source of phosphoric acid in so-called animal +politogess. When the product contains a very large proportion of bone, it +is sometimes designated as bone tankage, and may contain 7 to 18 per cent +of phosphoric acid. + +Bone black or animal charcoal is made by heating bone in air-tight +vessels, until the volatile matter is drawn off, and is used in the +refineries to purify sugar. + +After it has become spent or used by refineries, it is sold for +fertilizing purposes. Bone black contains from 32 to 36 per cent of +phosphoric acid. In a number of places rock deposits are found that +contain varying percentages of phosphate of lime. These phosphates are +usually named after the place where they are obtained, as “Carolina,” +“Florida,” “Tennessee” phosphates. + +These rocks contain from 18 to 32 per cent of phosphoric acid, and differ +from the bone products in that they contain no organic matter, and are +purely mineral substances. Ground to a fine powder, they are sometimes +sold under the name of “floats,” but the rock phosphates are used only to +a limited extent in the crude condition. + +The phosphoric acid in all the natural phosphates described is combined +with lime, in a form that is extremely insoluble in water. In order to +render the phosphate soluble it is sometimes treated with sulphuric acid +which unites with part of the lime, leaving a phosphate which contains +only a third as much lime as the natural phosphate and is soluble in +water. + +The lime and sulphuric acid make a compound which is the same as found in +gypsum or landplaster. This combination of soluble phosphate and gypsum +made by treating the natural phosphates with acid is called by various +names of superphosphate—soluble phosphate, acid phosphate, acidulated +rock, etc. For its manufacture the rock phosphates are generally +employed, both because they are cheaper, and because the organic matter +in the bones interferes with the use of sufficient acid to make all of +the phosphate soluble. A good sample of phosphate contains about 16 per +cent of phosphoric acid in a form that is soluble in water. + +Sometimes when insufficient acid has been used a part of the soluble +phosphate will change into a form intermediate in solubility, between +the natural phosphate and the acid phosphate, and this is said to +have undergone “reversion.” The new compound being called “reverted +phosphates.” The latter product is supposed to be more available to the +plant than the insoluble or natural phosphate, hence, the soluble and +reverted phosphoric acid taken together are known as the “available +phosphoric acid.” + +Sometimes, bone meal is treated with a limited amount of sulphuric acid +and the product is called “acidulated bone.” This contains a much smaller +proportion of its phosphoric acid in soluble form, than does the rock +superphosphate. When soluble phosphates are added to the soil, they +combine soon with the mineral matter and are converted, first into the +reverted phosphate, and finally into the insoluble form, such as is found +naturally in the soil. In this way the phosphoric acid is fixed and there +is no danger of its being lost by leaching. + +The soluble phosphate present in acidulated goods is generally considered +the most favorable form of phosphoric acid for use as a fertilizer. + +At first sight it seems useless to go to the expense of making the +phosphate soluble when it is again rendered insoluble by the soil, before +the plant can make use of it. The true object in making it soluble is to +aid in its distribution to the soil and thence to the plant. + +When an insoluble phosphate is applied it remains where it falls, except +for the slight distribution it receives by cultivating. In the case of +the soluble phosphate, on the other hand, the phosphate dissolves in the +soil water, and is widely distributed before it becomes fixed by the +soil. In the former, also, the roots must go to the phosphate, while in +the latter, the phosphate is carried to the roots. + +It will therefore be observed that after the soluble phosphate is +distributed throughout the soil, the individual particles must be +very much smaller than is the case with the insoluble phosphate. The +importance of fineness of division can not be too strongly emphasized. + +Too much stress cannot be laid upon the need of intelligent use of +fertilizers. A little expense and effort in carefully analyzing the soil +to be treated, proving its component parts and proportions, then leaving +what should be added to result in the largest production of the crops +desired. No guessing nor conjecture should be indulged in, it can only +lead to disaster, whereas a little scientific investigation and analysis +will render success certain. + +Analysis alone will not suffice. Actual testing of the various classes of +soil, dividing same into small blocks and using different proportions of +fertilizers on some, none on others, will insure the best results. + +Farmers are furnished with a great variety of so-called fertilizers of +greater or less merit, and a vast variety of mixtures almost too numerous +to classify, many of which I regret to state are not at all what they +are represented to be, and often are worth less than one-third the price +charged therefor. No one should under any circumstances be induced to +purchase anything claimed to be a fertilizer, without first having had an +analysis made of the same by some chemist of unimpeachable integrity. +A failure or refusal to observe this precaution will be certain to +defeat the purpose in view and result in loss, instead of the gain +desired. There can be no good excuse given for the unfair adulteration +of fertilizers, because the supply of basic material is abundant, cheap, +and can be reasonably transported, leaving a good profit for all dealers, +when an absolutely pure article. As the product is now sold it ranges +from 1 to 3 per cent ammonia, 6 to 12 per cent phosphoric acid, 4 to 10 +per cent potash. + +The unit basis of purchase is a fair one to both vendor and vendee. A +unit means 1 per cent on the basis of a ton, or twenty pounds. + +For example, a unit of available phosphoric acid would be twenty pounds, +and if the quotation was $1.00 a unit, the phosphoric acid would cost +five cents a pound. The system is applied to the sale of nitrate of +soda, the potash salt, blood, meat, tankage, superphosphate, etc., and +in nitrogenous goods the price is usually stated as so much a unit of +ammonia. + +The number of units in the material is determined by chemical analysis. +This system could be applied as well to mixed as unmixed goods. But home +mixing would prove by far the wisest policy, as none of the frauds common +to commercial fertilizers could then be perpetrated. + +It is little less than idiocy to buy any mixed fertilizer for any +specific tract of land, because you may be paying for an excess of many +elements, when the addition of some one single acid, such as sulphuric, +for instance, would double its production. Lime, marl, muck, wood or coal +ashes only would at times produce better results than the most perfect +and elaborate mixed fertilizer. + +Apropos of this subject, permit me to call attention to a little work +of great value to every farmer. None should be without it. _Viz._, A +treatise on “American Manures, and Farmers’ and Planters’ Guide,” by Wm. +H. Buckner, Analytical Consulting Chemist, and J. B. Chynoweth, Eng., +published in Philadelphia. + +The great lawyer, Theodore Cuylor, and others, give this work unqualified +approval, and any farmer, after its perusal, is amply advised as to the +many frauds perpetrated in the name of fertilization, and can guard +against being victimized thereby. + +To attempt to deal with the fertilization question without giving ample +scope to the question of water supply, would be a waste of effort, as +water is the most important of all elements to be considered. + +Not all land is to be benefited by irrigation, but vastly more is +improved than is generally supposed. There are few sections where +the natural supply is precipitated at the right time, and in proper +proportion, and wherever this is the case irrigation can be profitably +resorted to always, providing the supply can be economically obtained and +distributed. + +For example, take the rich Willamette valley in Oregon, where the +rainfall is excessive during the entire spring, but little or none +falls during the summer months, and it has been proven that larger or +more frequent crops can be raised there with irrigation, even in this +“Web-foot state.” + +Perfect production is only attainable when control of all the elements +is possible, and this can be accomplished only in a hot house or +conservatory. But the nearest approach thereto in the open, is in an +almost rainless country, where the sunshine is constant by day, the soil +fertile, and irrigation possible. + +Where these conditions prevail, as in Sinaloa, Mexico, as many as three +crops a year can be produced upon the same area, and it is safe to state +that there are few regions where the irrigation of the land will not +prove beneficial. In most instances the providing of irrigation carries +with it the necessity for a drainage system as well. It is not the +placing of water on the land which causes the benefit, but the passage of +the water through the soil, carrying the fertility or plant food to the +roots, hence flow must be kept up, and often this can only be insured by +providing a drainage system. + +Our country is so new, and our soil was so fertile originally, that +abundant crops were produced thereon for many years, but this constant +cropping of the same product, year after year, has exhausted vast areas +and their life must be renewed. + +Fertilizers are abundant and accessible in the United States and can be +laid down on any farm near to lines to transportation, and if of genuine +character and properly applied, crops can be doubled or better each +season. + +Professor Hopkins of the Illinois university more than doubled the +production of wheat on a certain tract of land under this supervision. +The natural yield was about twenty-four bushels; fertilized, fifty-six +bushels per acre. + +Although the phosphate deposits now known to exist are of vast area, it +was not until 1889 that the Florida deposits were accepted as valuable +and extensive. + +Pebble deposits of Florida are supposed to underlie an area of about +2,000 square miles, and are on lands about 160 feet above sea level. + +Over-burden: + + 1. Soil and subsoil, few inches to six feet. + + 2. A light colored sand, few inches to ten feet. + + 3. Stiff clay vari-colored at times, capping of sandstone color + brown to pure white. + +MATRIX 212°. + + Organic matter 2.40 + Phosphoric acid 15.29 + Carbonic acid 6.70 + Lime 20.00 + Iron and aluminum 13.06 + Fluoride and magnesia .60 + Insoluble silica and sand 41.95 + ------ + 100.00 + Equivalent to tribasic phosphate of lime 32.33 + Equivalent to carbonate of lime 15.20 + +Land pebbles average from 65 to 70 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime. + +River pebbles are of the same origin, but slightly less value, 60 per +cent to 63 per cent phosphate of lime. The whole Peninsula of Florida +is underlaid with white limestone of the Vicsburg age (Lower Eocene), +according to Professor Lyall, upper middle Eocene, according to American +geologists, which is the oldest rock in Florida. Florida was submerged +until the end of the Eocene period, after which its elevation occurred. +Then came the Miocene submergence followed by a second elevation, next +the Champlain period and submergence, when it was covered with a mantle +of sand and clay, before it arose to its present elevation. + +The phosphate pebbles were formed before this last submergence, and hence +washed into the depressions of limestone and over same. + +ANALYSIS GRAVEL ROCK. + +_Many Samples._ + + Phosphoric acid 36.08 + Carbonate of lime 2.17 + Oxide of iron and aluminum 1.94 + Silica 4.50 + Moisture 2.50 + +European Analysis of some organic matter—water. + + Voelker Gilbert Marat + Phosphoric acid 36.56 36.33 36.84 + Lime 52.08 + Oxide of iron 1.36 + Aluminum 1.39 + Magnesia carb. phos 7.17 + Insoluble 0.85 + ----- + 100. + Tribasic phosphate of lime 79.81 79.31 80.43 + +Early in this century the marl beds of New Jersey were worked and used +for fertilization. This led to the discovery of similar deposits in +South Carolina. One Lardue Venaxen, who made the first geological survey +in 1826, discovered same, but no work was done until 1842, when Edward +Ruffin of Virginia confirmed the reports of previous explorers. + +First carbonate of lime only was evolved; 20 per cent up to 90 per cent, +but later from 2 per cent to 9 per cent of phosphate of lime was found by +Dr. C. W. Sheppard and J. Lawrence Smith, Esq. + +During the war, nodules and strata of rock phosphate were found by Dr. N. +A. Pratt near Ashley River. + +It was not until April 14, 1868, that any systematic production of +phosphate was accomplished in South Carolina, when the first cargo was +shipped from Charleston and the arrival of same created a veritable +epidemic of phosphate fever in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and other +cities. + +ANALYSIS. + +_Mean of many hundreds of samples._ + + [1]Phosphoric acid from 25.0 per cent to 28.00 per cent + [2]Carbon acid from 2.50 per cent to 5.00 per cent + Sulphuric acid from 0.50 per cent to 2.00 per cent + Lime from 35.00 per cent to 42. per cent + Magnesia traces + Aluminum traces + Sesqui oxide of iron 1.00 to 4.00 per cent + Fluoride 1.00 to 2.00 per cent + Sand and silica 4.00 to 12.00 per cent + Organic matter and water. + +[1] Equivalent to 55 to 61 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime. + +[2] Equivalent to 5 to 11 per cent carbonate of lime. + +In 8 per cent there was shipped from + + Florida 250,000 tons + North Carolina 150,000 tons + South Carolina 200,000 tons + Alabama 125,000 tons + Virginia 150,000 tons + Mississippi 50,000 tons + Louisiana 25,000 tons + Tennessee 25,000 tons + ------- + 975,000 tons + +In Ontario there exists one area of from seventy-five to one hundred +square miles, and another from fifteen to twenty-five miles wide, and 100 +miles long of commercial phosphate. + +It is found in many other places, but not proven. + +Here it occurs in flint and has been worked by farmers in a desultory +way, costing much and yielding little profit to the operators. + +On the Lievre River, two and one-half miles from Highfall and twenty +miles from Bushman, there was the famous Watt mine, where, from a +cone-shaped mountain, a vast amount of pure apatite was mined, once +called “Emerald.” Quite a number of deposits have been worked in Canada, +but not any with great profit. + +ANALYSIS. + + Phosphoric acid 40.868 + Fluoride 3.731 + Chloride 0.428 + Carbonic acid 0.105 + Lime 48.475 + Calcium 4.168 + Magnesia 0.158 + Alumina 0.835 + Sesqui oxide 0.005 + Insoluble 1.150 + ------- + 100.823 + + Tribasic = 89.219 + +About the year 1880 a stratum of calcium phosphate was discovered near +Mount Fairview, Tennessee. At first it was not believed to be of great +extent, or good quality, but ere long both were abundantly proven, and a +large quantity of high grade phosphates was mined. + +But owing to the rush of producers in every direction, without any system +or unity of action, the crazy competitors soon glutted the market, +forcing the price down below cost of production. + +Of recent years, a few big operators have gathered in most of the choice +areas, and by introducing up-to-date methods, etc., have gradually +brought the production down to a normal basis, and the price up to a +profitable figure. + +The volume of deposit in this region is very great, extending from about +ten miles south of Mount Pleasant to the line of the Tennessee Central +Railway and beyond, and a width of over fifty miles. + +In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit lies under a very thin +over-burden, often only the surface soil of ten feet thickness or width, +a layer of from two to eight feet of white sandstone beneath this, the +substratum of limestone being near the surface, and of vast thickness. +Also somewhat uneven or undulating, making depressions of twenty-five +feet at times, which are in turn filled with the phosphate deposit. + +As the topography becomes uneven the plains cease and foothills occur, +the character of the over-burden changes and that of the phosphate +likewise. + +As an elevation of 600 feet above sea level is reached, and exceeded, the +over-burden becomes of greater thickness, and chert or flint and some +limestone and conglomerate overlie the phosphate. + +In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit is mixed with sand and is soft +and easily excavated from the surface, whereas in the higher altitude, +the same becomes hard as stone and has to be excavated by tunneling under +the chert, as drift mining is done. + +The protection of this latter deposit from atmospheric action and +percolating waters, both, or with the compression, renders the phosphate +of higher class. Although the stratum is not so thick as out in the +valley, it ranges from two to six feet. Two is a fair mean. Quite an +extensive area of this deposit has been bought or leased by a Cincinnati +company, which plans to develop same upon an intelligent modern plan and +gradually upon a large scale. + +At Mount Pleasant, Mr. John Ruhm, Jr., a college-bred man of rare +intellect and great capacity, has devoted many years to a study and +operation of his phosphate deposits, in the most scientific manner +possible. He has kept in close touch with the most advanced men of the +age, such as Prof. Hopkins of the State University of Illinois, who has +given more time to the study and practice of fertilization than any +man in the United States. Prof. Hopkins finds it necessary to reduce +the phosphates to a 100-mesh fineness to enable him to obtain the best +results, and Mr. Ruhm has for years been experimenting with the grinding +machinery to discover the best and cheapest for this purpose. Only this +year, in July, did he discover that the “Hardinge” tube-mill is, in all +respects, the best machine tested. He got 90 per cent duty from over 200 +tons a day at 100-mesh, and some of this over 200-mesh fineness; 100-mesh +is possible, grinding the same either wet or dry. + +I had the good fortune to witness these July tests and can confirm Mr. +Ruhm’s claims for his process, which he does not selfishly try to keep, +but generously gives to all who ask information. + +The Tennessee phosphates of commerce are not quite as high grade, and do +not command as high a price as others, but this is entirely due to the +careless preparation of same for market. So soon as Mr. Ruhm’s plan is +followed, the grade will be raised, and price follow to topmost. + +ANALYSIS. + + Phosphoric acid 36.33 + Lime 52.08 + Oxide of iron 1.36 + Aluminum 1.39 + Magnesia and carbonic acid 7.17 + Insoluble 0.85 + ----- + 99.19 + +The above represents a mean of about thirty analyses of samples taken +from over a 10,000 acre area, principally from exposed outcrop, hence a +test of protected product would give larger percentages. + +As the United States Geological Survey has not been extended over the +area embracing a large part of these phosphate lands, one can only +conjecture concerning their scope although it is safe to assume it to be +very great. + +I believe this crude treatment of this question will suffice to suggest +two important facts: + +First. That we have available in this country an abundant supply of +phosphates to enable us to replenish the fertility of our soils at a +reasonable cost. + +Second. That this feature should be carefully studied by every farmer in +the country, and the maximum result obtained from every acre tilled and +every day’s labor performed. + +In addition to the deposits of phosphate in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, +which only need equal transportation facilities to introduce their +product, we must have others, as yet undiscovered, because few laymen, +and not all engineers, recognize the deposit when found, and it is not +always discoverable without excavation where it does exist. + +“A little farm well tilled” can be made to produce more abundantly, more +profitably, than one larger and less effectively handled, hence no +matter how rich and fertile nature may have made your farm, it is hardly +possible that it may not be improved and reward you abundantly for it. + +During the summer of 1911, I had the good fortune to be employed to +examine an area of phosphate deposit some fifty miles above Mount +Pleasant in Tennessee, and, in order to better understand the subject, +first visited Mount Pleasant and vicinity to note conditions, progress, +etc., hence my data relative to this section is fresh and new. + +I know I am justified in asserting that there is a vast field for +the exploitation of this valuable deposit in this region, with ample +assurance of the development of a vast area that can be profitably worked. + +One thing is certain, nowhere can the deposit be more fully determined, +and nowhere be more economically worked, hence this region should become +the most productive of any ere long. + +Over an extensive area there is spread out a layer or blanket of this +phosphate rock, lying under a huge mass of chert or flint rock and +resting on a bed of shale or slate, which in turn rests upon a vast bed +of limestone several hundred feet deep. + +The phosphate seam is from six inches to four feet in thickness and lies +about 600 feet above sea level and about 150 feet above the valleys that +cut through it, so that tunnels can readily be run in under the seam at +any desired place, and the phosphate be stoped out _ad libitum_. + +Only a very small portion of the country has been surveyed by the United +States Geological Survey, hence but little is known of its contents and +characteristics. + +But my investigations prove that a very large area contains this deposit, +extending for many miles east and west and north and south from Boma on +the Tennessee Central as a center. + +It is therefore quite certain that there is no dearth of this commodity, +and there is not likely to be for many years to come, as other deposits +are likely to be discovered as the known ones are exhausted. + +Now! the moral of the foregoing: We have available at reasonable cost +the elements to reënrich our soil. Hence, our farmers should first +cultivate their minds, that they may be able to discover in what elements +their soil is defective, or what is wanting, to enable them to get best +results. A very liberal education should be obtained, if possible, for in +no walk of life is a greater scope of knowledge required and profitable +to a farmer. Then, the farmers should unite all over the country to +endeavor to elevate and ennoble labor and the laborers, which can be done +only by example, by acts and deeds, not by preaching. + +Every honor, reward and benefit of every character should be open to and +be given the farmer and artisan laborer, and, in the degree that each +deserves credit for work well done, the reward should follow. + +Why not offer prizes for workers? Why not fill all of our executive and +administrative government bodies with the best farmers, business men, +carpenters, etc., instead of lawyers? Just think of it. Everyone knows +lawyers are proverbially poor business men. Yet our Nation, states, +counties and cities all are governed principally by men who privately are +considered as inferior business men. + +By compelling the lawyers by some labor, some successful work, to first +prove their business ability and capacity, and making labor—work—the +honest, real basis for the elevation of men and women to places of trust +and profit, and by this course only can labor be exalted and every child +in the land be led to look with pride and pleasure upon the laborers, who +are the true bone and sinew of the world. + +Preaching that “labor is ennobling,” then bestowing honor and benefits +upon those who never have cheerfully done a day’s hard work will not +exalt the laborer. + +Let us get back to the farm and honor the farmer, that our days may be +long in the land that the Lord has given us, and let the laborer be truly +ennobled. + +If farmers “were the founders of civilization,” as Mr. Webster states, +then are they also the main pillars supporting the same, and should be +looked up to, be honored and rewarded as such. And far above any lawyer, +merchant or millionaire, we can trust our workingmen and women. Let us +try it at once, one and all of us. + + +ADDRESS. + +BY E. G. GRIGGS, _President of the National Lumbermen’s Manufacturing +Association_ + +It was my pleasure to attend the Second Annual Conservation Congress +a year ago in St. Paul. That I am here today representing a lumber +producing delegation would intimate that my interest in these proceedings +is at least perennial. I deplored the introduction of politics and +regretted the delay in publication of the excellent reports submitted +with leave to print at the Congress. Just recently I have read the many +excellent technical reports, the discussion of which I deemed of more +importance to the upbuilding of the conservation movement than the +political outbursts that rankle in our breasts and tend to array class +against class. Conservation is education, and we all have something to +learn. The experience of the older and great states of this Union should +profit the younger and perhaps greater. + +As a lumberman, conservation to me is not a theory. It is the proper +utilization of a great heritage and the elimination of waste in the +process of manufacturing and logging. What theory is more vital +commercially to the lumberman than that? The establishment of values will +determine to what extent conservation will be practiced and reforestation +followed. When men devoted to the general welfare of these United States +are giving liberally of their time and money and energy to protect the +vast resources of this country from wasteful extravagance, I feel it is +little enough to expect those who are actively engaged in commercial +enterprises to second their efforts. + +The importance of sane laws and wise legislation must be apparent to all +of us. Unless the business interests of the country heed the call and +guide the effort, an outraged public will some day awaken to its lost +opportunities. + +As an official of the National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, I feel +that we, as lumbermen, are vitally interested in the proceedings of this +Congress. I come to you from a state that stands in the front rank as a +lumber producer—a citizenship interested from its lowliest to its highest +in the proper utilization of its wonderful forest growth. It is true +that there is a divergence of opinion among some of our Washington state +officials as to state and federal control—but to me, the important issue +seems a national one. The value of our timber resources is determined +altogether by the demand existing outside our own states. If conservation +depends on values, then I say the price you in the Middle West must pay +for lumber has a great deal to do with reforestation and utilization +of our raw product. It is therefore entirely a national issue, and the +question of supply and demand, that inexorable commercial law, concerns +us all. + +I am a strong believer in the knowledge of conditions and in the benefits +of coöperation. The final outcome of the reciprocity pact, conceived, as +it was, in secret, emphasizes the fact that our Canadian brethren intend +to adopt a conservative policy of their own. As a lumberman, I have never +agreed with our honored President in the belief that the trade was a +good one for us. To a man not concerned in politics, it seemed that our +Canadian traders out-traded the Yankee. Why the argument for a permanent +tariff commission, non-partisan and thoroughly competent, should apply +on wool, cotton, steel and not on lumber, hardly appeals to me. Now that +we know where we stand, is it not high time the tariff issues be studied +as in foreign countries, particularly Germany, by a body of experts +permanently engaged, that Congress hear and discuss officially its report +and that facts be placed before the people? I am democratic enough to +still believe in the great American people. + +No industry not unduly protected need fear the light or a business +upheaval. Today a presidential year causes stagnation in business, either +assumed or real. Our country never will settle the tariff issue right +until business integrity governs. The revelation in accumulated wealth +and control of millions can only be justified if our country prospers. +Neither should the people be taxed to accumulate swollen fortunes. The +prices at which the same commodities are sold to the people of different +nations ought to determine the tariff issue. America is for Americans; +let us develop our latent resources, not squander our heritage with +prodigality. Golden opportunities or luxurious surroundings do not +warrant idleness, but rather a higher sense of individual and national +responsibilities. To get the best out of that which we have should +concern us all. + +Our taxation problems, the methods which have prevailed so long, do not +encourage timber holding. Lumbermen have one crop and yearly taxes, while +the farmer has yearly taxes and annual crops. A timber investment of +$5,000, say at $1.50 per thousand, with taxes and interest compounded, in +twenty years will equal $7.50 per thousand, allowing no profit at all, +nor considering the fire risk. In President Taft’s address a year ago, +he says that “States must legislate to protect their individual holdings +from waste and private greed.” Had the Reciprocity Agreement become a +law, the Nation would have been responsible for an increased competition +and uncalled for development of timber resources in no way beneficial to +the United States, except those speculators who have invested in British +Columbia timber. The development of Canadian timber holdings will not +save our trees as long as growing trees are taxed, capital invested +and timber is sold on time contracts. The more competition, the more +will be left in the woods, as only in the higher grades will there be +profit. Lumber is constantly rising in value because of its increasing +inaccessibility and the distance it has to travel to market. + +Why deprive our great lumber producing states of the great purchasing +power resulting from the manufacture of this resource? Over +three-quarters of the cost at the mill of one thousand feet of lumber +represents pay roll, and to the Western states this means outside +capital. Of the money received for 1,000 feet of 2×4’s delivered on a +fifty-cent rate of freight today, the railroad takes $13.00 freight +money, leaving $7.00 to pay for logging, manufacturing, selling and +stumpage. What your retailers charge I do not know. As manufacturers, +we have no trust controlled product and do not control the price to the +consumer. Suffice it to say that there is little or no margin in the +price of common lumber today to the manufacturer. A comparison of the +selling prices at home and abroad, with due regard for grades furnished, +should determine the existence of a lumber trust, and the same reasoning +applies conversely to steel and other industries. Harassed as the +industry has been by government proceedings and investigation of alleged +trust and monopoly, we feel that a great injustice is being done that +should be righted. If the marketing through retailers is not legal, I +predict a commercial upheaval is due in all lines of industry. + +Reforestation will come when it is profitable—when the land is more +suitable to grow trees on than to sow annual crops or build cities. +The methods followed in the East will not apply to the South and West. +The character of the timber must be studied to determine how it can be +profitably handled. Its proximity to market, and the rail and water +haul are to be considered. This was emphasized in the Congress last +year and is more apparent today, as the completion of the Panama Canal +approaches. It was stated that adequate and economical transportation +facilities are viewed among the means of conservation, and realizing that +the growth of the country has exceeded its transportation facilities, +I trust a comprehensive resolution will be adopted by this Congress +regarding the Panama Canal tolls. With our coastwise shipping laws and +regulations governing shipments from one American port to another, the +benefits of this canal will be seriously menaced unless Congress acts +intelligently in the matter, and with due regard to the development of +our country. If we are to have tariff revision or free trade, let us at +least be consistent and give to our own manufacturers access to ships on +a competitive basis. + +In my judgment, it will not do to merely resolute and spread high +sounding, well-meaning platitudes on the records; we should organize +to actively acquaint our citizenship throughout the states with the +prevailing conditions and the benefits to be derived through experience +of others and knowledge of conditions. Educate the people, and a great +public sentiment will demand improved conditions. The efforts of +conservationists are often misjudged because considered impractical. I +say eliminate the visionary and theoretical, get down to the practical +and immediate remedies. We will have a movement so widespread and +effective that the Nation will rejoice and problems undreamed of now will +be solved by an enlightened, unprejudiced public. + +We should encourage men and money in the development of our resources, +but by wise supervision control their operations. This government is +bigger than any of its component parts, and not only have railroads and +corporations felt its guiding hand to their betterment, but the court of +final resort must always and forever be the people of this, our native +land. + +Let us strive for the highest type of citizenship which demands the best +that is in us, and we will play our part in the ascendency of the star of +the greatest of empires—the American Republic. + + +INCREASING THE YIELD BY PROPER CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL + +BY A. M. TEN EYCK, _Professor of Farm Management Kansas State +Agricultural College and Superintendent Fort Hays Branch Experiment +Station._ + +How to increase the acre yield of staple crops is the important problem +which the American farmer must solve in order that the world may not +go hungry, and also that his own prosperity may continue. The average +crop yields in this country are too low. It is possible to double our +acre-yields of staple crops by adopting better farming methods. + +There are three principal factors which have to do with increasing crop +yields: (1) increasing the productive power of the land by fertilizing +the soil; (2) planting seed of high-bred and better producing varieties; +(3) practicing proper and more thorough cultivation of the soil. + +The work in testing varieties and breeding crops at the Kansas Experiment +Station has shown that it is possible to increase the average yield of +the standard crops in this state twenty-five per cent by the single +factor of introducing and planting pure seed of well-bred and high +producing varieties. To illustrate,[3] one of the improved varieties +of winter wheat grown on the Kansas Agricultural College farm actually +produced twelve and one-half bushels more grain per acre each year, +or a net profit of nearly $7.00 per acre per annum, as an average for +three years, above that produced by common scrub wheat of the same type. +Farmers all over the state who have planted this improved wheat have +reported similar results, the increase in yield from the well-bred wheat +being often much larger than the differences secured at the station. +It is hard to believe that one variety of wheat, improved by breeding +and selection, will outyield another strain of the same variety, which +has not been improved, as much as fifty per cent; but a large number of +reports from reliable Kansas farmers indicate that this has occurred, +when the two strains of wheat were grown in the same field side by side. + +[3] See Kansas Experiment Station Bulletin 144. + +Corn is more susceptible to soil and climatic changes than wheat, so that +the well-bred seed does not always give the best results from the first +year’s planting; but breeding will tell in the corn crop, as shown by +experiments at the Kansas Station,[4] in which the high-yielding row, +seed has produced from ten to twenty per cent larger yields per acre, and +twenty-five to thirty-five per cent more good seed ears than the average +corn from which the improved strain was originated. + +[4] See Bulletin 147. + +The possibilities along this line of increasing the yield of corn by the +planting of better seed are shown by the reports which have been received +from Kansas farmers, reporting sixty and eighty-bushel yields where the +average for the county was twenty or thirty bushels. + +The soil of our western states is abundantly fertile; but mismanagement +and continuous cropping with corn and wheat have reduced its productive +power. It is possible by the proper use of barnyard manure to double +the yield of corn and increase the yield of wheat thirty-three per +cent, as shown by the results of the experiments at the Station. A +single experiment in manuring wheat land previous to planting to alfalfa +increased the wheat yield thirty-three per cent, and doubled the crops of +alfalfa for the first two years after seeding, making a total increase in +the returns per acre of nearly $45.00 for the three years, or $15.00 net +increase per annum.[5] + +[5] See Kansas Experiment Bulletin 155. + +It is possible by a proper rotation of crops, including alfalfa, clover +and grasses, to double the productive capacity of thousands of acres of +our western corn and wheat lands. This is shown by the experiments at +the Kansas Station and by the reports of farmers. In 1906, a careful +investigation of the corn yields of Jewell County, Kansas, made by Hon. +J. W. Berry, formerly a member of the board of regents of the Kansas +State Agricultural College, showed that the average yield from land +previously in alfalfa was over eighty bushels per acre, while similar +land on the same farm and adjoining farms, which had not been in alfalfa, +yielded less than sixty bushels per acre on the average, and the average +yield of corn in Jewell County for that year was less than thirty bushels +per acre. + +It has been shown by the experiments carried on for the last six years +at the Station that it is possible to increase the yield of corn ten per +cent simply by practicing better methods of preparing the seed-bed. When +corn has been planted with the lister, winter or early spring plowing or +listing of the ground previous to the planting has given an increase in +crop as an average for six years, amounting to six bushels of corn per +acre each year, as compared with ground which received no cultivation +previous to planting. + +Different methods of cultivation of corn, deep or shallow, etc., have +not affected the yield so much as different methods of preparing the +seed-bed, except where the cultivation of the corn was neglected. The +lack of sufficient cultivation means greatly reduced yields or crop +failure. + +It is possible to increase the wheat yield of Kansas fifty per cent by +practicing better methods of seed-bed preparation. As an average for +two years’ trials, 1908 and 1909, at the Station the yield of wheat due +to preparation of seed-bed alone varied from 21.6 to 37.4 bushels per +acre, an increase of seventy-three per cent in yield due to the better +preparation of the seed-bed.[6] + +[6] See Kansas Experiment Station Circular, 2. + +In 1911, one of the driest years which Kansas has ever experienced, this +experiment was repeated with remarkable results. The most poorly prepared +seed-bed (ground disked, not plowed) yielded a little over four bushels +of wheat per acre, while the largest yield was thirty-eight bushels per +acre from early deep plowing, which received frequent cultivation after +plowing until seeding time. Ordinary loose ground, plowed late, yielded +fourteen bushels per acre, while ground cultivated early with the lister +plow and leveled with the disk harrow gave thirty-five bushels per acre. +The better methods of seed-bed preparation employed in these experiments +are such as may be successfully practiced throughout the Western winter +wheat belt. + +Of the three factors concerned with increasing the acre-yields, the last +named, “Practicing Proper and More Thorough Cultivation of the Soil,” +is the simplest and most readily applied. Probably more low yields and +crop failures are due to insufficient or improper cultivation than to any +other single factor over which the farmer has control in the production +of any particular crop. With a soil of average fertility, the preparation +of the seed-bed by the proper tillage and cultivation methods very +largely determines the yield of the crop. + +There are four important objects to be accomplished by cultivating the +soil: 1. To secure a proper physical condition of the soil favorable +to sprouting seed and promoting plant growth. 2. To kill weeds. 3. To +conserve soil moisture. 4. To develop or prepare plant food. + +The texture of the soil is nearly always more important than mere +richness. Many “worn” lands have simply been robbed of their organic +matter, often still containing an abundant supply of the mineral +elements of plant food. Others have been injured in texture and hence in +productiveness by careless or faulty management. + +The maintenance and improvement of soil texture are more dependent upon +plowing than upon any other operation of tillage. A finely divided, +mellow soil is more productive than a hard lumpy one of the same chemical +composition, because it affords greater feeding ground and more favorable +environment for the plant roots; absorbs and retains more moisture, has +better aeration, and less variable extremes of temperature. Also, because +it promotes nitrification and the development of available plant food by +giving favorable conditions for the development of soil bacteria, and for +the decomposition and solution of the soil minerals. In all these ways +and others, “mellowness” renders plant food more available and affords a +more congenial, comfortable place in which the plants may grow. + +Plowing, especially in the spring, tends to ventilate, warm and dry the +seed-bed, and if properly done, lessens evaporation from the deeper soil +by the development of a soil mulch above it. + +Deep plowing brings up new stores of inert plant food, enlarges the +moisture reservoir, deepens the seed-bed, gives more root room and more +material for the soil bacteria to work over into available plant food. +Deep plowing or subsoiling also serves to break up the plant food, to +break up the “furrow-sole” or “hard-pan,” thus loosening up compact, +impervious, clayey subsoils. + +Plowing is an efficient means of destroying weeds and many kinds of +injurious insects which prey on farm crops. Hard, clayey or “gumbo” soils +are mellowed by late fall or winter plowing, and further, proper and +timely plowing is the most efficient and practical means of preparing a +suitable seed-bed for nearly all farm crops. Too many farmers who have +allowed their land to become deficient in fertility seek to restore its +productivity by application of expensive commercial fertilizers, without +first putting it in good tilth. This is a great mistake. The way to treat +such land is to “plow” it well, and work up a physical condition suitable +for the best growth of crops. After all this is done, the application of +concentrated commercial fertilizers may give profitable returns. + +In order to secure the ideal condition for seed germination and plant +growth, a seed-bed for planting small seeds should not be too deep and +loose; rather the soil should be mellow, but well pulverized only about +as deep as the seed is planted. Below the depth at which the seed is +planted it should be firm and well settled, making a good connection with +the subsoil, so that the water stored therein may be drawn up into the +surface. + +The firm soil below the seed, well connected with the subsoil, supplies +the moisture to the seed, while the mellow soil above it allows +sufficient circulation of air to supply oxygen and favors warming by +gathering the heat of the sunshine during the day and acting as a blanket +to conserve the soil heat, maintaining a more uniform temperature during +the night. + +The mellow soil above the seed conserves the moisture, acting as a mulch +to keep the water from reaching the surface, where it would be rapidly +lost by evaporation. The same condition favors the upward growth of the +young shoots into the air and sunshine. + +The loose, deep seed-bed is almost wholly dependent upon rains for +sufficient moisture to germinate the seed and start the young plant. +If the crop starts, it is very apt to be injured by short periods of +dry weather, because of the rapid drying out of the loose surface soil. +In such a seed-bed the crop is more apt to “burn out” in the summer, +or “freeze out” in winter, than a crop grown in the “ideal” seed-bed +described above. + +It should not be inferred from this description of the “ideal” seed-bed +that the soil should not be plowed deeply; rather, deep plowing should +be encouraged, but timely, so that the soil may settle and fill with +moisture, and such cultivation should be given after plowing, so as to +secure a favorable physical condition of the seed-bed. + +So far as cultivation is concerned there are three principal steps in the +conservation of soil moisture: + +1. The soil must be loosened to a considerable depth in order to prepare +a reservoir to receive the rain and carry the water downward. This may be +accomplished by deep plowing, by listing, or by disking unplowed lands. + +2. The water which is carried down into the subsoil must be brought +back again into the surface where the seed is germinating and the young +roots are growing, and to accomplish this a good connection must be made +between the furrow-slice and the subsoil, and this is the purpose in the +use of the subsurface packer immediately after plowing. + +3. Finally, in order that the water which is drawn up again towards the +surface may not reach the air and be wasted by evaporation, the upper two +or three inches of the soil must be kept mellow in the form of a soil +mulch, and this is accomplished in the growing of crops, by frequent +cultivation, which is not so practicable with wheat, and other small +grains, as with corn and other intertilled crops. + +The most important step in soil moisture conservation is to get the water +into the soil. When this has been accomplished, the keeping it there +and returning it gradually to the growing crop is a relatively simple +matter. Many farmers have yet failed to learn this most important fact +of dry farming, that the storing of the moisture is the first and great +principle of soil moisture conservation. The firming and pulverizing to +prepare the seed-bed, and the surface cultivation to maintain the mulch, +are each without avail unless there has been stored in the deeper soil +a sufficient amount of moisture to support the growing crop in time of +drouth. + +Now the moisture should be stored at all times during the season, but +especially during the interval between harvest and planting. This +requires early plowing so that the soil may be in condition to catch the +rain and absorb it. + +In order that there may be room to receive and store a heavy rain, deep +plowing is desirable. If plowing can not be done early, the cultivation +of the unplowed land with a disk harrow will keep the soil in good +condition longer and favors the absorption of rain. + +A good rule, but it cannot always be followed, is to plow when the soil +is in such condition that it will drop from the mold-board in a mellow, +friable condition. + +Loosening the soil by deep plowing favors the absorption of moisture, +but if rains do not come in time such land will suffer from drought more +quickly than though it had been plowed shallow. + +The loose soil dries out and capillarity is broken, preventing the +furrow-slice from receiving moisture from the subsoil rapidly enough +to sustain the growing crop. The depth and frequency of plowing should +vary according to the nature of the soil. A light or sandy soil requires +less depth of plowing and less frequent plowing than a heavy, or compact +clayey or “gumbo” soil. + +As a general proposition, plowing should be shallow when it precedes +planting only a short time. + +Plow deep in the fall, and plow deep for summer fallow. + +A long interval between plowing and seeding allows the soil to settle +sufficiently, while freezing and thawing mellow the raw, hard subsoil +which has been brought to the surface. + +The relative depths of plowing may be stated as follows: + + Shallow plowing 3 to 4 inches. + Medium plowing 5 to 6 inches. + Deep plowing 7 to 8 inches. + +Plowing deeper than eight inches with the common plow is not usually +practicable, but the soil may be stirred twelve to eighteen inches deep +with a tillage plow or subsoil plow, and in heavy soil with hard, compact +subsoil, such deep stirring may occasionally be desirable. + +When land is allowed to lie for a considerable period after plowing +before the crop is planted, the settling of the soil, together with the +surface cultivation to preserve the mulch and the cementing due to rain, +usually causes it to repack and firm up to a sufficient extent to make a +good seed-bed. + +The use of the packer is most essential on late spring plowing, when the +purpose is to plant at once. It is not so necessary to use the subsurface +packer on fall plowing which is not intended to be planted until the +following spring, but for sowing fall wheat, if the plowing precedes the +sowing by a very short interval, the subsurface packer may be used very +advantageously. + +The principle involved in the use of the subsurface packer is correct, +and the lighter the soil and the greater its tendency to remain loose and +mellow the more necessary becomes the use of the subsurface packer or +similar implement, in order to prepare a proper seed-bed. + +In plowing under trash or manure, subsurface packing, by pulverizing the +bottom of the furrow-slice, sifts the soil through the coarse trash and +causes a better union with the subsoil below, so that the capillary water +may be drawn up into the surface, whereas, if a heavy coat of stubble or +manure plowed under in this way is left without packing or pulverizing, +the furrow-slice is apt to dry out and the crop that is growing on the +land may be injured by a short interval of dry weather. + +By setting the disks rather straight and weighting the harrow, a +disc-harrow may be used as a substitute for the subsurface packer, +resulting in a pulverizing and firming effect at the bottom of the +furrow-slice. Very often, however, early plowing, with the proper use +of the common harrow, may largely accomplish the results required in +preparing a proper seed-bed. It is usually advisable to weight or ride +the common straight-tooth harrow in order to cause it to stir and +pulverize the soil deeper and prevent the “slicking” effect which is apt +to result from light harrowing. + +The cultivation necessary, after early plowing, to destroy weeds, in +the experience of the writer, has usually been sufficient to settle and +pulverize the seed-bed. For the early cultivation after a good rain and +after the weeds have started, there is no implement superior to the disk +harrow. The double disk which gives two cultivations and leaves the +ground level, being preferred. For late cultivation the common harrow +or the Acme harrow should be used with the purpose of not loosening the +ground too deeply just previous to planting or seeding. + +It is very essential that sufficient and proper cultivation be given to +destroy weeds. This is more important than to maintain a soil mulch, +since weeds exhaust both the soil moisture and the available plant +food. If a proper mulch is maintained, however, the weeds will be kept +in subjection. In the ideal system of culture the purpose is to keep a +mellow soil mulch on the surface of the land all of the time, not only +during the growing of the crop, but also in the interval between harvest +and seeding time. Thus, after the corn is planted the land is cultivated +with the weeder or harrow in order to break the surface crust and +prevent the loss of moisture, and following out the same principle the +harrowing or work with the weeder is continued after the grain or corn is +up, and during the growing period frequent cultivation is required for +intertilled crops. + +Again, after the crop is harvested, the cultivation is continued; +the land is plowed at once or listed, or the surface of the soil is +loosened with the disk harrow, and thus the land is kept continually +in a condition to not only prevent the loss of water already stored in +the soil, but also this same condition and mellow surface favors the +absorption of rain and largely prevents the loss of water by surface +drainage. + +The smooth, finely-pulverized surface left by continuous light harrowing +really defeats the purpose of the cultivation, since soil in such +condition will shed heavy rains, causing a waste of water which should +have been stored, and the surface often becomes too fine and compact, +preventing the proper aeration, and producing an unfavorable seed-bed +condition. Thus during the interval between crops, it is often advisable +to use the Acme harrow or the disk, or spring-tooth harrow, in order to +keep the surface of the soil open and mellow. + +A new method for preparing the seed-bed is now coming into general +practice in Western Kansas. In preparing land for wheat, the plan is to +list the ground with the ordinary corn lister as soon after harvest as +possible. The lister furrows are run about three to three and a half feet +apart, very much the same as when the lister is used for planting corn. +Later, when the weeds have started, the soil is worked back into the +lister furrows by means of a harrow or disk cultivator. + +Several cultivations are usually required by the harrow, and disk harrow, +in order to level the field and bring it into good seed-bed condition. +Once over with the disk cultivator is usually considered sufficient, +the further work necessary to prepare the seed-bed being given with the +common harrow or other cultivating implement. + +In a dry climate this method of preparing the seed-bed has several +advantages, as follows: + +The cultivation of the land soon after harvest tends to conserve the +moisture already stored in the soil. The furrowed land is in good +condition to catch and store the rain and the later cultivation clears +the land of weeds and volunteer wheat and leaves a mellow soil mulch to +conserve the moisture which has been stored in the subsoil. The early and +continued cultivation of the soil favors the action of the bacteria and +the development of available plant food. + +By practicing this method the farmer may cultivate a larger area early +in the season when the soil is in good condition, when if it had been +necessary to plow the whole area, some of the land might become too dry +to plow well. Likewise the later plowing leaves the soil too loose and +not in good seed-bed condition. In preparing land for corn, the listing +may be done late in the fall or during the winter, or early spring. The +usual plan being to split the ridges with the lister later in the spring +when the corn is planted. It is advisable to harrow the listed field +once or twice before planting to destroy weeds, or prevent soil drifting +and to preserve a mellow soil mulch to conserve the water which has been +stored in the subsoil. In preparing land for corn, the early listing has +proved equal to early plowing and superior to early disking, as shown by +the experiments at the Kansas Station. + +In the drier portions of the great plains area and throughout the +mountain states, where dry farming is practiced, the annual rainfall is +not sufficient to produce a crop every year, and it becomes necessary to +practice a system of summer fallowing every third or fourth season, or +in alternate years in localities of least rainfall, in order to store +moisture and develop plant food and thus insure the production of a +profitable crop each year. + +Deep plowing either in the fall or spring, and frequent surface +cultivation as described above is the method of summer fallowing which +has given the best results at the Montana, Western Nebraska, and Western +Kansas Experiment Stations. + +The weeder is better adapted for harrowing wheat and other small grains +than the common harrow, but the harrow may be used when the ground is +firm. I question whether it is necessary or advisable as a rule to harrow +wheat if due precautions have been taken in preparing the seed-bed. + +Under certain conditions, where heavy rains firm and puddle the soil, +it may be advisable to harrow, but very young grain may be injured +by harrowing, and after the wheat covers the ground, harrowing is +unnecessary. The harrowing of wheat at regular intervals at the Kansas, +Nebraska and Montana Experiment Stations has not resulted favorably. +Without question, the proper preparation of seed-bed is a much more +important factor in the growing of small grains, than the cultivation +after seeding. + +While it is a disputed point among authorities whether it pays to harrow +wheat and other sowed crops, there is no difference of opinion regarding +the necessity or value of frequent cultivation of corn and of all other +crops usually planted in rows. Regarding the depth and frequency of +cultivation desirable, I favor rather deep cultivation in our drier, +hotter climate, and after every hard rain, if possible, or at least +sufficient to keep the weeds in check. + +It is not necessary or practicable to attempt to cultivate after every +rain and there is no virtue in the admonition “Keep the Cultivator going +in a dry time.” If the soil has been well stirred and the mulch is of +sufficient depth, to cultivate again would be loss of time and might do +actual harm by drying out the deeper portions of the soil mulch and also +causing a too fine and dusty condition of the surface soil, unfavorable +to the absorption of moisture when the rain comes. + +It is not necessary to have extra machinery in order to successfully +practice the system of culture outlined above. The only implements +required or recommended which are not in general use on every well +equipped farm, are the subsurface packer and the weeder. + +The principles stated above have been known and practiced more or less +for a long time and are mostly included in the “Campbell” system of +culture. H. W. Campbell was among the early apostles of dry farming in +the West, and has perhaps done more to call the attention of western +farmers to the necessity and advantages of thorough cultivation of the +soil than any other investigator. + +Scientific farming pays, everywhere. I believe in the practicability of +thorough tillage and good cultivation on every farm, and the increase in +crops by such farming will more than pay for the extra labor. But the +great problem in Western agriculture today is not how to get larger crops +out of the soil for a few years, but rather how to produce paying crops +every year and at the same time maintain the fertility and productiveness +of the land. + +Simple tillage will not maintain soil fertility. It becomes necessary +finally to replace the plant food, exhausted by the continuous growing +of crops, with the application of manure, or chemical fertilizers, and +by green manuring and the rotation of crops, in which the legume crops, +such as alfalfa and clover are introduced in order to restore again the +nitrogen and organic matter, the supply of which has only become more +rapidly reduced because of intensive cultivation. + +There is little question regarding the value and even the necessity of +the summer fallow in the drier areas of the West. The tests at a number +of Western stations and the general experience of farmers prove this; yet +there are serious objections to the continued practice of bare summer +fallowing. + +First, there is the tendency for the soil to waste by drifting in strong +winds and by washing away in heavy rains. + +Second, summer fallowing with frequent cultivation hastens nitrification +and decay, thus more rapidly exhausting the organic matter in the soil. + +It is possible for the soil to become more rapidly exhausted in fertility +by alternate bare summer fallowing and cropping than by continuous +cropping. At least the bare summer fallow does not add any fertility to +the soil. In order to maintain the productivity of our Western lands, it +will become necessary to add fertility to the soil preferably during the +year of fallowing. + +I am beginning the practice of a method of green manuring and partial +summer fallowing, which I believe to be superior to bare summer fallowing +and which will largely overcome the objections to summer fallowing. + +The plan is to plant some fall crop or early spring crop and plow it +under late in May or early in June, practicing a summer fallow with +surface cultivation for the rest of the season, until seeding time. + +Certain crops adapted to the West are being tested for this purpose with +some degree of success. The more promising are sweet clover and sand +vetch for fall seeding and field peas for early spring seeding. These +crops are hardy, rapid growers, and somewhat drouth resistant and may +be used also in part for pasture, thus giving some return other than +their fertilizing value. Some experiments have already been made at the +Hays Station in Western Kansas and the yields of wheat secured from the +green-manuring summer fallow compare favorably with the yields from +the bare summer fallow. And in my judgment, this method of fallowing +will soon be generally adopted and will solve the problem for a long +time at least, of increasing the organic matter and maintaining the +productiveness of our western lands. + +This method of green manuring and rotation of crops will largely prevent +soil drifting, the control of which is a very serious problem in western +agriculture. Our experience at the Station at Hays has demonstrated +also that large areas in wheat may be protected and largely prevented +from being injured by the drifting of soil within the field itself. +The spreading of straw or coarse manure and packing the straw into the +soil with the subsurface packer was the most effective means employed +for protecting the fields from injury by winds last spring (1911). The +subsurface packing alone helped to prevent the starting of the drifting +soil within the field, but was not very effective in preventing the soil +from adjacent fields from sweeping over the wheat field, but the straw +covered area actually stopped the drifting soil, causing it to lodge, and +thus protected the field beyond the straw barrier. + +It is quite as necessary, however, to prevent the drifting of adjacent +fields, as to protect the wheat field itself. This may be done by early +listing or disking of the fall plowed fields and corn or kaffir stubble +fields which are almost sure to drift in a violent wind, when the soil +is very dry at the surface. Disking or other surface cultivation will +prevent drifting of soil for a time, until the looser portion dries out, +then the soil can only be held by deeper cultivation as by listing or +plowing. For putting the surface in the best condition to resist wind +force a long time, I prefer to break the ground with a lister, forming +deeper furrows and higher ridges than may be prepared with the disk or +cultivator. + +During the season of 1911, which has been extremely dry and hot, the +wheat on summer fallow at the Station at Hays made a larger growth and +a much better showing in the early part of the season than other wheat, +but before the crop matured the conditions of drouth and heat became so +severe that the wheat was greatly injured, and the summer fallow produced +a little larger yield but a poorer quality of grain than was secured from +other land not summer fallowed. + +The yields compare approximately as follows: Summer fallowed, five +bushels per acre. Not summer fallowed, two bushels per acre. In other +localities in Western Kansas where the rain was greater and the condition +less severe, the summer fallow made a better showing. + +It was also true last season, at the Western Kansas Station, that the +extra cultivation in preparing the seed-bed was without beneficial +effect, in producing a larger yield of wheat. However, in ordinary +seasons the reverse has usually been true; summer fallow has given +much larger yields than continuous cropping, and early plowing and +extra cultivation have usually given a marked increase in yield in the +comparative tests which have been carried on at the Experiment Stations, +both at Manhattan in Eastern Kansas and also at Hays in the western third +of the state. At the Manhattan Station the careful preparation of the +seed-bed was very effective in increasing the yield of wheat in 1911, +even doubling and trebling the crop. The results of much of this work are +summarized in the succeeding pages. + +Three general methods of tillage for preparing the land for winter wheat +are practiced in this state, namely: plowing, listing and disking. There +may be variations of these three methods; as early plowing, shallow +plowing, deep plowing, single listing, double listing, disking without +plowing, disking before plowing, little cultivation after plowing, +frequent cultivation after plowing, etc., and local conditions may +determine which method is the best. That certain methods are superior +to others may be readily shown by comparative trials which have been +carried on at the Kansas Station during the past two years. These +experiments include the several general methods of tillage named above +with variations as described in Table I, which gives the yield of wheat +per acre and other data determined by those experiments. This work was +done at the State Experiment Station at Manhattan, located in the middle +eastern part of the state. + +TABLE I.—METHODS OF PREPARING SEED-BED FOR WHEAT.[7] + + -----------------------------------+------------------------------+ + | Yield per Acre, Bushels. | + | | + +------+------+-------+--------+ + Methods of Preparation. | 1907-| 1908-| 1910- |Average | + | 1908.| 1909.| 1911. | for | + | | | | Three | + | | | | Years. | + -----------------------------------+------+------+-------+--------+ + Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep | 34.74| 40.12| 27.74| 34.20 | + Plowed July 15, 7 inches deep | 28.84| 35.02| 38.36| 34.07 | + Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep; | | | | | + not worked until Sept. 15 | 30.53| 38.12| 23.62| 30.76 | + Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; | | | | | + ridges split Aug. 15 | 28.67| 31.33| 34.35| 29.78 | + Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; | | | | | + ridges harrowed | 20.02| 32.17| 35.07| 29.09 | + Plowed July 15, 3 inches deep | — | — | 33.45| — | + Disked July 15, plowed Aug. 15, | | | | | + 7 inches deep | — | — | 32.68| — | + Disked July 15, plowed Sept. 15, | | | | | + 7 inches deep | 20.11| 30.56| 23.57| 24.75 | + Plowed Sept. 15, 3 inches deep | 21.19| 30.76| 14.46| 22.14 | + Plowed Sept. 15, 7 inches deep | 19.59| 27.98| 15.79| 21.12 | + Disked at intervals until seeding; | | | | | + not plowed | 14.95| 28.24|4.29[8]| 15.83 | + -----------------------------------+------+------+-------+--------+ + + -----------------------------------+---------------------------------- + | Data for 1919-11 + | Crop Only. + +------------+--------+------------ + Methods of Preparation. | Cost per |Value of| Value of + | Acre for | Crop at| Crop Less + |Preparation.| $0.80 | Cost of + | | per bu.|Preparation. + -----------------------------------+------------+--------+------------ + Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep | $3.90 | $22.19 | $18.29 + Plowed July 15, 7 inches deep | 4.95 | 30.69 | 25.74 + Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep; | | | + not worked until Sept. 15 | 3.55 | 18.89 | 15.34 + Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; | | | + ridges split Aug. 15 | 3.75 | 27.48 | 23.73 + Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; | | | + ridges harrowed | 3.70 | 28.05 | 24.35 + Plowed July 15, 3 inches deep | 4.45 | 26.77 | 22.32 + Disked July 15, plowed Aug. 15, | | | + 7 inches deep | 4.70 | 26.14 | 21.44 + Disked July 15, plowed Sept. 15, | | | + 7 inches deep | 4.35 | 18.85 | 14.50 + Plowed Sept. 15, 3 inches deep | 3.05 | 11.57 | 8.52 + Plowed Sept. 15, 7 inches deep | 3.55 | 12.63 | 9.08 + Disked at intervals until seeding; | | | + not plowed | 1.95 | 3.42 | 1.47 + -----------------------------------+------------+--------+------------ + +[7] See Kansas Experiment Station Circular No. 2 and Bulletin No. 176. + +[8] Disked only once just previous to sowing wheat. + +Much of it was done by myself or under my direction during eight years of +service as agronomist at that station. + +Observe that the largest yields have been secured, as an average for the +three years from July and August plowing seven inches deep. The July +listing has ranked next to early plowing, but yielding on the average +nearly five bushels less wheat per acre than early plowing, or a decrease +in yield of 14 per cent. The decrease in yield from listing was less in +the dry year of 1910-11. + +All of the higher yielding plots were cultivated at intervals after +plowing or listing with the harrow, disk or Acme. Thus the weeds were +destroyed, the soil was well pulverized and well settled and put into +excellent seed-bed condition by the first of October, when the wheat was +planted. + +One or two cultivations after August plowing, at an extra cost of +thirty-five cents to fifty cents per acre, has given an average increase +in the yield of wheat of three and a half bushels per acre. Land disked +before plowing, July 15, and plowed August 15, 1910, gave an increase in +yield of five bushels per acre in 1911. + +Deep plowing in July, 1910, gave nearly five bushels more wheat per acre +in 1911 than shallow plowing. As an average for the several seasons, the +September shallow plowing has given a little larger yield than the deeper +plowing. + +The beneficial effect of early plowing and of frequent cultivation after +plowing in preparing the seed-bed for fall wheat was most marked in the +dry season of 1910-11, when plowing a month later each time decreased the +yield at the rate of ten and one-half to twelve bushels per acre. + +The preparation with the lister has proved to be a little less effective +than early plowing, but has given better results than early disking +followed by plowing a month later. Filling the furrows by harrowing, +versus splitting the lister ridges and leveling with the harrow have +given about equal results. The second listing is not necessary and +makes the preparation somewhat more expensive. Preparing the seed-bed +by listing and harrowing is cheaper than early plowing and frequent +cultivation. The largest yield and largest net income, however, has been +secured from early plowing followed by sufficient cultivation to kill +weeds and maintain a mellow soil mulch. + +Preparing the seed-bed by disking has given the lowest yields and least +income. The disked land has produced on the average each year eighteen +bushels less wheat per acre than early plowing. That is, the well +prepared seed-bed has given 114 per cent the greater yield, or more than +double the yield of the poorly prepared seed-bed, and at very little +greater cost of preparation. + +The next lowest yield was produced by late plowing, a week or two before +the wheat was planted. The average decrease in yield from September +plowing compared with July plowing was over twelve bushels per acre per +annum, or early plowing increased the yield fifty-four per cent. In the +drier seasons of 1910-11 the difference was greater, the early plowing +producing more than double the yield received from the late plowing. + +“Disking in” wheat in the dry season resulted in an almost complete crop +failure, giving a small yield of only four bushels per acre; compared +with thirty-eight bushels per acre produced by deep early plowing. This +is certainly a marked example of the value of “proper” cultivation in +preparing the seed-bed for wheat. + +The seed-bed for corn should be deeper and more mellow than the seed-bed +for wheat, and the early cultivation of the corn land previous to +planting may cause a marked increase in yield, as shown by experiments +which have been recently completed at the Kansas Station. These +experiments relate to different methods of tillage which may be practiced +during the winter or early spring in preparing the seed-bed for corn, and +include deep and shallow plowing, double disking, and listing, namely, +plowing land into ridges with a double mold-board plow or lister. + +In these experiments corn has usually been planted in listed furrows, +except that the surface and lister methods of planting have been compared +each year on the plowed plots. Table II gives the yield of shelled corn +per acre secured by the continued practice of the methods described, for +a period of six years. The average yield for three years (1906-08) and +for six years (1903-08) is also given. + +TABLE II.—PREPARATION OF SEED-BED FOR CORN. + + -------------+----------+-----------------------------------+-----+----- + | | Yield Per Acre in Bushels. | Average + | Method +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 3 | 6 + Early | of | | | | | | |Years|Years + Treatment. | Planting.|1903 |1904 |1905 |1906 |1907 |1908 |1906-|1903- + | | | | | | | |1908 |1908 + -------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + Disked twice |Listed |68.61|55.12|34.74|70.29|41.30|73.60|61.73|57.28 + Disked twice,| | | | | | | | | + harrowed |Listed |65.18|50.27|41.48|75.34|44.38|78.80|66.17|59.24 + Listed |Listed | | | | | | | | + | in old | | | | | | | | + | furrows | — | — |44.00|80.10|49.81|70.40|66.77| — + Listed |Listed | | | | | | | | + | breaking| | | | | | | | + | ridges |74.28|52.37|40.40|82.29|45.31|74.00|67.20|61.44 + Untreated |Listed |64.14|58.35|38.17|68.61|40.87|72.40|60.63|57.09 + Plowed | | | | | | | | | + shallow |Listed |64.26|54.96|40.82|84.23|55.48|76.90|72.20|62.28 + -------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + Average of | |66.69|54.21|39.94|76.81|46.19|74.35|65.78|59.47 + listed | | | | | | | | | + -------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + Plowed |Surface | | | | | | | | + shallow | planted | — | — |42.40|71.90|46.87|68.40|62.39| — + Plowed | | | | | | | | | + deep | |73.74|70.95|41.66|81.89|51.28|75.40|69.46|65.79 + -------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + Av. of | | | | | | | | | + surface | | | | | | | | | + planted | |73.74|70.95|42.03|76.80|49.08|71.90|65.93|65.79 + -------------+----------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+----- + +While the relative yields vary somewhat from year to year, it is very +clear that the early plowing and early listing have given increased +yields of corn, ranging from six to twelve bushels per acre for the three +years, and four to five bushels per acre as an average for six years. + +As an average for three years the double disking and harrowing early in +the spring has given an increased yield of five and one-half bushels of +corn per acre. It will be observed that in the above comparison all of +the corn was planted in listed furrows. + +Comparing the two methods of planting it appears that the highest yield +for three years was produced by listing in the early shallow plowed land: +The average yield for six years, however, was 3.3 bushels per acre in +favor of the surface method of planting. + +The results may be explained by the fact that the seasons of 1904 and +1905 were very wet, hence there was less necessity of conserving soil +moisture, and the early cultivation gave little benefit, while the lister +method of planting was placed at a disadvantage. The method of planting +corn in listed furrows is adapted to dry climate and warm soil. Corn +planted in the bottom of a furrow four to six inches deep develops a +deeper root system than surface planted corn; hence listed corn is not +readily injured by drouth. The effect on the root system is shown by the +study of corn roots made at the Station.[9] + +[9] See Bulletins 127 and 147. + +It is quite evident that the best method of preparing the seed-bed +for corn and the best method of planting corn will vary for different +climatic and soil conditions. Yet it is very important that the farmer +test these methods and determine which is the better for his particular +conditions, since the method of seed-bed preparation and the method of +planting may be very important factors in securing large yields. + +In the cultivation experiments carried on at the Station during the +past six years the practice has been to “lay the corn by” with a final +cultivation about the first of July. In these experiments the plan has +been to cultivate duplicate plots by four different methods, as follows: +shallow; deep; deep early and shallow late; shallow early and deep late. +The shallow cultivation has been performed with the knife or gopher type +of cultivator, while for the deep cultivation, the six-shovel cultivator +has been used. + +The plan has been not to cultivate excessively deep but only medium deep, +three to four inches. The depth of the surface cultivation has averaged +one and one-half to two inches. The corn has usually been cultivated +four times each season, and the practice has been to cultivate by the +same method twice in succession those plots in which the method of +cultivation was changed during the season, that is, certain plots were +cultivated shallow at the first two cultivations and deep at the last two +cultivations, and vice versa. The yield of shelled corn each year and the +average yield for seven years, by the different methods of cultivation, +are given in Table III. + +TABLE III.—CULTIVATION EXPERIMENTS WITH CORN, 1903-1909. + + ----------------+-----------------------------------------+------------- + | Yield of Corn Per Acre, Bushels. | Average + +-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+ 3 | 7 + Method of | | | | | | | |years,|years, + Cultivating. |1903 |1904 |1905 |1906 |1907 |1908 |1909 |1907- |1903- + | | | | | | | |1909 |1909 + ----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------ + Shallow, |51.65|57.51|45.64|56.19|41.21|75.72|35.1 |50.69 |51.86 + 1 to 2 inches | | | | | | | | | + Shallow, early; |52.96|57.25|49.68|51.67|42.17|87.12|34.7 |54.66 |53.56 + deep, late | | | | | | | | | + Deep, |50.87|53.98|50.86|50.55|38.73|78.81|33.7 |56.41 |51.07 + 3 to 4 inches | | | | | | | | | + Deep, early; |53.66|49.62|49.39|50.09|43.11|76.93|31.3 |50.45 |50.30 + shallow, late | | | | | | | | | + Wrong time | — | — | — | — | — |79.7 |44.1 |61.9 | + Right time | — | — | — | — | — |82.9 |51.2 |67.0 | + ----------------+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+-----+------+------ + +The average yield for the seven years favors the shallow-early-deep-late +cultivation by a little over three bushels per acre per year, when +compared with the deep-early-shallow-late cultivation, which gave the +lowest average yield. + +The variation in yield by the different methods of cultivation from year +to year and the nearly uniform average yields for the long period of +seven years, indicate that the method of cultivation practiced, whether +shallow or deep, may not make much difference in the yield of the crop, +provided the cultivation is done well and at the right time. + +The factors heretofore described, which have to do with seed germination +and plant growth, are largely controlled by cultivation. There are, +perhaps, no exact rules or methods for cultivating corn, but a farmer +observing the crop and soil conditions, and understanding the principles +of soil cultivation, may vary the manner and practice of cultivation +somewhat to suit the conditions and accomplish the objects desired. + +It is very important to cultivate corn at the “right” time. An experiment +which has been carried on for two years in cultivating corn at the +“right” time and the “wrong” time, has resulted as follows: + +Average yield for “wrong” time cultivation, 61.9 bushels per acre. +Average yield for “right” time cultivation, sixty-seven bushels per acre, +or six and one-tenth bushels per acre in favor of cultivating the corn at +the “right” time. The “right” time means soon after the rain, when the +weeds have started and the soil is just dry enough to cultivate well; the +wrong time is a week or ten days later, when the weeds have become larger +and the soil is hard and dry and turns over in clods and lumps. It costs +more to cultivate corn at the “wrong” time than at the “right” time, +because of the slower and more difficult work and greater draft of the +cultivator due to unfavorable soil conditions—and yet the “right” time +cultivation increased the yield 10 per cent. + +It is important also to use the best implements, but doing the work well +and at the right time is even more important than the type of cultivator +used. No one type of cultivator can be recommended as superior to others, +but different kinds of cultivators are useful for different work and for +different conditions. The corn grower should have more than one kind of +corn cultivator. I prefer at least two types, one for shallow and one for +deep cultivation. The knife and shovel cultivators serve their purpose +well, but the disk cultivator may be used in place of shovels, and is +especially recommended for use during the early cultivation of listed +corn. + +It is possible, as shown by the work at the Station, for the wheat farmer +who will practice the best culture methods, to increase his yield of +winter wheat 50 to 100 per cent by careful and proper preparation of the +seed-bed, with practically no greater cost for cultivation (See Table I.). + +The skillful corn grower may readily increase his corn yields five +bushels per acre by a little extra cultivation of the corn land early in +the spring before planting. He may add another five bushels to the crop +by practicing the correct method of planting, which experience has proved +to be the most suitable to his soil and climate. And finally, by the +simple factor of sufficient cultivation of corn at the right time and in +the right way he may still further increase the yield at the rate of ten +bushels per acre. + +Thus it is possible for the farmer who is not now doing these things +to add 40 per cent to the average corn yield of his farm by practicing +improved culture methods. The yield of other crops may be likewise +increased, but the farmer should bear in mind this fact: that the +increase in yield by better culture may be secured only by maintaining +the fertility of the land and planting well-bred seed adapted to the soil +and climate. + + +THE CHURCH IN THE OPEN COUNTRY. + +BY WARREN H. WILSON, _Superintendent of the Department of Church and +Country Life of the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church of +the United States_. + +It is my purpose to answer the question, “What is the use of the +church in the open country?” We have some people who call themselves +“spiritual,” who do not believe there is any permanent use of a church. +Their religion consists of an insurance against fire; and as soon as +they get a policy from an evangelist, they have no more use of a church, +certainly not of a strong church. I want to speak to you of the church as +an efficient institution, the builder of rural civilization. + +We have other folk who are without land and without ownership of +productive tools; they are under economic pressure; they are our American +poor. They think they cannot afford anything that is not a necessity. +I am here to argue that the church in the open country is a necessity, +especially to the poor. + +We have also some theorists, who believe that all rural institutions +should be assembled in towns and villages, and that ultimately the +farmers should reside there, going out every morning to their fields. I +hope the time will never come when American farmers will so live. And I +wish to speak to you of the church in the open country as the conserver +of the soil, of the social life, the family and the school in the country. + +The first reason for the existence of the church in the open country is +the fact that “the soil is holy.” Already we are faced with a depleted +soil in some of our richest agricultural states. But when the soil +produces less, the poor will have to pay more for food and for wearing +apparel. We have been warned that the time will come when the workingman +cannot any longer wear wool or eat white bread. I have observed in +the last two years that the clothes which I buy from a tailor who has +supplied me for seventeen years do not any longer attract the moths. The +moth turns up his nose at cotton, and cries for wool. The business of the +farmer and of the sheep raiser is a religious business, because it is +in the interest of the whole people. Whatever makes for the prosperity +of the farmer will enrich and dignify all the people. The church is an +institution essential to good farming, and it should be maintained where +the farmer lives, out in the open fields. + +Religion is a valuation of life. It values some things high, and some +low, but it is, in the opinion of a recent scholar of repute, a system of +values. Its highest word is “holy.” The land in which the Hebrews were +settled was called “the Holy Land,” and nowadays the teachers of modern +farming are declaring to the young, “The land is holy.” At a recent +summer school for country ministers a professor lectured upon “the Holy +Land,” meaning Palestine; and a great agriculturist came also to lecture +upon the soil of the state in which the school was held, announcing his +theme as “The Holy Earth.” We are entering a new era in religion, in +which the values of life will be estimated by their services to the poor. +In this consecration of the soil to the interest of the whole people the +church of the open country will have a great place. + +I know a minister in Maryland, where the soil has been exhausted by +generations of peach-culture, and the farmers are turning to other crops +in order to make a living. There the minister has found that his business +is to preach scientific agriculture, and his most impressive service has +been to raise a great crop of potatoes, with a dust mulch, the greatest +ever raised at that time in that region. He became the leader of those +farmers in the actual struggle for a livelihood. He helped them set their +business on a firm footing. He preached as he worked, and his people +responded accordingly. + +The second reason for the maintaining of the church in the open country +is the fact that it is the best school by which to teach the farmers to +give of their prosperity to the community and to the common good. Farming +is an austere occupation. The best farmers are always economically +austere, which is defined by an economist as “the condition in which men +produce much and consume little.” The very definition shows that of all +occupations farming must be the most austere. But the practice of this +austerity makes the farmer close and often mean. He stints himself and he +stints everybody else. He refuses to support good roads, and he declines +to pay for better schools because he is not a spender but a producer. + +The church, of all institutions, makes the closest and most intimate +appeal to the farmer. It is his school of giving. It has an agent living +in the community, needing to be supported. The salary of the minister, +and the supplying of his needs, are a constant education in the building +of community utilities. The schools will be better maintained, the roads +will be sooner reconstructed, even at greater cost, and the poor will +be better cared for, where the church exists in the open country; to +fertilize, with its appeals, the sour soil of the farmers’ austerity, +with the needed ingredients for benevolence. + +The third reason for the church in the open country is the fact that +the church is a family builder. The rural household, which for three +generations was the spring of American idealism, has been dissolved, in +the past twenty years, by speculation. The exploitation of farm lands +has made so many families nomads, and has retired so many farmers to the +towns, that there is need of a new era of home building in the country. + +The best fitted of all institutions for this service is the church. Her +work, as she well knows, is with the young. Her membership is always made +up largely of women, and with them lies the future of the American home +in the country. The moving force in the exodus from the farm is too often +the woman. The church will do more to make life worth while for her on +the farm than all other institutions. + +The fourth use of the church in the open country is as a center of the +concern for the farmer’s income. The church in the country which does +not sanctify the livelihood of the farmer will not survive. “The most +successful farmers in America,” says an economist, “are the Mormons, +the Scotch Presbyterians and the Pennsylvania Dutch.” All these are +religious farmers, and their churches are their coöperative associations +for farming. They all idealize country life. They are organized for +agriculture. But, mark this, in all these country churches—and their +churches are out in the open—the church has concern for the prosperity of +its farmers as farmers. The income is the man’s job, and when the church +would get the men it will care for the income. The Lord Almighty cares +more for the feeding of the whole people than for any other thing. First +of all God is the Father of men, and He cares most for their satisfaction +in material things than for their having books, or for their having any +of the higher refinements. If the people have not abundance of food and +warm clothing, all moral and religious values will suffer. Therefore the +farmer is the Lord’s hired man; and the church’s first business in the +open country is “to produce the spirit in which the knowledge will be +used, which will enable the farmer to succeed.” + +The transition in economic affairs, through which we are passing, is +working its effects upon the country churches. For the church is the best +of all thermometers of the social economy. Many churches in the country +are being closed. In the South alone, according to the Southern Baptist +organ, sixteen hundred Baptist and Methodist country churches are closed +every Sunday of the year. In the state of Illinois, our sociological +surveys have shown that about seventeen hundred country churches have +been closed and abandoned. It is the elimination of the unfit. It is +the realignment of the religious people for greater efficiency, at new +centers. There is no sign that country people are less religious than +they were. But there is every indication that the churches are being +sifted on the principle of efficiency. + +The churches are suffering at the farmers’ hands another process, which I +would like to describe as dehorning. It is like the removal of the horns +from the heads of dairy cows; and it has the same purpose. Doctrinal +subjects which divide are being tabooed, and the churches are no longer +to hook and horn one another, but to live together in peace and produce +the most of the milk of human kindness, with the greatest economy in the +fodder of doctrine. + +This transition is showing also in the inventing of a new type of church. +It is appearing all over the land at the same time. I find it in all +denominations, and it bears the marks of the same spirit everywhere. My +friend, McNutt, at Plainfield, Illinois, has become the most eminent +exponent of this new ideal of the pastorate, but he is far from being the +only man who is so succeeding. He has a unique power of telling of his +work; but many others, who cannot tell of it, can do as well. His church +has the heart of the community; and there all the people, especially the +young, gather for musical culture, for recreation, as well as for worship. + +The modern church for the open country will be a community center. It +will bring all the people together, by serving the needs which are common +to all. For the community has taken the place once held by the farm +household, as the circle of the life of country people. Tradition once +ruled farming, but its place has been taken by science. The farmer can no +longer teach his son to farm the land, therefore the household cannot +dominate the country, as once it did. The new ideals of country life are +community ideals. And the churches which are succeeding in the country +are community churches. + +The community center church cares for the young, for the growing boys and +girls of the community, and for the farm hands. It is a center for the +recreative life of the people. Music has its home in that church. Plays +are presented under its auspices. The holidays of the year are celebrated +at its instigation. Every needful enterprise that the country community +requires for its development is fostered by the community church. I have +known side paths to be made on country roads, in this manner, the whole +countryside coming together for a “frolic” for the purpose of laying +out these walks. I have known a country bank to be started in this way. +There is no limit to the good that can be done in the country, in making +country life worth while, by a church which has the community spirit. + +My friends, worship is the symbol of the community. The church spire out +in the fields is the center around which the whole locality revolves. +The common assembly, on Sunday, does more, all over the open spaces of +this great land, to organize people in neighborhoods, and to cultivate a +country life ideal, and to make country life worth while, than all other +institutions combined. + +For there is nothing in the high price of farm land to keep the boy and +girl on the farm. The only way for the conservation of the highest value +of country life is to secure pastors who will live in the country, and +churches through which they may build men into communities of farmers, +contented, devoted to the work of a Divine Providence, and crowning the +productive labor of the week with worship on the Lord’s Day, in the place +where the community meets most fitly, in the church of the open country. + + +THE EXTENSION OF THE POSTAL SAVINGS SYSTEM TO OUR SCHOOLS AND ITS VALUE +TO THE PRESENT AND COMING GENERATION. + +BY F. A. FILSON, _President of the Missouri Association of Assistant +Postmasters_. + +Of the three great forward movements which have marked the history of the +postal service during the past dozen years the inauguration and extension +of the postal savings system is, we believe, destined to be the greatest +and most far-reaching in its effects on the general welfare of the great +mass of our people. Rural delivery, the first of the three great forward +movements, it is true, has been not only a phenomenal success but has +been of untold value to all classes of our people and is sure to grow in +popularity and efficiency as the years go by. And the parcels post, the +third great movement which we believe is sure to be inaugurated will in +a measure revolutionize many branches of business, but in the end be of +untold blessing and value to the masses; and whatever in our country is +of great and lasting benefit to the masses is sure to be accomplished +notwithstanding the opposition of wealthy corporations and selfish +personal interests. + +The postal savings system, like all other great forward movements, in its +infancy met with violent opposition from many classes of our citizens, +who for selfish reasons or lack of information violently opposed the +enactment of the necessary legislation for its installation. Many of +the same arguments which have been worn threadbare in the discussion of +rural free delivery, parcels post and other progressive measures, were +again brought into use and vociferously enunciated through the press +and from the public platform and on the floors of Congress; but after +mature deliberation and thorough discussion the right prevailed, as +it generally does, and the necessary bill was enacted by Congress and +a committee appointed who immediately got busy and laid plans for the +inauguration of the system and adopted rules and regulations for the +conduct of the business. Be it said to the everlasting honor and credit +of this committee and its co-workers that the system evolved is, in the +judgment of your humble servant, one of the very best, most comprehensive +and practical of any system of its kind in use throughout the world. In +fact, it is the product of the experience of all other nations plus the +practical common sense American ideas of our illustrious chief and his +co-workers on the committees. While our system is yet in its infancy, +the phenomenal record it is making and the ease and celerity with which +the machinery of the same is moving quietly along proves conclusively +that while it may not be perfect it is founded upon correct principles +and with a few alterations will become famous throughout the world as +the American system of postal savings. It is with considerable pride +that its advocates and promoters can point to the fact that every one +of the predictions which they made before its inauguration and during +the long campaign for the enactment of the necessary legislation has +already been fully and conclusively demonstrated and proven beyond the +possibility of a reasonable doubt. In fact, many of the bankers and +those who so violently opposed the inauguration of the system have +become fully convinced of the fact that it will be no detriment to the +banking business of the country, but, on the other hand, will be of +inestimable value in bringing from its hiding place the idle currency of +the country and placing it in the banks and putting it into circulation. +Not only has it demonstrated that it does and will do this, but it +has, in the localities where depositories have been opened, originated +and is continuing a sentiment favorable to creating and maintaining +savings funds among many classes of people who have never before given +the matter as much as a serious thought. The experience of our postal +savings depository at Cameron is, I presume, about the same as that in +other localities, namely, that over sixty per cent of our 300 or more +depositors are men, women and children who never before had a bank +account of any kind. + +From our standpoint we believe that the fact that the system thus induces +such thrift and frugality will be of untold blessing to the present as +well as coming generations, and that as a result our nation will become +richer and greater in the coming years and its people more prosperous, +contented and happy. While the system inaugurated by the committee in +charge is complete and comprehensive, yet in the very beginning of our +experience at Cameron we saw the need of a little further extension +of the same, and after giving the matter much thought and serious +consideration we laid plans and have inaugurated in all the schools of +our city penny savings banks, to be operated in each room of the schools, +under the direction and charge of the superintendent and teachers. This +system of penny savings banks in the schools works in connection, and is +really a part of, our postal savings depository at the post office; and +while it is an idea of my own, yet I have submitted it to the postmaster +general and the postal savings system committee, and hope in the near +future to see it adopted and extended to all the schools throughout the +country. It is very simple and easily instituted and operated, and we +believe will be heartily and enthusiastically received by the teachers of +a majority of the schools throughout the country. + +A brief explanation of the system, as we have it in Cameron, I believe +would be of interest to all postal officials that have to do with the +postal savings system, and I therefore take pleasure in presenting at +this time a brief outline of the same, and would be pleased at any time +to explain the workings more in detail or answer any questions that may +be propounded. + +The extension of the postal savings system to our schools and the +establishment of the penny savings banks therein is based upon the +facts that many of our children do not receive as much as ten cents at +one time for their labor or for their spending money, and that they, +like many of their elders, find it very difficult and at times almost +impossible to keep money in their pockets for any given length of time. +In fact, in many cases it immediately begins to “burn their pocket,” +and must be spent at once. Hence their pennies and nickels are spent +before they accumulate the necessary ten cents with which to purchase +a saving card at the Post Office. Then again, the tendency of our time +for years has been for the youth of the land to spend all they have or +get, be it much or little, with great rapidity and absolutely without +any idea of its value. In the inauguration of penny savings banks in our +schools we endeavored to impress two valuable admonitions on the minds of +every pupil: First, that every boy and girl should, as soon as he enters +school, make it a point to earn a small amount of money each week; and, +second, that they should make it an invariable rule to save at least +one-half of all the money earned and given them and place it in a savings +fund. In giving these two admonitions we made the assertion that if those +in the primary department would follow these rules and deposit their +money in the postal savings banks and invest it in government bonds, +compounding their interest by withdrawing and depositing same, that at +the age of twenty-five years the larger majority of them would have +amassed sufficient capital to enter into any retail business in our city. + +In introducing this extension I first laid the matter fully before our +superintendent and received his unqualified endorsement of the same, and +then arranged for a meeting with all the teachers of our schools and to +them presented the postal savings system and our extension system for +the schools, and after a full explanation they, with the superintendent, +voted unanimously to place the same in our schools. Immediately after the +opening of the schools I visited each one separately and presented the +matter to the pupils and opened a penny savings bank, which was placed +in charge of the teacher. I closed this feature of the work on Friday, +September 15, and the results to date have been eminently satisfactory +and very gratifying. I have arranged with the teachers to have them +submit a weekly report during the two remaining weeks of this month +showing, first the total number of depositors, second the total amount +deposited, and third the average age of depositors. After the close of +this month these reports will be made monthly instead of weekly. + + +ADDRESS. + +F. C. SCHWEDTMAN, _Chairman of the Delegation of the National Association +of Manufacturers of U. S. A._ + +Permit me to extend to you, in the name of the great organization which +I have the honor to represent, the good will, coöperation and support of +thousands of progressive manufacturers from almost every state and city +of the Union in every sane endeavor to preserve the natural resources of +our nation. + +I have listened with keen interest to yesterday’s and today’s arguments +for the conservation of coal and timber, soil and water. It seemed to +me particularly significant to have a lumberman in the person of the +honorable chairman of your executive committee urge the preservation of +our forests, and it was equally fitting to hear our great farmer Governor +of Missouri make a plea for the soil. Of course, both of these gentlemen +spoke upon subjects nearest to their hearts. Unfortunately I am not a +farmer, but their action gives me courage to devote a few minutes to a +few phases of the conservation problem nearest my heart. + +Allow me, an employer of industrial labor, to plead for higher efficiency +in the industries and especially for better opportunities for the +millions of toilers, in the shops as well as upon the farm. The greatest +nation of the future will be the nation that best understands how to +economize and preserve human energy and happiness at home, and how to +build up trade abroad. + +President Taft told us last night how, by mixing science and proper +education, our crops per acre can be doubled and trebled. In the same way +can the output of our mines and factories be increased tenfold in value +by industrial education. Instead of selling steel billets to the nations +of the world, we want to sell them sewing machines, dynamos and watch +springs; and instead of exporting raw cotton we want to export high grade +cotton goods. This requires government support for industrial education, +and I urge you, in return for our aid to secure agricultural schools and +experimental stations, you give us yours to secure scientific industrial +training. The National Association of Manufacturers is persistently +and systematically working to that end. And there is another phase of +preservation even more important. Among the measures pointed out in your +handbook to which the association will give its vigorous support, both +legislative and administrative, I find this: “Means wisely designed +to diminish sickness, prevent accidents, and increase the welfare and +comfort of American life, believing that human efficiency, health and +happiness are natural resources quite as important as forests, water, +land and minerals.” Now, I do know something of this feature of the +preservation movement, and after the vigorous campaigning which the +National Association of Manufacturers has carried on in the last two +years for “human preservation” under my supervision, I feel that it is +not only of equal importance to soil preservation, but more so. + +Authorities tell us that in comparison of the vital and physical assets +of a nation, as measured by earning power, the former are from three to +five times as valuable as the latter. These authorities assert that there +is as great room for improvement of our vital resources as in our lands, +waters, minerals and forests, and that this improvement is possible +in respect to both the length of life and to freedom from disease and +accidental injury during life. + +Prof. Irving Fisher estimates (in Bulletin Number 30 of the committee +of one hundred on national health) that $250,000,000,000 is a minimum +estimate of the vital assets of the United States in 1907 and that of +the estimated annual loss of three billions of dollars due to sickness, +accident and death, one-half, or one and one-half billion dollars, is +preventable. + +According to Dr. Tolman, the total number of work casualties suffered by +our army of wage-workers is sufficient to carry on perpetually two such +wars at the same time as the Russo-Japanese and our Civil war. According +to the same authority, our railroads, during the year of 1906, killed and +wounded more persons than were killed and wounded in the six bloodiest +battles of the Civil War. + +In all these directions our losses are from five to ten times greater +proportionately than those of the most progressive European nations, and +what are we doing about it? + +The National Association of Manufacturers has carefully compiled facts +and figures and has everlastingly spread the gospel of preventing these +losses and compensating equitably the sufferers from unpreventable losses. + +Do not think for one moment that this is a subject that does not concern +the farmer. I can prove by facts and figures that the percentage of +injuries among farmers is greater than in the industries, and easier +prevented. If you want to convince yourself go to the nearest insurance +office. You will find the accident insurance rates for the farmer higher +than for the carpenter or machinist. + +Some European countries have evolved compensation schemes by which $78 +of every $100 paid for accident insurance is paid to the injured wage +worker. Under our liability laws, only about $30 out of every $100 +reaches the injured worker. What would you think of your neighbor if he +were trying to run a machine with 30 per cent efficiency in competition +with yours of 78 per cent efficiency? He would not last very long. + +We ask your help in establishing sound, safe and efficient schemes in +all the states of the Union. The first part of the problem will have to +be solved by legislation, the second by coöperation, and it can be done +only by a combination of all the progressive elements of society. It must +be done as quickly as possible, bearing in mind all the time that he who +starts out well prepared for a race is in better shape to win than he +who hurries on without due preparation. We must have facts and figures +before us and we must select the best men in the various states to act as +investigation commissioners. + +So-called reformers do not always appreciate this. A short time ago I +addressed the governor and the legislature of one of our Middle Western +states. The governor, a man of many fine qualities, asked me during the +progress of my arguments why I had gathered such a mass of facts and +figures from European sources. I asked him in return how he would settle +it without statistics, and he replied, “We need no facts and figures, all +we need is the right kind of a gizzard.” Of course there is no sense in +arguing with such a man. He misunderstands the issue. Americans do not +need, and do not want charity; they want justice. + +We in the United States will eventually have the best system for +preserving the best resources of our country, the health and well-being +of our people, the self-respect and earning capacity of our wage-workers, +the lives and limbs of our toilers, but it will take the combined energy +and wisdom of all of us to bring this about. + + +REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION. + +BY WM. O. STILLMAN, _President_. + +The American Humane Association, during the past year, has been actively +engaged in promoting the development of humanitarian work in the United +States, and has also been useful in promoting a similar work in many +foreign lands. During October, 1910, there was held under the auspices +of this association, in the city of Washington, D. C., and under the +Honorary Presidency of William H. Taft, the President of our country, +the first American International Humane Conference. There were present +representatives from thirty foreign countries. The addresses, papers and +topics which were heard were of great value. There was also held, in +connection with the International Conference, the first international +exhibit of objects of humane interest. This was shown in the New United +States National Museum building, where the conference was also held. The +exhibition, which lasted a week, proved phenomenal in extent and interest. + +As a direct and acknowledged result of the Washington conference, +there is to be held, during June, 1912, in London, England, a similar +international congress, which it is believed will greatly assist the +spread of work which we represent. + +The result of international meetings of this description is to promote +the spread of humanitarian doctrines everywhere. Representatives +were present at Washington from Japan, China, India, Persia, Turkey, +Russia, Australia, and almost every section of the globe. We believe +that the choicest asset which any nation possesses is its childhood. +Our anti-cruelty societies are seeking all over the world to protect +childhood from influences which are prejudicial to health or morals. This +means a better standard and average in childhood, and the elimination of +great masses of the youth which, under present conditions, inevitably +become recruits of the armies of vagrancy and crime. + +The other great field of humane endeavor is to promote the conservation +and protection of animal life. The livestock of a country constitutes one +of the most valuable assets, in an intrinsic sense, which a country like +ours can possess. As pointed out in our report last year, efforts which +may readily be made would result in the saving of hundreds of thousands +of horses and cattle for longer and more useful service. + +The American Humane Association intends to ask Congress for relief of +transportation conditions which are responsible for great injury and loss +of livestock, by requesting that a minimum speed bill be enacted. This +proposition has been heartily endorsed by the Department of Agriculture +in Washington and by humanitarians generally. Various other reforms are +contemplated and will be pushed to a conclusion in the near future. + +We feel that our work is a thoroughly practical one, and that in its +largest sense it stands for better citizenship and the promotion of the +moral interests of the commonwealth as well as its commercial ones. We +trust that the Third National Conservation Congress will approve of the +work in which we are engaged, which represents a membership of much over +one hundred thousand persons and an expenditure of more than a million +and a half dollars annually. + + +CONSERVATION OF BIRD LIFE. + +BY DR. GEORGE W. FIELD, _Representing the National Audubon Society_. + +I want to call your attention to one phase which has hardly been touched +upon—importance of the conservation of our bird life. When you realize +that the insect places a tax upon every one of us twice as great as we +are called upon to pay to our towns, cities and states, a tax of at least +five per cent on every agriculturist and consumer of food in this nation, +we realize the work of the National Audubon Society, which is organized +for the purpose of protecting the wild insectivorous birds. The resources +of this association last year were about $35,000. Over against that was +this damage to our agricultural interests of over one million dollars. +So you can see therefore that we have been able to do but very little +relatively. When we compare the condition in this country with that of +Germany, where they have one hundred times as many birds to the square +mile as we have in this country, we realize the importance of the work +which this association is carrying on. We ask your support, every one, +in every way, to assist the activities of this National Audubon Society. +(Applause) + +I also represent the National Shell Fish Association. Now, the purpose +of this association is to issue, so to speak, a sanitary insurance to +every person who consumes oysters, clams, lobsters and that type of +sea food. In other words, we want to make it possible that when you in +Kansas, Missouri, and in the interior of the country, eat from your +table, or in your hotels, oysters brought from the seacoast of both sides +of this nation, to be certain that there is no chance of infection, of +typhoid fever, or other disease. To do that we are asking every state +in the Nation to realize the enormous waste of material in the form of +sewage and manufacturing waste which is pouring into our streams and +into our coastal waters. To take one concrete illustration, the city of +Boston, in Massachusetts, spent five or six millions of dollars for the +purpose of putting the sewage into the ocean. It did that, but when it +did it destroyed annually the potential capacity of that water to develop +shell fish food. In other words, it was precisely the same as if so many +thousands of acres in your farming country were utterly destroyed forever +for all farming purposes. It was reduced merely to a desert, whereas, if +that material had been placed on the land, where it belonged, there would +have been enormous benefits arising to the farm, and it would have been +possible to cultivate that land under water for raising food. Now, we are +demonstrating, acre for acre, that the land under water can raise more +food—nitrogenous food, the most expensive type of food for man—at a less +expense in time, in capital, and in labor, than the very best acres in +your boasted river bottoms, a type of food material which can be raised +nowhere else than on the coasts of our country, on both the Atlantic and +Pacific and the Gulf. + + +ADDRESS. + +BY W. J. RUSHTON, _President American Association of Refrigeration_. + +I desire to thank the Congress in the name of the members of the American +Association of Refrigeration for the invitation to be represented here by +official delegates. + +We consider it especially fitting that our association should participate +in the deliberations of this Congress, because it stands for the +conservation of the perishable foods of the people in the broadest sense. + +In order that those who are not already familiar with the objects of +our Association and with the methods it employs in carrying these into +effect, and to illustrate how well our work meshes with the purposes of +this National Congress, I will call your attention to several statements +taken from the statutes by which our organization is governed. Among our +objects are: + + “To institute investigations, experiments and tests for the + purpose of demonstrating, correct solutions of scientific, + technical and industrial problems pertaining to the art of + refrigeration. + + “To inspire confidence in the public mind, and appreciation + of the beneficial effects of refrigeration upon perishable + food products, both in transit and when stored for the purpose + of conservation, by collecting and disseminating authentic + information on the subject. + + “To encourage the expansion of American trade, commerce and + transportation of perishable agricultural products, and to + assist the commercial and industrial interests affected by + mechanical refrigeration, both at home and abroad. + + “To further its purposes and extend its influence by + publications, meetings, conferences and courses of lectures, + and by encouraging the introduction in educational institutions + of regular courses in refrigeration. + + “To coöperate with the International Association of + Refrigeration in the organization of international commissions + for the discussion of questions of international import, and in + the determination of correct basic data pertaining to the art + of refrigeration.” + +The conservation of the natural resources of the country is now +recognized by all thinking persons as a vital factor in our national +life, both as an obligation to posterity and because of its immediate +influence on the material welfare and the health of the people. + +The influence of this Congress, as it is felt more generally over the +country, must result in strongly stimulating thrift and economy as well +as respect for law among the people. The exercise of these qualities is +essential to the conservation of the waters, the forests, the lands and +the minerals, as well as all of the vital resources of the country. + +Our people—in fact, the people of all the civilized countries of the +world—are now confronted with serious problems due to the high prices of +the necessaries of life, principally their food supplies. + +It is believed that these conditions largely grow out of neglect to +properly conserve and market perishable foods and to lack of adequate +means for promptly collecting and transporting them in sound condition +from regions capable of ample production to the thickly populated +centers; also to insufficient means for preserving such supplies from +seasons of overproduction to periods of scarcity. + +It is certainly a very necessary and laudable mission, to concentrate the +intelligence and energy of a body of men such as compose this Congress +for the conservation of the forests, lands, waters, minerals and vital +resources of the country. Our association is very much interested in +all of this, because lumber, minerals and water are very necessary to +the refrigerating industry, while the conservation of the soil is of +paramount importance as the source of the fuel of the great human engine +through the operation of which all of the other resources are harnessed +to the world’s work. + +We are, therefore, here particularly to emphasize the necessity of +conserving the perishable foods of the people by refrigeration, that much +misunderstood and often misrepresented natural mode of preservation. + +However productive the soil may be made, and however ample the supply of +highly nutritious food may be, unless such food is made available for use +when and where it is needed, and where it must be supplied at prices the +people can afford to pay, the conservation of the soil will have failed +of extending the fullest measure of its possible benefits to the people. + +Our organization has made an especial study of the subject of the +production, the transportation and the conservation of perishable +foods, and of the laws and proposed laws applying to the subject. The +hearings before the Senate committees on manufactures of the Sixty-first +and Sixty-second Congresses, the reports of which are published by +the National Government, abound in evidences of the activity of our +committees and individual members. + +Therefore, if it is in order and otherwise agreeable, I would like +to propose that, in furtherance of the purposes of this Congress, +and in order that its opportunities for doing good may be realized +in the fullest measure, a standing committee on food be added to the +present standing committees. Such committee to be composed of persons +best qualified to render the most efficient service in the study of +the questions involved in the production, collection, transportation, +preservation and marketing of perishable foods, and to report to the +Fourth Congress. Such report to be made the basis of measures to conserve +the perishable foods of the people, to improve their quality, increase +their production, and to promote such relations between the producer +and consumer as will bring about lower and more nearly uniform prices +throughout each year. + + +WILD LIFE PROTECTION. + +WILLIAM EDWARD COFFIN, _Vice-President Camp Fire Club of America, +Chairman Committee on Game Protective Legislation and Preserves._ + +The Camp Fire Club of America was founded as an organization of big +game hunters, with the protection of wild life and forests as its great +objects. Dan Beard once characterized the club as a “Society of Criminals +for the Suppression of Crime.” Big game hunters have always been active +in game protection, indeed in all conservation measures, and that because +their touch with the woods keeps the problem alive. + +To the sportsmen of America are due nearly all the existing game +protective laws. + +Among the Camp Fire Club’s members are Dr. W. T. Hornaday, whom all +honor as the Washington of wild life protection; Ernest Thompson Seton +and Dan Beard, who by their work with the boys are doing more for the +future of conservation than any men living with but two exceptions: +Irving Bacheller, A. W. Dimock, Dillon Wallace, Gifford Pinchot—God +bless him—and many others, who with pen, time and money are laboring +ceaselessly for the great cause of conservation which is so near your +hearts and mine. + +The club may fairly claim for less than two years’ work: Yeoman service +in the defeat of the bill permitting the sale of wild bird plumage in +New York; the defeat of a bill authorizing spring shooting of ducks on +Long Island; in securing the $20,000 appropriation for the starving elk +in Wyoming; in enlarging the Waterton lake, park and game preserve now +being formed in Southwestern Alberta. + +To the Camp Fire Club belongs the sole credit, outside of Congress, for +defeating the proposed twenty-year renewal of the Fur Seal Killing lease +on the Pribilof Islands. Much of the credit for that public opinion which +forced the treaty stopping pelagic sealing. When the fur herd is, through +complete protection, restored to something like its old numbers, the +country will have the Camp Fire Club to thank for fairly snatching that +herd from the jaws of complete annihilation. + +To Dr. Hornaday, our great leader, is due the famous Bayne-Blauvelt +bill—the greatest single piece of game protective legislation ever +enacted by any state or country. Think of it; that bill absolutely +prohibits the sale of all wild game in the State of New York. The lion’s +share of the campaign work incident to its passage was done by members +of the Camp Fire Club. How well it was done you will realize when I +state that the bill passed with only one dissenting vote in the whole +legislature; and how it was done when I say that upwards of 30,000 +letters were written asking senators and assemblymen to support the bill. +The passage of that bill was the turning point of the war between the +army of destruction and the army of preservation in New York state. + +I must not leave this subject without a tribute to Governor Dix of New +York, without whose hearty coöperation and steadfast support we would +have been helpless. + +In spite of great pressure by selfish interests he stood like a rock and +has fully redeemed the ante-election pledges of himself and of his party. +Let his name be written in the Conservation Temple of Fame. + +So much for the past. For the future: 1st. We propose to keep everything +we have gained. 2d. We have arranged for Gifford Pinchot and Overton +Price to visit the Adirondack Mountains, study the situation and make +a report which will make possible sound, seasonable legislation for +“Scientific Fire Protection,” “Scientific Reforestation,” “Scientific +Care of Existing Forests.” Legislation which combines sane utilization +with sound conservation. + +I wish you all could have seen the cheerfulness with which Pinchot and +Price responded to the request of the club that they undertake this work. + +The club is, at the request of the New York State Conservation +Commissioners, to coöperate in a complete codification of the state game +laws. + +This we hope will result in a series of stringent but reasonable laws; +simple, plain, readily enforced. Laws which the National Conservation +Congress will be proud of and can safely recommend as a model for other +states. + +This is largely work in one state only, but it is wise to clear your own +door yard before preaching sanitation to your neighbors, and with the +beam removed from our own eye, we can the better see how to remove the +mote from our brother’s. + +Outside of New York we propose: 1st. To push Bayne-Blauvelt bills in the +North Atlantic states for stopping the sale of game. Thus striking at the +root of game slaughter is far more effective than attempting to police +the army of market hunters or any other method of trimming the branches. +2d. We shall agitate ceaselessly for the complete protection of the fur +seal. 3d. We shall do what we can to put life into the Migratory Bird +Bill, which has been in congressional cold storage for so many years, +and to promote a migratory fish bill. 4th. We propose to urge upon +states—even upon counties—the formation of bird, game and fish refuges, +one of the most effective methods of game protection. 5th. We shall hold +ourselves in readiness to further any and every sound proposition for +the conservation of this country’s natural resources, whether animal, +vegetable or mineral. + +And now having finished my report, permit me a few words of indictment +and a few words of appeal. + +The National Conservation Congress and Association heretofore have +practically ignored wild life. Infinite and detailed attention has been +given to lands, minerals, water and forests, and the Camp Fire Club is +with you in all these, but are your halls so narrow, your boundaries +so confined, that you have no room for the great cause of wild life +protection? + +Do you realize that in New York state alone there are nearly 150,000 +active gunners; in Pennsylvania over 100,000, and that even a two shot +gun does not satisfy them? + +The laws in all states are so liberal to the killers and so hard on the +game that wild life is swiftly vanishing. + +The commercial interests of gun-making, game selling and feather +working are terribly destructive influences. No wild species can +stand exploitation for commercial purposes. In every case it spells +extermination. Look backward at the millions of bison, fur seal, +passenger pigeon, pinnated grouse and Florida egrets. Where are they all? +Exterminated to fill the cash boxes of greedy men. + +How much longer is Christian civilization, how much longer are you going +to stand for such things? In birds alone six species are absolutely +extinct, thirteen more nearly so. Our states are spending millions to +fight insect pests whose increase is due chiefly to the decrease of bird +life. How can it be stopped? By your efforts, those of the Camp Fire Club +and other organizations. There must be a pull, a long pull and a pull all +together. The majority of the American people are conscientious, humane, +just and merciful toward all creatures; once arouse that majority and it +will right any wrong. + +The protection of wild life requires a campaign of education and +publicity; given these, legislation will follow as light follows the sun. +Congressmen and legislators will do the right thing if they are asked to +do it often enough and hard enough by the people they represent. We do +not appeal to this Congress as sportsmen or in the interest of sportsmen; +but for the millions of men, women and children who love the outdoor life +and who do not shoot at all. + +We therefore ask for two things: 1st. A broad definite recognition in +your platform organization and proceedings of this great branch of +the conservation movement. We ask a standing committee on wild life +protection. 2d. Your coöperation, collectively and individually. Bone of +our bone, flesh of our flesh, blood brothers, the Camp Fire Club, true of +heart, clear of hand, eager in support of all you stand for, calls to you. + +Come over into Macedonia and help us. + + +PREVENTABLE FIRE WASTE: CONSERVATION EFFORTS FOR ITS REDUCTION. + +_By a Committee of the National Board of Fire Underwriters._ + +In each of the previous national assemblages of this character the +National Board of Fire Underwriters has been represented and has +earnestly endeavored to portray the enormity of the preventable fire +waste of our country and its retarding effect on our national growth and +prosperity. + +With each annual meeting of our organization, statistical information has +been prepared and furnished to the public and press, setting forth the +tremendous money value in property which was being annually destroyed +by fire throughout our country. As an aid toward convincing our people +that a vast amount of real wealth was being wiped out of existence +annually by preventable fires, our committee on statistics and origin +of fires, by the aid of the Federal Government, secured figures of the +fire loss in European cities and countries, which were compared with the +fire loss of the cities of the United States and the United States as a +whole and reduced to a comparison of the loss per capita. These figures +were published by the National Board of Fire Underwriters in 1906. The +comparison was so startling as to attract very wide attention and gave +activity to the fire conservation movement. + +The Geological Survey, through its technologic branch, investigated +the fire loss and the cost of fire protection in the United States in +1907, and published Bulletin 418, known as “The Fire Tax and Waste of +Structural Materials in the United States”—a pamphlet most impressive in +the facts presented and irrefutable in its arguments. We quote a section: + +“The investigation disclosed the fact that the total cost of fires +in the United States in 1907 amounted to almost one-half the cost of +new buildings constructed in the country for the year. The total cost +of the fires, excluding that of forest fires and marine losses, but +including excess cost of fire protection due to bad construction, and +excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to over $456,485,000, a +tax on the people exceeding the total value of the gold, silver, copper, +and petroleum produced in the United States in that year. The cost of +building construction in forty-nine leading cities of the United States +reporting a total population of less than 18,000,000 amounted, in 1907, +to $661,076,286, and the cost of building construction for the entire +country in the same year is conservatively estimated at $1,000,000,000. +Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half the value of all the new +buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The total +fire cost in this country is five times as much per capita as in any +country of Europe. This fire cost was greater than the value of the real +property and improvements in any one of the following states: Maine, West +Virginia, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana, +Montana. + +“The actual fire losses due to the destruction of buildings and their +contents amounted to $215,084,709, a per capita loss for the United +States of $2.51. The per capita losses in the cities of the six leading +European countries amounted to but 33 cents, or about one-eighth of the +per capita loss sustained in the United States. In addition to this waste +of wealth and natural resources, 1,449 persons were killed and 5,654 were +injured in fires. + +“The total loss on buildings in the United States was $109,156,894 and on +contents $105,927,815. There were fires in 36,140 brick, iron, and stone +buildings, with a loss of $31,092,687 on the buildings and $37,332,580 on +the contents, and in 129,117 frame buildings, with a loss of $78,064,207 +on the buildings and $68,595,235 on the contents. In cities and villages +with a population of 1,000 or more there were 6,324 fires that extended +beyond the building of origin, with a total exposure loss of $13,913,694. +The loss on fires that were confined to the building of origin in the +cities and villages amounted to $93,179,589.” + +The records of this board herewith subjoined show to what extent our fire +loss has increased almost yearly since 1875. + + -------+------------- + | Aggregate + Year. | Property + | Loss. + -------+------------- + 1875 | $78,102,285 + 1876 | 54,630,600 + 1877 | 68,265,800 + 1878 | 64,315,900 + 1879 | 77,703,700 + 1880 | 74,643,400 + 1881 | 81,280,900 + 1882 | 84,505,024 + 1883 | 100,149,228 + 1884 | 110,008,611 + 1885 | 102,818,796 + 1886 | 104,924,750 + 1887 | 120,283,055 + 1888 | 110,885,665 + 1889 | 123,046,833 + 1890 | 108,993,792 + 1891 | 143,764,967 + 1892 | 151,516,058 + 1893 | 167,544,370 + 1894 | 140,006,484 + 1895 | 142,110,233 + 1896 | 118,737,420 + 1897 | 116,354,575 + 1898 | 130,593,905 + 1899 | 153,597,830 + 1900 | 160,929,805 + 1901 | 165,817,810 + 1902 | 161,078,040 + 1903 | 145,302,155 + 1904 | 229,198,050 + 1905 | 165,221,650 + 1906 | 518,611,800 + 1907 | 215,084,709 + 1908 | 217,885,850 + 1909 | 188,705,150 + 1910 | 214,003,300 + -------+------------- + +The fire insurance interests have carried on an aggressive campaign for +the reduction of our discreditable fire losses and have been foremost in +suggesting practical and reasonable remedial measures. + +At the First Conservation Congress a paper on “The Fire Waste in the +United States” was presented by this board and upwards of 12,000 copies +were distributed to state and municipal authorities and to the press. We +quote the causes then set forth as operating to make the large fire waste +in the United States. + +“First: The difference in the point of view and the responsibility of the +inhabitants of Europe and those of the United States. + +“Second: The difference in the construction of buildings. + +“Third: The difference in the regulations governing hazards and hazardous +materials and conditions, and in the enforcement of such regulations.” + +And suggested as essential means toward its reduction: + +“First: That the public should be brought to understand that property +destroyed by fire is gone forever and is not replaced by the distribution +of insurance which is a tax collected for the purpose. + +“Second: That the states severally adopt and enforce a building code +which shall require a high type of safe construction, essentially +following the code of the National Board of Fire Underwriters. + +“Third: That municipalities adopt ordinances governing the use and +keeping of explosives, especially inflammable commodities and other +special hazards, such as electric wiring, the storing of refuse, waste, +packing material, etc., in buildings, yards or areaways, and see to the +enforcement of such ordinances. + +“Fourth. That the states severally establish and support the office of +fire marshal and confer on the fire marshal by law the right to examine +under oath and enter premises and to make arrests, making it the duty of +such officer to examine into the cause and origin of all fires and when +crime has been committed requiring the facts to be submitted to the grand +jury or proper indicting body. + +“Fifth: That in all cities there be a paid, well-disciplined, +non-political fire department adequately equipped with modern apparatus. + +“Sixth: That an adequate water system with proper distribution and +pressure be installed and maintained. In the larger cities a separate +high pressure water system for fire extinguishment is an absolute +necessity, to diminish the extreme imminence of general conflagrations.” + +At the Second Conservation Congress a paper on the “Conservation of +Utilized Resources from Destruction by Fire” was presented by us and +about 13,000 copies were widely distributed. We quote a section: + +“If the office of State Fire Marshal were created by every commonwealth, +and that official and his deputies given power to enforce good fire +prevention laws, investigate, and, if necessary, prosecute cases of arson +or criminal carelessness in the starting or spreading of fires, ascertain +the cause of every fire, and by the distribution of literature educate +the citizen to the need of care and forethought in the protection of his +property, a distinct conserving of the utilized resources in that state +would follow. + +“If our municipalities will enact and enforce improved and safe methods +of building construction and cause the removal or reconstruction of +existing structures which constitute, because of their construction, +a menace to adjoining properties, our cities will be freer from the +imminent conflagration which now threatens them. Eliminate defective +chimney flues, unprotected external and internal openings, excessive +areas, weak walls, and combustible roofs; prohibit the storage of rubbish +and demand the safe use and handling of dangerous inflammable liquids and +oils; regulate the use of explosives; and the destruction of our values, +created from the natural resources but enriched many fold by human toil, +industry and skill, will be materially diminished. + +“If the citizens of a community, as members of their local civic bodies +and boards of trade, will create in such organizations a Committee +on Fire Prevention, whose duty it shall be to study the subject and +awaken among their associates a realization of individual and communal +responsibility, and if our boards of education will emulate the action of +the State of Ohio in prescribing primal education of the school children +as to the chemistry of fire, the causes of fires in our homes and how to +guard against them, and how to extinguish incipient fires or hold them in +check while awaiting the response of the fire department, a preparation +will be made in that community which will check the constantly increasing +fire waste.” + +This organization has not been alone in its efforts in this direction, +neither has there been an entire absence of activity on the part of state +and municipal authorities. + +The National Fire Protection Association, of which the National Board of +Fire Underwriters is an active member, has through some of its members, +but principally through its secretary, delivered forty-two addresses on +the fire waste in thirty-one different cities. At the annual meeting of +the association held in New York in May last, it adopted the following +resolutions, urging upon the public the vital importance of better +construction and protection, and of a greater care in the maintenance of +property: + +“The National Fire Protection Association, with all the force at its +command and with the absolutely united and unanimous support of its +entire membership, wishes to place before the public in the strongest +possible terms that the situation in connection with the fire waste is +becoming so acute that there is necessity for action. + +“Action by all cities and towns in adopting proper building codes, +which will call for improved conditions and the use of fire resisting +construction in congested districts. + +“Action by the state and municipal authorities covering the regulation of +the transportation and storage of inflammable oils and explosives. + +“Action by those in authority to the end that all buildings where people +congregate, such as schools, theaters, factories, and hotels, shall be so +constructed and equipped that the lives of the people within them may be +safe-guarded. + +“Action by the proper authorities requiring the introduction of automatic +fire extinguishing apparatus in all commercial establishments and city +blocks. + +“Action by the proper authorities prohibiting the manufacture and sale +and use of the snap match and requiring the universal adoption and use of +the safety match. + +“Action by the public in bringing about a safe and intelligent +celebration of Independence Day, and, above all, + +“Action by every citizen of the land in using his individual effort in +the cause of educating the public in regard to the dangers from fire, not +only in so far as it applies to the personal and immediate consideration, +but also from the broader standpoint, namely: that of the welfare of our +land.” + +At the same meeting the Association was honored in being addressed on +“The Fire Waste” by the Hon. Walter L. Fisher, Secretary of the Interior, +from whose remarks we quote: + + “Indeed, I do not doubt that the average intelligent citizen of + the United States is aware of the fact that fires in America + are comparatively frequent. He undoubtedly appreciates in a + general way that a large percentage of our fires are from + preventable causes, and that the sacrifice of life and property + through loss by fire is, much of it, needless. What he does not + fully realize is his own duty, and the duty of city, state and + nation in the premises. He understands as yet but vaguely the + significance of that change of public sentiment which has made + of the movement for the conservation of our natural resources. + He glimpses but dimly how great an obstacle to human progress + and to human happiness is needless waste, whether it be in the + use we make of the products and the forces of nature, or the + productions and the energies of men. If the justification of + private property is that it tends to promote the common good + through increased energy and increased efficiency, which is + the antithesis of waste, then the broadest application of the + principles of conservation should extend to our created as well + as our natural resources, for in the last analysis the loss by + fire of a city building owned by an individual will be just as + important to the people of the United States as the loss by + fire of timber in the public domain. Both the building and the + timber are assets of the Nation. If they are destroyed these + assets are wiped out. No system of taxation will serve to bring + them back, whether this tax be collected by the constituted + authorities under the law, or collected by private interests + as premiums on policies of insurance. In either event, the + taxation is paid by the owners of property and it is ultimately + borne by the community as a whole. Reforestation costs money + which must be levied through taxation in some form. Rebuilding + a dwelling house, or a business block, or the business district + of a city, costs money, a large proportion of which under + insurance methods is assessed against property which has not + burned. It is the people who pay, whether they own land or + buildings or other things of value. It follows thus that the + question of fire waste is of direct pecuniary interest to every + citizen. Beyond the individual pecuniary interests, there + is also the obligation of each citizen to his fellows to so + protect his property and conduct his affairs as not to endanger + the lives and property of his neighbors. + + “It is the duty of organized society to protect its members in + life and property. But organized society, it is clearly shown, + has been remiss in its duty. The obligations of municipal, + state and national government have not been met. + + “It takes the force of public opinion to accomplish any + reform, and your association should receive hearty aid and + encouragement, for through it much of the educational work + which is a prerequisite to any successful agitation may be + accomplished. There is a real and vital necessity for teaching + each citizen of the United States the significance of the + national fire waste. The truth in regard to our national ash + heap should be brought home to each person having a family to + protect and property to preserve. + + “It seems ridiculous that a people so apt and so eager to seek + out and destroy the mysterious and hidden enemies of mankind + should be so slow and sluggish in fighting a foe so plainly + in sight and so readily vanquished. We have led the world in + seeking out the causes of pestilence and removing them. We + are in the very vanguard of the battle against tuberculosis, + typhoid and yellow fever, and still we stand apart and let the + older nations lead the fight against an enemy much more easily + conquered. + + “To arouse the people against the fire foe is our task. If + there were any dispute as to the facts, if anyone opposed a + movement to check the fire loss, the American people might + more readily become partisans of this movement which you are + leading. But there is no difference of opinion regarding the + essentials. The average American citizen would admit that + our fire waste is in the nature of a national disgrace. The + task is to make him do something to remedy conditions. You + must popularize your movement and create a general demand for + adequate laws and thorough enforcement. To relieve the people + of the unnecessary burden which they are now carrying, you must + teach them the importance and the significance of that burden. + You must show them the necessity for a defence against this + common enemy. Organized methods must be adopted for bringing + the significance of the fire waste before every person who will + read the written word or listen to the spoken one. Let the + people once realize the exact facts of their own negligence, + and they will be swift to provide the remedy.” + +The Western Union, an organization of insurance companies operating +in the Middle and Central West, has carried on, by public speeches of +some of its members and through its committee on publicity, a most +commendable campaign to impress the public with the significance of our +fire waste. Numerous circulars have been distributed and printed in whole +or in part in the newspapers. + +Many commercial bodies and boards of trade of our cities have taken +up the subject of the fire waste, appointed local committees on fire +prevention and advocated and secured improvements tending to afford +better fire protection, and lessen the great financial drain which the +fire loss was causing in their communities. + +The National Association of Credit Men, which has perhaps devoted more +time to the study of insurance and the fire waste of the country than any +other commercial body, has been very active in acquainting business men +with the importance of the subject and in encouraging the adoption by +municipality and state of such remedial measures as will tend to diminish +the steadily and rapidly increasing fire losses. + +The states of Ohio, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa are instructing their +school children as to the importance of observing greater care in the +handling and use of the ordinary fire hazards. The Fire Insurance +Commissioners in annual convention in August last adopted the following +resolutions: + +“The appalling annual loss of life and property in the United States by +fires, due to criminal carelessness, ignorance or dishonesty, commands +the serious attention of the American people. From present indications +over $300,000,000 in property values will be utterly wiped out during the +current year—a sum so vast that it must have a serious economic effect on +the prosperity of the country. The causes for this enormous drain on the +savings of the Nation are well known and to a large extent preventable. + +“The destruction of property by fire is ten times as great per capita +in the United States as it is in Germany, France, England, and other +countries abroad; and in addition to this needless waste of property +there are also thousands of men, women and children burned to death or +crippled in the various local fires and conflagrations that constantly +occur. The chief factor responsible for this situation is general +carelessness and the utter lack of personal responsibility for the +removal of causes productive of fires. + +“We recommend a campaign of education through the governors, insurance +commissioners and fire marshals of the various states, for the purpose of +bringing directly to the attention of the people the causes responsible +for the national ash heap, and the adoption of legislation which +will safeguard the lives and property of the people by holding every +individual responsible for carelessness resulting in fires. + +“We commend the suggestion unanimously adopted by the Association of +Fire Marshals of North America, urging that the governors of the various +states set aside one day each year to be known as ‘fire prevention day.’ +By proclamation the governor can call the attention of the citizens to +the enormous preventable fire waste of the country, and urge the taking +of such precautions, individual, municipal and state, as will tend to +reduce it. Appropriate exercises can be held in the public schools, +instruction on the common fire hazards can be given the children, and the +day can be made the occasion of the ‘clean-up’ day, which is doing so +much to remove hazardous conditions. + +“_Resolved._ That the individual members of the convention will use their +influence to secure such action by the governors of their respective +states, as an important, practical and educational assistance in the work +of fire prevention.” + +The governors of a number of our commonwealths have already acted +favorably on part of the foregoing suggestions and by proclamation have +set aside a day to be known as “fire prevention day,” when the citizens +will be called upon to clean up their several premises and provide better +fire protection, as a part of a nation-wide study of fire waste, and the +individual responsibility of property owners and householders. + +The State Fire Marshals in annual session adopted somewhat similar +resolutions. The awakening of our people on this subject affords +encouragement, but as yet it is only partial, incomplete, and not in +keeping with the national importance of the subject. + +A number of our states enacted fire marshal laws during their last +legislative sessions, some of which were commendable in their provisions, +but many of them embodied the false theory that such laws are more +beneficial to the fire insurance companies than to the public, and impose +on the former an additional tax for its support and enforcement. In +contrast to this policy, the Legislature of New York State, recognizing +that the state was collecting through its insurance department vastly +more than the expenses of the department, enacted what may be taken as a +model fire marshal law, the provisions of which are to be carried out and +enforced by the state at its own expense. + +Probably two-thirds of our fire loss is from preventable causes. Based on +this estimate, nearly two hundred million dollars of property values are +unnecessarily destroyed annually, reducing the wealth of the Nation in +like measure, since insurance does not restore but merely indemnifies out +of remaining wealth. It has truly been said that this preventable fire +waste is a national disgrace, and we have the humiliation of knowing that +the United States is by far the leader in this discreditable condition. + +Publicity has been mentioned recently as a cure, or partial cure, for +other evils. Likewise publicity will have an advantageous effect in +preventing fires. A special lesson to be preached and reiterated is that +those who cause, or have, avoidable fires, injure their neighbors, their +municipalities, their states and their country. They have created a part +of the two hundred million yearly “national scandal.” They have destroyed +wealth and increased taxes. They have been bad citizens. + +If the distinguished persons who are in attendance here will interest +themselves in their respective communities and states and advocate +the cause of conservation of the fire waste and the elimination of +preventable fires, they will help, and give an impetus to, the movement +for lessened fire losses and the saving of lives from fire. While the +members of the National Board of Fire Underwriters have an advantage +of contact and outlook as to the fire situation, they have no more and +no different interest in the subject than have other citizens. Good +citizenship demands that all, individually and collectively, should do +their full part in inculcating principles and bringing about practices +which will stop the ravages of the tremendous fire waste that is +scandalous because obviously preventable. + + GEO. W. BABB, New York. + W. N. KREMER, New York. + E. W. WEST, Glens Falls, N. Y. + E. G. RICHARDS, New York. + R. M. BISSELL, Hartford, Conn. + R. DALE BENSON, Philadelphia. + C. G. SMITH, New York. + + +REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES. + +BY WILLIAM P. WHARTON. + +To cultivate in the public mind a more lively appreciation of the value +of preserving the wild bird and animal life of America, is the object of +the National Association of Audubon Societies for the protection of wild +birds and animals. Backed by thirty-eight state Audubon societies, the +National Association is directing its endeavors along certain definite +lines of activity. + +Coöperating with state forest, fish and game commissions and with local +clubs, organized for game protection, the association is an important +factor in aiding to secure legislation looking to the protection at +all times of the valuable non-game birds, and the preservation from +undue killing of the various game birds and game animals with which the +country is blessed. In forty states the Audubon law for the protection +of non-game birds has been enacted, and in many other states Audubon +bills for the establishment of state game warden forces, the shortening +of seasons for killing game, the creation of game protective funds by +requiring hunter’s licenses, limits on the number of game birds which may +be killed in a day and other restrictive measures have been enacted. + +The association has always been active in advocating the passage of +various federal laws looking to the conservation of our native wild life. +Through its officers, agents and members large numbers of violators of +the game laws are annually reported to the state authorities and in many +instances prosecutions are begun and pushed by its representatives. + +Its continuous fight against the millinery traffic in the feathers of +native birds is a well-known subject in contemporaneous history. To +safeguard American water birds, the association has purchased, leased and +in other ways secured control of numbers of islands, lakes and swamps +where birds of this class are accustomed to congregate in great numbers +for the purposes of laying their eggs and rearing their young. Today +virtually all of the important breeding colonies of birds on the Atlantic +and Gulf coasts of the United States, as well as many of those along +the Pacific coast, are guarded in the summer by wardens employed by the +association. Through its efforts, the United States Government has been +interested in establishing fifty-three bird sanctuaries by making islands +and lakes frequented by breeding birds in summer federal reservations. +The association coöperates with the Government in paying for the services +of wardens who guard these birds from the inroads of hunters who may +desire to kill them for food or to secure their plumage for the feather +markets. + +The association conducts a wide educational campaign by means of +lecturers and the annual distribution of hundreds of thousands of +pages of literature and pictures of native birds. It is pushing the +organization of bird study classes in the schools, and as an example +during the past year, over ten thousand Southern school children received +systematic instructions in bird study. + +The association in its various fields of endeavor coöperates with the +officials of the United States Department of Education, with the United +States Commissioner of Education and numerous scientific societies. Its +growth during the past few years has been almost phenomenal and the +results achieved in rehabilitating the bird life of many sections of the +country is a source of great encouragement. + + +A LETTER. + +_From J. L. Van Ornum, Representing the Society for the Promotion of +Engineering Education and the Society for Testing Materials._ + +Had there been time for me to extend the greetings of the Society for the +Promotion of Engineering Education to the Third Conservation Congress, I +should have stated that: + +At our annual convention of fifteen years ago a paper was presented on +the subject of “The Conservation of Government Energy Through Education +and Research,” in which the statement is made with reference to our +natural resources, “the Government must be possessed of large resources +and a settled policy. Resources are not so easily commanded now as +formerly. All sources must be guarded and everything realized must be +successfully husbanded.” + +In the work of the engineering colleges, which distinctively consists in +educating young men in those fundamental principles which particularly +concern the direction of the great resources of materials and power in +nature to the use and convenience of mankind, the student is trained to +regard wastefulness as serious a fault as he does otherwise defective +design. + +With this idea of the essential economy of their plans and works thus +impressed, engineers have been filling their place in the development +of the material resources of the Republic for more than half a century, +until there exists a body of trained men to whom conservation is an +ingrained trait. + +Having this common ground of interest, it would seem that each +organization may be of service to the other; that which I represent +gaining an enlarged interest in those social, economic and moral +questions which so vitally affect human welfare, and you, perhaps, +utilizing the trained experience available to most fully disclose +the true conditions upon which conclusions must depend, so that the +principles advocated may always be based upon ascertained facts. + +As I listened to the reading of the resolutions on the last afternoon, it +seemed to me that if the situation referred to in my last paragraph had +been utilized, the statement with regard to the purity of rivers would +have been materially modified. I think that civil (sanitary) engineers +are rapidly realizing that there is a practicable limit set by conditions +of civilization to the absolute purity of rivers, in some cases, which +has been theoretically deemed desirable. However, I wish to say in +general, that it seems to me the resolutions passed by the Congress are +excellent. + + +ADDRESS. + +BY J. C. BAUMGARTNER _of California_. + +I regret exceedingly that a gentleman from our state with whom many of +you are well acquainted, a former governor, George C. Pardee, who is the +chairman of our State Conservation commission, is not here. I feel wholly +incompetent to represent California upon this occasion, but have been +asked to say just a few words. + +When the governor of California asked me a few days ago to take a place +upon the state Conservation commission I was very proud and glad to do +so. I happened to be a newspaper man by profession, and quite a number of +papers throughout the state had little items about my appointment, and +the heading in many instances read something like this: “Baumgartner gets +a fat plum,” “An editor recognized,” and so on down the line. I made a +little reply to that in this way: I said that I was very glad indeed to +be recognized as a man who was willing and perhaps in some little measure +competent to have a part in the great work of conservation, without +money and without price, as you all know, and as was expressed from this +platform this morning, this work is a work in which no individual has any +selfish interest. It is a public-spirited work. And it is certainly one +of the biggest and best things that is going on in this country today. +Nothing has been done in California by the state government by way of +recognition of this work until within the past few months. So that we +who are here from that state are here to learn, and not to attempt to +instruct. If we can learn our A B Cs here, we shall feel that our time +and money have been well spent in coming here. + +About five or six months ago—I haven’t a recollection of the exact +date—the Conservation commission of California was appointed and began +its work. I have had the pleasure and the privilege of attending only +one meeting which was held a week ago last Friday, and at that meeting +I was prevailed upon to come to this Congress, because other members, +more competent to represent the state, could not leave home. Accompanying +me are other gentlemen from that state. The secretary of our state +commission, and representatives of other phases of conservation are +here. We have a great deal of rich agricultural land in California, and +we are a little shy of water in some places. We have ideal conditions +in many respects for manufacturing, but we are also a little shy on +coal. So that we turn our attention naturally to water and power first. +We have entered into coöperative agreements with federal employes, +representatives of the various federal bureau departments, who are +working in our state, especially the geological survey people, and +the representatives of the department of agriculture, and we have men +of our own in the field gathering data on those important phases of +conservation in California—water resources and power resources. The work +has only just begun, but we feel that we were fortunate in securing this +coöperation of the National Government. It is barely possible that this +may be a suggestion to some other state. We entered into agreements with +these people to gather the data that we need in order to give us the +information necessary for intelligent recommendation to the legislature +as to the necessary legislation in our state. This work has just begun, +and we feel that we have saved a great deal of time in not having to +organize a complete force of our own, and also a great deal of money has +been saved in eliminating overhead charges. These gentlemen are gathering +for us complete data as to the amount and character of lands that can +be irrigated, and complete data as to the water that is available for +irrigating those lands. We also in our last legislature, in addition to +providing for this commission, provided for a board of control of water +power, and under that law the state has absolute control and regulation +of water power. In California there is sufficient water power to turn +every wheel that is now turned in the United States. It is estimated +by federal government experts that we have in California in use and +operation 250,000 horsepower, and that we might easily develop five +million. It is also estimated that this five million horsepower on the +basis of the price of coal in California is a billion dollars a year. +So you can see how important that phase of the work is to us. We are +accompanied here by the secretary of our commission, Mr. Louis R. Glavis, +and during the course of the convention if there is anything that any one +wishes to ask about our work or plans, Mr. Glavis can no doubt answer the +questions intelligently. Very likely I could not if the questions were +put to me. + +We wish to say in this same connection that we would indeed be glad to +have the representatives and the conservation commissions in other states +and all conservation bodies and organizations, send us any information +they have that may be of benefit to us, and we shall be glad, indeed, to +reciprocate that courtesy. I do not think there is anything else that I +can say, ladies and gentlemen. We merely wanted you to know that we were +awake, or just beginning to get awake in California on this important +subject, and that we shall give it our best efforts, and invite your +hearty coöperation. I thank you. (Applause) + + +REPORT FROM IDAHO. + +BY MRS. HOLLAND C. DAY. + +While I am not a native of Idaho, I must say that I claim allegiance to +the state of Missouri, and Governor Hadley is my governor. (Applause) +But, as I spent many months in Idaho, I was appointed by the newspapers +to speak a word for Idaho in case there was no one else here to represent +her. Therefore that is my excuse for appearing before you. + +Through the Carey act Idaho has had more opportunity to be settled than +through the general homestead act, as there is not so much time required +to stay on the land before beginning to cultivate. Of course, you all +know that is a sage brush country, and there is lots of grubbing to be +done there. A few years ago I helped to plant an orchard of 167 acres. +Eight thousand fruit trees were planted there. It is called Pasadena +valley. From my little hut we counted sixteen settlements of school +teachers and their wives, and young people settling in that valley, +making a new start in life. That valley blossoms, I was going to say, +like a rose, but I mean like an apple tree. For two years now these +apple trees have been growing and putting out fine new shoots and they +have been obliged to cut these twigs away in order to have the best kind +of apples two years from now. Dr. Morrison’s orchard is situated in +Pasadena valley: he has 167 acres there. He is a man well known in the +State of Washington, and he took up this land for the sake of inducing +others to come. Now, as far as the irrigation problem is concerned, you +all know about it. I am confined to five minutes, but I want to say that +the sooner the people of the United States, especially of the East, will +not think so much about the productiveness of the soil as they will of +the locality, and they think more of the locality I would say, than the +productiveness, then the whole western country will be a Mecca for some +of the hide-bound people of the East. (Applause) + +Now, I am a New Yorker myself originally. I was a New York girl up to +thirty years ago, and now I am a Missourian, and once a Missourian always +a Missourian. And when I went out West they did not have to show me, +either. (Applause) But I see the people of the East do not understand the +conservation theory as well as they might. I have talked with many, and +you take up the New York papers, and you will find that they are very +provincial. There is nothing outside of New York. You have to come West +and get the western papers to find out what is going on all over the +world, and conservation is the touch-word nowadays. I want to say that +Idaho is heart and soul in this movement. I represent a paper that goes +all over Idaho and is looking forward to some report from this Congress +with a great deal of interest, and I shall be pleased to report it as +well and effectively as only a woman can. I thank you very much, and if +you want to plant any orchards and have them grow and make money, and +send your apples to Europe and all over the world, come to Idaho, to +King’s Hill or Glenn’s Ferry. I thank you. (Applause) + + +REPORT FROM ILLINOIS. + +BY COLONEL ISHAM RANDOLPH. + +COL. RANDOLPH—I bring you God speed and the good will of our Governor who +cannot be here himself. He is lying upon a bed of pain with a broken leg, +but that is the only thing that is lame about him. He is as determined +in spirit, and as earnest in his efforts for the good of his own people +and for the good of the whole Nation as though he was sound in every bone +in his body. + +Illinois, the sister state to Missouri, is not a novice in the +conservation movement. She began it a long time ago. She has had her +conservation work going on for many years, and she has learned that in +union there is strength. In Illinois we have had for a number of years, +the Internal Improvement commission, which joined hands with the State +Geological Survey, with the United States Government Survey, with the +water survey, with the fish commission, and hand in hand they have +worked for the development of the state and the conservation of our +resources. Something has been said about the failure of the land in the +East. It was my good fortune to be a delegate to the first Conservation +Congress in the White House. The president of our Illinois University, +in the course of his remarks said, that so much was said about the +misfortunes, of the impoverishment of the land of New England, of the +lands of New York, of the lands of Virginia and other eastern states, +but, he said, “My friends, I do not so regard it. The impoverishment +of these lands has sent the sons of those states to build up the West. +They have carried with them their energy, their brains, their character, +and they are making the great West what it is today.” I repeated that +to a distinguished educator in agricultural lines who is now in this +audience, and what do you think his remark was? He said, “Did he also go +on to say that wherever the English-speaking people had set foot they had +robbed the soil, and given it nothing back?” Now, our universities are +teaching our English-speaking people, and our people of all languages, +how to give back to the soil that which has been taken from it. Our +University of Illinois, with its experiment stations, its work on behalf +of agriculture, has so educated its people that each year the results of +that education is to give back to the state more than all the money that +Illinois has ever put into this great institution. It has been said of a +great eastern college that it is a kindergarten for hell. Not so of our +great institutions. That is a kindergarten from which we are educating +men to upbuild our state, to make it agriculturally and in every other +way, what that great state should be. We have in Illinois a number of +things to be conserved. We have our coal resources. These problems have +been taken up by the Geological Survey, and are being handled in a way +which still result in great good for the state. We have no arid lands in +Illinois, but we have flooded lands, overflowed lands. We have hundreds +of thousands of acres which we are now starting in to reclaim. It is the +business of a commission which was appointed by the State of Illinois +to study its streams, to look out for the interests of the state, to +recover from all unlawful owners, unlawful seizure of lands which +rightfully belonged to the state. It is the business of that commission +to conserve the water power of the state. There is a great asset for +which our Governor is making an excellent fight. The question is, shall +Illinois own the water power of the Illinois river, and conserve it for +all use, or shall private capital own that, and all the people use it +by paying for it? It has been said that we have been defeated in this +thing. Why, gentlemen, as a great leader—I believe he was a commander +of a vessel—when called upon to surrender said, “We have just begun to +fight.” We are going to conserve that water power for the people of the +state and we are going to give the state and the Nation a water way. +This is a congress to consider the conservation of the land, the soil +development of the land, but, gentlemen, you must bear in mind that this +country is growing by leaps and bounds, and that the railroads of our +country cannot keep pace with the transportation demands. We must look to +the future. It is said that our water ways are of no use today. Ah, but +they will be of use. The time is coming when these water ways, when every +water way that can float a boat will be required to take the produce of +our farms to market. The time is not long past when our railroads were +so glutted with produce that the farmers were losing their hard earnings +because they could not put their grain into market. This occurred at a +time when the population of the states which may be considered tributary +to the Mississippi river were only 31.4 per square mile. The same census +gave Great Britain a population of 312.5 to the square mile, and these +states are so rich in soil that they will support a population equal to +that of any other area on the face of the earth, and that population is +coming—you cannot begin to get ready for it too soon. In 1913 at the +present rate of progress the Panama Canal will be opened to the nations +of the earth for business. Will the Mississippi valley be able and ready +to float its produce down to avail that great opening, or must it go on +forever shipping its produce by rail to some Pacific or Atlantic port, to +be there loaded into the vessels, and go through this canal in vessels +that ought to be loaded at your own doors, in your own city? I make this +appeal for the water ways, and I make it brief, because my time is up, +and I thank you for your attention. (Applause.) + + +REPORT FOR INDIANA. + +BY HARRY EVEREST BARNARD. + +I represent the Indiana branch of the National conservation association. +The state which is the center of population, the center of industrial +activity, the center of literary activity. We believe that Indiana is +the state most progressive in the way of constructive, conservative +legislation of any of the states of our great country. During the last +few years our legislature has been doing active constructive work. +We have this last year placed upon our statute books the first cold +storage bill passed in the United States which is really constructive +legislation. We believe, in Indiana, that conservation means utilization, +economic utilization, and that the manufacturers who know how to make a +better brick out of Indiana clay; the health officer who shows us how to +conserve and improve the health of our school children, or teaches us how +to build a better school house; the man who can produce a new product out +of Indiana oil, is a true conservationist. The state boards of health +of Indiana have been devoting most of their time in the last few years +to a study of stream pollution. We have been studying the pollution of +the southern end of Lake Michigan, by the industrial activities at the +northern end of our state. We have shown the citizens in that northern +part of Indiana how they are pouring their sewage into Lake Michigan +through one pipe and drawing water from Lake Michigan through another. At +the present time we are studying the pollution of the Ohio river by the +sewage of the cities of Indiana, and we have now demonstrated by a survey +which is still in operation, but which has covered over 300 miles of the +Ohio river, that wonderful stream of water is nothing but a stream of +sewage its entire length, wholly unfit for drinking purposes. + +Indiana is regulating the propagation of the unfit, by effective +legislation. Indiana is taking a stand in the front of all health +organization work. It has this last year introduced compulsory medical +inspection of school children. Within the last two years Indiana, +although not at the present time a forest state, has become aroused to +the necessity of work along the lines of intelligent forest conservation, +not only because we need the lumber, and the timber and wood, but because +we need to preserve the life of our streams. Indiana has found that +within the last twenty years the ground water level throughout the state +has been lowered some twenty feet, and is now realizing that without +proper forest conservation it cannot expect to find sufficient water for +its needs in the not distant future. (Applause.) + + +REPORT FOR IOWA. + +BY THOMAS H. MACBRIDE. + +I shall say nothing about the resources of Iowa. This is an intelligent +audience (applause) and I take it there is not a man or woman in any +state in the United States who does not know all about the fact that +Iowa is the most magnificent garden on the face of the earth. I shall, +therefore, say nothing about Iowa. I do say, however, that my notion +of this whole conservation movement is simply the devotion to an idea. +And that idea is the right use of this world. Our problem, therefore, +is the right use of the state of Iowa. Now, then, we have magnificent +soil; we have streams that run riot in spring and winter and are so dry +in summer that all the large catfish have to move away. We have lakes, +the most beautiful perhaps of all the lakes, the small lakes, on the +northern plains. We have some forests, and Nature put the forests in +the right place; she put it to protect the streams. Four years ago the +legislature of Iowa made provision for a commission which should report +upon the proper conservation of our soils, our lakes, our streams and our +woods. That commission did make a report. That report is available for +the members of this Congress; it can be had. That report was presented to +our last legislature, our latest legislature was called to the momentous +task of choosing a senator for the senate of the United States, and in +devotion to that tremendous problem the report of the commission was +entirely overlooked. That report was a good one; I say so because I was +a member of that commission, and I therefore make this apology for the +legislature of my state, in view of the fact that I think the legislature +overlooked the most magnificent piece of work. But in all seriousness, +Iowa is at work. The people of Iowa are alive to these problems. We have +there many agencies that are at work. Our whole subject is before our +state colleges of agriculture, than which it is admitted there are none +better. There are many men in all parts of the state who are devoted to +this idea, and one of them has been so prominent that he stands above us +all today as the president of this Congress (applause). It is therefore +less necessary that I should say anything about Iowa. Mr. President, do +you believe that hundreds of men and women would leave their homes at +their own cost, and at the cost and sacrifice of their own business, +for anything less than an idea? And, Mr. President, the time has come +when that idea shall win. It must win, if we are going to use this world +rightly, because no problem is solved until it is solved rightly. Then, +when that time comes, you will see in Iowa, and in all these border +states, not only the freest people on the face of the earth, but the +happiest. (Applause.) + + +REPORT FROM KANSAS. + +BY DEAN H. J. WATERS, _Of the State Agricultural College_. + +I understand that this is a report of progress in the great movement of +conservation. I regret that Kansas, unlike Iowa, has no beautiful lakes. +They have all long since gone dry, as has Kansas in other particulars, +and where these lakes once were are now growing crops, great and +bountiful crops of alfalfa, and in the places where Kansas went dry in +other particulars there is now growing a great crop of temperate and +stalwart men and women. (Applause.) It was said by your distinguished +chairman this morning that Kansas was the experiment station of this +Nation, and she pleads guilty to the charge, and is proud of it. They +have the courage to try any experiment in government, in business, in +farming that promises to be successful, and that promises real progress. + +You ask what Kansas is doing to conserve its resources? She is conserving +her resources of men and women by having less intemperance than any +other state in the union; by having less illiteracy than any other state +in the union; by having empty jails and almshouses, and having full +school houses with seven months of school in every district in Kansas +each year; with a teacher the minimum salary of which is $50 a month. +(Applause.) And, with a larger proportion of our sons and daughters +in colleges, in proportion to our population, than any other state +in the Union. (Applause.) But, speaking more specifically concerning +the questions immediately before this Congress, what is Kansas doing +towards the conservation of her so-called material resources? Our last +legislature made provision for a state commission of conservation, and +I regret exceedingly that the chairman of that committee happened to be +absent at this particular moment, so that I might have been spared the +embarrassment of speaking for the state on this occasion. That commission +is actively at work, and is considering the matter of soil fertility, +of the education of the people in the country and in the city, and +considering all matters that would naturally be considered in connection +with this subject. + +And then, what has the agricultural college been doing along this line, +and these agricultural colleges have been the pioneers in this field of +conservation? Last year the Kansas state agricultural college spoke to +150,000 people in Kansas concerning the question of conservation, and at +every farmers’ institute held in that state for the last six years the +question of soil fertility has been discussed, and has been the topic of +discussion at meetings, and the details of soil fertility has come to be +a household word. + +There are today in the state of Kansas 340 farmers’ institutes or +farmers’ clubs, that meet once every month, with a membership of 14,000 +heads of families, the membership representing sixty or seventy thousand +persons. They discuss once a month the details of prosperous, progressive +and successful farming, including soil fertility. In the great corn belt, +on an average fully 25 per cent of our great corn crop—and the greatest +crop we produce—is wasted for the want of a silo in which to preserve it. +In Kansas four years ago there were 62 silos. The agricultural college +has made a special campaign through its extension department along this +line, and today there are 2,000 silos in Kansas, and all of them full. +That is the only thing I know of in Kansas that is full. Within the last +six years the area of alfalfa has been doubled; and this is in the line +of conservation, for here is a crop that enriches the father but does not +impoverish the son, and that is but a part of what Kansas is doing. I say +these things not boastfully, for Kansas is not doing a quarter of what +she ought to do in these lines, and not a quarter of what she will do in +the very near future through the stimulus of great Congresses like this. +(Applause.) + + +REPORT FOR LOUISIANA. + +BY FRED L. GRACE. + +Just a few words about conservation from our state, Louisiana. Our very +emblems are symbolic of conservation. Our state emblem is a pelican, the +only bird of flight that will pull the flesh from its own breast to feed +it to its young. Our state flower is the magnolia, whose stately trees by +the same name grow all over our state, and whose wood is very valuable +for furniture. + +At the last session of the general assembly of Louisiana, under the +progressive administration of Governor J. Y. Sanders, there were enacted +and made into laws twenty-nine measures relating to conservation of +our natural resources and the preservation of the gifts so bountifully +provided us by an all-wise Providence. + +Louisiana leads in the production of lumber, as well as sulphur, and +salt, much mineral oil and gas. In fact, Louisiana leads in having the +greatest store of natural resources. + +She has in pine lands, as near as I have been able to figure, about +4,269,928 acres. + +In hardwoods, such as oak, gum, willow, persimmon, hickory, magnolia, +beech, elm, sycamore and poplar, 3,338,486 acres. + +In cypress approximately 900,000 acres. + +We have, in Louisiana, two mills which alone cut daily nearly one and +three-quarter million feet of lumber. Of these the mill of the great +Southern lumber company of Bogalusa, La., and Fullerton, La., is the +largest in the world. + +This company is putting in an alcohol plant so that utilization can be +made of waste products and they be manufactured into alcohol. The number +of employees at this plant and their logging operation are about 1,600 +to 1,800. Their motto is, “Utilization as well as Conservation.” They +now make charcoal of the limbs, and paper and alcohol of the refuse wood +and sawdust. In a short time they will begin to work the stumps, and in +connection with this I will add that there is more turpentine in a stump +than in any part of the tree. Utilization of the stumps will clear the +lands for farming purposes and these soon will bloom with growing crops. + +Louisiana has many bayous and creeks and all of these are lined with +mills and lumber companies which are steadily cutting on the vast supply +at hand. Our forests are teeming with woods of all kinds and Louisiana +has more kinds of woods than any state in the Union. + +The long leaf pine of Louisiana obtains preëminence over those of other +states for its superior qualities of strength and elasticity, combined +with comparatively light weight and ease of working, making it adaptable +to many classes of work. + +Our cypress, which grows principally in the southern part of the state +and also to some extent in the lower and swampy portions of the middle +and northern portions, is of extremely slow growth, but is the most +lasting of all our woods, and under water is practically indestructible. +We ship more cross-ties of oak and cypress than any other state, a great +many of these being creosoted and exported to foreign countries where +they are in great demand. + +Another tree that is springing into prominence is the pecan. East Baton +Rouge has a pecan orchard of 700 acres and the Parish of Iberville has +a number of varieties of several hundred acres each. In some of the +parishes bordering on Bayou Teche, inhabitants are going into the culture +of this tree on a large scale. The profits in this business are large, +each tree producing, when having attained a growth, one or more barrels +of the pecans of which the average price is from 15 to 25 cents per pound. + +We are now drafting laws for the protection of timber from devastation by +fire and from indiscriminate logging. + +Over in the southwestern part of Louisiana is located the plant of the +Union Sulphur Company, engaged in the mining of sulphur by a novel +process. + +The product is mined by being melted by superheated steam pumped down +through the deposits and it is then pumped up in a molten state and +allowed to cool and solidify in vats where it is broken up and shipped to +market. + +This mine is one of the largest in the world, if not the largest, and +its output is close to one thousand tons per day. This, I think, shoves +Sicily hard for first place in the production of this mineral. + +Borings made by the company to ascertain the amount of sulphur in that +vicinity show fully 40,000,000 tons underlying their holdings. + +The discovery of the famous Beaumont oil field in 1901 was the signal for +oil exploration, both in Texas and Louisiana. + +Since that time Louisiana has proven to have within her borders oil +deposits second only to the famous Pennsylvania fields. And the deposits +of the Caddo field are generally conceded to be the greatest single field +in the world. + +The depths at which oil is found varies from 500 to 2,200 feet in the +different fields. + +The Welsh and Jennings fields have produced oil at from 1,000 to 2,000 +feet. And while these fields in their beginning produced gushers, they +are now all pumpers and are producing in the neighborhood of 10,000 +barrels per day. + +Along with oil in the Caddo field have also been found large supplies of +natural gas and this is now being utilized in many ways and will continue +to be, as the supply is seemingly inexhaustible. + +A great waste of these valuable mineral deposits was made before pipe +lines were built and receptacles constructed. Now the matter is being +taken in hand and soon, under the conservation measures adopted at the +last general assembly, control of the situation will be complete. There +is still some work along this line to accomplish, and at the next session +of the General Assembly these will be written in our statutes. + +The conservation of game and fish, as well as the other natural +resources, is most momentous to the people of our state. Louisiana has +adopted good and sound measures for the protection of her game and fish +and has created a commission with a system of wardens and provides that +hunters shall contribute to the support of the commission for protection +by the payment of a nominal license for the privilege of hunting. + +Of course, changes will have to be made, but the ground work has been +done. + +Louisiana has in her many streams and water courses, as well as in her +bays and lakes, a vast supply of fish and shrimp. The shrimp and salt +water fisheries furnish employment to a great number of persons. These +are dependent on the supply of this valuable resource and are directly +interested in the protection of it. + +The oyster industry during the past year has enjoyed a healthy and +expansive growth, and while the general business depression has affected +the canner, still a great many acres of water bottoms were leased for +oyster culture and other improvements were made. + +There are now under lease and cultivation over 14,391.24 acres of water +bottoms at $1.00 per acre per annum, and yielding on an average of two +hundred barrels of oysters per acre. + +There are more than 2,700 boats engaged in the oyster industry and +2,400,000 bags were caught last season with a market value of something +over $2,000,000. + +The shores of Louisiana are largely indented with lakes, bayous and bays, +where the tides ebb and flow daily, mixing the salt water of the Gulf +of Mexico with the fresh waters of the Mississippi river and the bayous +and small rivers leading therefrom. The area of this water surface, +susceptible to oyster culture, is calculated to be 4,720,502 acres. + +There are now under cultivation slightly over 15,000 acres, producing +about 200 barrels of oysters per acre each year, and something like +62,740 acres, estimated, of natural reefs where oysters grow wild and +unaided. + +Deducting the leased bottoms and the natural oyster reefs from the total +area mentioned would leave about 4,660,000 acres of barren bottoms at +present unproductive, but which, with the expenditure of labor and a +small amount of money, could be made to yield enormous revenues and be a +great source of food supply. + +The oyster industry of Louisiana offers to the people of this country one +of the greatest fields of exploitation and development. + +Salt has been known to exist in Louisiana for many years, and has been +mined commercially in one deposit, that of the Avery salt works, since +1852. This deposit is one of pure salt rock and at the present time +nearly a thousand tons a day are being produced. This is only one of the +several similar mines in Louisiana and I have no doubt that there are +many very valuable deposits of salt yet undiscovered and undeveloped. + + +REPORT FROM MASSACHUSETTS. + +BY PROF. FRANK WILLIAM RANE, _State Forester_. + +Complying with the request of the officials of this association in +reporting herewith for the state of Massachusetts, I wish to say at +the outset that I feel certainly incompetent to undertake the task +and to point out the numerous activities that the good old Bay State +is fostering. Being a Massachusetts citizen by adoption only, I feel +privileged to express myself more frankly as otherwise my report might +seem prejudiced. + +We have in Massachusetts, in the first place, a conservation of the +old-time ancestry which is not only renowned for its brilliant deeds in +the Nation’s early history, but is still firm and abiding even after +these many years. What state has a fairer reputation in its dissemination +of its natural resources and still lives to enter more heartily into the +conservation and restoration of those remaining. + +The historic setting and general environment of Massachusetts in the +early days of the Nation are natural resources that constitute an +ever-bubbling fountain. Yearly the pilgrimage to the old Bay State of +thousands upon thousands from throughout the Nation to visit Boston, +Concord, Lexington, Arlington, Cambridge, Salem, Plymouth and a score of +other cities and towns goes to show what the conservation of high ideals +and true patriotism mean. + +The state has always been liberal, progressive and a natural leader in +all that stands for education, advancement and enlightenment. + +Many wonder at the splendid showing that Massachusetts always makes and +seem confounded at her successful progress. The explanation is that as a +state we do not confine our interests to state bounds, but our people are +equally interested in promoting and developing copper and other mines or +sheep ranches and other industries in the South or West, as much as they +are at home. Succeeding elsewhere means also better opportunities for +home development. In this way mutual associations and enterprises of a +stalwart and permanent nature are established. + +The old biblical saying that it is more blessed to give than receive is +literally true of the old Bay State. While she has been generous in the +Nation’s life, yet there are few states that for their size have greater +natural advantages and hold out better prospects for success in the +future. + +Contrary to the minds of many, Massachusetts has advantages that are hard +to surpass. I wonder how many have read the article entitled “Golden New +England,” by Sylvester Baxter, which appeared in the Outlook in 1910. +If not, you may be interested in doing so. The author therein portrays +various rural industries and very entertainingly points out their +success. One of our enterprising business houses, N. W. Harris & Co., +bankers, Boston, very kindly has sent out excerpts to those desiring the +same. + +Massachusetts is a state with many manufacturing centers and, therefore, +a great consumer of all kinds of resources, particularly in the raw +material. This material is put through our factories and goes out as the +manufactured article. + +Our high standard of education in literature, science and art has evolved +men of usefulness. In the modern or applied sciences we point with pride +to our technical, agricultural and trade schools which are already +accomplishing results toward conservation, restoration and economic +utilization of natural resources. + +Massachusetts people began to see the handwriting on the wall many +years ago and even before this Congress was born they were agitating +and accomplishing actual results. Our cities and towns are already well +forearmed with generous water supplies. The great metropolitan water +system of Boston and its suburbs, already a reality, is one of the +greatest engineering feats yet accomplished in its line. Our metropolitan +and municipal park systems are a credit to our people. The state highway +system of Massachusetts needs no introduction to an intelligent audience +like this, as its reputation has attracted road engineers from all +over the world and many states have come to the Massachusetts highway +commission and induced our men away. Dr. Field of the fish and game +commission is here at the convention; hence, he will inform you of +this field of our activity. Simply let me say that our marine natural +resources are far greater than most people realize. Massachusetts has a +large and important coastal boundary and were I able to tell you of the +great possible future we have in mind even for the old historic Cape Cod +Country, I know it would interest you. While the great fishing industries +of Old Gloucester, Nantucket and New Bedford are not as thriving as in +earlier times, nevertheless with the guidance of modern science to water +farming, we have great promise of the restoration of these industries +that will go far toward feeding the Nation in the future. + +Speaking of fishing and game, forestry, natural history and Appalachian +clubs, I am frank to say that I believe there are no people on earth +who are more in love with Nature herself, heart and soul, than our +Massachusetts people. We have organizations galore and they are not only +organized but bubbling full of real activity and accomplishing things. +Were you the state forester of Massachusetts, I can guarantee that you +could spend your whole time simply lecturing on conservation or forestry, +as the demands are so great and the work so popular. + +In the development of a new nation it invariably follows that conditions +are constantly changing, and as intercourse with other nations through +trade and business relations progresses, the evils and blessings +are shared. While we are greatly indebted to the various countries +of the world for many an introduction, nevertheless now and then we +unfortunately get an insect or fungus development that proves extremely +disastrous. + +It would not be fair to Massachusetts in reporting on her conservation +policies did I not mention the great fight that the state has waged for +years against the gypsy and brown-tail moths. These two insects are +indigenous to Europe and while they have their natural enemies and are +under subjection there, upon reaching this country they find an open +field and with no enemies become a veritable pest. + +Both species are destroyers of trees. The brown-tail moth devours the +leaves of the deciduous, or hardwood trees only, while the gypsy is no +respector of vegetation and will defoliate evergreens as well, if food +is scarce, although it, too, prefers the deciduous. The brown-tail moths +besides being tree destroyers, give off hairs from the larvae and moth, +which, when brought in contact with the skin of human beings produce a +rash that is extremely irritating. Of the two insects the gypsy moth is +generally considered the worse. The fact that when the white pine, or our +evergreens, are once stripped they die outright; and that the pine in +particular is one of our most valuable species, both from the economic +and aesthetic standpoint, make their protection from the gypsy moth +important. + +I will not take time to give you the life histories of these insects, for +should anyone be interested this information can be had by applying to +the State Forester, Boston, Mass. We have illustrated matter in natural +colors showing these insects. + +Practically all of our trees in the residential sections of the cities +and towns, in the eastern part of the state, are sprayed annually. +Our main travelled roadsides are sprayed each year. Individuals, +municipalities and the state all coöperate in this work. The annual +appropriation of the state is $315,000 a year. The total expenditure from +all sources, within the state, up to the present time in this work is +estimated at $6,000,000. Besides this the United States Government has +spent in Massachusetts probably $700,000. We have had as high as 2,700 +men at work at one time in the busiest season of the year. The renewed +North Shore, our fashionable summer resort, spends practically $100,000 a +year to protect the trees in this section alone. + +The state forester’s spraying apparatus is composed of an aggregation of +300 spraying outfits. We use in a single season over 400 tons of arsenate +of lead, the state’s contract alone being for 250 tons a year. + +During the past two years the state forester’s department has made great +improvements in power spraying equipment, the cost of spraying woodlands +having been reduced from $30.00, or more, per acre, down to as low as +$6.00 in some instances. Instead of its being necessary to climb trees +as heretofore, the modern power sprayer enables us to spray directly +over the tops of tall trees from the ground. The whole spraying problem +has been revolutionized. It is certainly to be hoped that these insects +may not secure a foothold elsewhere. Surely Massachusetts is doing her +part, and I cannot urge too strongly the necessity of other states and +the Nation realizing the importance of this work. We have introduced +parasites from all over the world, and they are showing great promise. +The work with disease also seems very effective, and I feel optimistic. +It is clear that the practice of modern forestry methods, and the +employment of highly developed mechanical devices, are doing much, and we +trust ere long the parasites and diseases will bring about the desired +balance. + +Massachusetts is enthusiastically interested in forestry and the state +forester this past season was given an appropriation of $10,000 for +forest fire work. We have appointed a state forest fire warden, who is +organizing and perfecting a workable system. He is also establishing +lookout stations, and patrol systems in different sections of the state. + +Our forest management, reforestation and general forestry, educational +and demonstration work are all well established and progressing. We have +3,000,000 trees in the state nursery for use another season. The state is +planting 1,000 acres each year, and our lumbermen and people generally +are showing interest, and doing more each season. Our appropriation, +including that for forest fires this past year, was $40,000. + +In Massachusetts the work of restoration is even of more importance than +conservation when applied to forestry. The annual cut of our forest +products at present amounts to only five per cent of that used each +year throughout the commonwealth for manufacturing, building and other +purposes. Surely we can and ought to supply a larger amount of our own +home grown woods. Although the state has been well cut over, even now our +wood harvests play an important factor in the industries of many of our +rural sections. While we believe thoroughly in conservation where it will +apply, still the more potent force begins farther back. We need to teach +the A B C of restoration in forestry. When our work of reforestation +shall have begun to demonstrate its value, it will be an object lesson, +which will mean much toward perfecting a better state forest policy. + +Practical forest restoration, therefore, is what Massachusetts needs +most. If we will reconvert our hilly, rocky, mountainous, moist sandy and +waste non-agricultural lands generally into productive forests the future +financial success from rural sections of the commonwealth is assured. +This is no idle dream; it can be accomplished. Massachusetts is a natural +forest country and all that is needed is simply to assist nature, stop +forest fires and formulate constructive policies. Then we can grow as +fine forests as can be found anywhere. Germany and many of the countries +of the old world have already demonstrated what can be done. Are we to +be less thrifty and far-sighted? Americans do things, when they are once +aroused, and it is believed that reforestation and the adopting of modern +forestry management must be given its due consideration in this state +from now on. + +I have been delighted to follow the interest that has been aroused and +the great tendency for all our people to not only welcome and appreciate +the new idea of “conservation,” but to even credit the term or phrase, as +covering every phase of new endeavor. + +It is not my purpose to lessen the glory one whit or bedim a single gem +in the crown of the national phrase, “Conservation of Natural Resources,” +nor could I were it to be tried, for the heralded motto has already +stamped itself firmly upon the Nation. + +As time goes on, however, it will be found that our popular phrase will +not carry with it the whole panacea for overcoming our wasteful and +depleting conditions, and that new and equally applicable terms, though +perhaps never so popular, will come to express more aptly our real needs. + +To my mind the phrase, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” vies with +that of “Conservation of Natural Resources,” and expresses a force to be +aroused in the Nation for good that in many ways surpasses the present +popular one. + +We have our forest reserves and minerals, what are left, and now to +conserve them economically is a worthy undertaking, but in the older +sections of the Nation to conserve what we have in depleted and worn-out +lands and forests is to pick the bones of the withered and shrunken +carcass. + +Let conservation apply where it may, but the force that is needed in +Massachusetts and all of New England, yea the South, extending even well +into the middle of the Nation, following the great depleting agricultural +cereal and cotton crops on the one hand, and the lumberman’s axe and +forest fires on the other, is greater than this term can begin to express. + +The term, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” I claim, meets our present +needs far better and breathes greater hope and definite accomplishments +for our children’s children in the future. + + +REPORT FROM MINNESOTA. + +BY D. M. NEILL. + +To undertake to tell you of the resources of the state of Minnesota would +be to recapitulate nearly the resources of all the states of the union. +But I don’t understand that is what we are here for. When the governor +of Minnesota asked me to come down here, I asked him what I was to say +to the people who might be here at this time. He said, “You have been on +the state conservation commission for two years, and you ought to know +what to say,” and in addition to that he said, “Go down and tell them +what we are trying to do in Minnesota.” That is what I will try to tell +you about. In the first place, the men who settled Minnesota looked far +into the future. The state had an immense amount of what was called swamp +lands donated by the government for educational purposes. These men of +the early days, looking to the future, passed a law whereby these lands +could not be disposed of except at a minimum price of what then seemed to +be a ridiculous sum entirely beyond what these lands would probably then +be worth. But these lands are found to be among the most valuable assets +of the state of Minnesota, and have sold at double, triple, ten times, +and some of them for more than a thousand times the minimum price. So +that today the state of Minnesota is next to the state of Texas, has the +largest school fund in the United States—something over $25,000,000—and +with the resources on hand belonging to the fund, it probably, in the +course of time, will amount to over $250,000,000. That looks like +conservation of our school resources. + +In our farm work, our agricultural college has been doing of late years +a splendid work throughout the state. In connection with the commercial +clubs it has established a considerable number of experimental farms +in different localities, to give somewhat of a practical education to +the farmers already tilling the soil. The leaders in this movement have +felt that the ordinary processes of sending the children to school, +giving them an agricultural education, trying to get them back to the +farm again—to spread that education was too slow. It seemed necessary to +do something with the parents that they may see the necessity for the +children having an agricultural education, and for that reason the state +agricultural college has been conducting this set of experiments through +the experimental farm. The results are already beginning to show. + +The state of Minnesota has succeeded in the last few years in raising the +number of bushels of wheat alone 3½ bushels to the acre. That is some +of the practical conservation of the soil. Minnesota used to have the +reputation of having the worst roads in the United States, and I think +she fully lived up to her reputation. That condition is very rapidly +being changed. The state wide campaign for good roads is being constantly +conducted by the good roads commission. The last legislature, in fact the +legislature of four years ago, took the matter in hand and levied a small +tax for the betterment of the state roads. These roads were required to +be built under the supervision of state engineers. If the roads were +so built the state contributed one-third of their cost up to a certain +maximum amount which to any one county did not exceed $2,000. That was +the starting of the state movement. The last legislature provided for a +tax that will raise something like $2,000,000 to be divided among the +eighty counties of the state to aid in the work of good roads. A project +is now on foot to build a state highway from the southern boundary to +the northern boundary, and one across the state from the city of Duluth +to the city of East Grand Forks. These to be great state highways, and +all other highways radiating out from them. These experimental roads are +built on scientific lines furnished by the state, and are conditioned +according to the quality of the soil through which the road runs. The +effort is first to get a system of good dirt roads. The state is not yet +developed sufficiently to warrant us going in to macadamized roads at +this time, except in the large cities. + +In the matter of our mineral wealth the state long ago provided that the +people at large shall receive the benefit of it. No state land is now +sold except where the mineral rights are retained and the mines already +opened and in operation pay very large taxes toward the maintenance of +the state government, thus contributing to the welfare of the whole +people. These are some of the things that the state of Minnesota is +trying to do and is doing. I do not feel that I can take the time to +go into detail of many other things that we are just starting, the +prevention of disease—already one or two tuberculosis institutions have +been started in the pine woods of Minnesota—and a general campaign +against the great white plague is constantly in progress. My time is up. +I thank you. (Applause) + + +REPORT FOR NEBRASKA. + +BY GEORGE COUPLAND. + +I have been very strongly reminded today in these remarks that I have +heard made that the state that I represent is purely an agricultural +state. That is about all the industries that we have. I thought perhaps +of one manufacturing interest that we were trying to develop, that of +furnishing presidential timber, but we had to give that up, and the +factory is in the hands of the repairers today. (Applause.) I think +that perhaps there is no more important factor in the development of +a sentiment that means what it says, than such a gathering as this. I +notice in the paper that I just picked up it is, “Back to the Land”—yes, +I am glad that that is the story—for it is out of the land that this +country has to maintain its position as a nation. + +The state that I represent, I am glad to say, recognizes the importance +of perhaps its only industry, and how much its future was tied up in its +development. It has had in motion for quite a number of years agencies +that are looking forward to the betterment of life upon the land and +the development of the natural resources, the only natural resources +perhaps that we have. And I am glad to say that this movement had its +inception in the hearts and minds of the men who lived upon the land in +Nebraska. I am also glad to say that the men who lived in the cities, +the business men, have responded in splendid manner to this idea. My +mind runs back to that fine pioneer of my state, J. Sterling Morton, +and the idea that he had in mind, and I want, Mr. President, to impress +the thought that you so beautifully expressed today, that it is not the +giving of more expert ability to exploit the soil, but it is the building +up within the heart of the man and the boy and the woman and the girl +who live upon the land a love for the place where they live; to love the +tree that father planted; to love the home that father built, to love +the farm that father homesteaded. That is what we want to cultivate. If +along with these other agencies that we have in motion, we will see to +it that this is emphasized in our educational system, then we will have +a better conception of what real country life means. I like to think of +my ancestral home, the generations that were born and died on the land. +I was born on the land and I hope to die on the land. My children were +born there, and I hope that they will have the same sentiment, and be +willing and glad to die upon the land. Our state has in motion today—I +will hurriedly tell you—I do not want to take any more of your time than +necessary—I will tell you the agencies that we have at work. We have a +farmers’ congress; we have a conservation congress; we have a rural life +commission that was authorized by our last legislature, which I consider +one of the most potent agencies for the betterment of rural conditions +in the state of Nebraska; an affiliated agricultural society which takes +in all the agricultural organizations. Every year our state university +is their host, and nearly every year we have two thousand representative +farmers of Nebraska gathered in our capital city to discuss questions +pertaining to agriculture. Then we also have a conservation soil survey +which is doing splendid work. + +There is one feature to which I want to draw your attention, that I +think is very important, and that is the question of sanitation upon the +farm, sanitation in the small town. And this has been taken up by our +conservation congress. We have different divisions of this congress, and +we have splendid men at the head of these divisions, who during the year +take pains with the particular work that has been assigned them, and +then each year we meet and hear their reports. We have a lot of splendid +things that are going forward in our state, and I am sure what we have +heard today is inspirational, and that we will go home vowed to do better +things. I do not want to boast, but I just thought as I listened to what +every man who has spoken for his state had to say, I must tell you this +story. + +I live on a little farm in eastern Nebraska, which is typical of a large +area of our state. If I had to go to the commercial fertilizer man and +buy the fertilizing matter, the lime, the phosphorus, the potash, and +nitrogen that are wrapped up in the first four feet of the soil that I +till it would cost me $7,000 per acre. If I had to buy the same kind +of fertilizing matter that is wrapped up in the first ten feet of the +soil that I till, and which my alfalfa fields, when they are planted, +supplied, it would cost me $28,000 per acre. I feel that we own pretty +good land in Nebraska, and for that reason we are anxious to take good +care of it. (Applause.) + + +REPORT FOR NEW YORK. + +BY JOHN D. MOORE, _Member State Conservation Commission_. + +On my arrival in Kansas City this morning a man at the hotel asked me +where I came from, and I said I came from New York. And he said, “What +have you fellows got in New York you want to get conserved?” And I said, +“We have the greatest conservation problem in New York of all the states +in the Union.” In the first place, we have nine million people, over +one-tenth of the population of the United States. It is one of our jobs +to provide these nine million people with pure water to drink. I told +him about the great reservoir on which the city of New York alone has +spent upwards of two millions of dollars in order to bring into New York +drinking water at the rate of five hundred millions of gallons per day. I +told him furthermore that in the state of New York there were 32,000,000 +acres of land, and of that more than one-third wild forest land. I told +him, too, that in the public parks of New York we had a conservation +problem of our own which did not begin three years ago, or five or ten +years ago, but began forty years ago when Governor Seymour appointed a +commission in 1872 to investigate the matter of public parks and public +forests. + +Since that time the state of New York has accumulated more than 1,600,000 +acres of the greatest parks in this Union, and of that 1,300,000 acres +are in the Adirondacks, and in these parks any citizen of New York, +or any other state can come and hunt and camp as freely as he will. +Furthermore, of the timber land of that park, which is of priceless +value, and a value which has been protected by a constitutional +amendment adopted in 1894, and not yesterday, or the day before, but +sixteen or seventeen years ago. This law says that these lands shall +neither be leased or sold or exchanged nor taken by any person, or by +any corporation, and the timber thereon shall not be removed, or cut +or destroyed. That has placed a perpetual safeguard, the like of which +exists in no other state in the union. (Applause.) + +In the reforestation we have six state nurseries. In these nurseries +there are at the present time 15,000,000 trees. A man this morning said +he did not believe it. I told him they were there and he could go and +count them. (Laughter.) + +Last year we sold to the railroad companies, and to the lumber companies +of the state of New York approximately two million seedlings, and +obtained for the state of New York something upward of ten thousand +dollars. The state law says we must sell those seedlings at cost. We +are able to furnish to the lumbermen and the railroad interests of New +York seedling trees at the rate of less than one-half cent apiece. +Furthermore, the state has reforested, as an example to her citizens, +more than 6,000 acres of its own land. Those trees are there, and +constitute an object lesson to every visitor to the Adirondacks. This +afternoon I heard some of our friends say what their state was doing +for good roads. The state of New York has expended within the last five +years upwards of $100,000,000 for its state roads. (Applause) Of that we +have built 10,000 miles of road—not dirt road, or earth road, but the +finest kind of macadam roads, running from sixteen to twenty-four feet +in width. We are gridironing New York with a system of highways the like +of which is not found under the Stars and Stripes. More than that, we +are not devoting our attention entirely to the development of our land +locomotion. We are equally strong with water ways. + +The Birch canal of the State of New York will be completed within three +or four years. The state has appropriated money, sold bonds, and got +the money in the treasury for $101,000,000 of Birch canal improvements +in order that you Western gentlemen can bring your wheat on boats to +the seaboard at the lowest possible cost of transportation. (Applause) +Furthermore, we have a system of fish and game laws which is extremely +rigorous and has had a marvelous tendency to improve the condition of +the wild life of the state. I hold in the State of New York, ladies and +gentlemen, that we must not look after only our water power and our +forests; we must look after the wild things that live in the water and +forest—the fish and the game. (Applause) The deer have been so thoroughly +protected by our laws that they have increased so that last year in the +Adirondacks there were killed 16,000 deer. Trappers tell our woodsmen +today that never in the history of the Adirondacks have so many deer been +seen. + +This may appear to you strange. It is strange, except when we consider +that in primitive times before the settlers came with firearms wolves +were abundant in the Adirondacks and preyed upon the deer. Now there is +not, within the confines of the State of New York, a single wolf—not one. +The present legislature has passed a game law which has been in effect +since the first of September, and we take a fair view of the protection +of wild life. We are not confined to the protection of game in New York +State. We have extended it to every state in the Union. The game law says +in effect this: That you cannot bring into the State of New York and sell +in the State of New York a bird or animal which has been killed under +the American flag. In other words, we have closed to the pot hunter and +the market hunter, to the slaughterer of game, the richest and the most +plentiful market which they have enjoyed in the past. We have turned +it to good account. The law states that they may bring in from foreign +countries outside of the United States the unplucked carcasses of birds +and venison. Incidentally we expect to import this year 100 tons of +venison, and we have already imported 200,000 birds, and upon the leg of +each the state has fastened a tag, and exacted for the tag one nickel. +So out of the 2,000,000 birds which the dealers tell us they will import +this year the State of New York is going to exact the magnificent sum of +$100,000 and maybe more. This game law should be a lesson to every state +in the Union. It is not fair for a state to protect its own game and fish +and let the state be a market for the game of its neighbors. + +The State of New York, gentlemen, is more prolific and a more bountiful +spender in water power and more bountifully supplied with this power than +almost any other state of the Union. I won’t dispute the figures of our +friend from California who says there are 5,000,000 horsepower running +loose there, but I do know that whereas his state has developed 250,000 +horsepower, the State of New York, outside of the St. Lawrence river and +Niagara Falls, which are really international waters, and do not come +under consideration, my commission has upwards of 650,000 horsepower and +we know from actual survey which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars +and has been in progress some eight years, that a million horsepower is +still going to waste, but that million is to be harnessed and put to use, +so that the State of New York can get some of the profits which have +heretofore gone into private coffers. + + +REPORT FOR OKLAHOMA. + +BY MILTON BROWN. + +As yet Oklahoma is not conserved in presidents like Ohio. We have +conserved a lot of fads and vagaries and isms down there, but +nevertheless notwithstanding all that, Oklahoma for the past two years +has got down to a practical standpoint in this matter of the conservation +of our material resources and a few of the items I want to mention in +my five minutes are these. First, good roads. We are now constructing a +road, beginning at the north line of Oklahoma and running almost through +to the south, across the whole state, to be entirely of macadam. Of +course, the Automobile Association started the matter in one sense, but +yet all the farmers’ institutes joined in, and the two are now working +together. Not only have we state aid in that matter, but we have aid in +the counties. That is one item of the good roads that will make some of +these older states ashamed of themselves when they come down to Oklahoma +and see it. (Applause) + +Another proposition is that we have gone into the development of our +water supply down there for our own consumption, not only for the farmers +but for the cities, and that, too, without any Federal aid. Some of the +older states have been aided by donations from the Federal Government, +and although millions of dollars have been taken from Oklahoma by the +sales of lands to the settlers of that state, not one penny has been +returned to Oklahoma in the way of any particular aid in the matter of +the conservation of these resources. Yet at the last session of our +legislature we appropriated $45,000 for the purpose of sinking deep wells +in the extreme northwestern part of Oklahoma to get down to the underflow +water, so that we can irrigate the lands out there in the extreme +Northwest. They are going ahead and now have several of those wells in +operation. + +Another proposition is that these underground waters in the northwestern +part of the state are just like the underground water in Nebraska, in +Kansas and Colorado; they flow along with the country, with the fall +of the country from the mountain ranges. We enacted a law at the last +legislature to encourage any person, any firm, any corporation that will +come in and put down wells, drains, dams or anything of that kind, and +encourage them by exempting them from taxation for a period of five +years. That is having its effect already. Some parties are there now +engaged in the North Canadian and in the lower Canadian making surveys +and putting in plants to raise this underground water by a process of +gravity underflow and bring it out on the surface to spread it over our +broad acres. + +Also we have a pure water supply for the city, keeping the sewage +separate and apart. We have laws upon that subject and they are being +enforced. + +We finally had to go into the Federal Court to have one proposition +settled down there, so that our swamp lands could be drained under the +law passed by our state legislature. We had a state drainage law by +which they undertook to drain some of the lands southeast of Guthrie and +Oklahoma City. That entrenched upon the railroads, and they set up the +howl that the act was unconstitutional, that we could not change the +bed of the river, that we could not change the flow of the water so as +to bring our ditches in and drain the swamp lands. But Judge Cotterill +of the United States Court held that law constitutional, and that big +drainage ditch has been constructed and the swamp lands there have been +reclaimed within the last year. + +You remember the Arkansas river; if you have ridden along on the Santa +Fe railroad out in Kansas you have seen it at times when you could walk +across it dry shod and would not get your feet wet, for the bed was as +dry as a bone. And yet from Arkansas City south there is more water. +Congress passed an act, and today they are working on a survey, making +the preliminaries up as far as Muskogee, and they propose to go on up to +Arkansas City, so as to make the bed of that river broader and run boats. +They have run boats up as far as Arkansas City in times past, and they +have run to Muskogee in more recent years. Now, they are going ahead on +that proposition to make the Arkansas navigable as far as Arkansas City. + + +REPORT FOR OREGON. + +BY JOSEPH N. TEAL, _Chairman Oregon State Conservation Committee_. + +On behalf of the Oregon State Conservation Commission and in response to +your request, I herewith submit brief report of its work and activities. + +The first conservation commission in Oregon was appointed by Honorable +George E. Chamberlain, Governor of the state, on May 23, 1908. It was a +semi-official organization and consisted of fifteen members. All funds +were secured through voluntary subscription. + +As the most pressing subject demanding legislation then was the use and +conservation of water resources, a water code was prepared and submitted +to the legislature for its consideration and action. The bill was +adopted substantially as prepared. The act is elastic and practicable. +It provides: (1) A simple, inexpensive method of determining and fixing +rights initiated under earlier statutes; (2) a precise and definite +procedure for initiating and perfecting new rights, beneficial use always +being the basis thereof; (3) an elastic administrative board, to insure +the enforcement of water right decrees and its own decisions. + +The cost of administration is borne by those benefited. Water power +franchises are limited to forty years with a preference right of renewal. + +While it was not expected the fees provided for would produce excess +revenue, the operation of the law has been very satisfactory and more +than self-sustaining under the intelligent and careful administration of +the State Engineer, John H. Lewis. The beneficial results following its +enactment are conceded and are set forth in the official reports of the +State Engineer. Since its enactment some minor changes have been made +respecting practice and procedure, but none as to principle. + +We are now engaged in a careful study of its workings in order to +recommend such further changes as experience may show wise or necessary. +That changes will be necessary is not to be doubted, but I feel I am safe +in saying we have the foundation and framework of a water code based on +right principles. + +The legislature of 1909 also passed an act creating a state conservation +commission of seven members, to be appointed by the Governor, carrying an +appropriation of $1,000. Upon the enactment of this measure the original +commission discontinued its work and Hon. F. W. Benson, then Governor, +appointed another commission, the membership of which was selected from +the original commission. + +During the year 1909 the commission offered money prizes to students in +the various educational institutions of the state covering the following +topics: The Forests in Oregon; Irrigation Institutions in Oregon; Soils; +Dry Land Farming in Oregon; Roads in Oregon; Fish in Oregon. + +The prizes were awarded and paid according to announcement. The money for +this purpose, as well as for other uses by the commission, was secured +through voluntary contributions, no public money being used for this +purpose. + +In 1909 Mr. C. B. Watson, one of the members of the commission, called +the attention of the commission to the beauty and grandeur of the +Josephine County caves and asked that steps be taken to preserve and keep +them in their original beauty as a national monument. The commission +took up the matter with Mr. Gifford Pinchot, then Forester of the +United States, and on July 12, 1909, the caves were, by proclamation of +President Taft, duly set apart as a national monument by an act approved +June 8, 1906, under the name “Oregon Caves.” These caves are under the +immediate care of the Forest Service, being in a national forest. They +are of great beauty and will be preserved as a public monument forever. + +During the year 1910 the work of educating the public to the necessity of +action in the protection of our forests from fire and other destructive +agencies was carried on. In coöperation with other organizations a law +was framed to submit to the legislature for action. The legislature of +1911 adopted this measure, and it was passed with but few amendments, and +in connection with the bill an appropriation of $60,000 was made. + +We submitted to the same legislature a bill for coöperation between the +state and federal agencies engaged in gathering physical data of the +state’s resources and in disseminating the information so gathered. +This bill carried with it an appropriation of $20,000 in addition to +the $5,000 provided by the Act of 1905, conditioned upon the Federal +Government appropriating an equal amount. The legislature passed this +measure with substantial unanimity. + +The commission has prepared and circulated annual reports for the years +1908, 1909 and 1910; also a special report during the years 1908 and +1910 on the rivers and harbors in Oregon, setting forth their needs and +requirements for improvement and justification therefor. In conjunction +with the Forest Service and other associations, the commission also aided +in the preparation of a pamphlet for general distribution on the use of +Oregon woods. + +The only appropriation the commission has received from the state was the +one made in 1909 of $1,000. + +To insure prosperity to the agriculturist, the tiller of the soil, the +producer, should be our constant aim. His well-being is the measure of +the well-being of the country. The commission has therefore undertaken +to aid and further better agricultural methods throughout the farming +sections of the state, particularly in the semi-arid regions of eastern +Oregon. It is its desire to encourage improved methods, wise selection +of products, diversity of crops and increased animal productions. +It is operating in close and sympathetic affiliation with the State +Agricultural College, the railroads and others taking an active interest +in this work. It is proposed to offer prizes, employ an expert farmer +to live in the particular section in question during the coming harvest +year, to encourage the holding of district fairs, and in every way +possible awaken an active interest in better farming methods. It seems to +us that a more fruitful field for the principles of conservation cannot +be found. It is practical and shows that conservation is a real vital +force with a definite object and aim. + +It is hoped something can be accomplished toward encouraging the +development of this industry in the state. One of the members of the +commission is especially qualified for this task, and he has it in hand. + +While Oregon is a great agricultural state, it also has large mineral +resources. The state, however, has not given the encouragement to this +industry that it deserves. + +The laws for the protection of game birds and other fowl and food fish +are constantly being improved. A very excellent game commission has +been appointed with a game warden of national reputation who has the +keenest sympathy with animal and bird life, who does not believe in +extermination, and who will, we believe, enforce the law. + +It has been suggested that the national resources in the various states, +and heretofore undisposed of, be turned over to the respective states +by the National Government. Personally, I do not think this would be +the wise course to pursue. Those of us—and there are many—who were born +and raised in the West understand how little regard has been paid in +the past to the public interest in the disposition of public resources +by both state and Nation. We know that it is not necessary for the +rapid development of the West that every valuable right and resource +now belonging to the public should irrevocably pass from the public +to be monopolized by the few. It is my conviction that in every state +on the Pacific Coast the great mass of the people is in favor of the +conservation of the public resources in the interest of the people as a +whole. I do not believe the methods of the past appeal to them. Their +face is toward the rising sun. The conservation in which they believe is +that which secures the greatest, widest and wisest use. They believe in +equal opportunities now, and, what is of more importance, opportunity for +their children hereafter. They are not alarmed at national conservation +where necessary or proper. They realize that many of the public resources +are the property of the Nation and not that of the state. That there +must be a wise and sympathetic coördination of purpose and effort. +The Nation has its duties and functions; the state has its duties and +functions; and the individual has his. They must all unite in a common +cause, under a common banner, for the common good. No matter by what name +conservation may be called, conservation has come to stay. No more will +the great resources of this country, either public or private, be treated +or allowed to be treated as they have been in the past. An enlightened +public opinion and a growing one will in itself prevent it. A much higher +standard in viewing this matter now prevails than formerly. Money and +material prosperity are not everything. Patriotism and good citizenship +are much more important. We look at things now from a different point of +view than we did formerly. Those who are primarily responsible for this +great movement builded more wisely than they knew and their work will +endure forever. No one need feel in the least discouraged—the old ways +are gone forever. All that is needed from now on is a wise, prudent, +conservative policy, meeting the problems as they arise and allowing for +the greatest possible use, without unnecessary waste, of every resource. +The principles are understood. It is in their wise application that +wholesome results will be secured. + + +REPORT FOR PENNSYLVANIA AND PHILADELPHIA. + +BY EMIL GUNTHER. + +As a concrete example of what conservation has done, I desire to cite +the County of Lancaster, which, according to its area, occupies the +distinction of being the leading county in agricultural wealth in this +country. I am also informed that the children in the public schools are +taught the importance of each planting at least two trees each year. + +The campaigns inaugurated throughout the states for the conservation of +the national resources of our country have secured the attention of the +whole Nation. To some it may seem that the East has looked supinely upon +the movement which has received the most practical endorsement of the +western half of our continent. The City of Philadelphia, however, which +I have the honor to represent, may justly claim to have been a pioneer +in questions of conservation, nor is there any state more alive to the +importance of this matter than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. + +Philadelphia’s place in the history of this movement may not be known +to all, but it is interesting to note that as early as 1868 there was +organized in our city a national board of trade largely under the +initiative of our local board of trade of the Executive Council, of +which I have the honor to be a member. That this board has taken an +early interest in such matters permit me to quote from an address lately +delivered by Mr. George H. Maxwell at the annual meeting of the National +Board of Trade. + + “I should like to say for Philadelphia that its local board of + trade was among the first to recognize by official utterance + its deep interest in the question of national irrigation. It + expressed in its petitions and memorials the view that the + national control of this important subject was of the deepest + interest to the whole Nation, independent of locality. It + has likewise strongly urged upon the National Government the + improvement of all navigable rivers and harbors, believing that + such improvements must inure greatly to the prosperity of our + whole country and to place our manufacturers and producers in a + position successfully to compete with foreign trade.” + +It is hardly necessary for me to call to your attention the place which +Philadelphia holds in the manufacturing world due to its position upon +the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Nor have these waterways +alone been put to commercial use; they have also afforded to the +inhabitants of Philadelphia opportunities of real recreative value. + +Philadelphia has recognized that true conservation is to put to proper +and immediate use those resources which are peculiarly its own. From the +days of the proprietors large areas have been set aside and improved +for the enjoyment of the people; under the Fairmount Park Commission +has been developed the largest—and it would seem to many of us the most +beautiful—park of its kind in the world. Thirty-five hundred acres +abounding in streams and woodlands, with formal gardens and wild ravines, +are always open to the use of our citizens. There have been organized, +not only under municipal control but also through the instrumentality of +private citizens, many associations to conserve those resources which are +our heritage. + +Therefore, it is with pleasure that on behalf of the city of Philadelphia +I bring to this Congress a word of greeting and assure you that our +interest in all that pertains to conservation is both practical and +sincere. + + +ORGANIZATION OF THE CONSERVATION MOVEMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA. + +BY A. B. FARQUHAR, _President of the State Branch of the N. C. A. of +Pennsylvania_. + +Our movement is nowhere a thing of yesterday and least of all in +Pennsylvania, where work of the highest value for conservation in certain +particular directions has for a number of years been conducted. Only +within three months, however, has the cause of conservation in general +progressed so far as to have an organization especially devoted to it, +and it was on the 23d of last June that the Pennsylvania state branch of +the National Conservation Association was formed in Harrisburg. It is of +and for that branch that I speak. + +The aims and purposes of the branch which I shall first set before +you are in ten sections, designated by Bishop Darlington, one of the +conferees, as “_The Ten Commandments of Conservation_.” + + “1. _A Purified Water Supply._ Since the physical, mental + and moral health of our people is the most important of all + national resources, and since stream pollution by sewage and + by factory wastes is a menace to the health as well as to + the comfort of all citizens, the state should continue and + extend its systematic investigation of the extent, sources and + effects of stream pollution to the extreme headwaters of every + stream in the commonwealth, where danger is often the greatest + because least suspected, in order to discover the facts and to + propose adequate remedial measures. Any further legislation + required should be promptly enacted into law, under conditions + which would continue, strengthen and fully enforce the present + admirable work of the Department of Health, under Dr. Dixon and + his assistants. + + “2. _Forest Fire Protection._ The state authorities should + have power in dry and dangerous seasons to establish, in such + localities as need protection, efficient patrols for the + prevention of forest fires. The expense of such fire-patrol + service should be assessed upon the forest lands protected + thereby. Lumbermen should be required, under adequate + inspection, to burn or otherwise dispose of all inflammable + debris, at times and under conditions to be prescribed by + the State Forestry Reservation Commission. The use of fire + in or near woodlands in dry and dangerous seasons should be + prohibited, except under stringent regulation and upon written + permit from a responsible officer of the forest service or fire + patrol; and the governor should have power to designate, upon + suggestion to that effect from the Commissioner of Forestry, + periods of peculiar danger within which the carrying of + firearms, the carrying and use of matches, and the setting of + fires for any purpose in public or private woodlands, should be + forbidden by law. + + “3. _Just Taxation of Forest Lands._ To encourage reforestation + and the growth of timber on land chiefly valuable for that + purpose, timber land which the owners are willing to treat + upon modern reproductive forest methods should be classified + separately from other real property, with the levy of a nominal + annual tax until the trees are cut at the proper stage, + under regulation or with knowledge of the State Forestry + Commissioner, when a higher rate of tax should be imposed + either per acre or per thousand feet. + + “4. _Watercourses as a Public Resource._ The waters of the + state are one of its most important assets. They should be + systematically mapped and considered, and eventually developed + and utilized for the equal benefit of all citizens. In such + development every stream should be considered as a unit, from + its source to its mouth. Domestic and municipal water-supply + should be recognized as the highest use, and consideration of + the value of the stream as a potential source of attracting + revenue by reason of its scenic beauty and for its educational + worth should rank as equal in importance with its potential + value in respect to navigation and the production of power; and + preference rights should be recognized and granted in order of + the above uses in all cases where projects for two or more of + these uses conflict. There should be every endeavor to combine + these various uses in so far as such combination may be found + practicable. For these ends the coöperation of the Federal + Government may require to be sought. Existing private rights in + waters and riparian lands should not be enlarged, except upon + conditions adequate to insure full public control. + + “5. _Supervision of Use of Water by Corporations._ Private + projects for water-power development seeking state aid in the + form of a corporate franchise carrying the right to condemn + property, to use land or water rights belonging to the public, + to obstruct navigable rivers, or otherwise, should be subjected + to careful consideration and to strict regulation, in order + to secure prompt, complete and orderly development; efficient + service at fair prices and on equal terms to all consumers + in like conditions; full public information as to costs and + profits; honest capitalization on the basis of cost; and fair + rentals for public property used within the franchises granted. + No water-power franchises or privileges should be granted for a + longer period than from thirty to fifty years, with a provision + for a readjustment of the compensation or terms at least each + ten years, and any assignment of the right or privilege should + require the approval of the proper state authorities to be + legal. + + “6. _Wild Life in the Forest and Stream._ A prompt recognition + of the remaining wild life in the forest and in the stream as + a valuable natural resource is desirable, through uniform game + laws for its effective protection, and the present game laws + of Pennsylvania should be revised and extended as required to + properly protect such wild life for its beneficient value to + the state. + + “7. _Economy of Mineral Resources._ Mining is the most + important industry of Pennsylvania. It is now accompanied by a + culpable waste of human life and of minerals, especially coal. + There should be promptly applied preventive measures reducing + materially the loss of life through mine accidents, and + requiring careful economy in the exploitation of our remaining + mineral wealth. The state should take the position that, in + respect to these unreplaceable natural resources, the temporary + owner of the land has no right so to treat his property as to + work injury to all. + + “8. _Agricultural Resources._ Since cultivated land is the + foundation of the Nation’s prosperity, the proper use and + continued improvement of the soil should everywhere receive + especial care; and in order that agricultural and horticultural + products may reach the best markets with the least loss of time + and at the least expense, we most heartily favor the present + policy of Pennsylvania in the development of improved highways, + and urge their rapid and efficient extension, with due economy + and under capable and expert engineering supervision. + + “9. _The Value of Natural Scenery._ We hold that the beauty of + the land is one of the main sources of that love of country + which is at the very basis of patriotism, and that natural + scenery is an economic asset of great value yet unconsidered + and undeveloped. With the rapid disappearance of the great + primeval forest which once covered two-thirds of the area of + the state; with the mutilation of wide areas in the careless + abstraction of mineral wealth; with the pollution and + restriction of streams for private benefit, and the laying + waste of areas of arable lands through preventable floods, this + great and potentially valuable resource is being constantly and + ruthlessly destroyed. We insist that it should be considered + as of great economic importance, and we point, in support of + this attitude, to the scenic travel income of many millions of + dollars contributed each year to Europe by Americans, who leave + at home, unnoted and in process of destruction, many natural + scenic advantages of at least equal merit. + + “We further assert that it is not only in the interest of + the state to foster and encourage the provision of adequate + breathing places and playgrounds for the relief of our + congested population, but that it is equally important that the + state shall open and adequately maintain in suitable forest + reserves public camping-grounds, available especially to those + of our population who cannot otherwise obtain access to the + restorative and uplifting influences of an intimate association + with Nature. We insist that it is the part of wisdom for the + state to intelligently promote public parks in all their + forms—municipal, county and state—in order that every citizen + may have easy opportunity to receive the material and definite + benefits attendant upon their proper use. + + “10. _Education in Conservation._ In order that the rising + generation may know of the actual basis of the prosperity of + the state which makes life here possible, and of its rapid and + serious depletion through senseless and unconsidered waste, + we urge that an accurate statement of the remaining natural + resources of the state be prepared in such form as to make it + available for public school instruction. We favor all proper + methods of inculcating in the youth of the state that care for + its prosperity which alone can prevent the state from becoming + a barren waste, resembling like areas in foreign lands in which + selfishness, neglect and ignorance have accomplished their + destructive work.” + +It is not claimed that our “ten commandments” cover the whole of the +moral law, on our subject, although the endeavor was to include in them +the points that most urgently needed attention in the campaign for +conservation in Pennsylvania. The principles as stated in the development +of a “commandment” are often of a wider generality than as set forth in +the heading; in the opening sentence, for example, to which attention +will be called further on, and in the third paragraph also, where the +principle of encouraging the care of forests appears in the text, while +the heading alludes only to forest taxation. Care for the forests is +itself but a special application of the still broader principle of saving +where we are now wasting, of which this national association is the great +exponent. + +The civilized man, as President Roosevelt reminded us, looks beyond +present needs and provides for those to come. He seeks to leave his +children, who will be in a few years all that is left to represent him, +as good a patrimony as he received from his forefathers. He would provide +for the greatest good to the greatest number for the longest time. He +therefore necessarily interests himself in the conservation of natural +resources. For conservation does not mean, as has been too hastily +inferred, locking up something valuable so that it will be of no service +to anybody; it means using and safeguarding the resources of ourselves +and posterity in the way that will best serve both. It means use without +waste. + +That there has been waste, and shameful waste, of natural resources no +rational man will deny. It is an abuse of many centuries standing, as +witness Persia, The Euphrates valley, Syria, and much of Asia Minor, +and the once fertile valleys of China, where the sites of a teeming +population are now deserts. When the forests disappear, the water no +longer remains in the soil; there is alternation of dry stream-bed, +and flood-torrent carrying away the soil itself. Vegetation, requiring +a steady water supply, can no longer exist; and man cannot outlive +vegetation. This may be the history of the destroyed woodlands of +Pennsylvania. The disappearance of trout streams has been but a symptom; +the real evil is the sacrifice of our woodland, of which all belonging +to our state were until a generation ago sold without discrimination at +twenty-seven cents an acre. The same land, denuded of timber, the state +is now buying back, though at a much higher price, and endeavoring to +reforest it. A million acres have already been so purchased, and it is +hoped that the replanting will proceed rapidly and uninterruptedly so +that our children’s heritage may yet be saved for them. + +The preservation of our woodlands, it has already been admitted, is +only one way of stopping waste. There is the waste of war, of recovery +from war as counted in our annual pension roll, and of preparation for +war for which we are now paying, in these years of profound peace, more +than three hundred millions annually. The most terrible of all wastes, +doubtless, is that of disease, especially when we include with it the +Nation’s drink bill, of which the first cost of the liquor, huge though +that is the country over, is the smaller part; the greater, all a dead +waste, being the impairment of physical, mental and moral vigor and of +productive capacity to which that baleful appetite leads, and the cost of +the crimes of which it is the constant cause. We should no less include +the costs in money and in deterioration of body, mind and soul, that are +incurred by disregard or defiance of sex-hygiene. To these two points, +particularly the last, the tenth of our Pennsylvania Conservation +Commandments, on “Education in Conservation,” particularly applies. On +nothing, not even “the remaining natural resources” of our commonwealth, +is it more vitally necessary that education should lay stress than the +conditions of bodily and moral health. Conservation of human life is +the most important element in the conservation problem, for without man +everything else would be valueless. + +The public health is most evidently a public concern, and its furtherance +has now become, by general consent, a recognized part of the duties of +government. For a generation and more, a board of health has been one +of the most important branches of our city government; county health +boards are now found to be requisite for similar reasons; the services of +state boards, bureaus or departments of health, are coming more and more +in demand; and there is by this time an imperative call for a national +bureau or department with similar functions and wider authority. That +is a call that cannot long be resisted. The several agencies now under +federal control, among which its care for health has heretofore been +scattered—those pertaining to the army, the navy, the revenue marine +service, and the “pure food” office of the Agricultural Department—have +severally done some very good work, despite their limited separate +responsibility; and their work could not but be more effective for +good if brought all under one direction, and granted appropriations +correspondingly ample. There would be the same increase in efficiency +through combination, that has so often been noted in consolidations of +railways, combinations of industries, forming a federal army out of +promiscuous state militias, and welding a bunch of geological “surveys” +into a well-disciplined, compact bureau. It is a reform demanded by the +interests of sound government, and by the people’s needs: and it must +come. + +Testimony to the good work that can be done in a few years by the Health +Department of our state, I am enabled to give by the favor of a highly +capable member of that department in Harrisburg, Chief Medical Inspector +Royer, as follows: + +In the creation of the Department of Health of this commonwealth and in +the very liberal provision of funds for its organization and maintenance, +Pennsylvania took her first great step forward in the conservation of +human life. + +The bill which when enacted created the Department of Health of +Pennsylvania was drawn by Dr. Charles B. Penrose of the University of +Pennsylvania, and carried with it an appropriation of $400,000 for its +organization and maintenance and $50,000 for emergency work. The governor +was slow to make his selection of the commissioner, Dr. Dixon, who was +appointed in June, 1904, during an epidemic of smallpox. The emergency +work was carried on with the organization which was completed January 1, +1906, when the work assumed its great systematic battle against disease. +This police department had to be handled with exceeding care, as the +people in our representative form of government had not been used to the +observation of health laws. + +So rapidly did the work grow that the 1907 legislature appropriated +$1,000,000 for general health work and $1,000,000 for the purpose of +organizing a campaign against tuberculosis, $600,000 of which was +specifically set aside for state sanatoria and $400,000 for dispensaries +and additional work. + +The commissioner was permitted to take over the small tuberculosis camp +already organized by the Forestry Department, and he almost immediately +enlarged it by the addition of tents to accommodate more than one hundred +additional patients and at once planned a great sanatorium to be built on +the site near Mont Alto. + +The legislature of 1909 repeated the appropriation of $1,000,000 for +general health work, including sanitary engineering, and gave the +unprecedented sum of $2,000,000 for extending the tuberculosis campaign, +both by increased facilities offered through the dispensaries already +organized and by further extension of state sanatoria. + +The legislature of 1911 still further increased the appropriations for +the department so that a total of $3,701,360 was provided for furthering +public health work, including $2,653,248 for fighting tuberculosis. + +In the first organization of the Department of Health a broad and liberal +educational campaign was started, on a comprehensive plan through seven +important executive divisions and two auxiliary divisions, whose chiefs +reported directly to the central authority, the Commissioner of Health. +In a very short time the vital statistics of this commonwealth were so +thoroughly gathered that the census office included the state in the +“registration area.” + +The division of medical inspection, in a comprehensive way, covered +all the quarantinable diseases in the second-class townships of the +commonwealth, the reports being gathered from the health officers in the +720 sanitary districts under the general supervision of sixty-six county +medical inspectors. By these officers quarantining and disinfecting is +performed. + +The division of sanitary engineering, through seven subdivisions, +undertook the important work of protecting the stream from pollution and +the supervision of the plans for water works and sewerage works. + +The sanatorium division took charge of operating the hospitals. + +A dispensary division with 115 dispensaries, one in each large center of +population, rendered great assistance to the indigent poor afflicted with +tuberculosis, and supervised the work done by a corps of 110 nurses. + +The division of distribution of biological products had the disposition +of diphtheria antitoxin from 650 distributing stations and of tetanus +antitoxin from sixty-seven. + +The auxiliary division of accounting, auditing and purchasing looked out +for important business and office details. + +A division of supplies arranged for prompt distribution of everything +needed for record work and field work and through each of these +important divisions forwarded daily, weekly and monthly reports to the +commissioner’s office, a record of its work and accomplishment. All of +which was transmitted to the public by means of monthly bulletins, weekly +newspaper talks, and oral addresses. Educational leaflets showing the +methods of prevention of all of the different diseases were distributed +in large numbers throughout the commonwealth, and a scheme of education +was organized, giving to the public through some 900 newspapers all of +the facts gleaned by careful study. + +A traveling tuberculosis and sanitary exhibit is sent to all the large +centers of population throughout the state, papers are prepared and read +before scientific societies, charitable organizations, boards of trade, +civic clubs, teachers’ institutes and the various bodies interested in +saving human life. Lantern slides are furnished ministers and educators +to promote the public health interest, and not only does the state do +this important educational work, but through its dispensaries a very +important sociological work is carried on, which not only protects those +in their homes against tuberculosis and secures much needed charitable +aid, but assists in protecting against every disease due to unsanitary +conditions. + +The department is preparing to comply with the new school code and make +medical inspection of all school children in districts of the fourth +class. This one agency must have a far-reaching influence in conserving +health. + +Quoting from a recent published report of the department, a few of the +things that have been accomplished may thus be referred to: + + From June 1, 1907, to August 1, 1911, 5,819 patients have been + admitted to the State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis at Mont Alto. + Many of these patients have been discharged with the disease + arrested; hundreds have been benefited and have gone back to + their homes disciples of fresh air and right methods of living; + many more whose cases were too far advanced to hope for much + aid have been made comfortable and happy and provided with a + good home where they would not be a source of danger to others. + + From July 22, 1907, when the first dispensary was opened, to + June 30, 1911, 41,792 poor tuberculosis sufferers received + skilled medical aid and the attention of trained nurses which + the department’s 115 dispensaries provide. + + The death rate from tuberculosis in Pennsylvania had fallen + from 134 to 119.6 per one hundred thousand of population + in five years, this meaning a saving of one thousand lives + annually. + + From October, 1905, when the state began its free distribution + of diphtheria antitoxin among the poor, to the end of December, + 1910, 27,318 cases of diphtheria, mostly little children, + were treated for cure, with diphtheria antitoxin. We know by + statistics that without antitoxin forty-two out of every 100 + of these children, or 11,476 in all, would probably have died; + but with the aid of antitoxin furnished by the department, only + 2,324 died, and the death rate among these little sufferers was + reduced to eight and five-tenths per cent. Diphtheria antitoxin + was given for immunizing purposes to 20,294 cases. The computed + saving of child life resulting from the free distribution of + antitoxin since 1905 is 9,152. + + Throughout Pennsylvania the streams are slowly becoming freed + of pollution: not so slowly either, when records show that up + to August 1, 1911, 34,481 private sources of stream pollution + have been abated upon notice from the department, not to speak + of the thousands more that have been stopped through the moral + influence of this work. Eighty-nine modern sewage disposal + plants either have been built or are in process of construction + as approved by the department. Two hundred and eighty-four + municipalities and private sewerage corporations are building + comprehensive sewerage systems in accordance with plans for + such work, details of which must be approved by the department. + Already eighty-six modern filtration plants have been approved + and begun accordingly. + + And what of typhoid fever in view of all this work for pure + water? In 1906, 56.5 out of every 100,000 people died from this + disease; in 1907, 50.3; in 1908, 34.4; in 1909, 23.4, and in + 1910, 25.7. That is, there are now living 2,448 inhabitants of + Pennsylvania who, had the death rate of 1906 prevailed in 1910, + would have died from typhoid fever. + + In 1906 the death rate from all causes, per 1000 population, + was 16.5; in 1908, it had dropped to 15.7; and in 1910 to 15.6. + At first glance this saving of life may not seem a remarkable + diminution, but with Pennsylvania’s 7,655,000 population, is a + great gain. This appears when one figures precisely what this + slight numerical drop means in the actual saving of lives. Had + the rate of 1906 prevailed in 1908, some 6,000 more people + would have died than actually succumbed. Had this same rate + applied in 1910 instead of the decreased rate recorded by the + Department of Health, just 6,889 men, women and children now + living and presumably in average health and spirits would have + died. In other words, these matter-or-fact statistics, when + interpreted in their real relation to the welfare and happiness + of the state, mean the saving to the state of 20,000 lives in + three years. + + And the fight is only fairly well begun. + +In the semi-official summary I have just read, the subject of “a purified +water supply” was treated in a single paragraph, as a subordinate part of +the general work of the State Health Department for the conservation of +human life. If an apology is due for what appears a straying from my main +topic, the declaration of purposes of the Pennsylvania state branch, I am +ready to make the apology; but I cannot believe any excuse is needed for +giving to conservation of life and health an importance far ahead of all +other conservation. + +The curse of forest fires still hangs over us, and prohibits the planting +of vast areas which should be growing timber. It is comforting that +these fires are less destructive than formerly, but it is nevertheless +a disgrace to our civilization, or lack of civilization, that they must +occur at all. Education of our people and condign punishment of those +whose carelessness or malice causes them will eventually make these +annual holocausts a thing of the past. To this end liberal appropriations +should be made by the state, rewards or prizes being offered to those who +prove most efficient in checking fires. + +Nothing is more vital to forestry than the total suppression of these +fires. No attempt need be made to replant vast treeless areas, or no +expense incurred in protecting the young growth upon them until the fires +are prevented. In the year 1908 the cash value of timber destroyed by +forest fires in New York was estimated at $780,164. For the same period +in Pennsylvania the estimate was $688,980. The loss of humus and general +forest litter was even more serious than the loss of timber because of +wasted fertility and increase of surface wash during heavy rains. Each +successive fire leaves the ground more exposed and less productive, the +end of which is a desert condition. It is safe to say that at this hour +our state has thousands of square miles which are unproductive because +of forest fires. A radical change of policy in this matter is needed. +Attention should be given to prevention rather than to suppression of the +forest fires, and sufficient force and funds provided to accomplish this +end, which is essential to the continued prosperity of the state. + +Taxation of forest lands under our present system leads the state to +impoverish itself, by premature destruction of its timber resources, +and the industries depending upon them, and by increasing the areas of +stripped lands, which, because of their unprotected condition, become +year by year less and less fit for agriculture when an increasing +population requires their occupation for home and farm sites. The +law wisely requires that our engineers, physicians and lawyers shall +have received proper training before entering upon duties intimately +associated with the welfare and safety of others. It is to be regretted +that prospective legislators and commissioners cannot be required to show +some fitness for the work expected from them, before coming before the +people as candidates. + +It is notorious that the taxes imposed lead to the destruction of growing +trees which are each year earning their right to stand by the benefit +they confer upon the public. The only exclusive privilege which the owner +enjoys from them is that of paying taxes for a seldom-accorded protection +against fire, and depredation. + +Timber should be taxed only when cut and then at a rate per thousand +feet proportionate to the income received from it, but sufficient to +make good, in a measure, the loss of tax during the growing period. This +conclusion seems to have been reached by every disinterested person who +has fairly considered the problem in all of its aspects. Bills leading to +such a system of taxation have been defeated in the last three sessions +of our legislature, but that is not the last of them, for the ultimate +adoption of a proper system of forest taxation is beyond question. +Pennsylvania has done and is doing too much in behalf of forest-growing, +to hesitate at an expedient so necessary and so simple. + +The state has practically a million of acres, distributed over twenty-six +counties, in its forest reserve system. There are two admirable schools +of forestry, one of which is intended solely to prepare men for the +forest service of the state. + +Three extensive nurseries produce seedling forest trees for planting on +the state’s land and for distribution to our citizens at nominal cost, +on assurance that they will be properly planted and cared for. In 1909 +there were set out in permanent position 750,318 young trees, mostly on +abandoned farms which had come, by purchase, into the possession of the +commonwealth. We are rapidly increasing the output of these nurseries and +expect at an early date to plant at least ten to twenty million trees +annually. We are fortunate in having no laws which prevent scientific +forestry. A tree, or a forest, may be cut when it is in the interest of +the state to do so. + +Water courses as a source of power are considered apart from water +supply for domestic purposes, the latter being, in Pennsylvania, mainly +controlled by the Department of Health. + +Many water powers were purchased or seized, by those who anticipated +their value, under our earlier lax laws, before their importance was +generally recognized. They have thus passed too far out of state control +to be available under existing laws as a source of public revenue. +But in constituting the Water Power Commission it was provided that +future letters patent “will not be issued to any water, or water-power +company, nor will any such company be allowed to merge and consolidate, +or to purchase the property and franchise of any other such company +until the application for the charter, or the agreement of merger and +consolidation, or the purchase and sale has been first submitted to +and received the approval of a majority of the commission. Nor will +any person, corporation or municipality be allowed to construct, erect +or build any dam or other obstruction in any river or stream without +the approval of the commission.” No franchise whatever in the interest +of any individual or corporation, should be granted without adequate +compensation to the state, nor should any obstruction be allowed place +in any navigable stream unless locks of liberal size are provided for +passing it. In the near future every important river in the state will +probably be converted into a lake system capable of dead water navigation +up to head waters, as an accompaniment of the dams erected for power +purposes. + +Better protection of wild life in forest and stream can readily be +provided by taxing, as is the usage in most of the states, those who +enjoy the privilege of hunting and fishing. A license fee of one dollar +a year from each sportsman would pay for a much more efficient system of +forest and stream protection than we have ever had. This would exempt +those who have no interest in the sport and place the slight burden where +it belongs, upon those who hunt and fish. + +Conservation means use without waste, and is sound doctrine whether our +mineral resources are to last for fifty, or for five thousand years. That +there has been waste, not all unavoidable, is attested by the constant +endeavor of our best mining engineers to discover more economical methods. + +It is gratifying to be assured that their investigations have borne +fruit, and that the loss of good coal in anthracite mining has within +recent years been reduced so that “at present the recovery will average +about sixty per cent and loss about forty per cent.” Not long ago these +proportions were exactly reversed. + +The numbers annually killed and crippled by serious injuries among the +coal miners of this state are still appalling. The annual report of the +department of Mines in Pennsylvania for 1909 says: + + “In producing the output for the year 567 persons were killed + in the anthracite region and 1034 were injured. In the + bituminous region 506 were killed and 1126 were injured.” + +From the same report we learn that these casualties, though exceeding +the dead and wounded in many famous battles, are yet slightly less +per million tons mined than were suffered the same year in the deep +collieries of England; but the difference is hardly enough to bring us +much comfort. + +In mining, as in every other industry, we may look to education as a most +hopeful factor in reducing the number of accidents. Christian sympathy +is another factor; to that we owe it that children under fourteen years +of age are by law excluded as laborers from our mines. We must love our +brother even when begrimed with coal dust. + +The ease with which land could at first be obtained in Pennsylvania led +to neglect of conservative principles in agriculture. It was cheaper, for +a time, to abandon a worn-out farm than to restore it to a productive +condition. The result is seen in thousands of acres of barren, neglected +hillsides. The average production per acre in Pennsylvania was, twenty +years ago, so much below the possibilities as to be discreditable to the +commonwealth. + +This negligence is fast giving way to more modern methods, and the yield +of our acres is on a rapid ascent. The struggle for existence has no +doubt contributed somewhat to this, though education through the agency +of improved schools, of the Grange, farmers’ clubs and institutes, and +more easy access to markets have been more potent. The former isolation +of the farmer was against him. His land hunger kept him from seeing that +there was more money in fifty acres of well-tilled land than in one +hundred acres of starved soil. Experience is bringing wisdom to him, and +to the rest of us. We must have better roads, more improved machinery, +more social intercourse and more fertilization of the soil, to keep the +lad on the farm and to bring our yield per acre up to that of England and +Belgium. + +The Water Gap of the Delaware River, the Horse Shoe Curve in the +Alleghanies, the Blue Ridge near the Mason and Dixon line, the environs +of Mauch Chunk, are admired every year by thousands, a very large +proportion of whom live outside the limits of our state. Pennsylvania +values these scenic attractions as sources of revenue to railroads and +resort keepers. It is a pity, but it is true, that our people have +not yet awakened to the educational and uplifting influences of the +beauties of our river and mountain scenery. We lack the inborn love for +the landscape that characterizes the dweller on the heaths of Scotland, +or under the shadow of the Alps, and in so far we fail to attach their +just value to some of the noblest and most precious possessions of our +state. These possessions should be zealously protected before they are +hopelessly ruined, or given over to less important uses. + +The gospel of fresh air, for the physical salvation of the people is +sweeping the land. “It is cheaper, wiser, and more humane to prevent +disease than to cure it.” Within recent years, largely by the efforts of +the secretary of our state conservation branch, it has become possible +for a municipality to own and care for parks, which may become not only +beauty-spots, but outing-grounds, and lumber-producers as well. It is +hard to limit the possibilities of such a law, for good, and it is in the +direction of public desires. + +Education in conservation means education in citizenship. Every child not +only should know, but is entitled to know, what our national resources +are and how they may be preserved. He is a partner in ownership of this +stock in trade, out of which his living is to come. He should have full +access to the inventory, and should know how long it will last, where it +may be distributed to best advantage, and where the next supply is to +come from. This is even more important to him and to the country than +all involved in allegiance to any particular political party. It would +be well for every family to have a copy of “The Land We Live In,” a new +book by Overton W. Price, vice-president of the National Conservation +Association, published by Small, Maynard & Co., of Boston. It was written +especially for boys, but contains a vast fund of valuable information +compiled in an attractive form which would interest everyone. The natural +laws upon which our continued productive capacity depends should be +taught in every school and to every pupil; for violation of those laws +brings punishment which is as certain as it is bitter. + +This commentary on the Pennsylvania statement of purposes, or “ten +commandments,” has called for some condensation, for the amount +that might be said, and well said, on each of these points could be +indefinitely extended. It is largely the work of Dr. Rothrock, one of my +colleagues, a veteran in the conservation cause. I think it may be an +encouragement to this Congress to have a clear and full statement of the +work in furtherance of its aims, now done or undertaken in our state; +and, without making or suggesting a comparison with the achievements +of any other state, I may add that Pennsylvania is not ashamed of the +beginning it has made. + + +REPORT FOR SOUTH CAROLINA. + +BY DR. M. W. TWITCHELL. + +I shall carry out the advice given to the speaker of experience who has +told us to say our best things first and then stop. I have only a few +things to say. I represent a state quite a little distance from the +state of Missouri. I came as the representative of the Governor of South +Carolina, as a member of the conservation commission, and just want +to say one or two of the things which South Carolina is doing to help +on the cause of conservation. First, in regard to the conservation of +human life, and the prevention of disease. There is one thing just being +done down there which is new in this respect; that we have a pure food +commission which is doing something, in that it is inspecting the food +products which are coming into the State of South Carolina, particularly +the corn products. We are confiscating diseased corn, taking possession +of it, and insisting upon that the corn products which are brought into +South Carolina shall be pure and healthful. + +Another thing which we are doing is in regard to the drainage of our +swamp lands. Today we heard of the importance of this movement with +regard to the swamp lands of the Mississippi valley. We have swamp lands, +as you know, along the Atlantic coast, thousands of acres of them, and +we want them made available for cultivation. They will then be amongst +the richest lands of our country, and we are actually going at it. We +find that we cannot afford to wait for national aid of a direct type, so +we are organizing drainage districts under a state law, which permits +organization of districts, coöperating with the government, and actually +draining certain portions of the swamp lands. So far we have had three +drainage districts organized, and over two thousand acres of land in one +district, and about three thousand acres in another have already been +drained by this new method under a swamp land drainage law. We are going +ahead along that line, and in the future you will hear of many thousands +of acres of this swamp land that will be made garden spots, truck lands, +similar to those that we already have in the vicinity of Charleston. Just +a word in regard to the conservation of the soil. We have no law, there +is no special state move in this respect, but the State of South Carolina +produced last year 1,200,000 tons of commercial fertilizer, and the +largest part of that immense product was used within the state of South +Carolina itself. Now, that is conserving the soil. That is doing the +thing that many of the people of the West will have to come to in view +of the lost fertility by rotation of crops upon the same land year after +year. + +Just a final word in regard to the work in the improvement of rural +life conditions. The State of South Carolina is a leader in that we +have appointed a state inspector of rural schools. He is an educational +engineer and travels all over the state. He visits rural school after +rural school. He studies the conditions there, and he makes reports +to the state board of education, and conditions are improved, and the +state has made appropriations for the aid of these rural schools as the +educational engineer reports along these lines. We are interested in the +conservation movement. We think it is a grand movement for the benefit +not only of the present day, but of the generations to come. I thank you. +(Applause) + + + + +NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS REPRESENTED AT THE THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION +CONGRESS. + + + National Conservation Association. + National Business League. + National Dairy Union. + National Implement and Vehicle Association. + National Association of American Chemical Societies. + National Rivers and Harbors Congress. + American Society of Engineering Draftsmen. + American Sunday School Association. + General Federation of Women’s Clubs. + American Economic Association. + National Rivers and Lakes Commission. + American Chemical Society. + National Fire Protective Association. + American Association State Geological Department. + National Farmers’ Institute. + Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo. + National Council of Women. + American Poultry Association. + National Association Audubon Societies. + American Bison Society. + American Society Civil Engineers. + American Society II. and V. Engineers. + League of American Sportsmen. + American Shorthorn Association. + Women’s National Rivers and Harbors Congress. + National Nut Growers’ Association. + Farmers’ National Congress. + Society for Promoting Engineering Education. + American Pomological Society. + Collegiate Alumni Association. + American Railway Engineers’ Association. + American Society of Mechanical Engineers. + National Columbian Wyandotte Club. + American Association of Refrigeration. + National Irrigation Congress. + National Educational Association. + National Association Daughters American Revolution. + National Brotherhood Locomotive Firemen and Engineers. + North American Fish and Game Association. + American Mining Congress. + International Dry Farming Congress. + National Mothers’ Congress. + American Medical Association. + United States Department of Agriculture. + United States Weather Bureau. + United States Forestry Service. + American Association for the Advancement of Science. + National Fertilizer Association. + National Soil Fertility League. + National Irrigation Congress. + American Civic Association. + National Municipal League. + National Humane Society. + Society of American Florists. + American Carnation Society. + American Institute of Electrical Engineering. + Cattle Raisers’ Association. + United Daughters of the Confederacy. + American Academy of Political and Social Science. + National Association of Manufacturers. + American Society for Testing Materials. + National Partridge and Wyandotte Club. + National Board of Fire Underwriters. + American Society of Refining Engineers. + American Electrochemical Society. + American Waterworks Association. + American Hereford Cattle Breeders’ Association. + German-American Alliance. + Russian Government Agricultural Commission. + National Wholesale Lumber Dealers’ Association. + National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association. + Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterways Association. + National Shell Fish Association. + National Garment Manufacturers’ Association. + National Dealers’ Association. + National Fertilizers’ Association. + + + + +LIST OF REGISTERED DELEGATES TO THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS. + + + _Alabama._ + + LeFevre, E. R. Gadsden + Miller, J. M. Cordova + Rushton, W. J. Birmingham + + _Arizona._ + + Foote, Geo. A. Safford + Fowler, B. A. Phoenix + + _Arkansas._ + + Brusee, Geo. Decatur + Cook, Geo. B. Little Rock + Dotson, J. Alfred Rogers + Higinbotham, Mrs. H. G. Pine Bluff + Lewis, F. W. Mena + Morris, Mrs. C. D. Rogers + Plank, E. N. Decatur + Spaulding, H. G. Fort Smith + Stroud, J. W. Rogers + Toland, H. L. Ashdown + + _California._ + + Baumgartner, J. P. Santa Ana + Beard, W. M. Sacramento + Glavis, Louis R. San Francisco + Simons, D. P. Los Gatos + Turner, J. A. Santa Ana + + _Canada._ + + Armstrong, L. O. Montreal + + _Colorado._ + + Bruce, Geo. W. Delta + Callbreath, J. F. Denver + Dunning, W. S. Colorado Springs + Eddy, H. H. Denver + Gregg. J. S. F. Golden + Hickman, R. S. Delta + Meservey, Albert B. Colorado Springs + Lindsey, Ben B. Denver + Wilder, Chas. T. Colorado Springs + Work, Dr. Hubert Pueblo + + _Connecticut._ + + Towney, Jas. W. Hartford + + _District of Columbia._ + + Chilcott, E. C. Washington + Cameron, Frank L. Washington + Cobb, M. A. Washington + Frankenfield, H. C. Washington + Graves, H. L. Washington + McGee, W J Washington + Marbut, Curtis F. Washington + Shipp, Thomas R. Washington + Spillman, W. J. Washington + Wiley, H. W. Washington + + _Florida._ + + Campbell, T. J. West Palm Beach + Cromer, J. M. West Palm Beach + + _Georgia._ + + Worsham, E. Lee Atlanta + Worsham, Mrs. E. Lee Atlanta + + _Idaho._ + + Shepperd, John W. Caldwell + Witson, Wm. Driggs + Woods, M. H. Arco + Yancey, Cyrus Blackfoot + + _Illinois._ + + Abbott, A. N. Morrison + Aull, J. L. Belleville + Bartow, Edw. Urbana + Bell, Henry Y. Chicago + Bligh, L. L. Chicago + Block, Mrs. Fred’k West Chicago + Bradish, A. C. Ottawa + Braiden, Mrs. Clara V. Rochelle + Brooks, Morgan Urbana + Burgett, Scott Newman + Burgett, Thomas P. Newman + Burroughs, E. W. Edwardsville + Campbell, Murdock Chicago + Charles, A. W. Carrni + Christine, W. T. Chicago + Clapp, F. H. Mazon + DeWolf, Frank W. Urbana + Duncan, J. R. Tuscola + Dunn, Ballard Chicago + Eisenhart, Henry Waterloo + Elliott, J. T. Armington + Evans, W. A. Chicago + Franklin, G. W. Nenault + Giffhorn, Henry Columbia + Gossett, M. B. Newman + Gross, Howard H. Chicago + Grout, A. P. Winchester + Hays, Dudley Grant Chicago + Hill, A. H. Ottawa + Hooker, Arthur Chicago + Hopkins, Cyril G. Urbana + Jewell, H. L. Monmouth + Johnson, B. A. Chicago + Jones, Loyd Z. Galva + Marlin, D. M. Norris City + Mueller, Sr., Peter Valmeyer + Myers, O. V. Newman + Myers, M. R. Chicago + Nickerson, J. F. Chicago + Noyes, La Verne Chicago + Noyes, Mrs. La Verne Chicago + Osborn, F. W. Quincy + Pur Khizer, Edw. G. Chicago + Randolph, Isham Chicago + Rutherford, Cyrus Newman + Sconce, H. J. Sidell + Shoffer, John C. Chicago + Stufflebeam, O. F. Rossville + Syster, Mrs. J. C. Oregon + Tatgl, Gustavus Chicago + Taylor, Thomas A. Catlin + Thompson, Mrs. C. H. Chicago + Vrooman, Mrs. Carl Bloomington + Vrooman, Carl S. Bloomington + Wallbaum, F. C. Ashland + Walker, J. A. Chicago + Wolcott, H. K. Batavia + Woodbury, A. G. Danville + Young, W. M. Newman + + _Indiana._ + + Barnard, H. E. Indianapolis + Barrett, Edward Indianapolis + Blatchley, W. S. Indianapolis + Breeze, Fred J. Lafayette + Breeze, Geo. D. Delphi + Dinwiddie, Oscar Lowell + Ford, Charles New Harmony + Hamilton, John C. Indianapolis + Hoynes, Prof. William Notre Dame + Knapp, Mrs. Edwin A. Winona Lake + Neizer, Maurice C. Ft. Wayne + Reisenberg, Henry Indianapolis + Whitehead, J. W. New Harmony + Woods, Sam B. Crown Point + + _Iowa._ + + Allred, W. P. Corydon + Ashby, Mrs. Harriett W. Des Moines + Ball, F. D. Creston + Bishop, E. C. Ames + Bliss, J. A. Diagonal + Bogie, S. R. Waverly + Brown, Nelson C. Ames + Chandler, W. R. Blacktan + Cleveland, O. S. Webster City + Corrie, S. M. Ida Grove + Curtiss, Chas. F. Ames + Davis, F. M. Corning + Donald, G. B. Mac Ames + Doran, Justin R. Beaver + Doty, James J. Shenandoah + Dunn, E. G. Mason City + Durrell, Geo. O. Pilot Mound + Elk, M. M. Galva + Elder, Orville Washington + Fry, Joseph Weyer + Hathaway, B. Kingsley + Haynes, E. C. Centerville + Hazard, T. R. Des Moines + Holden, P. G. Ames + Holman, R. A. Rockwell + Hunt, C. W. Logan + Hunter, Edward H. Des Moines + Hutchins, C. B. Algona + Hutchinson, S. T. Lake City + Ives, A. P. Irvington + Kamrar, J. S. Webster City + Kelmartin, A. P. Malvern + Kaufman, Chas. C. Wilton Junction + Keating, C. R. Mt. Ayr + Kirkham, G. A. Diagonal + Kissack, John Farmer City + Knight, O. N. Salem + Latta, W. W. Logan + Leas, J. E. Galva + Leffler, Geo. V. Stockport + Lockwood, B. A. Des Moines + Macbride, Thomas H. Iowa City + McCulloch, Fred Belle Plains + McWhorter, Ellis Burt Kossuth + Menton, J. A. Boone + Miller, A. C. Des Moines + Miller, C. W. Waverly + Miller, O. W. Waverly + Milner, E. P. Red Oak + Nichols, Warren Minerva + Nichols, Mrs. Warren Minerva + Noble, Mrs. Lucy Seward Waterloo + Parrott, H. Waverly + Parrott, Mrs. Jane Waverly + Packels, Theo. Waverly + Plummer, A. L. Altoona + Rubel, H. F. Waverly + Russell, J. W. Adel + Ranels, S. C. Des Moines + Schenk, Myron Algona + Shimek, B. Iowa City + Smith, Ed. H. Cedar Rapids + Soper, E. B. Emmetsburg + Soper, E. H. Emmetsburg + Spencer, A. P. Oskaloosa + Stanton, E. W. Ames + Steen, F. D. West Liberty + Sykes, A. Des Moines + Sykes, Mrs. A. Des Moines + Tabur, Frank Waverly + Tomlinson, H. E. New Market + Turner, Asa Ferrar + Vail, Dr. A. M. Rock Rapids + Van Slyke, Mrs. C. B. Des Moines + Wagner, Henry Ankeny + Wallace, H. C. Des Moines + Welch, E. S. Shenandoah + Weller, Miss Mame E. Nashua + Wells, Joseph Des Moines + Whealan, Geo. B. Galva + Wisdom, Frank Bedford + + _Kansas._ + + Adam, Henry Wakefield + Allen, R. N. Chanute + Alexander, B. J. Hiawatha + Andrews, Robert Powhattan + Anderson, Thos. J. Gas City + Atkinson, Mrs. W. D. Parsons + Austin, W. A. Sylvia + Avery, H. W. Wakefield + Ayres, E. S. Edgerton + Ayres, Hy. Howard + Babcock, W. M. Philipsburg + Bailey, E. H. S. Lawrence + Baird, E. J Wellsville + Baker, John M. Gas + Barber, John F. Centralia + Barker, G. H. Girard + Barteider, F. W. Lawrence + Batdorf, D. W. Wellsville + Bean, Frank K. McPherson + Beardsley, J. W. Overland Park + Beauchamp, William Olathe + Beck, W. T. Holton + Beckley, Maj. Thomas H. Wellington + Bell, W. M. Garden City + Bennetzen, H. C. Kansas City + Benton O. M. S. Oberlin + Beery, C. F. Paola + Black, Francis M. Kincaid + Blackman, F. W. Lawrence + Blair, Edw. Spring Hill + Blevins, J. C. Oskaloosa + Boggs, H. C. Beattie + Bowersock, J. D. Lawrence + Bollinger, C. A. Iola + Bone, Roy L. Topeka + Boone, W. M. Highland + Bauer, W. F. Highland + Bosworth, G. G. Wellsville + Bowman, Wm. Sibley + Boyd, C. H. Blue Mound + Boickel, W. H., Jr. Kansas City + Brown, Frances L., Miss Manhattan + Brown, Loyd. Oswego + Bruce, H. E. Marquette + Budd, P. W. Basehoe + Bulmer, Joseph Michigan Valley + Boyce, D. M. Galena + Cain, Victor A. Leavenworth + Call, G. E. Manhattan + Carey, C. W. Wichita + Carlbert, C. F. Lindsborg + Carroll, Edw. Leavenworth + Carter, W. O. Garden City + Carter, E. L. Oskaloosa + Cassin, J. H. Girard + Chapin, Archibald, Mrs. Kansas City + Clarke, W. D. Paola + Clark, Edw. C. Oswego + Cole, J. A. Topeka + Coleman, D. S. Oneida + Collier, John Overbrooke + Collins, Geo. W. Belleville + Collins, John Scammon + Collins, H. D. Eminence + Connet, Frank B. Kansas City + Condon, S. D. Paloa + Cooper, R. L. Salina + Corbet, J. D. Topeka + Cox, E. H. Tonganoxie + Cunningham, A. N. Humboldt + Currier, Harold Garnett + Currey, A. A., Mrs. Joplin + Carpenter, J. W. Bolivar + Coughlin, R. E. Paloa + Crawford, L. M. Winfield + Davis, C. D. Winchester + Davis, J. A. McPherson + Davidson, C. L. Wichita + Detrick, E. A. Caldwell + Dickson, W. T. Carbondale + Ditzen, Paul H. Kansas City + Dix, E. E. Ft. Scott + Donahoe, J. F. Paola + Dorst, O. H. Gardner + Dunham, Ed. Paola + Duncan, K. S. Salina + Dyche, L. L. Lawrence + Eby, A. F. Howard + Edwards, John A. Eureka + Edwards, L. S. Oswego + Edwards, Matt. McLouth + Ellis, F. S. Kansas City + Eldridge, Chas. E. Topeka + Engle, J. H. Abilene + Evans, U. J. Iola + Faxon, R. H. Garden City + Fair, D. J. Sterling + Fairchild, E. T. Topeka + Fosse, A. Wakefield + Faulkner, W. K. Leavenworth + Ferguson, R. M. Bonner Springs + Finley, G. E. Cottonwood Falls + Ford, W. B. Oskaloosa + Francis, A. J. Lucas + Francisco, Hiram Oswego + Friend, Wm. Sedgwick + Frizell, E. E. Lawrence + Flory, F. C. Howard + Frienmuth, Otto Tonganoxie + Finney, L. H. Wellington + French, Ed. W. Hudson + Funk, F. J. Marion + Furst, T. I. Peabody + Garlinghouse, O. L., Dr. Iola + Garrison, Chas. W. Garnett + Garrison, J. W. Garnett + Gaylord, Frank M. Axtell + Gearhart, W. L. Manhattan + Gibbons, J. B. Pratt + Gibbs, J. M. Oskaloosa + Gilliland, W. H. Denison + Gilman, J. M. Leavenworth + Gilmore, T. S. Oneida + Gragg, Frank. Denison + Greenman, Sara Judd, Mrs. Kansas City + Greer, E. P. Winfield + Greason, W. D. Paola + Griffin, Samuel Medicine Lodge + Griffiths, F. J. Peabody + Griesa, T. C. Lawrence + Groves, Chas. A. Edwardsville + Grand, Fred P. Girard + Guernsey, George, Mrs. Independence + Gurnea, J. C. Belleville + Guyer, U. S. Kansas City + Haines, L. J. Galena + Hageman, F. Salina + Halloway, H. M. Larned + Harmon, G. E. Valley Falls + Harrison, Wm. Whiting + Hartley, F. M. Baldwin + Hastings, J. F. Edgerton + Hamilton, M. C. Oswego + Harrell, W. W. Osawatomie + Haskin, M. H. Frankfort + Hatfield, F. P. Olathe + Hatfield, Thomas Valley Falls + Haworth, Erasmus Leavenworth + Hays, D. W. Osawatomie + Hazlett, Robert S. El Dorado + Helmers, W. I., Sr. Leavenworth + Hemphill, Chas. W. Reno + Higgie, F. B. Girard + Henshaw, W. H. Sylvia + Hoad, W. C. Lawrence + Hodgson, R. W. Kingman + Hodgson, H. J. Eureka + Hoffman, C. A., Mrs. Enterprise + Holloway, M. L. Topeka + Holman, E. J. Leavenworth + Holman, L. Carl Leavenworth + Holmes, G. L. Golden City + Holsinger, Geo. W. Rosedale + Holsinger, G. L. Rosedale + Holton, Edwin L. Manhattan + Hopkins, J. C. Tonganoxie + Hopkins, J. C., Mrs. Tonganoxie + Hopper, C. A. Pratt + Hoskinson, J. W. Liberal + Honsh, F. T. Oskaloosa + Houston, J. D. Wichita + Hougland, D. P. Olathe + Hovey, W. A., Mrs. Kansas City + Hull, Wm. Overbrooke + Humphrey, C. P. Denison + Hurst, Frank J. Garnett + Hunter, Senator Geo. H. Wellington + Insley, F. B. Oskaloosa + Irwin, J. C. Richmond + Isely, Charles C. Cimarron + Ives, Charles Baldwin + Jackson, Cong. Fred S. Eureka + Jardine, W. M. Manhattan + Jenkins, Emos Kansas City + Jewett, O. P. Dighton + Judy, D. D. Garnett + Karnes, L. F. Overbrooke + Kaufman, W. S. Iola + Kelsey, Scott Topeka + Kennedy, E. Edgerton + Keohane, T. J. Baldwin + Kennett, Homer Concordia + Kiebler, Thomas Mankato + Kincaid, C. C. Cherryvale + King, E. D. Burlington + Klein, Paul Iola + Knapp, Fred W. Beloit + Koelzer, J. P. Seneca + Koff, Wm. Carbondale + Kohler, J. P. La Harpe + Kraus, E. M. St. Paul + Kufahl, H. F. Wheaton + Kyle, J. C. Manko + Ladtler, W. A. Atchison + Lanver, D. M. Paola + Lease, R. W. Redfield + Le Van, E. P. Topeka + Lidikay, N. W. Wellsville + Livermore, H. C. Olathe + Longnecker, D. H. Paola + Loomis, Elmer Girard + Lowry, Dr. A. D. Valley Falls + Luman, E. M. Lansing + McAuliffe, M. Salina + McCain, F. O. Wellsville + McCarty, C. C. Iola + McCarthy, F. M. Edgerton + McClellan, M. A. Wichita + McComb, S. W. Stafford + McDonald, S. P. Peabody + McKaig, A. E. Olathe + McKee, Mrs. Milo D. Newton + McLachlin, A. F. Paola + McLean, B. F. Wichita + McLeod, H. K. Ellis + McKurdey, G. W. Lone Elm + Macgregor, C. F. Kansas City + Mains, James Oskaloosa + Mantey, A. H. Mound City + Marberg, J. W. Oswego + Marvin, F. O. Lawrence + Maxwell, H. McPherson + Meade, J. M. Topeka + Miller, A. L. Belleville + Miller, C. W. Hays + Miller, J. H. Cherryvale + Mills, J. H. Manhattan + Mingenbach, C. F. McPherson + Moffet, A. H. Larned + Moore, H. S. Kansas City + Moore, Mrs. Ida Wilson Abilene + Moore, C. B. Michigan Valley + Moses, E. R. Great Bend + Morgan, P. W. Kansas City + Mosse, Arthur Leavenworth + Munzenmayer, W. F. Junction City + Myter, E. W. Iola + Needham, H. V. Tonganoxie + Nichols, Mrs. C. C. Leavenworth + Nicholsen, F. C. Iola + Nichoken, John C. Newton + Nee, H. L. Hill City + Northrup, L. L. Iola + Norton, H. T. Olathe + Odell, T. B. Berryton + Oliger, A. L. Emporia + O’Neal, Chas. Berryton + Osborn, Dr. W. F. Baldwin + Osburn, F. M. Erie + Ostlind, John, Jr. McPherson + Parker, Dr. I. B. Hill City + Parker, J. W. Olathe + Paxton, Sam Oswego + Paulen, J. W. Fredonia + Pearson, M. E. Kansas City + Peet, John C. Tecumseh + Peiker, F. O. Paola + Pendleton, E. P. Ottawa + Perkins, J. W. Edgerton + Pierce, F. D. Topeka + Philip, Alex Hays + Platts, G. O. Winfield + Pomeroy, Frank Holton + Potter, Thos. M. Peabody + Powell, John S. Wichita + Powers, John Marion + Pringle, Robert Tribune + Quincy, Fred H. Salina + Reardon, A. P. McLouth + Reed, Geo. W. Axtell + Rees, Cong. R. R. Minneapolis + Reiber, B. F. Lone Elm + Replogle, O. E. Meriden + Rhoades, W. J. Olathe + Rich, Cecil Syracuse + Ricksecker, T. L. Rosedale + Rigney, W. L. Paola + Ritter, Chris S. Iola + Robinson, George W. Wichita + Robinson, J. W. Olathe + Robertson, J. R. Finney Co. + Rogler, Albert Bazaar + Romine, D. S. Oswego + Rose, Wm. Kansas City + Roseberg, Victor McPherson + Rule, Elbert S. Sharon + Ruthrauff, J. B. Hiawatha + Saunders, P. S. Oswego + Sanford, L. V. Oneida + Sarsensen, Anders McPherson + Schaeffer, Oscar W. Girard + Schlot, Henry Natoma + Scott, Adam, Jr. Westmoreland + Scott, Chas. H. Manhattan + Scott, Miss Minnie A. Westmoreland + Sears, John G. Calista + Seyster, O. B. Concordia + Shaad, Geo. C. Lawrence + Shallcross, Wm. J. Highland + Sharpe, Homer Eureka + Sharpe, James Council Grove + Shearer, A. Columbus + Simons, A. M. Girard + Skalle, John Blue Rapids + Smith, E. D. Meade + Smith, W. S. Ashland + Smithmeyer, F. H. Lawrence + Soice, John Kinsley + Siochla, F. J. Wilson + Steiner, D. R. Olathe + Stephens, Mrs. H. T. Kansas City + Steven, J. L. Stockton + Stewart, James Kansas City + Stich, A. C. Independence + Stover, H. J. Salina + Strickler, J. N. Cherryvale + Stubbs, A. W. Kansas City + Swobode, A. Leavenworth + Talbott, I. F. McPherson + Tanner, C. A. Wichita + Taylor, Edwin Edwardsville + Ten Eyck, A. M. Hays + Thompson, C. W. Marion + Thrall, E. W. Eureka + Tod, Wm. J. Maple Hill + True, J. F. Topeka + Troxell, M. F. Atchison + Turner, R. W. Mankato + Van Hoozer, W. H. Mulberry + Van Tuyl, Mrs. Effie H. Leavenworth + Vincent, M. G. Girard + Voigts, E. E. Merriam + Vrooman, L. L. Topeka + Waggenseller, A. L. Junction City + Wakefield, J. E. Humboldt + Walker, D. R. Oswego + Walker, H. B. Manhattan + Walker, O. E. Topeka + Wallace, H. H. Topeka + Wallace, Mrs. Lena Hartzell Kansas City + Warner, Frank Bonner Springs + Watkins, J. B. Lawrence + Watson, C. M. Merriam + Watson, J. M. Frankfort + Watson, W. W. Salina + Waters, H. J. Manhattan + Watson, Miss Grace Merriam + Wear, Jos. Barnard + Weaver, John H. Baldwin + Webster, Ed. H. Manhattan + Wedd, A. E. Lenexa + Weekes, E. E. Parsons + Welch, W. M. Independence + Wells, Abijah Seneca + Wells, Carl D. Sabetha + Whiting, O. F. North Topeka + Wiggam, John H. Emporia + Wilcox, Mrs. F. A. Abilene + Wilfong, J. E. Concordia + Williams, J. C. Kansas City + Williams, M. B. McAlister + Williams, J. S. Kansas City + Windbigler, J. L. Oswego + Winkler, William Seneca + Witwer, W. D. Ft. Scott + Wood, Frank Iola + Woodford, A. L. Burlington + Wright, J. D. Kansas City + Wright, L. J. Hoxie + Wulfekubler, Louis H. Leavenworth + Zumwalt, Imri Bonner Springs + + _Kentucky._ + + Barnes, Mrs. C. P. Louisville + Crump, Malcolm H. Bowling Green + Grider, W. U. Bowling Green + + _Louisiana._ + + Dowling, Dr. Oscar Shreveport + Gipe, James C. Clarks + Grace, Fred J. Baton Rouge + Gerrans, A. T. Houma + Hamilton, Alexander Clarks + + _Maine._ + + Harriman, D. S. West Lebanon + + _Maryland._ + + Baker, Bernard N. Baltimore + Barnard, H. E. Indianapolis + + _Massachusetts._ + + Field, Geo. W. Boston + Moon, F. N. Amherst + Rane, F. W. Boston + Wharton, Wm. P. Groton + + _Michigan._ + + Lord, Henry Nelson Au Sable + Haskel, Fred Detroit + Sharp, Mrs. John C. Jackson + Williams, Gardner S. Ann Arbor + Yoke, A. J. Adrain + + _Minnesota._ + + Bennett, J. W. St. Paul + Eliason, G. Montevideo + Erney, Mrs. C. F. Minneapolis + Neill, D. M. Red Wing + Northrop, Cyrus Minneapolis + Rhodes, J. E. St. Paul + Steenerson, Elias Crookston + Wallace, Dan A. St. Paul + + _Mississippi._ + + Lowe, E. N. Jackson + Travis, S. E. Hattiesburg + Whitfield, H. L. Columbus + + _Missouri._ + + Adams, J. W. Holden + Adams, T. Lee Kansas City + Addison, Mrs. G. W. Kansas City + Adems, A. O. Smithville + Alexander, Rees Independence + Allen, Ford A. Kansas City + Anderson, J. N. St. Louis + Anderson, J. N. Kansas City + Andrews, Mrs. L. B. Kansas City + Ashworth, G. J. Neosho + Axtell, F. M. Amsterdam + Bailey, Geo. W. Brookfield + Bailey, Mrs. Geo. W. Brookfield + Baird, W. T. Kirksville + Baird, Mrs. Leslie Kansas City + Baird, Henry L. Louisiana + Bannister, F. J. Kansas City + Baldridge, Lenny Milan + Barber, H. A. Windsor + Barham, G. L. Braymer + Barnes, Clarence A. Mexico + Barnett, Mrs. Fred P. Kansas City + Barns, H. N. Joplin + Barns, W. E. St. Louis + Barton, Dante Kansas City + Bates, R. L. Excelsior Springs + Bell, M. C. Holden + Bender, Louis Kansas City + Bovard, John H. Kansas City + Bertrand, P. A. Jefferson City + Black, Wm. H. Kansas City + Black, Wm. H. Marshall + Blanchard, Mrs. Ben Kansas City + Blevins, John N. Linden + Boisseau, O. F. Holden + Bolen, James A. Kansas City + Borland, Cong. Wm. P. Kansas City + Bowin, S. B. Lee’s Summit + Brockway, James H. Kansas City + Briggs, Russell T. Joplin + Brigham, Mrs. E. T. Kansas City + Broadhurst, J. J. Gashland + Brodnax, T. J. Kansas City + Brown, F. F. Kansas City + Bryant, W. L. Independence + Buchanan, Mrs. Andrew Kansas City + Buffum, F. W. Louisiana + Burnet, P. B. Kansas City + Burnham, C. N. Cameron + Burns, Clinton S. Kansas City + Burton, Mrs. Chester L. Kansas City + Bushnell, L. S. Kansas City + Cooke, Chas. M. Kansas City + Carlisle, Chas. D. Kansas City + Carter, C. J. Kansas City + Chandler, Mrs. Asa Randolph + Chatten, Wm. K. Adrain + Chipman, L. L. Kansas City + Church, Mrs. Willard Q. Kansas City + Claggett, Mrs. William S. Kansas City + Cleveland, H. H. Cameron + Cobb, B. F. Kansas City + Cochran, James Kansas City + Coe, Willard L. Kansas City + Coffman, Mrs. Chas. Kansas City + Cole, James D. Kansas City + Colpitts, Walter W. Kansas City + Connor, P. Kansas City + Conover, John A. Kansas City + Cook, Miss Ellen Kansas City + Cook, F. L. Kansas City + Cook, H. G. Butler + Corbett, Wm. Turner + Cornell, Dr. H. L. Hannibal + Cox, D. K. Weston + Crabbs, Mrs. Franklin D. Kansas City + Crews, Mrs. Swepson Kansas City + Craig, A. B. Tarkio + Croft, Miss Jennie H. Kansas City + Crause, H. S. Kansas City + Culver, Paul M. Edgerton + Curry, Dr. E. R. Kansas City + Dallmeyer, R. Jefferson City + Davidson, Dr. S. C. Grant City + Davis, Bert C. Kansas City + Davis, Dr. Geo. W. Kansas City + Dean, H. A. Parkville + Deaver, M. Clyde Harrisonville + Dille, A. B. Kansas City + Dodson, Bruce Kansas City + Douglass, A. W. St. Louis + Doty, D. E. Anderson + Droll, G. A. Kansas City + Duncan, H. C. Osborn + Dungan, F. C. Oregon + Durrill, Milton Sedalia + Dutcher, C. H. Warrensburg + Dutton, H. D. Kansas City + Eckel, Rev. Edward H. St. Joseph + Edwards, Mrs. John A. Kansas City + Ellis, Mrs. E. C. Kansas City + Ellison, Mrs. Garrett Kansas City + Ettlinger, Mrs. Victor P. Kansas City + Evans, S. L. Cameron + Evans, Wm. P. Jefferson City + Everard, I. N. Marshall + Faeth, Mrs. Maud Kansas City + Fair, Eugene Kirksville + Faxon, H. D. Kansas City + Ferguson, W. M. Kansas City + Fetter, F. J. Kansas City + Filson, F. M. Cameron + Findlay, M. C. Parkville + Fisher, Miss Jennie M. Kansas City + Flaugh, C. L. Kansas City + Fleming, I. M. Kansas City + Fleming, W. C. Fillmore + Florance, F. C. Independence + Flournoy, W. T. Marionville + Forbis, J. B., Jr. Kansas City + Fordyce, Mrs. W. Grant Kansas City + Forseman, J. H. Kansas City + Forsee, Geo. H. Kansas City + Fox, S. Waters Kansas City + Frank, Harry A. St. Louis + Fratt, F. W. Kansas City + Freeman, Elmer E. Kansas City + Frerichs, Dr. F. W. St. Louis + Fuller, James Kansas City + Fulton, Mrs. J. M. Kansas City + Gantz, A. T. Cameron + Garden, John S. Kansas City + Garetson, James S. St. Louis + Gash, Theo. K. Palmyra + Gatchell, Miss Rosamond Kansas City + Gees, R. W. Kansas City + Gentry, Miss Elizabeth B. Kansas City + Gentry, H. H. Sedalia + George, Harry L. St. Joseph + George, Mrs. Todd M. Lee’s Summit + Gilday, Miss Anna C. Kansas City + Gill, Mrs. Turner A. Kansas City + Gillespie, John Holden + Gilman, F. L. Kansas City + Glass, W. C. Kansas City + Gorsuch, Harry A. Kansas City + Goodman, Chas. W. Kansas City + Goodman, L. A. Kansas City + Goodman, Miss Marie L. Kansas City + Goodwin, Dr. E. J. St. Louis + Goodrich, N. S. Cameron + Grant, E. H. Kansas City + Green, J. P. Liberty + Green, Mrs. J. J. Kansas City + Greene, Miss Mabel E. Clarendon + Greenwood, Prof. James M. Kansas City + Gutridge, A. W. Kansas City + Griffith, Elmer C. Liberty + Griffith, Thos. J. Kansas City + Hadley, Pirse Easton + Hale, James Lexington + Hall, Dr. C. Lester Kansas City + Hall, Mrs. Geo. T. Kansas City + Hamilton, Mrs. G. Harley Kansas City + Hanna, John V. Kansas City + Hanley, Mrs. P. M. Kansas City + Hardenburg, C. M. Kansas City + Hare, S. Herbert Kansas City + Harrington, John Lyle Kansas City + Harris, E. T. Cameron + Harper, John S. Butler + Hayman, F. C. Houston + Heath, Edwin Ruthven Kansas City + Heldorfer, George Kansas City + Hemingway, Mrs. A. F. Kansas City + Henderson, Mrs. Wm. B. Kansas City + Herring, L. H. Brunswick + Henermann, Mrs. H. W. Kansas City + Higgins, H. A. Milan + Hill, Curtis Columbia + Hill, W. A. Grand View + Hill, Wm. B. Kansas City + Hine, Willis Savannah + Hisey, Joseph C. Kansas City + Hockins, W. J. Warrensburg + Hoefer, Chas. Higginsville + Holmes, R. L. Easton + Holzham, W. L. Kansas City + Hoover, S. A. Warrensburg + Hull, James Platte City + Hunt, E. S. Liberty + Huselton, Howard E. Kansas City + Isham, W. V. Kansas City + Ismert, T. F. Kansas City + Jacobs, Floyd E. Kansas City + Jacques, W. R. Kansas City + James, H. G. Independence + James, H. L. Carrollton + James, W. K. St. Joseph + Jensen, A. Independence + Jones, Llewellyn Independence + Jones, R. Harry Kansas City + Kapp, W. C. Warrensburg + Kaufman, F. L. Kansas City + Keiser, Edward H. St. Louis + Keith, Mrs. Richard Kansas City + Kelley, J. R. Kansas City + Kemper, C. L. Cameron + Kendall, Mrs. Elmer E. Kansas City + Kent, James M. Kansas City + Kerr, John A. Independence + Kerns, Willis N. Easton + Kirshner, Chas. H. Kansas City + Kidder, R. E. Kansas City + Kiersted, Wynkoop Kansas City + Kinzer, R. J. Kansas City + Kirn, Gottfried Kansas City + Kirk, John R. Kirksville + Kirkland, E. E. Liberty + Knoop, Chas. E. Cameron + Knox, C. W. Smithton + Kryshtofovich, Theo. St. Louis + Kyle, Harry G. Kansas City + Kyle, Mrs. H. G. Kansas City + Land, Frank S. Kansas City + Latchaw, D. Austin Kansas City + Latz, Mrs. Samuel Kansas City + Laughlin, J. A. Marshall + Laurence, John A. Bolivar + Lawrence, J. H. Parkville + Lennon, L. A. Kansas City + Lewis, John S. Excelsior Springs + Lester, Mrs. John C. Kansas City + Liepsner, F. W. Kansas City + Logan, Geo. B. St. Louis + Logan, Dr. James E. Kansas City + Long, Newton Sheridan + Long, R. A. Kansas City + Lonsdale, C. W. Kansas City + Lott, Frank E. Kansas City + Loumiller, Daniel Parkville + Lowe, J. M. Kansas City + Luebemann, Geo. E. W. St. Louis + Lugbey, John R. Kansas City + Macfarlane, Mrs. G. B. Columbia + MacKesson, Mrs. J. E. Lebanon + MacKay, Malcolm Kansas City + McBlair, Geo. St. Louis + McCleary, C. G. Kansas City + McClure, Mrs. H. H. Kansas City + McClure, M. S. Kansas City + McCormick, Mrs. S. K. Kansas City + McCoun, C. T. Kansas City + McCoy, Mrs. James R. Kansas City + McCune, H. L. Kansas City + McDonell, Mrs. N. I. Kansas City + McKee, R. L. Perrin + McLain, J. K. Excelsior Springs + McKullen, Geo. M. Odessa + McMullen, O. E. Kansas City + McWilliams, E. Plattsburg + Maennes, L. T. St. Louis + Maitland, Alexander Richmond + Marshall, J. A. Kansas City + Martin, J. I. St. Louis + Martin, Joseph Lee’s Summit + Marty, A. P. Kansas City + Matthews, C. E. Webb City + Mayes, Fred St. Louis + Mayer, Morris St. Louis + Melcher, Geo. Jefferson City + Merine, Mrs. J. C. Kansas City + Merriwether, Hunter M. Kansas City + Merriwether, Mrs. H. M. Kansas City + Middlebrook, Robert B. Kansas City + Middleton, Tom Lathrop + Miller, H. D. Liberty + Miller, Mrs. Hugh Kansas City + Miller, J. Z., Jr. Kansas City + Miller, Jo Zach III Kansas City + Miller, R. E. Springfield + Miller, William Dexter + Mohr, Lewis S. Kansas City + Montgomery, J. T. Sedalia + Moore, Miss Annette Kansas City + Moore, Rev. Chas. W. Kansas City + Moore, Mrs. Philip N. St. Louis + Morgan, Mrs. Jacques Kansas City + Morton, John F. Richmond + Mosely, Geo. B. Kansas City + Mosely, Robert K. Kansas City + Mosher, Mrs. Geo. Clark Kansas City + Mosher, Dr. Geo. Kansas City + Moss, Mrs. Alice W. Kansas City + Mratz, Joe St. Louis + Mumford, F. B. Columbia + Munson, Fred S. Osceola + Murray, Samuel Kansas City + Muhlfeld, John E. Kansas City + Nalley, Miss Anna Louisiana + Nelson, C. B. Kansas City + Nickels, Mrs. W. B. Kansas City + Nichols, A. P. Kansas City + Noel, Mrs. George H. Lee’s Summit + Norris, Mrs. E. A. Joplin + O’Fallon, Samuel F. Oregon + Ohaus, Mrs. Henry Kansas City + Ohaus, Mrs. Rose M. Kansas City + Olmstead, Rev. Edwin B. Kansas City + Otto, Geo. Henry Washington + Ousley, Mrs. J. W. Kansas City + Overhoker, Dr. M. P. Nevada + Ozias, E. J. Centerview + Parry, Mrs. Thos. Wood Kansas City + Parker, Mrs. J. W. Kansas City + Parker, Miss Louise Kansas City + Paule, Herman St. Louis + Peet, Mrs. P. F. Kansas City + Peltzer, Theo. C. Kansas City + Peppard, J. G. Kansas City + Perry, J. W. Kansas City + Peters, James W. S. Kansas City + Phillips, E. D. Kansas City + Phillips, Mrs. E. T. Kansas City + Phipps, W. H. Independence + Pierce, Mrs. D. M. Kansas City + Pierson, Mrs. Kate E. Kansas City + Poland, J. W. Cameron + Pollack, Wm. Mexico + Pollord, John B. Kansas City + Porter, Pierre R. Kansas City + Porterfield, E. E. Kansas City + Prewitt, J. Allen Independence + Proctor, C. O. Strasburg + Purdon, C. D. St. Louis + Ram, W. F. Tarkio + Ratliff, Louis Moberly + Rand, R. W. Lathrop + Raupp, W. A. Pierce City + Rawlings, R. C. Kansas City + Reineke, Miss E. Blanche Kansas City + Reinnie, J. G. Stotesbury + Richardson, E. E. Kansas City + Richmond, Prof. H. M. Liberty + Ridge, Mrs. I. M. Kansas City + Risley, C. A. Cameron + Risley, D. C. H. Cameron + Robb, Judge James W. Liberty + Robinson, J. M. Kansas City + Robinson, Mrs. Mary F. Joplin + Robinson, T. M. Noel + Rock, Wm. L. Kansas City + Roeder, Geo. F. Kirkwood + Roever, Wm. H. St. Louis + Rolfes, Henry G. St. Louis + Root, W. C. Kansas City + Rose, Mrs. C. E. Kansas City + Ross, Mrs. John A. Kansas City + Rudder, J. F. St. Louis + Russell, J. B. Cameron + Russell, Joe J. Charleston + Sachs, Chas. Kansas City + Sanders, S. F. Grant City + Sankey, S. R. Holden + Schauffler, E. W. Kansas City + Schrenck, Herman von St. Louis + Schwedtman, Ferd C. St. Louis + Seeley, Mrs. H. J. S. Kansas City + Seibel, Louis L. Kansas City + Semans, Miss Gertrude Kansas City + Selber, Mitchell L. Kansas City + Shannon, E. W. Kansas City + Sharp, Judge C. Weston + Sharp, W. E. Liberty + Shelby, O. J. Joplin + Shelton, Mrs. Theo St. Louis + Simpson, C. L. Kansas City + Slater, J. Harvey Richmond + Smart, Fletcher Harrisonville + Smith, Frederick M. Independence + Smith, John T. Kansas City + Smith, M. R. Kansas City + Smith, W. B. Kansas City + Sneed, W. S. Sedalia + Stauber, R. O. St. Joseph + Steele, Wm. Holden + Sterling, Robt. E. Kansas City + Stewart, R. M. Kansas City + Storey, J. E. Kansas City + Storms, Roy L. Laredo + Stowe, Mrs. J. Kansas City + Sullivan, Michael L. Pleasant Hill + Sumner, Chas. A. Kansas City + Sweeney, E. R. Kansas City + Sweet, Mrs. C. B. Kansas City + Sweetman, M. M. Kansas City + Taylor, Rev. Carl R. Kansas City + Taylor, Isaac Kansas City + Teasdale, F. X. Louisiana + Temple, Chris Higginsville + Tharp, Mrs. F. D. Kansas City + Thayer, Mrs. W. B. Kansas City + Tibbe, A. A. Kansas City + Tippin, Geo. T. Nichols + Todd, Mrs. Gertrude T. Kansas City + Todhunter, Mrs. Ryland Lexington + Tucker, R. S. Excelsior Springs + Turner, F. H. Kansas City + Turpin, Rees Kansas City + Twichell, Jerome Kansas City + Van Brunt, John Kansas City + Van Brunt, Mrs. John Kansas City + Van Ornum, J. L. St. Louis + Wagoner, J. T. Odessa + Wagner, J. W. Kansas City + Walker, Mrs. John R. Kansas City + Walker, T. J. Harrisonville + Wall, E. E. Calhoun + Walmsley, Harry R. Kansas City + Walton, Mrs. W. E. Butler + Walton, Wm. E. Butler + Waller, Joe B. Smithville + Warren, Walter Sedalia + Wayland, Mrs. J. T. Kansas City + Weeks, D. M. F. Kansas City + Weeks, Edwin R. Kansas City + Weeks, Mrs. Edwin R. Kansas City + Welch, Mrs. Milton Kansas City + Welch, W. B. Marshall + Welsh, Mrs. J. B. Kansas City + Werkmeister, Geo. Webster Grove + Weyer, Sophia F. Kansas City + Wheeler, W. W. Clinton + White, D. F. Tarkio + White, J. B. Kansas City + Wilcox, Edw. D. Burlington Jct. + Wiles, John H. Kansas City + Williams, Lee Dexter + Williams, James Cameron + Williams, W. T. Gashland + Willison, Miss Nan Kansas City + Wilson, J. W. Kansas City + Wilson, Mrs. Richard E. Kansas City + Wingfield, J. C. Windsor + Withers, Mrs. R. S. Liberty + Wolf, Arthur L. Parkville + Wood, N. P. Independence + Woods, John B. Smithville + Woodson, Mrs. Blake L. Kansas City + Woodson, S. C. Kansas City + Woodson, A. P. Kansas City + Woodson, S. H. Independence + Wornall, Mrs. Roma Kansas City + Wright, Mrs. H. P. Kansas City + Write, James C. Smithville + Ziegenheim, Henry Cameron + + _Montana._ + + Lake, James Kalispell + O’Neil, C. I. Kalispell + + _Nebraska._ + + Burnett, E. A. Lincoln + Condra, G. E. Lincoln + Coupland, George Elgin + Covell, H. G. Plainview + Dalby, J. G. Superior + Garrett, E. O. Fremont + Gault, Mrs. A. K. Omaha + Grinstead, R. E. Salem + Grosvenor, H. Aurora + Herron, L. S. Lincoln + Hill, E. C., Sr. Dawson + Kay, David Loup + Keefe, Mrs. Harry L. Walthill + Lyford, V. G. Falls City + McBrien, J. S. Lincoln + McCoun, L. B. Omaha + Mayhew, J. M. Lincoln + Miller, Fred A. Aurora + Mudge, W. E. Dillen + Munn, H. M. Falls City + Nichols, M. V. Beatrice + Nichols, Mrs. M. V. Beatrice + Oleson, Miss M. Crowell Ord + Paine, Clarence S. Lincoln + Price, Thos. P. Dillen + Schoenauer, A. B. Plainview + Stark, U. L. Aurora + Stephens, E. F. Crete + Tanner, T. Superior + Tyler, A. A. Bellevue + Weeks, Chas. R. Peru + + _New Jersey._ + + Libbey, Mrs. Wm. Princeton + Stevens, E. A. Hoboken + + _New York._ + + Coffin, Wm. Edward New York + Mallalieu, W. E. New York + Moore, John D. New York City + Sevena, Joseph H. Kruka Park + Sheldon, A. B. Sherman + Taylor, Edw. R. Pen Yan + Van Vleck, A. A. Jameston + Wadsworth, J. W. Mt. Morris + Wilson, Warren A. New York City + Willey, Henry Ide New York City + + _Ohio._ + + Adams, A. E. Youngstown + Allen, C. H. Paulding + Courtright, John Ashville + Dyar, C. P. Marietta + Fordyce, Geo. L. Youngstown + Goddard, T. H. Wooster + Lawrence, Mrs. Elmer G. Cincinnati + Porter, W. C. Xenia + Rogers, H. C. Mechanicsburg + Secrest, Edmund Wooster + Talbot, Rev. Winthrop Cleveland + Underwood, R. A. Marietta + + _Oklahoma._ + + Ban, Archibald Claremore + Beaty, W. E. McAlester + Beard, J. T. Wagoner + Brown, Milton Guthrie + Burke, J. J. Norman + Casaver, J. C. Wagoner + Davenport, Dr. R. G. Oklahoma City + Elliott, James McAlister + Fink, D. N. Muskogee + Harrice, T. C. Wagoner + Harrice, Mrs. T. C. Wagoner + Harris, James A. Wagoner + Hudson, Kenneth Ardmore + Larsh, D. L. Norman + Mullen, J. S. Ardmore + Price, H. D. Keota + Price, J. F. Keota + Ramsay, Asa E. Muskogee + Robbins, Clay Chouteau + Roberts, O. T. Welch + Robertson, Alice M. Muskogee + Robinson, J. W. Keota + Rush, Frank Cache + Shinn, T. J. Wagoner + Smith, Thomas Muskogee + Thompson, Joe Sapulpa + Trumbo, A. C. Muskogee + Watts, Jess W. Wagoner + Watts, Mrs. Jess W. Wagoner + Wicks, John C. Guthrie + + _Oregon._ + + Allen, E. T. Portland + Kinney, M. J. Portland + + _Pennsylvania._ + + Baker, Hugh Potter State College + Cook, A. W. Cooksburg + Drinker, Henry Sturgis Lehigh + Farquhar, A. W. York + Guenther, Emil Philadelphia + McCreight, M. I. Du Bois + Oursler, Howard B. Pittsburg + Sterling, E. A. Philadelphia + Stone, Chas. W. Warren + + _South Carolina._ + + Twitchell, M. W. Columbia + + _South Dakota._ + + Culbertson, R. G. Mitchell + Heglin, Fred Centerville + Johnson, C. A. Fairfax + Newbanks, N. Pierre + Wentzy, Harry Rapid City + + _Tennessee._ + + Fisher, J. W. Newport + Moore, Herbert Memphis + Winslow, Mrs. H. M. Harriman + + _Texas._ + + Gray, W. H. Houston + Jones, W. Goodrich Temple + Landergin, P. H. Vega + Shackelford, Dr. S. S. Austin + Smith, J. A. El Paso + Spiller, E. B. Ft. Worth + Turner, Arry Amarillo + + _Utah._ + + Belliston, Wilford Nephi + Bennion, S. O. Salt Lake + Broadbent, Sylvester Heber + Hemphill, Geo. E. Salt Lake + Jones, T. Vernon Payson City + Mackay, Walter S. Salt Lake + McAlister, W. L. Salt Lake + Shumway, R. F. Tropic + + _Vermont._ + + Bailey, Geo. C. Montpelier + Goss, Frank K. Montpelier + + _Washington._ + + Llewelling, A. L. Spokane + Griggs, Everett G. Tacoma + + _Wisconsin._ + + Caples, Mrs. Byron M. Waukesha + Douglass, C. S. Fontana + Vilter, Theo. O. Milwaukee + + + + +INDEX + + + ADAMS, REV. CLAIR S., Tribute to His Work, 76 + + Agricultural College, How It Meets the Needs of the Farmer’s Wife, 128 + + Agricultural College, Kansas, 247 + + Agriculture, Commissioner of New York, Statement, 235 + + Agriculture, Government Expert in Every County, 221 + + —, Tolls on, 95 + + Agriculture, U. S. Dept of, Endorsed and Commended, xvi + + Alaska Coal Fields, on Leasing System, Urged, xv + + Alfalfa, Experience in Growing, 210 + + ALLEN, E. T., Report by, 114 + + Animal Husbandry, 234 + + ASHBY, MRS. HARRIET WALLACE, “The Farmer’s Wife.”, 121 + + Audubon Societies, Report of the National Association, 272 + + + BACHELOR, IRVING, Cited, 265 + + “Back to the Farm”, 237 + + BAILEY, GEORGE W., Address by, 148 + + BAKER, BERNARD N., Introduced, 30 + + —, Address by, 50 + + BARBER, O. C., Telegram from, 109 + + BARNARD, HARRY EVEREST, Introduced, 28 + + —, Report by, 277 + + BAUMGARTNER, J. T., Announcement, 22 + + BAUMGARTNER, J. C., of California, Address by, 274 + + BAXTER, SYLVESTER, Author of “Golden New England”, 281 + + Bayne-Blauvelt Bill, Credit for its Enactment, 266 + + —, Bills to be Pushed, 266 + + BEARD, DAN, Reference to, 265 + + BEARD. W. A., Made Temporary Chairman, 68 + + —, Address by, 78 + + BENSON, HON. F. W., Reference to Work of, 289 + + Birch Canal, Its Completion in Sight, 286 + + Bird Life, Importance of Conserving, 263 + + Birds, American Water, to Safeguard, 272 + + —, Breeding Sanctuaries on Government Reservations, 273 + + —, Educational, Campaign Among Southern Children, 273 + + —, Important Breeding Colonies, 273 + + —, Wild Insectivorous, Importance of Protecting, 263 + + Bone Meal of Commerce, 238 + + Boys and Girls and the Farm, 17 + + Boys, Place for, 40 + + Boy Scouts, Reference to, 75 + + BREEZE, FRED J., Move by, 30 + + BROWN, MAYOR DARIUS A., Address by, 1 + + BROWN, MILTON, Introduced, 68 + + —, Report by, 287 + + BROWN, MISS FRANCES, on Organizations of Farmers’ Wives, 128 + + BRYAN, W. J., Telegram from, 64 + + —, Entrance Greeted with Cheers, 193 + + —, Remarks by, 203 + + —, Address by, 220 + + + California Fruit Growers’ Exchange, 83 + + —, Report from, 274 + + Camp Fire Club of America, Represented by W. E. Coffin, 116 + + —, By its Vice-President, 265 + + CAMPBELL, H. W., Apostle of Dry Farming Cited, 252 + + Charcoal, Animal, 239 + + Charity Conference in Boston, Reference to, 136 + + Children’s Bill, in England, 42 + + Children, the Biggest Crop, 32 + + —, Versus Animals, 41 + + Child Labor Law Fallacy Exploded, 38 + + Child, the, and the Community, 36 + + Child Welfare Bureau Urged, xviii + + Church, Country, Its Effect on Economic Affairs, 258 + + —, in open Country, Best School for Farmers, 257 + + —, in the Open Country, 257 + + Cities, Instinct to Flock to, 35 + + City, Movement to, 13 + + CLENDENING, E. M., Courtesies Acknowledged by Resolutions Committee, + xx + + Clubs, the Ideal Kind, 137 + + Coal, Are Prices Prohibitive, 198 + + —, Fields, Early Opening Recommended, xv + + —, Lands, Policy of Withdrawal, 197 + + —, Royalties per ton Exacted by Colorado and Wyoming, 198 + + COBURN, F. D., Assumes the Chair, 183 + + COFFIN, WM. E., Introduced, 116 + + —, Address by, 265 + + Coöperation, Failures in, 86 + + Coöperation, Talk by W. A. Beard, 78 + + —, Twenty Years of, 82 + + —, Leads to Large Success, 79 + + —, National Trait, 80 + + —, Recommended by Resolutions Committee, xvi + + —, Rise of in America, 81 + + Coöperative Banks of Europe, 79 + + Coöperative Society, What It Is Not, 85 + + COMBS, REV. DR. GEO. HAMILTON, Invocation by, 111 + + Commercial Club, Escort to President Taft, 54 + + —, Especially Thanked by Resolutions Committee, xx + + Community Center Church, Its Scope, 259 + + Community Club, 132 + + Community Life, Its Pleasures, 165 + + CONDRA, E. A., Address by, 49 + + —, Temporary Chairman, 45 + + Congestion Problems, 32 + + Congress, More Liberality Urged, xiii + + Congress, International, of Humane Associations in London, Eng., 263 + + Conservation and the National Domain, 193 + + Conservation and Utilization, 140 + + Conservation, as Exemplified in Education, 216 + + Conservation, As Old as Mankind, 214 + + Conservation Commission in Oregon, When Appointed, 288 + + Conservation Commission of California, a Report of Its Work, 274 + + Conservation Commission of New York, Report of, 286 + + Conservation Commission, Urged for Each Commonwealth, xvi + + Conservation, Education in, 293 + + Conservation Movement, Its Organization in Pennsylvania, 291 + + —, Misunderstood and Misrepresented, 195 + + —, A Help in Showing Relation to Society, 229 + + Conservation, Not a Theory, 245 + + —, in New York Parks, 286 + + —, Its Scope, 186 + + —, in the Public Schools, 118 + + —, in South Dakota, 111 + + —, of Bird Life, 263 + + —, of Future Generations, 143 + + —, of Old Time Ancestry in Massachusetts, 281 + + —, of Material Resources in Kansas, 278 + + —, of the Farm, 234 + + —, of the Soil, 58 + + —, Pennsylvania State Branch, When Formed, 291 + + —, the Ten Commandments of, 291 + + —, What It Is Doing in Georgia, 25 + + Constitution, Amendments to, 129, 130 + + —, as Amended, ix + + Constitution of the Congress, ix + + Constructive Statesmanship, Call for, 85 + + Contagious Diseases, 144 + + Contents, Table of, v + + Corn, Deep and Shallow Cultivation, 248 + + —, Preparation of Seed Bed, 255 + + —, Susceptible to Climatic Changes, 247 + + Corporation, Development of, 14 + + Country and City Boys, 34 + + Country Child vs. the City Child, 31 + + Country Women’s Clubs, Work for, 123 + + Country Life Commission, Tribute to, 76 + + —, Discussed, 132 + + COUPLAND, HON. GEO., Representative of Nebraska, 43 + + —, Report by, 285 + + Credentials Committee, Appointment of, 21 + + —, Report, 167 + + Crop Statistics, Not Encouraging, 176 + + —, Doubling Yield, 178 + + —, European Yield Double, 209 + + —, Possibilities of Rotation, 247 + + CRUMP, COL. M. H., Remarks by, 29 + + Dairying, Certain Forms Wasteful of Fertility, 236 + + DARLINGTON, BISHOP, Cited, 291 + + Daughters American Rev. Represented, 117 + + DAY, MRS. HOLLAND C., Introduced, 28 + + —, Report of, 275 + + Deaths From Preventable Causes, 220 + + Delegates Registered, List of, 303 + + Delinquent Children, Report of, 37 + + Deer, in the Adirondacks Protected by Law, 286 + + DENEEN, GOVERNOR, the Congress Sends Greetings to, 28 + + —, Message from, 275 + + Denmark, Reforestation in, 173 + + DILLON C. J., Remarks by, 127 + + DIMOCK, A. W., Reference to, 265 + + DIX, GOVERNOR OF NEW YORK, Tribute to, 266 + + DRAPER, MRS. AMOS, Complimentary Reference to, 117 + + DRINKER, DR. HENRY S., Resolutions Committeeman from Pennsylvania, 63 + + —, Address by, 68 + + DYAR, C. P., Address on Ohio, 68 + + EDISON, Quoted on Economy of French Menage, 217 + + Education, the Most Precious Possession, 217 + + Efficiency, Increased Through Combination, 294 + + Electrochemical Society of America, 116 + + Engineering Education, Society for the Promotion of, 273 + + Executive Report, 129 + + Experiment Station, Fort Hays, 247 + + Experiment Station, Missouri, Cited, 233 + + EVANS, POWELL, Quoted, 158 + + “Farm and Fireside,” Represented, 88 + + Farm Children, Anxious for Useful Training, 74 + + —, How to Keep Sensible Young Men on, 155 + + —, Organization, 60, 124 + + —, Production, Cost of, 57 + + —, Sanitation on, 285 + + —, Social Life of, 71 + + —, to Make Attractive, 226 + + Farmer, Day’s Work of the, 122 + + —, His Comforts and Conveniences, 227 + + —, the Resources of, 192 + + Farmer’s Coöperative Demonstration, 152 + + Farmers’ Institutes, in Kansas, 278 + + Farmer’s Wife, 110, 126 + + Farmer, Wisdom to be Learned at His Feet, 156 + + Farmers’ Revolt, Greatest in History, 81 + + Farming, Appalling Waste in Essentials, 235 + + —, the Business of, 208 + + FARQUHAR, A. B., Speaks for Pennsylvania, 68 + + —, Address by, 291 + + Federal Forest Service Commended, xiii + + Fertilizer, Commercial, Produced, 299 + + —, Importation of, 102 + + —, Importance of Analysis by Reliable, Chemist, 239 + + —, Stress Laid on Intelligent Use of, 239 + + —, the Wrong Kind, 180 + + FIELD, DR. GEO. W., Introduced, 116 + + —, Address by, 263 + + FIELD, MISS JESSIE, Tribute to, 76 + + FILSON, F. M., Introduced, 152 + + —, Address by, 259 + + Fire Losses, in Life and Property, 157 + + —, Need of Federal investigation, 162 + + —, Total on Buildings, 268 + + —, Records of the Board, 268 + + Fire Marshal, State Creation of Office Urged, 269 + + Fire Prevention, A Day to Be Set Aside, 271 + + —, Waste, Conservation Efforts for Its Reduction, 267 + + —, Waste, Remarks of Walter L. Fisher on, 270 + + FISHER, WALTER L., “Conservation and the National Domain”, 193 + + —, Cited on Fire Waste, 270 + + FISHER, PROF. IRVING, Quoted, 262 + + Food, President Wallace on How to Produce Cheaply, 16 + + —, Standing Committee on Urged on the Congress, 265 + + —, Supplies, High Price of, 264 + + Forest Fires of 1910, 115 + + —, Protection, 291 + + Forest Lands, Just Taxation For, 292 + + —, Taxation, Leads to State Impoverishment, 296 + + Forest Service, Reference to, 116 + + Forests, History of, 200 + + —, Practical Methods of Restoration, 283 + + —, Yields in Europe, 171 + + Forestry Department, Its Tuberculosis Camp, 294 + + Forestry, What Massachusetts is Doing, 283 + + FOWLER, B. A., Made Chairman of Committee on Resolutions, 43 + + —, on Work of Resolutions Committee, 63 + + —, Chairman Committee on Resolutions, 211 + + Franchise, Terms on Which It Should Be Granted, 224 + + Fresh Air, the Gospel of, 298 + + Fruit, Waste of, 150 + + Game Laws, Not Evasive in New York, 287 + + Game Protective Legislation and Preserves, 265 + + Geological Survey, Investigation of Fire Loss, 267 + + GIGAULT, G. A., Quoted, 73 + + GIPE, JAMES C., Re-elected Recording Secretary, 174 + + GLAVIS, LOUIS R., Cited, 274 + + Good Roads, Extension of Movement Urged, xv + + —, in Oklahoma, 287 + + —, Movement in Minnesota, 284 + + GOULD, JAY, Reference to, 91 + + GRACE, FRED J., Introduced, 30 + + —, Address on Louisiana, 279 + + Grange, Agency of, 298 + + —, and the Farmer’s Club, 72 + + —, National, 71 + + Gravel Rock, Analysis, 241 + + GREGG, EVERITT, on Resolutions Committee for Washington, 63 + + GREENWOOD, PROF. J. M., Appointed to Represent National Educational + Association, 120 + + GRIGGS, E. G., President Nat’l Lumbermen’s Manufacturers Association, + Address by, 245 + + —, Report for N. L. M. Association, 113 + + GROSS, HOWARD H., Address by, 47 + + GROUT, A. P., “The Rape of the Soil”, 205 + + GUNTHER, EMIL, Introduced, 46 + + —, Report by, 290 + + GUTHRIE, F. A., Address by, 131 + + GUTHRIDGE, A. W., Resolutions Committeeman from Minnesota, 63 + + GREELEY, HORACE, Cited on Stripping Forests, 236 + + HADLEY, GOVERNOR HERBERT S., Address, 5 + + —, Presiding officer, 23 + + HANSEN, FRED, Tribute to His Work, 76 + + Harrowing Wheat, Use of the Weeder, 251 + + HAYS, DR. C. W., Quoted, 70 + + Health, Department of, the First Step in Conservation, 294 + + —, Owen Bill Favors Cabinet Member at Its Head, 218 + + Health, the Great Asset, 142 + + HENDRIX, RT. REV. E. R., invocation, 62 + + Highways, Necessary to a State’s Progress, 164 + + HILL, CURTIS, Address on Good Roads, 163 + + HILL, JAMES J., Reference to, 47 + + Historic Aphorism, 91 + + HOARD, EX-GOV. W. D., of Wisconsin, Address by, 234 + + Hook Worm Commission, Work of Approved, xviii + + HOLDEN, B. G., Address, 71 + + HOLMES, JOSEPH AUSTIN, Compliment to, 185 + + Homestead Law, Commutation Clause, xiv + + HOPKINS, PROF. CYRIL G., “Worn-out Soils”, 176 + + —, Quoted, 232 + + HORNADAY, DR. W. T., Reference to, 265 + + HOYNES, PROF. WM., Address by, 214 + + HUEBNER, Quoted on German Freight Policy, 96 + + Humane Association, Report of, 262 + + + Idaho, Report From, 275 + + Idleness, Danger of, 39 + + Illinois, Report From, 275 + + —, What the State is Doing in Soil Investigation, 181 + + Indiana, Report From, 277 + + Individuals, Value of, 220 + + Insanity Fading in the Lives of Farm Women, 136 + + Insurance Companies Control, 158 + + —, Rates and Fire Losses, 159 + + —, Sanitary for the Eaters of Sea Foods, 263 + + International Institute of Agriculture, Reference to, 83 + + Iowa, Report From, 277 + + Irrigation, as Demonstrated by the Work of the Reclamation Service, + 200 + + + JACKSON, FRED S., Address by, 157 + + + Kansas, Agricultural College Represented, 278 + + —, Congressman From, 157 + + —, Intemperance Lessened, 278 + + —, Its Great Corn Crop, 279 + + —, Lack of Silos a Cause of Waste in Corn, 279 + + —, Report From, 278 + + —, Work of the Experiment Stations, 247 + + KERR, REV. DR. R. M., Invocation by, 23 + + KINNEY, F. J., Resolutions Committeeman from Oregon, 63 + + + Labor A Proper Conception of Its Dignity, 227 + + Land, Changes in the Law for Settlers Urged, 201 + + —, No Change in the Nation’s Policy, 196 + + —, Values, Increase in, 154 + + Landlord System, 223 + + LATCHAW, D. AUSTIN, Re-elected Treasurer, 174 + + Lead, Arsenate of, Powerful Insecticide for Tree Pests, 282 + + Lehigh University, Represented by Its President, 69 + + LESTER, JOHN C., Address of Welcome, 4 + + —, Thanked by Resolutions Committee, xx + + LEWIS, JOHN H., His Work as State Engineer Endorsed, 288 + + LILLIS, BISHOP, Invocation by, 1 + + Lime, Value of, 103 + + LINDSAY, HON. BEN. B., Address, 31 + + Little Mother and the Fat Hog, Story of, 219 + + Live Stock Farming, 231 + + LOGAN, GEO. B., Address by, 64 + + LONG, R. A., Address by, 76 + + Louisiana, Wealth in Woods, 279 + + —, Report For, 279 + + Lumber Dealers, Wholesale, 76 + + LYLES, REV. C. S., Tribute to His Work, 76 + + + MACBRIDE, THOMAS H., Introduced, 29 + + —, Report of, 277 + + MCFARLAND, J. HORACE, Telegram from, 131 + + MCGEE, DR. W J, Address by, 183 + + MCNUTT, REV. M. B., Reference to His Work, 76 + + Machinery, Evolution of, 15 + + Mammoth Cave of Kentucky Cited as Example, xiv + + MARTIN, COL. JOHN I., Elected Sergeant-at-Arms, 21 + + —, Sergeant-at-Arms Receives Thanks of Resolutions Committee, xx + + Massachusetts, Its Coastal Boundary, 282 + + —, Its Natural Advantages, 281 + + —, One of Its Metropolitan Water Systems, 281 + + —, Report by State Forester, 281 + + Mexican Ambassador, Telegram From, 28 + + Middle West, Its Awakened Public Opinion, 136 + + Missouri, Animal Husbandry Recommended, 234 + + —, Experiment Station, Some Results, 233 + + —, Live Stock Husbandry, 232 + + —, Its Farmer Governor, 6 + + —, Pioneer in Civilization, 6 + + —, Undeveloped Resources, 7 + + —, Waterways Commission, Report by Its Secretary, 64 + + Mines, Accidents in, Less as Education Spreads, 297 + + Mineral Resources, Economy of, 292 + + Mineral Rights, Retained In Minnesota, 284 + + Minister’s Duty, in Life Work of the People, 75 + + Minnesota, on Record for Good Roads, 284 + + —, Report From, 284 + + —, What is Being Done in Conservation, 284 + + MOORE, JOHN D., Introduced, 46 + + —, Report by, 286 + + MOORE, MRS. PHILIP N., “Community Center”, 132 + + MORTON, J. STERLING, Tribute to, 285 + + Mosquito, Purveyor of Yellow Fever, 53 + + Moths, the Gypsy and Brown-Tail, Fight Against, 282 + + MULLIN, W. E., Report for National Board of Fire Underwriters, 113 + + MUMFORD, DR. FREDERICK B., Introduced, 121 + + —, Dean of the University of Missouri, Address by, 231 + + MUNRO, THE REV. DR. DONALD, Invocation, 193 + + + National Association of Credit Men, Quoted on Fire Waste, 271 + + National Association of Manufacturers, 261 + + National Audubon Society, Represented by Dr. Geo. W. Field, 116 + + —, Report of, 263 + + National Board of Fire Underwriters, by Its Committee, 267 + + —, Board of Health Urged, 147 + + —, Congress of Mothers and Parent Teachers’ Association, Report of, + 156 + + —, Conservation Congress, Urged to Greater Interest in Wild Life, 266 + + —, Educational Association, 120 + + —, Fire Protection Association, Some of Its Work, 269 + + —, Organizations at the Congress, List of, 301 + + —, Resources, Knowledge of, A Part of Educational System, 298 + + National Shell Fish Association, 263 + + National Soil Fertility League, 48 + + —, Soil Fertility League, Represented, 47 + + —, Soil Fertility League, the Plan of, 210 + + Nation, Earning Power of, Its Vital and Physical Assets, 261 + + —, the, Its Motto “Conservation”, 283 + + Natural Scenery, Value of, 292 + + Navigation, an Economical Means of Transportation, xvii + + —, and Water Power, 66 + + Nebraska, Achievement of Rural Commission and Farm Congress, 285 + + —, Report From, 285 + + NEEL, DR. S. M., Invocation, 148 + + NEILL, D. M., Introduced, 43 + + —, Report by, 284 + + New England Agriculture, Decline of, 100 + + New York, Report From, 286 + + —, the State Gridironed by Its Highway System, 286 + + Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potash, Essentials of Successful Farming, 236 + + Nominations, Committee on Appointed, 110 + + —, Report of, 174 + + NORTHROP, DR. CYRUS, Chairman, 147 + + —, Address by, 149 + + Nutritious Food, the Right to, 144 + + + Officers and Committees, i + + Ohio, Agricultural Experiment Station Cited, 180 + + —, Represented by C. P. Dyar, 68 + + Oklahoma, A Water Supply Without Federal Aid, 287 + + —, Practical Good Roads Spirit, 287 + + —, Report for, 287 + + —, Taxless Method of Dealing with Underground Water, 287 + + Oregon, Caves in Josephine County as National Monument, 289 + + —, Mineral Resources of, 289 + + —, Report for, 288 + + Organization, Growth of, 191 + + OWEN, SENATOR ROBERT L., Address by, 218 + + Ozark Regions, Conserver of Pasture, 7 + + + Panama Canal, 50 + + —, Health Its Greatest Triumph, 145 + + Parcels Post, as a Means to Reduce Cost of Living Recommended, xvi + + Pelagic Sealing, Some Credit for Its Stoppage, 266 + + Pennsylvania, Achievements of Its Department of Health, 294 + + —, and Philadelphia, Report of, 290 + + —, Dutch, Some Characteristics of, 140 + + —, Its Scenic Attractions Sources of Revenue, 298 + + —, State College, Reference to, 179 + + PENROSE, DR. CHAS. B., Work of, 294 + + Pension Roll, Evidence of Waste of Resources, 293 + + Permanent Committees, Scope Extended, 130 + + Pheasant, Chinese, Insect Destroyer, 149 + + Philadelphia, Its Commercial and Social Importance, 291 + + Phosphate, Analysis, 242 + + —, Deposits, to be Safe Guarded, xiv + + —, Iniquitous Exportation, 209 + + —, Resources, 105 + + —, Tennessee, Analysis, 243 + + —, Florida Produces Best, 237 + + —, Subdivided into Classes, 238 + + Phosphorus, a Lack of Infertile Soil, 104 + + —, its Use, 179 + + Piedro Miguel Locks of Panama Canal, 52 + + PINCHOT, GIFFORD, Appreciation of, 265 + + —, Prophet of the Forest, 184 + + —, Reminders of His Work While Forester, 289 + + —, Telegram to from the Congress, 193 + + Plowing, Experiments at Many Stations, 251 + + —, Good Rule for, 249 + + —, Relative Depths of, 250 + + —, Under Green Clover Doubtful Economy, 233 + + —, Value of Deep, 248 + + PLUNKETT, HORACE, Cited on Social Work, 138 + + Poor Preachers Out of Good Farmers, 139 + + Pollution, Stream, Value in Filtration Plants, 295 + + Population, Drift of, 12 + + —, Increase of, 56 + + Postal Savings System, 260 + + —, Its Extension to Our Schools and Its Value, 259 + + Postmasters, Assistant, Missouri Association of, 259 + + POTTER, THOS. W., Elected on Resolutions Committee from Kansas, 62 + + Practical Experiments in Child Help, 42 + + Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, 139 + + Press Thanked by Resolutions Committee, xxi + + PRICE, OVERTON W., New Book by, 298 + + Proceedings of the Congress, Supplementary, 231 + + Production, Adequate, Problem of, 9 + + —, Per Acre, 16 + + Program, Resolution to Change Future, Offered, 212 + + Public Health, a Public and Federal Obligation, 294 + + —, Land for Scenic Purposes Approved, xiv + + —, Withdrawal of for Classification, xiv + + + QUICK, HERBERT, Address by, 88 + + + RANDOLPH, COL. ISHAM, Introduced, 28 + + —, Report of, 275 + + RANE, PROF. F. W., Introduced, 44 + + —, Report of, 281 + + Railroads and the Farmer, Relations Between, 88 + + —, and Population, 107 + + —, Casualties Greater Than Civil War, 262 + + —, How They Learned, 89 + + Railway Folly, the Greatest, 109 + + Railways, Inimical to Agricultural Development, 94 + + —, Property, Appraisement of by the Government Urged, xv + + Rates and Fertilizers, 107 + + —, and Living Cost, 92 + + —, Tapering, 97 + + —, Texas System of, 99 + + Reception for Mrs. Matthew T. Scott by D. A. R. Announced, 22 + + Reclamation Service, Endorsed, xv + + —, What the Real Thing Means, 182 + + —, Work of in Irrigation, 200 + + Reforestation, New York’s Six State Nurseries, 286 + + —, Will Come When Profitable, 246 + + Religion, a Valuation of Life, 257 + + —, Forward Movement, 77 + + Resolutions, Adopted by the Third Congress, xiii + + —, Committee, Expresses Appreciation, xx + + —, Committee, Members of, 211 + + —, Report, Adoption of, 212 + + Resources, Agricultural, 292 + + Restoration of Natural Resources, an Ally of Conservation, 283 + + RICHTER, ALBERT, Quoted, 237 + + Rochdale Society of England, 80 + + ROOSEVELT, Humanitarian and Statesman, 185 + + —, Colonel, Letter Accounting for Absence from the Congress, 205 + + —, President, quoted, 70, 72 + + —, Theodore, letter from, 113 + + ROYER, Chief Medical Inspector, Quoted on Department of Health, 294 + + Rural Clubs, Plan of, 73 + + Rural Communities, Women of, 132 + + —, Life, Modern Conveniences of, 134 + + —, Life, Drawbacks to, 133 + + —, Society, 76 + + RUSHTON, W. J., Introduced, 113 + + —, President American Association Refrigeration, Address by, 264 + + + SANDERS, GOVERNOR J. Y., of Louisiana, Reference to, 279 + + Sanitation, Under Federal Direction Approved, xvii + + Schools, Plea for the Basic Subsidiary, 235 + + SCHWEDTMAN, FERDINAND G., Introduced, 116 + + —, Chairman N. A. M., Address by, 261 + + SCOTT, MRS. MATTHEW T., Address by, 125 + + Seed Bed, New Method of Preparing, 251 + + —, Preparing by Disking, 254 + + SETON, ERNEST THOMPSON, Reference to, 265 + + Sewage, Dumping into Streams Deplored, xviii + + —, Its Menace and Its Wasted Values, 263 + + —, What Boston Paid to Put it in the Ocean, 264 + + SHEPPARD, DR. C. W., Cited, 241 + + SHIPP, THOMAS R., Reëlected Secretary, 174 + + —, Secretary, Appreciation of Expressed, xx + + SHOFFER, JOHN C., Remarks by, 212 + + SMITH, J. B., on Resolutions Committee for Texas, 63 + + SMITH, J. LAWRENCE, Cited, 241 + + Soil, Analysis, 241 + + —, Conservation, Rational System of, 231 + + —, Conservation, Not Successful Unless Profitable, 233 + + —, Depletion, 101 + + —, Erosion, Its Remedy, xv + + —, Exhausted by Generation of Peach Culture, 257 + + —, Fertility, 231 + + —, Increasing Yield by Proper Cultivation, 247 + + —, Its Maintenance, 206 + + —, Its Robbers, 210 + + —, Rape of, 205 + + —, Reaping the Harvest of Blind Persistence in Tradition, 207 + + —, Reclaimed and Made Profitable, 232 + + —, Waste of Raw Material, 207 + + —, Waste, 220 + + Soils, Worn Out, 170 + + Song Dedicated to President Taft by Dr. Hiner, 54 + + South Carolina, Drainage of Its Swamp Lands, 299 + + —, How it is Helping Conservation, 299 + + —, Improvements in Rural Life, 299 + + —, Report of, 299 + + Spanish War, Some Tragic Phases of, 218 + + SPILLMAN, PROF. W. J., Address by, 152 + + State and Nation, Conflict Between, 223 + + States, Roll Call of, 63 + + STEVENS, EDWARD A., Address by, 44 + + STILLMAN, WM. O., Address by, 262 + + STUBBS, A. W., Remarks of, 29 + + —, Resolution offered, 212 + + Sulphur, Mined by Novel Process, 280 + + Swamp Land Reclamation, Need of, 8 + + + TAFT, President, Address by, 55 + + —, Message to Congress Quoted, 70 + + —, Quoted on Anti-Trust Law, 70 + + Tariff Issues, Settled Only When Business Integrity Governs, 245 + + TAYLOR, EDWARD R., Introduced, 116 + + Taxation, a Foe to Timber Holding, 245 + + TEN EYCK, PROFESSOR A. M., “Practical Methods of Soil Cultivation”, + 193 + + —, of Kansas Agricultural College, Address by, 247 + + TEAL, JOSEPH N., Address by, 288 + + Testing Materials, Society for, Represented, 273 + + TOLERTON, Honorable JESSE A., Complimentary Reference to, 149 + + Timber Cutting in Europe, 168 + + —, Resources, Value of, 245 + + —, Should be Taxed Only When Cut, 296 + + Toll, the Necessity for, 228 + + TOLSTOI, Quoted on Labor, 227 + + Tonnage, Dominance of, 90 + + Transportation, Value of Easy, 93 + + Tree Planting by Rotation, 169 + + Trees, Modern Power Spraying, 282 + + Tuberculosis, Its Segregation, 145 + + —, State Sanitorium for at Mont Alto, 295 + + TWITCHELL, Dr. M. W., Introduced, 47 + + —, Report by, 296 + + Typhoid Fever vs. Pure Water, 299 + + + VAN ORNUM, J. L., Letter from, 273 + + VESSEY, Governor R. S., Made Chairman, Address by, 111 + + VROOMAN, Mrs. CARL, Address by, 117 + + + University of Missouri, Represented by Its Dean, Dr. MUMFORD, 121 + + + WALLACE, President, Address by, 11 + + —, Thanks the Congress, 174 + + —, ex-President, Thanked by Resolutions Committee, xx + + WALLACE, DILLON, Reference to, 265 + + Water and Power, Resources in California, 274 + + —, Importance of as Plant Food, 238 + + —, Its Impounding, 225 + + Water Power, 201 + + —, Sacrificed to Lax Laws, 297 + + Water, Supervision of Its Use by Corporations, 292 + + —, Supply and Agriculture, 65 + + —, Supply, the Nation’s, 222 + + —, Supply, Purified, 291 + + —, the Important Problem, 196 + + Watercourses, as a Public Resource, 292 + + Waters, Belong to All the People, xvii + + WATERS, Dean H. J., Elected President of Kansas Delegation, 29 + + —, of the State Agricultural College, Report of, 278 + + WEEKS, Mrs. E. R., Address by, 136 + + WELLER, Miss MAME E., Talk on Federation of Iowa Women’s Clubs, 130 + + Western Forestry and Conservation Association, 114 + + WHARTON, WM. P., Report of, 272 + + —, Resolutions Committeeman from Massachusetts, 63 + + Wheat, How to Prepare Seed Bed, 253 + + —, Its Protection From Adjacent Fields, 252 + + WHITE, Honorable JOHN B., Address by, 17 + + —, Chairman Executive Committee, 19 + + —, Assumes Chair, 87 + + —, Report of Executive Committee, 129 + + —, “Lumber in Europe”, 167 + + —, Elected President, 174 + + —, Address of, 175 + + Wild Bird Plumage, Campaign Against Sale of, 266 + + —, Life Depletion, More Stringent Measures Urged, xix + + —, Life, in Forest and Stream, 292 + + —, Life Protection, 265 + + WILLEY, HENRY IDE, of New York, Address by, 237 + + WILEY, Dr. H. W., Address by, 139 + + WILSON, WARREN H., Introduced, 139 + + —, Superintendent Board of Home Missions, Address by, 257 + + WILSON, Secretary, Quoted, 92 + + WOLFE, HENRY W., Quoted, 79 + + WORSHAM, Professor E. L., Report by, 24 + + + Yellow Pine Manufacturers, 76 + + * * * * * + + R. A. LONG, Pres. and Gen’l Mgr. + C. B. SWEET, Vice Pres. and Asst Gen’l Mgr. + F. J. BANNISTER, Secretary-Treasurer + M. B. NELSON, Gen’l Sales Manager + +The Long-Bell Lumber Co. + +General Offices: 8th and 9th Floors R. A. Long Building + +Kansas City, Mo. + +Manufacturers of + +LONG AND SHORT LEAF + +YELLOW PINE LUMBER + +Annual Capacity, 550,000,000 Feet + + Eleven Modern Saw Mills + + Located at + + YELLOW PINE, LA. + DE RIDDER, LA. + LUFKIN, TEXAS + WOODWORTH, LA. + BONAMI, LA. + DOUCETTE, TEX. + LONGVILLE, LA. + NEW WILLARD, TEX. + LAKE CHARLES, LA. + TRINITY, TEX. + PINE BLUFF, ARK. + + Equipped with 23 Bands, 8 Gangs, 2 Circulars. + + Planing Mill Capacity to take care of entire product of sawmills + + 100,000,000 feet mixed Yard Stock in Pile. + +Railroad Material. We can surface timbers 4 sides up to 20″×30″, making +a specialty of Stringers, Caps, Ties, Guard Rails, Siding, Lining and +Roofing. + +Export Material. We are large producers of 1×4″ and 6″ Prime Floorings, +1×4″ Heart Rift Ship Decking and Crown and Prime schedules for the +European market. + +Coast Products. We solicit inquiries for all grades of the best Red Cedar +Shingles and Siding, Fir Timbers and Yard Stock, also Spruce Lumber. +Shingles in transit for prompt delivery at all times. We Ship the Product +of Our Own Mills Only. + +Yellow Pine Box Shook Factory, Bonami, La. and Pine Bluff, Ark. + + W. M. BEEBE, Mgr. Y. P. Sales Dept. + L. R. FIFER, Mgr. P. S. Sales Dept. + + * * * * * + +Missouri and Louisiana Pine + +from LOUISIANA MILLS, at + + Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Co., Fisher, La., } Ships over Kansas City + Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Co., Victoria, La., } Southern & Tex. Pacific + Louisiana Central Lumber Co., Clarks, La., } Ships over St. Louis, + Louisiana Central Lumber Co., Standard, La., } Iron Mountain & South’n + +and MISSOURI MILLS + + Missouri Lumber & Mining Co., West Eminence, Mo., } Ships over + Ozark Land & Lumber Co., Winona, Mo. } Frisco Lines + +NINE MILLS + +250,000,000 FEET ANNUAL CAPACITY + +OUR FISHER, LOUISIANA, MILL HAS + +Excellent Facilities For Shipping Their + +End Matched + +Hollow Backed + +Bored and Bundled + +Oak flooring + +Diamond ◆ Brand + +It is carefully and accurately worked. Thoroughly kiln-dried. Bundled and +tied with a patent wire BALING TIE THAT CANNOT SLIP OFF. + +The product of a High Class Modern Oak Flooring Mill. + +We Will Ship Our Oak Flooring in Straight Cars or Mixed With Our Yellow +Pine. + +Address all communications to + + Missouri Lumber & Land Exchange Co. + 1107 to 1112 Long Building, Kansas City, Mo. + + * * * * * + +Southern Yellow Pine—successfully fulfills more building requirements +than any other wood + +For Residences of All Classes, City and Country Houses, Bungalows. + +The peer of any wood used for interior trim or flooring. Handsome in +appearance, easily finished at minimum cost; painted or enameled. + +The most economical wood in price as well as in service. + +Durable Weatherboarding, House, Garage or Barn + +Wears Well, Costs Less, Holds Paint to Entire Satisfaction + +Cost and Adaptability to the intended use govern the amount and kind +of lumber, therefore as a framing or dimension lumber, or for use in +store or factory construction, no other wood excels it in strength, +availability or cost. Essential in every modern home. + +Its appearance stands comparison with selected oak, and other hard woods, +and gives as good service. + +Farm Use. + +For posts, fencing, sheds, barns, silos, tanks, shingles, floors, +planking. + +A good, sound timber—free from defects—hard, dense, flexible, straight in +the grain. There is every good reason for its use in buildings of every +class. + +Write and tell us your needs. We will tell you what to ask for and where +to get it. + + Yellow Pine Manufacturers’ Association + 707 Wright Bldg. St. Louis, Mo. + + * * * * * + +Central Coal & Coke Co. + +LUMBER Department + +ANNUAL CAPACITY 200,000,000 FEET + +LONG LEAF + +from our mills at + +Neame and Carson, La. + +SHORT LEAF + +from our mills at + +Ratcliff, Tex. Boleyn, La. + + GENERAL SALES OFFICE: + Keith & Perry Building, + KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI + + Eastern Sales Office: + INDIANAPOLIS, IND. + + Southwestern Sales Office: + HOUSTON, TEXAS. + + * * * * * + + EDWARD HINES, President + L. L. BARTH, Vice-President + C. F. WIEHE, Secretary + M. W. TEUFEL, Ass’t to President + T. F. TOOMEY, Ass’t to Vice-President + EDWARD H. THOMAS, Ass’t Treasurer + +EDWARD HINES LUMBER COMPANY, + +LINCOLN STREET, SOUTH OF BLUE ISLAND AVENUE, CHICAGO. + +HEADQUARTERS FOR EVERY THING IN LUMBER + +LARGEST LUMBER YARDS IN THE WORLD + +[Illustration: BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE LARGEST LUMBER YARD IN THE WORLD + +Bird’s-eye view taken from tower 200 feet high, showing our three large +yards, covering over 45 acres and a water frontage of over one mile. The +piling shown just opposite locomotive (over 1000 in number) are 60 feet +long and appear like a bundle of matches, giving you a comparative idea +of the enormous size of our plant.] + +Timbers in stock up to 20×20-100 ft. Shingles and Lath in mixed cars +from Chicago or full cars direct from our Northern mills. Inch and two +inch Hard Maple for Warehouse Driveways, Coal Yards, Lumber Yards, Grain +Elevators, etc., also for Crating and Packing purposes. + + Western Union and Postal Wires direct to our office. + PROMPT SERVICE ASSURED. + TELEPHONE “CANAL” 349. + + * * * * * + +HE WHO USES CYPRESS BUILDS BUT ONCE + +[Illustration: CYPRESS “THE WOOD ETERNAL”] + +[Illustration: CYPRESS DEFIES DECAY] + +[Illustration: CYPRESS AVERTS REPAIR BILLS] + +You know the ancient fame of CYPRESS but do you know its uses _today_, +and their significance to _you_? + +CYPRESS is _the_ wood of Scriptural history, and of romance; CYPRESS +was the mystic wood of mythology—and it was the reliance of the sturdy +builders of early America; CYPRESS always has been a magnet for those +who have wrought sentiment and beauty into useful things—and CYPRESS is +_today_ the _staple wood_ of the hard-headed calculating buyer who seeks +the most _lasting_ values for his lumber-money. + +This concerns _YOU_—if you like to avoid repair bills on anything made of +wood. + +It was of CYPRESS, according to Pliny, that the famous statue of Jupiter +was carved; it existed more than six centuries without a sign of decay. + +The historic Gates of Constantinople were of CYPRESS; they were on duty +for eleven centuries without a furlough. + +The CYPRESS doors of ancient St. Peter’s, in Rome, were in a state of +perfect preservation when removed by Eugenius IV; they had been swinging +on the faithful for twelve centuries. + +The only Egyptian mummies that survive intact and unblemished are those +whose executors filed them in CYPRESS receptacles. + +To bring the record nearer home—there was Thomas Lyon, who in 1640 built +him a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. He put CYPRESS shingles on its +roof and sides. With no exterior repairs of consequence, this house is +today occupied as a residence. + +THIS WAS AMERICAN CYPRESS—the kind we own and cut and are selling you. + +CYPRESS is in truth “the wood eternal.” He who uses Cypress builds but +once. + +If you are putting up a palace or a pasture-fence, and want to build it +“for keeps”—USE CYPRESS. + +There is a liberal education (and a wonderful INVESTMENT value for you) +in the CYPRESS advertising—and in the detailed information and reliable +counsel to be had promptly, WITHOUT COST, if you will WRITE US YOUR OWN +NEEDS (big or little), and ASK YOUR OWN QUESTIONS of the “All-round Helps +Department” of the + + Southern Cypress Manufacturers’ Association + 1219 HIBERNIA BANK BUILDING, NEW ORLEANS, LA. + +[Illustration: CYPRESS “THE WOOD ETERNAL” + +CYPRESS DEFIES DECAY + +CYPRESS AVERTS REPAIR BILLS + +CYPRESS LASTS PRACTICALLY FOREVER + +CYPRESS “THE WOOD ETERNAL”] + +Probably your lumber man sells CYPRESS; if not, _WRITE US_, and we will +tell you the dealer handiest to you + + * * * * * + +RED GUM + +AMERICA’S FINEST HARDWOOD + +Three years ago the architect or builder would have had a hard time to +find any building of importance in the United States in which the owner +had been courageous enough to use RED GUM trim. + +Today there are thousands of apartment houses, banks, hotels, office +buildings and fine residences from New York to Frisco in which RED GUM +has been deliberately chosen for the trim because of its great beauty and +_entire practicability_. + +RED GUM is no longer a competing wood for luxurious interiors. + +RED GUM is now _FIRST CHOICE_ with people of _selective taste_. + +_SAP_ GUM + +Where White Enamel trim is required, SAP GUM is _the ideal material_. +Not only does it _take_ and _hold_ white enamel _better than any other +wood_, but it is possible to get good SAP GUM cheaper than any other wood +hitherto used for white enamel woodwork. + +SAP GUM presents remarkable qualities where moderate priced trim of +good appearance is desired. Another field in which SAP GUM has reached +supremacy is in the manufacture of porch columns. + +SAP GUM takes stains and wood dyes beautifully, and all the popular +finishes are easily reproduced in SAP GUM. + +_Write any firm below for Samples of Red Gum and Sap Gum both rough and +finished, and for market prices of selected Gum Lumber._ + + Himmelberger-Harrison Lumber Company, Cape Girardeau, Missouri + Charles F. Luehrmann Hardwood Lumber Co., St. Louis, Missouri + Carrier Lumber & Mfg. Company Sardis, Mississippi + Three States Lumber Company Memphis, Tennessee + Lamb-Fish Lumber Company Charleston, Mississippi + Baker Lumber Co. Turrell, Arkansas + Anderson-Tully Co. Memphis, Tennessee + + PRESS OF + F. P. BURNAP STA. & PTG. CO. + KANSAS CITY, MO. + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78622 *** diff --git a/78622-h/78622-h.htm b/78622-h/78622-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b50fa71 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/78622-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,26315 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Proceedings of the Third National Conservation Congress | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +a { + text-decoration: none; +} + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4 { + text-align: center; + clear: both; +} + +h2.nobreak { + page-break-before: avoid; +} + +hr.chap { + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + clear: both; + width: 65%; + margin-left: 17.5%; + margin-right: 17.5%; +} + +img.w100 { + width: 100%; +} + +div.chapter { + page-break-before: always; +} + +ul { + list-style-type: none; +} + +li, li.indx { + margin-top: .5em; + padding-left: 2em; + text-indent: -2em; +} + +li.ifrst { + margin-top: 2em; 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J. B. White</span>, President</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ii">[ii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OFFICERS_AND_COMMITTEES_1910">OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES<br> +FOR 1910-11</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="max40"> + +<p class="center"><i>President</i><br> +<span class="smcap">Henry Wallace</span>, Des Moines</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Executive Secretary</i><br> +<span class="smcap">Thomas R. Shipp</span>, Washington, D. C.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Treasurer</i><br> +<span class="smcap">D. Austin Latchaw</span>, Kansas City, Mo.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Recording Secretary</i><br> +<span class="smcap">James C. Gipe</span>, Clarks, La.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Executive Committee</i></p> + +<ul> + <li><span class="smcap">J. B. White</span>, Kansas City, Mo., <i>Chairman</i></li> + <li><span class="smcap">B. N. Baker</span>, Baltimore</li> + <li><span class="smcap">L. H. Bailey</span>, Ithaca</li> + <li><span class="smcap">James R. Garfield</span>, Cleveland</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Frank C. Goudy</span>, Denver</li> + <li><span class="smcap">W. A. Fleming Jones</span>, Las Cruces</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Mrs. Philip N. Moore</span>, Saint Louis</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Walter H. Page</span>, New York</li> + <li><span class="smcap">George C. Pardee</span>, Oakland, Cal.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Gifford Pinchot</span>, Washington, D. C.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">J. N. Teal</span>, Portland, Ore.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">E. L. Worsham</span>, Atlanta</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"><i>Vice-Presidents</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Alabama</span>, Hon. Albert P. Bush, Mobile; <span class="smcap">Alaska</span>, Hon. James Wickersham, Fairbanks; +<span class="smcap">Arizona</span>, B. A. Fowler, Phenix; <span class="smcap">Arkansas</span>, A. H. Purdue, Fayetteville; <span class="smcap">California</span>, E. H. +Cox, San Francisco; <span class="smcap">Colorado</span>, Murdo Mackenzie, Trinidad; <span class="smcap">Columbia</span> (District of), W J +McGee, Washington; <span class="smcap">Connecticut</span>, Rollin S. Woodruff, Hartford; <span class="smcap">Delaware</span>, Hon. George +Gray, Wilmington; <span class="smcap">Florida</span>, Cromwell Gibbons, Jacksonville; <span class="smcap">Georgia</span>, Hon. Jno. C. Hart, +Union Point; <span class="smcap">Hawaii</span>, Mrs. Margaret R. Knudsen, Kauai; <span class="smcap">Idaho</span>, James A. McLean, +University of Idaho; <span class="smcap">Illinois</span>, Julius Rosenwald, Chicago; <span class="smcap">Indiana</span>, F. J. Breeze, Lafayette; +<span class="smcap">Iowa</span>, Carl Leopold, Burlington; <span class="smcap">Kansas</span>, W. R. Stubbs, Topeka; <span class="smcap">Kentucky</span>, James +K. Patterson, Lexington; <span class="smcap">Louisiana</span>, Newton C. Blanchard, Shreveport; <span class="smcap">Maine</span>, Bert M. +Fernald, Augusta; <span class="smcap">Maryland</span>, William Bullock Clark, Baltimore; <span class="smcap">Massachusetts</span>, Frank +W. Rane, Boston; <span class="smcap">Michigan</span>, J. L. Snyder, Lansing; <span class="smcap">Minnesota</span>, Ambrose Tighe, Saint +Paul; <span class="smcap">Mississippi</span>, A. W. Shands, Sardis; <span class="smcap">Missouri</span>, Hermann Von Schrenk, Saint Louis; +<span class="smcap">Montana</span>, E. L. Norris, Helena; <span class="smcap">Nebraska</span>, Dr. F. A. Long, Madison; <span class="smcap">Nevada</span>, Senator +Francis G. Newlands, Reno; <span class="smcap">New Hampshire</span>, George B. Leighton, Monadnock; <span class="smcap">New +Jersey</span>, Charles Lathrop Pack, Lakewood; <span class="smcap">New Mexico</span>, W. A. Fleming Jones, Las Cruces; +<span class="smcap">New York</span>, R. A. Pearson, Albany; <span class="smcap">North Carolina</span>, T. Gilbert Pearson, Greensboro; +<span class="smcap">North Dakota</span>, U. G. Larimore, Larimore; <span class="smcap">Ohio</span>, James R. Garfield, Cleveland; <span class="smcap">Oklahoma</span>, +Benj. Martin, Jr., Muskogee; <span class="smcap">Oregon</span>, J. N. Teal, Portland; <span class="smcap">Pennsylvania</span>, William +S. Harvey, Philadelphia; <span class="smcap">Philippine Islands</span>, Maj. George P. Ahern, Manila; <span class="smcap">Porto Rico</span>, +Hon. Walter K. Landis, San Juan; <span class="smcap">Rhode Island</span>, Henry A. Barker, Providence; <span class="smcap">South +Carolina</span>, E. J. Watson, Columbia; <span class="smcap">South Dakota</span>, Ellwood C. Perisho, Vermillion; +<span class="smcap">Tennessee</span>, Herman Suter, Nashville; <span class="smcap">Texas</span>, W. Goodrich Jones, Temple; <span class="smcap">Utah</span>, Harden +Bennion, Salt Lake City; <span class="smcap">Vermont</span>, Fletcher D. Proctor, Proctor; <span class="smcap">Virginia</span>, A. R. Turnbull, +Norfolk; <span class="smcap">Washington</span>, M. E. Hay, Olympia; <span class="smcap">West Virginia</span>, A. B. Fleming, Fairmont; +<span class="smcap">Wisconsin</span>, Charles R. Van Hise, Madison; <span class="smcap">Wyoming</span>, Bryant B. Brooks, Cheyenne; +<span class="smcap">National Conservation Association</span>, Gifford Pinchot, Washington.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Standing Committees</i></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Forests</span>—H. S. Graves, U. S. Forester, Washington, D. C., <i>Chairman</i>; E. M. Griffith, +Madison, Wis.; E. T. Allen, Portland, Ore.; J. Lewis Thompson, Houston.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Lands</span>—Governor W. R. Stubbs, Topeka; <i>Chairman</i>; Dwight B. Heard, Phenix; J. L. +Snyder, Lansing; Murdo Mackenzie, Trinidad; Charles S. Barrett, Union City, Ga.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Waters</span>—W J McGee, Washington, D. C., <i>Chairman</i>; E. A. Smith, Spokane; Henry A. +Barker, Providence; J. N. Teal, Portland, Ore.; Herbert Knox Smith, Washington, D. C.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Minerals</span>—Charles R. Van Hise, Madison, <i>Chairman</i>; Joseph A. Holmes, Washington, +D. C.; D. W. Brunton, Denver; John Mitchell, New York; I. C. White, Morgantown, +W. Va.</p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Vital Resources</span>—Dr. William H. Welch, Baltimore, <i>Chairman</i>; Professor Irving +Fisher, New Haven; Dr. H. W. Wiley, Washington, D. C.; Dr. J. H. Kellogg, Battle Creek, +Mich.; Walter H. Page, New York.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iii">[iii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OFFICERS_AND_COMMITTEES_1911">OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES<br> +FOR 1911-12.</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="max40"> + +<p class="center"><i>President</i><br> +<span class="smcap">John B. White</span>, Kansas City, Mo.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Executive Secretary</i><br> +<span class="smcap">Thomas R. Shipp</span>, Washington, D. C.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Treasurer</i><br> +<span class="smcap">D. Austin Latchaw</span>, Kansas City, Mo.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Recording Secretary</i><br> +<span class="smcap">James C. Gipe</span>, Clarks, La.</p> + +<p class="center"><i>Executive Committee.</i></p> + +<ul> + <li><span class="smcap">Prof. E. Lee Worsham</span>, Atlanta, Ga., <i>Chairman</i>.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">J. Lewis Thompson</span>, Houston, Tex.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">W. A. Fleming Jones</span>, Las Cruces, N. M.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Walter H. Page</span>, New York.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Ex-Gov. George C. Pardee</span>, Oakland, Cal.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Dr. H. E. Barnard</span>, Indianapolis, Ind.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Mrs. Philip N. Moore</span>, St. Louis, Mo.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Bernard N. Baker</span>, Baltimore, Md.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Dr. Henry C. Wallace</span>, Des Moines, Ia.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">Gifford Pinchot</span>, Washington, D. C.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"><i>Vice-Presidents.</i></p> + +<ul> + <li><i>Arkansas</i>, <span class="smcap">E. N. Plank</span>, Decatur.</li> + <li><i>California</i>, <span class="smcap">Francis Cuttle</span>, Riverside.</li> + <li><i>Colorado</i>, <span class="smcap">I. S. T. Gregg</span>, Golden.</li> + <li><i>Connecticut</i>, <span class="smcap">Prof. J. W. Towney</span>, Hartford.</li> + <li><i>District of Columbia</i>, <span class="smcap">Dr. H. W. Wiley</span>.</li> + <li><i>Florida</i>, <span class="smcap">T. J. Campbell</span>, West Palm Beach.</li> + <li><i>Georgia</i>, <span class="smcap">Senator L. R. Akin</span>.</li> + <li><i>Illinois</i>, <span class="smcap">Ballard Dunn</span>, Chicago.</li> + <li><i>Iowa</i>, <span class="smcap">Prof. P. G. Holden</span>, Ames.</li> + <li><i>Louisiana</i>, <span class="smcap">Hon. Henry E. Hardtner</span>, Urania.</li> + <li><i>Massachusetts</i>, <span class="smcap">Prof. F. W. Rane</span>, Boston.</li> + <li><i>Missouri</i>, <span class="smcap">Herman von Schrenk</span>, St. Louis.</li> + <li><i>Nebraska</i>, <span class="smcap">Prof. E. A. Burnett</span>, Lincoln.</li> + <li><i>New Jersey</i>, <span class="smcap">E. A. Stevens</span>, Hoboken.</li> + <li><i>New York</i>, <span class="smcap">Dr. W. T. Hornaday</span>, New York City.</li> + <li><i>Ohio</i>, <span class="smcap">J. C. Rodgers</span>, Mechanicsburg.</li> + <li><i>Oklahoma</i>, <span class="smcap">Thomas C. Harrice</span>, Wagoner.</li> + <li><i>South Carolina</i>, <span class="smcap">Prof. M. W. Twitchell</span>, Columbia.</li> + <li><i>South Dakota</i>, <span class="smcap">Gov. R. S. Vessey</span>, Pierre.</li> + <li><i>Texas</i>, <span class="smcap">W. Goodrich Jones</span>, Temple.</li> + <li><i>Washington</i>, <span class="smcap">A. L. Flewelling</span>, Spokane.</li> + <li><i>Wisconsin</i>, <span class="smcap">Herbert Quick</span>, Madison.</li> +</ul> + +<p><i>Local Board of Managers for Kansas City Congress Representing Commercial +Club</i>—<span class="smcap">J. C. Lester</span>, <i>President</i>; <span class="smcap">E. M. Clendening</span>, <i>Secretary</i>; <span class="smcap">F. P. Neal</span>, <i>Chairman</i>; +<span class="smcap">F. A. Faxon</span>, <span class="smcap">F. L. Hall</span>, <span class="smcap">W. B. Hill</span>, <span class="smcap">F. J. Moss</span>, <span class="smcap">J. C. Swift</span>, + <span class="smcap">R. A. Long</span>.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="STANDING_COMMITTEES">STANDING COMMITTEES.<br> +1911-12.</h2> + +</div> + +<div class="max40"> + +<p><i>Forests</i>—<span class="smcap">H. S. Graves</span>, Washington, D. C., <i>Chairman</i>; <span class="smcap">E. T. Allen</span>, Portland, +Ore.; Major <span class="smcap">E. G. Griggs</span>, Tacoma, Wash.; <span class="smcap">William Irvine</span>, Chippewa Falls, Wis.; +<span class="smcap">George K. Smith</span>, St. Louis.</p> + +<p><i>Minerals</i>—Dr. <span class="smcap">Joseph A. Holmes</span>, Washington, D. C., <i>Chairman</i>; Dr. <span class="smcap">Charles +R. Van Hise</span>, Madison, Wis.; Dr. <span class="smcap">I. C. White</span>, Morgantown, W. Va.; <span class="smcap">C. W. +Brunton</span>, Denver, Col.; <span class="smcap">John Mitchell</span>, New York City.</p> + +<p><i>Lands and Agriculture</i>—Prof. <span class="smcap">L. H. Bailey</span>, Cornell University, <i>Chairman</i>; +Prof. <span class="smcap">George E. Condra</span>, Nebraska; Prof. <span class="smcap">J. L. Snyder</span>, Lansing, Mich.; <span class="smcap">F. D. +Coburn</span>, Kansas; <span class="smcap">Charles S. Barrett</span>, Union City, Ga.</p> + +<p><i>Education</i>—Dr. <span class="smcap">C. E. Bessey</span>, Lincoln, Neb., <i>Chairman</i>; Dr. <span class="smcap">David Starr Jordan</span>, +Leland Stanford University, Oakland, Cal.; Dr. <span class="smcap">Edward E. Alderman</span>, University +Of Virginia, Charlotteville; Dr. <span class="smcap">E. C. Craighead</span>, Tulane University, New Orleans, +La.; Prof. <span class="smcap">Fairchild</span>, Topeka, Kas.</p> + +<p><i>Vital Resources</i>—Dr. <span class="smcap">William H. Welch</span>, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, +Md., <i>Chairman</i>; Prof. <span class="smcap">Irving Fisher</span>, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.; Dr. <span class="smcap">J. N. +Hurty</span>, Indianapolis, Ind.; Hon. <span class="smcap">A. B. Farquhar</span>, York, Pa.; Dr. <span class="smcap">Oscar Dowling</span>, +Shreveport, La.</p> + +<p><i>Homes</i>—Mrs. <span class="smcap">Matthew T. Scott</span>, Washington, <i>Chairman</i>; Mrs. <span class="smcap">Harriet +Wallace Ashby</span>, Des Moines, Ia.; Mrs. <span class="smcap">J. E. Rhodes</span>, St. Paul, Minn.; Mrs. <span class="smcap">Sarah +S. Platt-Decker</span>, Denver, Col.; Mrs. <span class="smcap">Amos F. Draper</span>, Washington, D. C.</p> + +<p><i>Child Life</i>—Hon. <span class="smcap">Benjamin B. Lindsay</span>, Denver, Col., <i>Chairman</i>; Dr. <span class="smcap">Samuel +M. Lindsay</span>, New York City; Judge <span class="smcap">Henry L. McCune</span>, Kansas City, Mo.; Mrs. +<span class="smcap">Carl Vrooman</span>, Bloomington, Ill.; Dr. <span class="smcap">Anna Louise Strong</span>, Seattle, Wash.</p> + +<p><i>Food</i>—Dr. <span class="smcap">Harvey W. Wiley</span>, Washington, D. C., <i>Chairman</i>; <span class="smcap">F. G. Urner</span>, New +York; Prof. <span class="smcap">F. Spencer Baldwin</span>, Boston, Mass.; <span class="smcap">J. F. Nickerson</span>, Chicago, Ill.; +<span class="smcap">Lucius P. Brown</span>, Nashville, Tenn.; <span class="smcap">E. H. Jenkins</span>, New Haven, Conn.; <span class="smcap">M. A. +Scovelle</span>, Lexington, Ky.; Prof. <span class="smcap">Geo. A. Loveland</span>, Lincoln, Neb.</p> + +<p><i>Civics</i>—<span class="smcap">Ralph Easley</span>, New York, <i>Chairman</i>; Judge <span class="smcap">Albert Hall Whitfield</span>, +Jackson, Miss.; <span class="smcap">B. A. Fowler</span>, Phoenix, Ariz.; Hon. <span class="smcap">H. M. Beardsley</span>, Kansas +City, Mo.; Hon. <span class="smcap">Francis J. Heney</span>, San Francisco, Cal.</p> + +<p><i>General</i> (<i>Including Domestic Animals and Wild Life</i>)—Dr. <span class="smcap">W. T. Hornaday</span>, +New York, <i>Chairman</i>; Dr. <span class="smcap">J. O. Howard</span>, Washington, D. C.; Mrs. <span class="smcap">Minnie Maddern +Fiske</span>, New York City; Dr. <span class="smcap">John Muir</span>, Martinez, Cal.; <span class="smcap">D. Austin Latchaw</span>, Kansas +City, Mo.; Prof. <span class="smcap">Geo. A. Loveland</span>, Lincoln, Neb.</p> + +<p><i>Waters</i>—Hon. <span class="smcap">J. N. Teal</span>, Portland, Ore., <i>Chairman</i>; Hon. <span class="smcap">Joseph E. Ransdell</span>, +Lake Providence, La.; <span class="smcap">Walter S. Dickey</span>, Kansas City, Mo.; Hon. <span class="smcap">Herbert Knox +Smith</span>, Washington, D. C.; <span class="smcap">W. K. Kavanaugh</span>, St. Louis, Mo.; Dr. <span class="smcap">W J McGee</span>, +Washington, D. C.; Prof. <span class="smcap">Geo. F. Swain</span>, Harvard University.</p> + +<p><i>National Parks</i> (<i>to include Mammoth Cave, Ky., and Adjacent Lands</i>)—Dr. +<span class="smcap">W J McGee</span>, Washington, D. C.; Dr. <span class="smcap">Henry F. Drinker</span>, South Bethlehem, Pa.; +Hon. <span class="smcap">William P. Borland</span>, Kansas City, Mo.; Hon. <span class="smcap">Gifford Pinchot</span>, Washington, +D. C.; Col. <span class="smcap">W. H. Crump</span>, Bowling Green, Ky.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS.</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>CONSTITUTION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CONSTITUTION"><span class="allsmcap">IX</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>RESOLUTIONS</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#RESOLUTIONS"><span class="allsmcap">XIII</span></a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>OPENING SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#OPENING_SESSION">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by <span class="smcap">Bishop Lillis</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Welcome by <span class="smcap">Mayor Brown</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address of Welcome by <span class="smcap">President Lester</span> for Commercial Club</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_4">4</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Governor Hadley</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_5">5</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">President Wallace</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_11">11</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable J. B. White</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_19">19</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Appointment of Credentials Committee</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcements by <span class="smcap">President Wallace</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Secretary Shipp</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Recording Secretary Gipe</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Request by <span class="smcap">Delegate Baumgartner</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>SECOND SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#SECOND_SESSION">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by the <span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. Kerr</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub"><span class="smcap">Governor Hadley</span> Made Chairman</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Governor Hadley</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_23">23</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Call of States</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. J. C. Baumgartner</span> of California</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Worsham</span> of Georgia</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Holland C. Day</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Col. Isham Randolph</span> of Illinois</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Harry Everest Barnard</span> of Indiana</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Message from <span class="smcap">Mexican Ambassador</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_28">28</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Thomas H. MacBride</span> of Iowa</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Mr. A. W. Stubbs</span> of Kansas City, Kansas</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address of <span class="smcap">Dean Waters</span> of Kansas</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Col. Crump</span> of Bowling Green, Ky.</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_29">29</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Fred J. Grace</span> of Louisiana</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Introduction of <span class="smcap">ex-President B. N. Baker</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Motion by <span class="smcap">Mr. Breeze</span> of Indiana</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Chairman Hadley</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Judge Lindsay</span> of Colorado</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_31">31</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. D. M. Neill</span> of Minnesota</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable George Coupland</span> of Nebraska</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Professor Condra</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_43">43</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable E. A. Stevens</span>, Commissioner of Public Roads</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Rane</span> of Massachusetts</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_44">44</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>THIRD SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#THIRD_SESSION">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcements by <span class="smcap">Acting Chairman Condra</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Mr. Emil Gunther</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">State Commissioner John D. Moore</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dr. Twitchell</span> of South Carolina</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Gross</span>, President of National Soil Fertility League</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_47">47</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Chairman Condra</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_49">49</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">ex-President Baker</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">President Taft</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_54">54</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span>FOURTH SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FOURTH_SESSION">62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by <span class="smcap">Bishop Hendrix</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Roll Call of States Resumed</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_62">62</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Chairman Fowler</span> of Resolutions Committee</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_63">63</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Sergeant-at-Arms</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address of <span class="smcap">Mr. Logan</span> of the Missouri Waterways Commission</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_64">64</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks of <span class="smcap">Mr. C. P. Dyar</span> of Ohio</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Milton Brown</span> of Oklahoma</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. A. B. Farquhar</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dr. Drinker</span> of Lehigh University</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_68">68</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">President Wallace</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. B. G. Holden</span> of Iowa</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_71">71</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. R. A. Long</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable W. A. Beard</span> of California</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_78">78</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Chair Assumed by <span class="smcap">Honorable J. B. White</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Chairman Fowler</span> of Resolutions Committee</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_87">87</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Herbert Quick</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_88">88</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Reading of Telegram</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_109">109</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Appointment of Committee on Nominations</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_110">110</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>FIFTH SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FIFTH_SESSION">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by the <span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. Combs</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Announcement by <span class="smcap">Recording Secretary Gipe</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Introduction of <span class="smcap">Governor Vessey</span> as Chairman</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Governor Vessey</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Reading of Letter from <span class="smcap">Colonel Roosevelt</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_112">112</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Reports from National Organizations</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. Mullin</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Major Griggs</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. Rushton</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Honorable E. T. Allen</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_114">114</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. Schwedtman</span>, of St. Louis</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. Coffin</span>, of New York</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Dr. Field</span>, of the Audubon Society</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. E. R. Taylor</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_116">116</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Vrooman</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_117">117</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Vote of Thanks by <span class="smcap">Delegate Baumgartner</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Mr. McBrien</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Greenwood</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_120">120</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dean Mumford</span>, of Missouri</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Ashby</span>, of Des Moines</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_121">121</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Scott</span>, President General, Daughters American Revolution</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_125">125</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Miss Frances Brown</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of Executive Committee by <span class="smcap">Chairman White</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Amendments to the Constitution</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Adoption of Amendments</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Miss Weller</span>, of the Iowa Federation of Women’s Clubs</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_130">130</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Guthrie</span>, of St. Paul</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_131">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>SIXTH SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#SIXTH_SESSION">131</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Moore</span>, President General, Confederation Women Clubs</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_132">132</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dr. Wilson</span>, of Presbyterian Church</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dr. Wiley</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_139">139</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>SEVENTH SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#SEVENTH_SESSION">147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Induction of <span class="smcap">Dr. Northrop</span> as Chairman</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_147">147</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by <span class="smcap">The Rev. Dr. Neel</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Bailey</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Delegate Stubbs</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">[vii]</span>Discussion by <span class="smcap">President Wallace</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_151">151</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Call of States Resumed</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by <span class="smcap">Mr. Filson</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Spillman</span>, of the Department of Agriculture</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_152">152</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Weeks</span>, of the National Congress of Mothers</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_156">156</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Congressman F. S. Jackson</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable Curtis Hill</span>, of Missouri</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_163">163</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of Committee on Credentials</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable J. B. White</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_167">167</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of Committee on Nominations</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_174">174</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">President White</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Hopkins</span>, of University of Illinois</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_176">176</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Secretary Coburn</span>, of Kansas</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dr. McGee</span>, of the Department of Agriculture</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_183">183</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>EIGHTH SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#EIGHTH_SESSION">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Invocation by the <span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. Monroe</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Entrance of <span class="smcap">Mr. Bryan</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Ten Eyck</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Resolution Complimenting <span class="smcap">Gifford Pinchot</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_193">193</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Honorable Walter L. Fisher</span>, Secretary of the Interior</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Mr. Bryan</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Letter from <span class="smcap">Colonel Roosevelt</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_204">204</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Grout</span>, of Illinois</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of Committee on Resolutions</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Personnel of Committee on Resolutions</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_211">211</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Remarks by <span class="smcap">Delegate Shoffer</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Resolution by <span class="smcap">Delegate Stubbs</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>CLOSING SESSION</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CLOSING_SESSION">214</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Hoynes</span>, of Notre Dame University</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_214">214</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Senator Owen</span>, of Oklahoma</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_218">218</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Bryan</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_220">220</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#SUPPLEMENTARY_PROCEEDINGS">231</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Dean Mumford</span>, of the University of Missouri</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_231">231</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">ex-Governor Hoard</span>, of Wisconsin</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_234">234</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Henry I. Willey</span>, of New York</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_237">237</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Griggs</span>, of Washington</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_245">245</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Professor Ten Eyck</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by the <span class="smcap">Rev. Dr. Wilson</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_257">257</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">F. A. Filson</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_259">259</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Schwedtman</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of <span class="smcap">President Stillman</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_262">262</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of <span class="smcap">Dr. Field</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_263">263</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Rushton</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_264">264</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of the Camp Fire Club</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_265">265</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report by Committee of National Board of Fire Underwriters</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of National Association of Audubon Societies</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Letter from <span class="smcap">Mr. van Ornum</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_273">273</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Address by <span class="smcap">Mr. Baumgartner</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_274">274</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Idaho by <span class="smcap">Mrs. Day</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Illinois by <span class="smcap">Colonel Randolph</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Indiana by <span class="smcap">Mr. Barnard</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Iowa by <span class="smcap">Mr. MacBride</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_277">277</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Kansas by <span class="smcap">Dean Waters</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Louisiana by <span class="smcap">Mr. Grace</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_278">278</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Massachusetts by <span class="smcap">Professor Rane</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_281">281</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Minnesota by <span class="smcap">Mr. Neill</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_284">284</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>Report for Nebraska by <span class="smcap">Mr. Coupland</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_285">285</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for New York by <span class="smcap">Mr. Moore</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_286">286</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Oklahoma by <span class="smcap">Mr. Brown</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_287">287</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Oregon by <span class="smcap">Mr. Teal</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for Pennsylvania and Philadelphia by <span class="smcap">Mr. Gunther</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report of Conservation Movement by <span class="smcap">Mr. Farquhar</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_291">291</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="sub">Report for South Carolina by <span class="smcap">Dr. Twitchell</span></td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_299">299</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>National Organizations Represented at the Congress</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_301">301</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>List of Registered Delegates</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#Page_303">303</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Index</td> + <td class="tdpg"><a href="#INDEX">315</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONSTITUTION">CONSTITUTION<br> +<span class="smaller">OF THE</span><br> +NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS<br> +<span class="smaller"><i>As Amended by the Third Congress.</i></span></h2> + +</div> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 1—Name.</span></h3> + +<p>This organization shall be known as the National Conservation Congress.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 2—Object.</span></h3> + +<p>The object of the National Conservation Congress shall be: (1) to +provide a forum for discussion of the resources of the United States as +the foundation for the prosperity of the people, (2) to furnish definite +information concerning the resources and their utilization, and (3) to +afford an agency through which the people of the country may frame +policies and principles affecting the wise and practical development, conservation +and utilization of the resources to be put into effect by their +representatives in state and federal governments.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 3—Meetings.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> Regular annual meetings shall be held at such time and +place as may be determined by the executive committee.</p> + +<p><i>Section 2.</i> Special meetings of the Congress, or its officers, committees +or boards, may be held subject to the call of the president of the +Congress or the chairman of the executive committee.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 4—Officers.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> The officers of the Congress shall consist of a president, +to be elected by the Congress; a vice-president from each state, to +be chosen by the respective state delegations; and from the National +Conservation Association; an executive secretary, a recording secretary, +and a treasurer.</p> + +<p><i>Section 2.</i> The duties of these officers may at any time be prescribed +by formal action of the Congress or executive committee. In +the absence of such action their duties shall be those implied by their +designations and established by custom. In addition, it shall be the +duty of the vice-presidents to receive from the state conservations commissions, +and other organizations concerned in conservation, suggestions +and recommendations and report them to the executive committee +of the Congress.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span></p> + +<p><i>Section 3.</i> The officers shall serve for one year, or until their successors +are elected and qualify.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 5—Committees and Boards.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> An executive committee of seven, in addition to which +the president of the National Conservation Association and all ex-presidents +of the Congress shall be members, ex officio, shall be appointed by +the president during each regular annual session to act for the ensuing +year; its membership shall be drawn from different states, and not more +than one of the appointed members shall be from any one state. The +executive committee shall act for the Congress and shall be empowered +to initiate action and meet emergencies. It shall report to each regular +annual session.</p> + +<p><i>Section 2.</i> A board of managers shall be created in each city in +which the next ensuing session of the Congress is to be held, preferably +by leading organizations of citizens. The board of managers shall have +power to raise and expend funds, to incur obligations of its own responsibility, +to appoint subordinate boards and committees, all with the approval +of the executive committee of the Congress. It shall report to +the executive committee at least two days before the opening of the ensuing +session, and at such other times as the Congress or the executive committee +may direct.</p> + +<p><i>Section 3.</i> An advisory board, consisting of one person from each +national organization having a conservation committee, shall be created +to serve during that Congress and during the interval before the next +succeeding Congress. The board shall report to and coöperate with the +executive committee.</p> + +<p><i>Section 4.</i> A committee on credentials shall be appointed, consisting +of five (5) members, by the president of the Congress not later +than on the second day of each session of the Congress. It shall determine +all questions raised by delegates as to representation, and shall +report to the Congress from time to time as required by the president +of the Congress.</p> + +<p><i>Section 5.</i> A committee on resolutions shall be created for each annual +meeting of the Congress. A chairman shall be appointed by the +president. One member of the committee shall be selected by each state +represented in the Congress. The committee shall report to the Congress +not later than the morning of the last day of each annual meeting.</p> + +<p><i>Section 6.</i> Permanent committees, consisting of five members each, +on each of the following five divisions of conservation: forests, waters, +lands, minerals and vital resources, shall be appointed by the president +of the Congress. The committee on vital resources is to consist of six +subordinate committees as follows: food, homes, child life, education, +civics (including wild life, domesticated animals, and cultivated plants). +These committees shall, during the intervals between the annual meetings +of the Congress, inquire into these respective subjects and prepare +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span>reports to be submitted on the request of the executive committee, and +render such other assistance to the Congress as the executive committee +may direct.</p> + +<p><i>Section 7.</i> By direction of the Congress, standing and special committees +may be appointed by the president.</p> + +<p><i>Section 8.</i> The president shall be a member, ex officio, of every +committee of the Congress.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 6—Arrangements for Sessions.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> The program for the session of each annual meeting +of the Congress, including a list of speakers, shall be arranged by the +executive committee. The entire program, including allotments of time +to speakers and hours for daily sessions and all other arrangements concerning +the program, shall be made by the executive committee.</p> + +<p><i>Section 2.</i> Unless otherwise ordered, the rules adopted for the +guidance of the preceding Congress shall continue in force.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 7—Membership.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> The personnel of the National Conservation Congress +shall be as follows:</p> + +<h4>OFFICERS AND DELEGATES.</h4> + +<p>Officers of the National Conservation Congress.</p> + +<p>Fifteen delegates appointed by the governor of each state and territory.</p> + +<p>Five delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population +of 25,000 or more.</p> + +<p>Two delegates appointed by the mayor of each city with a population +of less than 25,000.</p> + +<p>Two delegates appointed by each board of county commissioners.</p> + +<p>Five delegates appointed by each national organization concerned +in the work of conservation.</p> + +<p>Five delegates appointed by each state or interstate organization +concerned in the work of conservation.</p> + +<p>Three delegates appointed by each chamber of commerce, board of +trade, commercial club, or other local organization concerned in the work +of conservation.</p> + +<p>Two delegates appointed by each state, or other university, or college, +and by each agricultural college, or experiment station.</p> + +<h4>HONORARY MEMBERS.</h4> + +<p>The President of the United States.</p> + +<p>The Vice-President of the United States.</p> + +<p>The Speaker of the House of Representatives.</p> + +<p>The Cabinet.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span></p> + +<p>The United States Senate and House of Representatives.</p> + +<p>The Supreme Court of the United States.</p> + +<p>The representatives of foreign countries.</p> + +<p>The governors of the states and territories.</p> + +<p>The lieutenant-governors of the states and territories.</p> + +<p>The speakers of state houses of representatives.</p> + +<p>The state officers.</p> + +<p>The mayors of cities.</p> + +<p>The county commissioners.</p> + +<p>The presidents of state and other universities and colleges.</p> + +<p>The officers and members of the National Conservation Association.</p> + +<p>The officers and members of the National Conservation Commission.</p> + +<p>The officers and members of the state conservation commissions and +associations.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 8—Delegations and State Officers.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> The several delegates from each state in attendance +at any Congress shall assemble at the earliest practicable time and organize +by choosing a chairman and a secretary. These delegates, when +approved by the committee on credentials, shall constitute the delegation +from that state.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 9—Voting.</span></h3> + +<p><i>Section 1.</i> Each member of the Congress shall be entitled to one +vote on all actions taken <i>viva voce</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Section 2.</i> A division or call of states may be demanded on any action, +by a state delegation. On division, each delegate shall be entitled +to one vote; provided (1) that no state shall have more than twenty +votes; and provided (2) that when a state is represented by less than +ten delegates, said delegates may cast ten votes for each state.</p> + +<p><i>Section 3.</i> The term “state” as used herein is to be construed to +mean either state, territory, or insular possession.</p> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Article 10—Amendments.</span></h3> + +<p>This Constitution may be amended by a two-thirds vote of the Congress +during any regular session, provided notice of the proposed amendment +has been given from the Chair not less than one day or more than +two days preceding; or by unanimous vote without such notice.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="RESOLUTIONS">RESOLUTIONS<br> +<span class="smaller">OF THE</span><br> +THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.</h2> + +</div> + +<p>The third National Conservation Congress, made up of delegates +from all sections and nearly every state and territory of the United +States, met at the call of a great moral issue, now in session assembled +in the city of Kansas City and State of Missouri, does hereby adopt and +solemnly declare the following platform of opinion and conclusion concerning +the inherent rights of the people of the United States:</p> + +<p>Heartily accepting the spirit and intent of the Constitution and adhering +to the principles laid down by Washington and Lincoln, we declare +our conviction that we live under a government of the people, by +the people, and for the people; and we repudiate any and all special or +local interests or platforms or policies in conflict with the inherent rights +and sovereign will of our people.</p> + +<p>Recognizing the natural resources of the country as the prime bases +of property and opportunity, we hold the rights of the people in these +resources to be natural and inherent, and justly inalienable and indefeasible; +and we insist that the resources should and shall be developed, +used, and conserved in ways consistent both with current welfare and +with the perpetuity of our people.</p> + +<p>We commend the efficient work of the federal forest service, and +particularly urge upon Congress the need for more liberal financial provision +for protection of the national forests from fire, and the desirability +of making the army available without delay whenever needed +to supplement such protection.</p> + +<p>We also appreciate the forestry progress being made by many states, +believing it not only the function, but the duty of the state to safeguard +its forest resources by liberal appropriation for fire prevention; +by acquisition and conservative management of state owned forest lands; +by encouraging the practice of private forestry on timber lands and +wood lots in every way, especially through reform in forest taxation; +and by providing for the educational work necessary to secure all these +ends.</p> + +<p>We commend the increasing effort at better forest management +and protection by timber owners themselves, and urge upon all such the +study and emulation of the several coöperative systems for this purpose.</p> + +<p>We urge the coöperation of public and private educational authorities +in instilling the principles of forest economics in the minds of the +young of today, who will be the doers of tomorrow.</p> + +<p>We are in sympathy with the policy of establishing public parks +to be used for the benefit of the people forever, including localities of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span>scenic, scientific or historic interest, by states and by the National Government, +and we cite as an example the Mammoth Cave of Kentucky, +one of the wonders of the world; we recommend this policy to obviate +the danger of such national heirlooms being held permanently in private +ownership and subordinated to private interest rather than the public +good.</p> + +<p>Recognizing the 900,000,000 acres of well-watered arable land in +this country as the chief source of food and clothing for our people, +we hold that these lands should be guarded as a natural heritage to be +kept in sacred trust for our children and our children’s children; that +they should be safe-guarded from loss through natural agencies and +negligent or thriftless use; that they should be protected from monopoly +and private or corporate rapacity; that they should be so cultivated and +improved that they may pass to each coming generation with increased +fertility and productivity; and that they should forever be used as sites +for homes in which the strength and spirit of the Nation may be conserved +for the general welfare of mankind.</p> + +<p>Approving the withdrawal of public lands pending classification, and +the separation of surface rights from mineral, forests, and water rights, +including water-power sites, we recommend legislation for the classification +and leasing for grazing purposes all unreserved lands suitable chiefly +for this purpose, subject to the rights of homesteaders and settlers, +or the acquisition thereof under the land laws of the United States; +and we hold that arid and non-irrigable public grazing lands should be +administered by the Government in the interest of small stockmen and +homeseekers until they have passed into the possession of actual settlers.</p> + +<p>We favor the repeal of the commutation clause of the Homestead +Law, and the disallowance of homestead entries on land chiefly valuable +for its timber at time of filing.</p> + +<p>We hold that mineral deposits underlying public lands should be +transferred to private ownership only by long-time leases with revaluation +at stated periods, such leases to be in amounts and subject to such +regulations as to prevent monopoly and needless waste; and that in case +of doubt as to the availability of such mineral deposits, or while they +are waiting exploitation, surface rights to the land should be transferred +by lease only under such conditions as to promote development and protect +public interest.</p> + +<p>Since all successful conservation effort must follow ascertained fact, +we agree (1) that there should be in each commonwealth an active conservation +commission or equivalent organization; and (2) that such commission +should use, and strive ever to coördinate, all agencies, state or +national, which have for their object the discovery of exact data and +the ascertainment of scientific information in reference to all natural +resources and conditions in each of the several states and in the country +at large.</p> + +<p>We hold that phosphate deposits underlying the public lands should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span>be safe-guarded for the American people by appropriate legislation, and +that export of phosphates and other natural and manufactured fertilizing +material should be limited and regulated by law.</p> + +<p>Realizing that the productivity of our soil depends on water supply; +that one of the chief losses to the farm is destructive soil erosion; +that the freshets and floods due to storm and thaw waters are destructive +of property and even of life; and knowing through experience in +this and other countries that the waste and destruction due to unregulated +run-off are largely susceptible to control by appropriate agricultural +methods, we hold that the aim of every farmer should be to make +his farm take care of the water naturally reaching it; we also hold that +allowing ordinary storm waters to carry silt and sand from farms into +neighboring streams and rivers works a public injury which may be prevented +by appropriate legislation.</p> + +<p>Realizing that the strength of the Nation will ever lie in the multiplication +of homes on the land up to its full capacity, we approve the +successful efforts of the Federal Government to provide for such homes +through irrigation of the more arid portions of the country; we endorse +and commend the Reclamation Service, and urge its continuance with +such increased means as may be found needful; and we urge the immediate +extension of the same policy to the drainage of swamp and +overflow lands, to be carried forward so far as appropriate through coöperation +between state and federal agencies.</p> + +<p>We recommend the early opening of the coal fields and other resources +of Alaska belonging to the people of the United States, for industrial +and commercial purposes, on a system of leasing, national ownership +to be retained pending such development of that portion of our +territory as to permit the creation of states within its area; and as a +means of promoting industry and commerce in Alaska we approve the +construction of necessary highways, railways, and terminal facilities by +the National Government.</p> + +<p>Realizing that the prosperity of the country and its suitability for +homes must always depend largely on transportation facilities, we +recommend extension of the good roads movement until every community +is provided with safe and easy ways to schools, churches and +markets; and in developing the necessary road systems, we favor coöperation +between townships, counties, states, and the federal government +in such manner as to secure the greatest benefits to the entire +country at the minimum cost.</p> + +<p>Realizing that the current cost of railway transportation is apparently +exorbitant, amounting to about $2,750,000,000 annually, equivalent +to a tax of $150 per family (or one-third the cost of living) or an +impost of over $5 on each acre of improved land in the United States, +we urge on the Federal Government appraisal of railway property and +such investigation and supervision of railway business as will insure +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span>protection of the public interests; and to this end we recommend enlargement +of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission.</p> + +<p>As a means of reducing the cost of living and promoting the general +welfare, we favor the establishment of a parcels post.</p> + +<p>Realizing that products of the soil on which our people depend for +food and clothing are sometimes diverted from the most direct lines +leading from producer to consumer for speculative purposes, and that +they are made the basis for gambling transactions, we hold that all +dealing in futures and gambling operations involving foodstuffs and +materials for clothing are a public injury, and recommend investigation +of the matter by authority of the Federal Congress; and in case our +judgment is sustained by such investigation, we demand the enactment +of law by the Federal Congress prohibiting the sale of these necessaries +of life by men or interests who do not own them at the time of such +sale, under penalties including imprisonment at least for any second +offense.</p> + +<p>Since noxious insects and plants, including weeds, are a source of +public injury, we urge appropriate state and federal legislation tending +to their extermination; and we commend the development of that public +spirit finding expression from time to time in communities and states +in crusades against insect and plant pests in the public interest.</p> + +<p>Recognizing in coöperative enterprises an effective means of conserving +human energy and increasing the efficiency of our soils in feeding +our people cheaply, and thereby affording means for the development +of equal opportunity for all, we approve and commend such coöperative +organization among our producers and consumers as will tend +to promote economy and prevent waste in handling the necessaries of +life.</p> + +<p>Realizing that the interests of our citizens, our states, and our Nation +are identical, and impressed by the success which has attended coöperation +between state institutions and the Federal Government, we favor continuation +and extension of such coöperation as a highly efficient means +of promoting the general welfare.</p> + +<p>Impressed by immeasurable benefits derived by our people from +the work of the United States Department of Agriculture in promoting +the use and conservation of our soil and its products, we endorse and +commend that department; we strongly urge on Congress increased appropriation +for its necessary work; and we recommend the enactment +of such state and federal legislation as will enable the state colleges of +agriculture and experiment stations to maintain in every agricultural +county a capable field demonstrator to aid farmers in practical application +of newly acquired agricultural knowledge.</p> + +<p>Since all successful conservation effort must follow ascertained +fact, we agree (1) that there should be in each commonwealth an active +conservation commission or equivalent organization; and (2) that such +commission should use and strive ever to coördinate all agencies, state +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span>or national, which have for their object the discovery of exact data +and the ascertainment of scientific information in reference to all natural +resources and conditions in each of the several states and in the country +at large.</p> + +<p>Recognizing the waters of the country as a great national resource, +we approve and endorse the opinion that all the waters belong to all +the people, and hold that they should be administered in the interests +of all the people.</p> + +<p>Realizing that all parts of each drainage basin are related and interdependent, +we hold that each stream should be regarded and treated +as a unit from its source to its mouth; and since the waters are essentially +mobile and transitory and are generally interstate, we hold that in +all cases of divided or doubtful jurisdiction the waters should be administered +by coöperation between state and federal agencies.</p> + +<p>Recognizing the interdependence of the various uses of the waters +of the country, we hold that the primary uses are for domestic supply +and for agriculture through irrigation or otherwise, and that the uses +for navigation and for power, in which water is not consumed, are secondary; +and we commend the modern view that each use of the waters +should be made with reference to all other uses for the public welfare +in accordance with the principle of the greatest good to the greatest +number for the longest time.</p> + +<p>Viewing adequate and economical transportation facilities as among +the means of conservation, and realizing that the growth of the country +has exceeded the development of transportation facilities, we approve +the prompt adoption of a comprehensive plan for developing navigation +throughout the rivers and lakes of the United States, proceeding in the +order of their magnitude and commercial importance.</p> + +<p>Recognizing the vast economic benefits to the people of water power +derived largely from interstate and source streams no less than from +navigable rivers, we favor public control of water power development; +we deny the right of state or federal governments to continue alienating +or conveying water by granting franchises for the use thereof in +perpetuity; and we demand that the use of water rights be permitted +only for limited periods, with just compensation in the interests of the +people.</p> + +<p>We demand the maintenance of a federal commission empowered +to deal with all uses of the waters and to coördinate these uses for the +public welfare in coöperation with similar commissions or other agencies +maintained by the states.</p> + +<p>We recognize the great service that has been, and can be, rendered +in the conservation of our mineral resources, by developing and mining +in large units with adequate capital, and approve the encouragement +of such development under proper regulation.</p> + +<p>We heartily approve of the work of the United States Government +in improving sanitary conditions and in lowering the death rates of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span>Cuba, the Philippine Islands, and the Canal Zone. We are especially +pleased that in 1911 the National Government, through its wise provisions +for the maneuver division of the United States Army operating +in western Texas, demonstrated that the achievements in health and +life security found possible in Cuba, the Philippine Islands, and the Canal +Zone, are possible with Americans on American soil. We therefore call +on our municipal, state, and national governments, to accomplish these +same results for the people of the United States.</p> + +<p>Our National Government in the Canal Zone of Panama has demonstrated +that Caucasians, properly directed, can work in the tropics +without loss of efficiency, and we express our opinion that this is one +of the monumental discoveries of the age.</p> + +<p>The Hook Worm Commission is demonstrating another possibility +in increasing efficiency; and we endorse the efforts of this commission, +and all other efforts, governmental and extra-governmental, for increasing +human efficiency through promotion of physical welfare, and call on +our governments—municipal, state, and national—to increase their activities +along these lines.</p> + +<p>We favor a child welfare bureau under, and as a part of, each municipal +and state government.</p> + +<p>Inasmuch as nearly all the states and most of the cities have health +departments as coördinate branches of administrative work, we endorse +the plan of bringing together as a department of health the various +human health activities of the United States Government as a coördinate +branch of its administrative work, divorced from the impediment +of being a part of other administrative work of entirely different character +and conducted for entirely different purposes; this in order that +the efficiency of the service may be increased to a point in some degree +commensurate with its importance.</p> + +<p>We protest against the present neglect of health, life security, and +work for physical efficiency by the municipal, state and national governments, +and we ask that they be given that study and care that have +proven so broad an economy in the case of live stock and farm crops.</p> + +<p>We are of opinion that municipal, state, and national governments +should pass proper laws, and provide proper means of enforcement of +such laws that there may be prevented, (1) blindness, (2) birth accidents, +(3) infant mortality, (4) labor by immature children, (5) communicable +diseases of children, (6) occupational diseases, (7) occupational +accidents, and especially mine and transportation accidents, (8) +communicable diseases of adults, (9) bad ventilation, and (10) physical +inefficiency.</p> + +<p>We deplore the practice of disposing of sewage and manufacturing +waste by dumping it into the streams, lakes, and coastal waters of +the Nation, thereby polluting the chief sources of water for drinking and +domestic purposes, destroying fish and crustacean life, rendering the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span>waters obnoxious to sight and smell, and losing beyond hope of recovery +vast quantities of elements essential to plant life.</p> + +<p>We earnestly advocate the employment by communities and manufacturing +concerns of such methods of sewage disposal as will render +their waste products innocuous to health and utilize them in the restoration +of soil fertility, and to this end we urge the enactment by states of +stream-pollution laws, and by the Federal Government of such legislation +as will prevent the pollution of interstate and coastal waters.</p> + +<p>Deeply concerned at the rapid disappearance of wild life from the +continent of North America and the large economic loss that the continued +destruction of that life is bound to entail, we call upon the people +of America to adopt more stringent measures to stop the excessive killing +of birds, quadrupeds and fish, and to enact more drastic and far-reaching +laws for the protection of the remnant from the extermination that +threatens it.</p> + +<p>We realize that the tremendous importance of our fishery resources +is underestimated, and that this great asset is threatened with serious +diminution. We urge upon Congress and the states to provide more +liberally for fish propagation and preservation, in the interest of the +conservation of this food source so important at present and vital for +the future.</p> + +<p>The problem of the preservation of migratory birds, fishes and +quadrupeds is interstate; therefore, we emphatically endorse the resolution +of the second National Conservation Congress to the effect that +the National Government supplement the laws of the states with comprehensive +national laws for the protection of migratory animals.</p> + +<p>The losses of life and property from fire in the United States are +enormous and abnormal, amounting to 1,500 human lives annually, and +with the cost of prevention to nearly $400,000,000 of property, or ten +times that of any other civilized country of the world. Such losses may +be largely prevented by economical treatment, and we recommend to the +Congress of the United States a national investigation of this subject +under government supervision, the collection, classification and analysis +of data concerning the causes of such fire losses, and the relation of fire +insurance rates thereto, to the end that a permanent department of government +be established to collect and furnish to the United States and +the people thereof reliable information in relation to life and property +losses and practical means for their prevention.</p> + +<p>The children of the United States are recognized as the most precious +resource of this Nation, and the Federal Bureau of Education as the +best agency for collecting, publishing and distributing educational information +throughout the country. We therefore urge that national appropriations +for studying problems involving the welfare of the Nation’s +school children be made comparable in amount with those annually made +for studying problems involving the welfare and conservation of the +Nation’s material resources.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span></p> + +<p>In a system of free schools all the children should be trained for +good citizenship and for the useful industries; owing to the rapidly +changing and increasingly complex social and economic condition in all +sections of the Union, our public schools should make ample provision +for instructing the youth of the land in the more important occupations +in which our people are engaged, and the parents and teachers should +counsel together to determine if possible for what vocation each child +is best adapted. We recommend that the schools should be so organized +and conducted that the great purposes for which this Congress exists may +be realized through the work and lives of men and women who have +been trained in health, home-making, citizenship, and industry.</p> + +<p>We urge upon all who are concerned with the actual work of conservation, +whether in the state or Nation, that they secure quickly as +possible through unprejudiced scientific investigation exact knowledge +concerning our various resources and the conditions which affect their +development, and we urge that all constructive conservation policies be +based upon such exact information.</p> + +<p>As this notable Congress draws to a close we, the delegates, desire +to express our hearty appreciation of the many courtesies and the warm +hospitality extended to us by the citizens of the city and state in which +we are assembled. We desire, especially, to proffer warm thanks to His +Excellency Herbert S. Hadley, Governor of Missouri, and to Honorable +Darius A. Brown, Mayor of Kansas City, for their words of welcome, +borne out later by actions.</p> + +<p>We desire also to express a special acknowledgment of the courtesy, +energy and ability and good will of the Commercial Club of Kansas City, +as manifested particularly by its accomplished president, Mr. J. C. Lester, +and its highly capable secretary, Mr. E. M. Clendening. We appreciate +our obligation, too, to the local board of managers, and to Chairman +Neal, for their efficient service.</p> + +<p>We also acknowledge a debt to the clergy of Kansas City for their +coöperation in several sessions and for the spirit emanating from them +which has done so much to temper and ennoble the deliberations of the +Congress.</p> + +<p>We, the delegates, desire also to express appreciation of the devotion, +eminent fairness, tireless energy, and endless good humor of retiring +President Wallace; we acknowledge no less indebtedness to the highly +efficient chairman of the executive committee, Mr. John B. White, now +president of the Congress.</p> + +<p>We also note our debt to the efficient executive secretary of the +Congress, Mr. Thomas R. Shipp, without whose untiring efforts the Congress +would have fallen short in the accomplishment of duty; and we appreciate, +too, the efficiency of Recording Secretary Gipe.</p> + +<p>We desire to signalize our appreciation of the notably efficient service +of our worthy sergeant-at-arms, Colonel John I. Martin, who has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span>not only maintained perfect order under trying circumstances, but has +smoothed the practical working of the Congress by his courtesy and good +humor.</p> + +<p>Finally, we acknowledge a special obligation to the press of Kansas +City for the notably full and fair reports of our proceedings from +day to day, and in equal degree for the preliminary publicity which contributed +so much to the success of this Congress.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp56" id="illus2" style="max-width: 32.8125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus2.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Dr. Henry Wallace</span>, President 1910-11</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p> + +<h1>THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS</h1> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="OPENING_SESSION"><i>OPENING SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p>The Congress convened in Convention Hall, Kansas City, Missouri, +on the morning of September 25, 1911, President Henry W. Wallace in +the chair.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The convention will come to order and will +be opened with an invocation by the Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Lillis, Bishop +of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City.</p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p><i>In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, +Amen. Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name; Thy +Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven; give us +this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive +those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver +us from evil. Amen.</i></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—An address of welcome will now be delivered +on behalf of Kansas City by its Mayor, the Honorable Darius A. Brown. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mayor <span class="smcap">Brown</span>—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the very +brief time in which I have to speak to you, if there is one fact of which +I want to convince you it is that I am absolutely not responsible for the +condition of the weather this morning. Convention Hall, the walls of +it, have probably enclosed many important conventions and congresses, +but I do not believe in the entire history of the institution, or of Kansas +City, that there has ever gathered here a congress or convention whose +deliberations and conclusions are of such vital importance to the great +mass of people as that which will soon convene here this morning. We +have had all sorts of conventions for the purpose of discussing ways +and means of pursuing their public avocations, and how to best carry +on the business in which they are engaged, but this is a Congress which +is not gathered for the purpose of determining how it is best to make +money or to carry on business, but for the purpose of solving some of +the great problems which are necessary to be solved in order that we +should go forward in the way in which this Nation should go forward.</p> + +<p>Beginning with a strong desire to prevent waste of some of the lands +and natural resources of this country, the principle of conservation has +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span>been so extended and its scope so widened that today it is only limited +by the bonds of human activity, and this principle of conservation is +certainly of vital importance to the great cities of this country, and it +has lately come to be given a practical application in the saving and +preventing from waste of the valuable rights which the people of great +cities have in their streets and public thoroughfares. For a long time +past when private individuals sought certain valuable rights in the streets +and thoroughfares of our great cities it has been the custom to give them +for the asking, but now has come a time when the minds of the people +are turned to the principles which demand that none of these things +should be wasted or granted away unless there is a fair and just return +to the people for the rights which are granted. There is another application +of this principle of conservation in the life of our great cities. +Conditions have arisen and exist today, and have existed, the cause of +which has not yet been definitely determined, whereby the lives and the +health and the morals of the people are being wasted; and so the thinking +patriotic people of every city in this country are directing their minds, +not so much to anything that is the result of these conditions as to get +directly at the cause and prevent the results which are flowing from the +causes which have existed. And the officers of this Congress have +become so saturated and so imbued with this principle of conservation +that the secretary, in sending out his notices to those who have been +selected to deliver these addresses of welcome this morning, inserted +therein a clause wherein he said there will be five addresses for the +morning session, and therefore all of them will necessarily have to be +brief; and the secretary was right. And it is absolutely right that it +should be so, for many reasons, particularly two: Because there will +assemble here this morning and during the days of these sessions some +of the most distinguished, able and learned men of the United States, +men who have shown their right to speak authoritatively on these great +subjects; men who have devoted their time, energy, their lifetime, to the +study of the proper solution of the great problems of American life; +men who are coming here with a message to deliver to the people of +this Congress and to the people of this great country; and therefore it +is not right and proper that their time and the time of the people who +have come here to listen should be wasted by an address of welcome.</p> + +<p>And it has been suggested that on account of the fact that possibly +some of those who are to deliver these addresses of welcome have caused +considerable delay, that they ought to be abolished altogether. There is +another reason why no time should be wasted in hearing addresses of +welcome. I do not know why this custom has grown up in this country +that when any considerable body of citizens of one part of the country +gathers in another part that it is necessary for some high dignitary or +executive of the city to deliver an address of welcome. Perhaps it came +from the older countries of the world, where the provinces and the municipalities +and states were clutching at each other’s throats, and they built +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span>great walls around the city, and when one man wanted to visit another +community it was necessary for him to go to the gate and rap on it +and have some high dignitary bid him enter. In this great country of +ours we have been drawn so closely together by the influence of the +newspapers, the magazines, the railroads, telephone and telegraph that +today we are one great common people, actuated by the same great +motives and inspired by the same high ideals, and so a citizen of one +portion of this country today is just as welcome in another portion of +the country as the rising sun in the morning. (Applause) And so I +say it is not necessary for any representative of the city to say to this +gathering that they are welcome in Kansas City, or to say that the arms +of the people of Kansas City are extended in a hearty welcome, because +we believe that the result of the deliberations which you will hold here +and the conclusions which you will reach will not only be of lasting and +vital benefit to the people of this city, but to the people all over this +country. And it is an encouraging sign of the times that in every +branch of human endeavor the people are gathering periodically, yearly +or monthly, or biennially, for the purpose of discussing the questions +which affect them in their peculiar avocations. It has been said a great +many times that perhaps democracy is a failure, that the people all have +shown themselves incapable of governing themselves. But the most prolific +cause of that opinion has been that in the past the public servants +have been selected and the public questions have been solved by a small +body of men, sometimes too many of which are actuated only by a desire +for their personal aggrandizement.</p> + +<p>And the great rank and file of the citizenship, the individual citizen, +has not seen fit to devote any of his time to a study of any of those +problems, but has left the whole government of the people to be +done by this small coterie of men. The people are awakening to their +responsibility as citizens of this country: they are beginning to ally +themselves with some such organization as this, which has for its purpose +the study and solution of these problems, and day by day, more +and more, by enactment of Congress, amendments of constitution, +state legislative action, amendments of city charters, more and more +of these great questions are being submitted directly to the people for +solution, and so I say, when the time comes through this awakening +which we have seen, when the individual citizen will come to a full +appreciation of his responsibility, and these problems are submitted to +them, they will all be solved right and properly. And I want to say +in conclusion that I hope, and I express the hope of every good citizen +of Kansas City, that this Congress will achieve great things, will do +more than has ever been done before to solve these great problems +that are clamoring for solution. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—On behalf of the Commercial Club of this +city an address of welcome will be delivered by Mr. John C. Lester, +its honored president.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. Lester spoke as follows:</p> + +<p>Mr. President and Members of the National Conservation Congress: +I bear to you the greetings of the Commercial Club and the +other industrial and civic organizations of Kansas City. We find +nothing in our annals which is a greater source of pride than our part +in bringing this Congress to Kansas City. We are proud to welcome an +assembly of men and women who are devoted to the idea of the salvation +of the physical resources of the nation, which means the physical salvation +of our part of the race. The moral benefit to ourselves of trying +to do something for others, is taught in an age-old lesson. What +better way of illustrating that principle, and securing that good than by +teaching that the spendthrift energies of this generation must be curbed +in order that more be left for the vital sustenance of the next. What +more inspiring sight than this great audience, drawn from the four +quarters of the Nation with minds intent on that one principle? We +easily recognize the great impulses and movements for the good of the +race. They stand out in history like mile-stones. Among them the +cause of your meeting, the cause of conservation is a pillar of fire. You +are rightfully appalled by waste and are fighting it as sin. You are fully +conscious from the story of life on this earth, of what a proper use of +his resources means to man. You are fully conscious of the folly of destroying +today what will be needed to save life tomorrow.</p> + +<p>Your theme is Conservation. You tremble at conditions and seek +a remedy. To you the glory of the harvest, the wealth of the mine, the +roar of the falling water, the shadows of the forests, the flow of the +streams, means more than the happiness of today: you would also have +them the joy of tomorrow. If the world heeds your advice the day of +the last man will be put off for countless ages.</p> + +<p>The products of the soil and the forest, in seeking a market, seek +the sea and its highways as naturally as do the waters of the streams. +In obedience to this law, this community is now engaged in an effort +to solve one of the great practical problems of conservation—that is, the +conservation of power in transportation. We are devoted to the idea +of the practical use of the Missouri River as a freight carrier. You +have taught us that saving coal means saving life. You have also taught +us that the same power required to move 8 tons on steel rails will move +34 tons on water; hence who dares say that our ambition to reach the +sea by water with our products is an idle dream, or that the immutable +laws of Nature are not on our side? Our critics are fighting the eternal +verities! They might as well fulminate against the law of gravitation! +The Missouri River is and will be navigated. In this effort we claim +kinship with all the sons and daughters of Conservation.</p> + +<p>As that eminent Frenchman and conservator of peace, Baron Destournelles, +recently our guest, in writing a short time ago about this +city and its relation to the Missouri River, pointed out, the river and +the railroads have their separate burdens to bear, one class of freight will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span>always seek the quicker transit of the rails, another class will always +seek the vastly cheaper transportation afforded by a water channel.</p> + +<p>But I must not anticipate a possible subject of your deliberations. +Pardon me, if I feel impelled when addressing conservationists to prove +a strong local bond of sympathy!</p> + +<p>As apostles of conversation-conservation, you, at your third annual +meeting, have made a splendid beginning. You have supported precept +by example in that you have selected a place for your Congress, just +125 miles east of the geographical center of the United States. You +have thus conserved both the time and money of your members in +meeting at Kansas City!—a most excellent centre from which easily +radiate all influences for good, either moral or commercial!</p> + +<p>It is my part, however, on behalf of all our civic organizations, to +supplement and, if possible, strengthen your official welcome. You are +thrice welcomed; first, because we are proud to honor as great a nucleus +of brains and character as ever assembled under Convention Hall; +second, because we know your purpose and your work and believe in +them; and, third, because we expect to learn from you how to conserve +the health of our children, how to conserve the purity of the streams +from which we must drink, how to conserve the fertility of our soil +from the exhausting wastes of ignorance, how to conserve the happiness +of the country home, and turn the tide back from the cities—all save +this one perhaps—and in all things to live in and enjoy this world so +that the generations that come after will bless us and the great doctrines +of conservation.</p> + +<p>We are honored by your presence.</p> + +<p>May we all follow the banner bearing your motto, “The greatest +good for the greatest number for the longest time.”</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—An address of welcome will now be delivered +by the Honorable Herbert S. Hadley, Governor of Missouri, on behalf +of that great state. Governor Hadley. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Governor <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: His +Honor, the Mayor, and the President of the Commercial Club have +made welcoming on my part a work of supererogation. I know, of +course, that you are welcome, and you know are welcome, or you would +not be here. The President of the Commercial Club has referred to +you and to himself as apostles of conversation as well as apostles of +Conservation. And so it is upon that suggestion, I suppose, that in +making speeches of welcome, we are making speeches in discussion of +the subject that has brought them here. I take it, however, the explanation +of my presence on the program this morning, is not for the purpose +of welcoming you here to the State of Missouri, because you were +welcomed here when you decided to come. I am here among these +apostles of conservation and apostles of conversation simply for the +purpose of giving a little variety to the program. It seemed well to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span>those who were managing this Congress that on an occasion when the +people gathered together from all the states in the Union to consider +the important question of a proper conservation of the soil, that it +would be well to have at least one farmer among those who were gathered +together for the purposes of that discussion. (Applause) And +so they came down to Jefferson City to ask me to turn aside from my +executive and agricultural pursuits long enough to come up here and +lend a little variety to the program this morning, because to those who +come from other states it may be necessary to impart that although I +have been regarded and referred to upon various occasions as something +of a political curiosity, I am far more than that in that I am the first +farmer Governor of the State of Missouri in over a half a century, and +I think the first Governor in the entire history of the state who became +a farmer after he became Governor. (Laughter and applause). So +consequently I represent in and of myself both the principles of conversation +and the principles of Conservation. Consequently, what I +have to say to you this morning will be along the line of congratulation +that you have come to a state that has such a splendid example, not +only of the necessity, but of the practical results of the application of +that great national policy that you are gathered here to consider. As +has been suggested by the remarks of the Mayor, and the President of +the Commercial Club, this question of conservation is a question which +has so many sides, and has so many practical and important applications +that you have, Mr. Chairman, to come to a great state like the State +of Missouri, with its diversified interests and resources, in order to see +just exactly how great a question you are dealing with. (Laughter) +So I congratulate you upon the wisdom that you have displayed in +selecting your place of meeting. I say this advisedly, because Missouri, +which is the oldest of those states lying wholly west of the +Mississippi to have been admitted to the Union, is one of the youngest +or most undeveloped states between the Mississippi and the Pacific.</p> + +<p>Even before the territory where we meet today had become a part +of the American Republic, the hardy pioneers, hunters, trappers and +traders who had carried English civilization across the Alleghanies and +into the valley of the Mississippi had pushed westward even to the +banks of the Missouri. Following the acquisition of the Territory of +Louisiana and our organization as a territory and admission as a state, +Missouri stood for forty years as an outpost of civilization, reaching +out to the unknown and the undiscovered West. And from her borders +stretched those two great highways of commerce, the Oregon Trail, +and the Santa Fe Trail, along which, in turn, were to march the soldiers, +hunters, trappers and traders who were to bind the Trans-Mississippi +country to the United States by ties stronger than those of treaties and +of laws. The Missourian became the pioneer of the West. And in +practically every state that lies in that vast empire between the Mississippi +and the Pacific the sons of Missouri have felled the forests, dug +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span>the mines, cultivated the soil, written the constitutions and laws, held the +offices and directed the commercial and industrial activities.</p> + +<p class="center">MISSOURI’S UNDEVELOPED RESOURCES.</p> + +<p>So bounteously, in fact, has Missouri contributed of her citizenship +to the development of other states and territories that she has left +undeveloped many of her own natural resources and uncultivated almost +one-half of her soil. Of the 44 millions of acres which constitute the +State of Missouri, little more than one-half has ever been touched by +a plowshare; and of her 20 millions of acres of uncultivated soil, there +are 17,500,000 acres of woodland awaiting the stroke of the woodman’s +axe. Of lead and zinc, we produce more than any state in the Union, +yes, more than all of the states of the Union combined, or any nation +in the world. And yet the geologists tell us that greater stores of mineral +wealth lie beneath the surface of our soil than have even been discovered +by the drill of the miner or the pick of the prospector. We have +within and along our borders 6,000 miles of navigable rivers, a larger +number of miles of navigable waterways than any inland state in the +Union. By the cultivation of one-half of our 44 millions of acres we +produce over 100 million dollars worth of corn each year, nearly 1 million +dollars in value of this product for every county in the state. Missouri +lies in the very center of the American corn belt, and there are +no corn lands superior to those found in this state. One farmer in Missouri +grows more corn each year on his farm than is grown in the nine +States of Utah, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Rhode +Island, Wyoming and Nevada combined. Three counties in Missouri +grow more corn than nineteen other states, in which is included all of +New England. These three counties grow more corn than do the +states of New York, Maryland or West Virginia. Three times as much +corn is produced in Missouri each year as is produced in all of South +America, three-fifths as much as in all of Europe and nearly one-half +as much as is produced in the whole world outside of the United States. +The average yield of corn in Missouri per acre is forty bushels, a higher +average yield than in any state in the Union, and yet by the proper application +of the principle of conservation in the use and cultivation of +the soil, this production could doubtless be increased 25 per cent. And +by the proper use of the uncultivated corn lands of the state, our production +could be made greater than any state in the United States, and +probably greater than the entire corn production of Europe.</p> + +<p>The same thing is true as to our other important crops. Our average +wheat crop sells for 30 millions of dollars, which is also the average +value of our crop of hay which is sold upon the markets, not including +the immense acreage of blue grass, clover and timothy pastures.</p> + +<p class="center">THE OZARK REGION.</p> + +<p>The character of our soil, as well as of our climate, is peculiarly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span>favorable for the growing of grass. Grass is not only the greatest of +all agricultural products, but its production under most favorable conditions +is an indication of the most desirable place of habitation for man. +One of the early travelers who investigated the conditions in the Trans-Mississippi +country, who was also much of a philosopher, made the statement +that the best place for human habitation is in that country farthest +south where grass grows well. And the country farthest south +where grass grows well is to be found in the Ozark region of Missouri. +When the first Spanish explorers crossed the Mississippi, they found the +largest herds of buffalo, elk, deer and antelope feeding upon the splendid +pastures of blue stem and of blue grass in what is now the southern half +of Missouri. Prior to the coming of the white man, this region was a +vast upland prairie, noted for its splendid growth of grass and favorable +hunting ground. And so long as the Indians remained, the growth of +trees, except along the rivers and the streams, was prevented by the +burning of the grass each year. But with the coming of the white man +and the driving out of the Indian, the growth of the timber extended +back from the rivers and the streams, and what was once the greatest +pasture in the country is now covered by a growth of timber.</p> + +<p>Through the proper application of the principles of conservation, +this timber can be cleared in such a manner as to restore the growth of +blue grass and of blue stem to make this region the most favorable for +dairying and the raising of live stock that the country affords, and at +the same time preserve enough of the trees to give the natural commercial +advantages to be derived therefrom.</p> + +<p>Of our 20 millions of acres of uncultivated soil, three and one-half +million consist of swamp and overflowed lands to be found in the valleys +of our great rivers. If this land were reclaimed by the application +of the principles of conservation, so as to produce a certain annual harvest, +it would produce enough of agricultural wealth each year to feed +all of the people of Missouri, and leave the balance of our 23 millions +of acres for the production of surplus products.</p> + +<p>In support of this statement, let me refer you to facts of history, +for Egypt, during the palmiest days of her civilization, never had under +cultivation to exceed six millions of acres in the Valley of the Nile. And +yet these six millions of acres supported a population of 10 millions of +people. Holland reclaimed from the sea two and one-half millions of +acres of land which supported a population of 8 millions of people. And +yet the swamp and flooded lands of Missouri are as rich as the reclaimed +lands of Holland or the Valley of the Nile.</p> + +<p class="center">THE NEED OF SWAMP LAND RECLAMATION.</p> + +<p>The reason why these lands do not now produce a certain annual +harvest is largely due to the fact that the National Government does not +keep within their banks the waters of its navigable rivers. During +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>the course of the last ten years, the National Government has spent 125 +millions of dollars to put water on to three and one-half millions of arid +lands in the West. I am confident that there is no one present here today +who objects to the policy that has been followed by our National Government +for the reclamation of the arid lands of the West by the conservation +of our waters for the purpose of irrigation. Though mistakes +may have been made in isolated cases, the general policy meets +with national approval. But I feel that the time will come; in fact, I +believe it has come, when the national government should be willing to +spend at least a small portion of the money that it uses to put water +on the arid lands of the West to keep the water of its navigable rivers +off of the rich lowlands of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers. It +takes an expense of from $25 to $40 an acre to put water on to the arid +lands of the West, and yet it is the estimate of engineers that by an +expense of not to exceed $5.00 an acre the water of the navigable rivers +can be kept off of the lowlands adjacent thereto.</p> + +<p>This question is of importance not only to the people of Missouri, +but to the people of the entire country. There are in the Mississippi +and Missouri river valleys over 20 millions of acres of the richest lands +in the world, which are now impaired for the purpose of cultivation by +reason of swamps and overflows. If this land were reclaimed and made +to yield a certain annual harvest, it would almost double the agricultural +production of the Mississippi Valley. And the reason why it is not so +productive is, as I have said, because the national government does not +keep the waters of its navigable rivers within their banks. By doing +so the reclamation of this swamp and flooded land would not only be +made possible, but by such a policy our navigable rivers would be improved +and made more dependable as a means of inland transportation. +And it little profits us to increase the production of our fertile fields +unless that production can be carried from the farms to the market in +such a way and for such a charge as will adequately compensate for the +labor thereby expended.</p> + +<p>And if the principles of conservation were given a practical and +effective application in improving our rivers by the keeping of their +waters within their banks, by using in a proper and a scientific way our +uncultivated soil, the railroads would be unequal to the task of carrying +such an immensely increased agricultural production from the farm +to the market. Then the question of water transportation would become +a necessity and, in my judgment, a satisfactory progress in the improvement +of our inland waterways for the purposes of transportation +will not be made until our agricultural production is increased to such an +extent that existing railroads are unequal to its transportation.</p> + +<p class="center">THE PROBLEM OF ADEQUATE PRODUCTION.</p> + +<p>I have outlined to you, in a most general way, some of the important +phases of the question of conservation which find a practical +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span>application to the conditions existing today in the State of Missouri. +Experts tell us that over 40 per cent of our farm lands are being cultivated +in a way which tends to decrease, rather than to increase, their +productivity. Such a policy must inevitably result in the impoverishment +of the Nation; because when you destroy the productivity of the +soil, then do you strike at the very foundation of national prosperity and +happiness. Agriculture, the oldest of occupations, is clearly the most +important. The value of that which is produced from the soil exceeds +the value of all other products of human labor. Up to the present time +in this country, we have been peculiarly fortunate in that our production +has exceeded consumption and the supply has always been greater +than the demand. The result has been that the American people alone, +of all the people of the world, have eaten the same kind of food. And +no stronger influence could exist as against the creation of classes and +castes in our population than for all of the people to eat the same kind +of food.</p> + +<p>But with the consumption increasing more rapidly than production, +and the consequent increase in the cost of the necessities of life, +there shall come a time when many will not be able to secure the same +kind of food that is enjoyed by others. Then will there come a disturbing +and dangerous influence which will threaten our society and our institutions. +Statistics tell us of a constantly decreasing surplus of production. +Our balance of trade is rapidly becoming confined to the exports +of cotton. And if the present tendency continues, in a few years +we will consume all of the products of our grain and of our live stock +and have none to sell in other lands. And when this condition is followed +by a time that it will be necessary to import the necessities of +life, then will exist conditions which will be the cause of concern, as +well as a reflection upon the American people for their capacity to use +in a proper manner the great natural resources with which nature has +endowed them.</p> + +<p>I feel, however, that the American people have demonstrated most +impressively their capacity for self-government by the effective manner +in which they have taken up this important question of conservation. +Ten years ago, the term was hardly known outside of the laboratory of +the scientist and the class-room of the agricultural college. Today it is +almost a household term. Under the inspiring leadership of that great +American, Theodore Roosevelt, the American people have taken up the +consideration and the practical application of this important national +policy. And this splendid Congress today, assembled in this progressive +and developing city, is an evidence of the fact that the interest in this +question is by no means subsiding.</p> + +<p>I welcome you to Missouri and voice the sentiment of her people +when I say we hope that your deliberations and discussions will contribute +to the practical and effective application of that great public policy +that you are gathered here to consider.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—This is a right good looking audience. We +want it to go down in history, and if you will just be quiet, we will have +a flashlight picture taken before I respond to this eloquent address to +which you have just listened.</p> + +<p>[After the flash light picture was taken the Congress proceeded.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I assure you that it is a great privilege as +well as pleasure to respond in behalf of this Congress to the cordial +address of welcome of the Governor of the great State of Missouri, the +Mayor of Kansas City and the President of the Commercial Club. The +people of the West generally know Kansas City only as they see it from +the stations, and have no proper conception of the magnificence of its +buildings, the beauty of its streets and surroundings, and still less of +the remarkable enterprise of its citizens. I confess that all this was a +great surprise to me on a recent visit here.</p> + +<p>The real greatness of your city lies in the agricultural resources. +With the great State of Kansas on the west, with the great State of +Missouri on the east, with Oklahoma and Arkansas with their undeveloped +resources on the south, its future greatness must be largely +measured by the development of agriculture in these great states, in the +great corn state lying farther north and in the great cotton states farther +south. Kansas City can lay its hand on more possible agricultural +wealth than any other city on the map of the United States. Hence +it was early recognized by the officers of this Congress as the best possible +place to inaugurate a campaign for better farming, better business +and better living on the farm.</p> + +<p>The actual prosperity of any city is largely measured by the foresight, +the breadth of vision and energy of its commercial club. A modern +city may have vast resources; it may have a form of government +almost ideal; and that government may be acceptable to the people and +free from any breath of scandal; but if it does not have an organization +of its ablest and best business men, who can make a careful study +of these resources, who work together—and that, too, often at great +personal and pecuniary sacrifice—for the good of the city as a whole, +these resources are likely to remain undeveloped. The citizens of your +city and the whole state may well be proud of your Commercial Club. +Its members are the eyes through which the citizen sees the possible, +and the hands through which the possible becomes the actual. They +are the ears that recognize the unspoken needs and aspirations of the +busy masses, and the voice that gives them authoritative expression. +Without an active Commercial Club, such as you have, in which the +masses of the city have perfect confidence, you could not realize your +possibilities.</p> + +<p>I am no less glad to respond to the cordial greeting of the Governor +of Missouri, a state of magnificent resources of soil, in mineral +wealth of several kinds, and in climate. As “no man liveth to himself,” +no state liveth to itself; but Missouri could better afford to be fenced +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>off by itself than any other state in the Union. It could feed itself, +clothe itself and enjoy itself, and all from its own resources in field, +forest and mine, “without the aid or consent of any other nation on the +face of the earth.” Its Governor and its citizens may well be proud +of its advance in educational lines and in the development of its many +and varied resources. Kansas City, Missouri, is therefore a fitting place +for the conservationists of the United States to meet and discuss the +greatest of all present problems; how to conserve the greatest of the +resources of the Nation, the fertility of the soil and the life of the people +who live in the open country. I am sure I voice the sentiment of this +Congress as a whole when I return its most heartfelt thanks and full +appreciation of the hearty welcome given by the Mayor of Kansas City, +the President of its Commercial Club, and the Governor of the State of +Missouri.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DRIFT OF POPULATION.</p> + +<p>It will be my object in this address not to discuss any phase of the +conservation movement exhaustively, but to outline briefly two drifts +of population: the drift from the farm to the city and the drift from the +city toward the land, and the work of this Congress as related thereto.</p> + +<p>Even before the daily press had begun the crusade “back to the +land,” the movement toward the land had already set in. When Oklahoma +was opened to settlement the land seekers stood, serried ranks of +horsemen, waiting for the signal gun; and that great state of undulating +prairie, heretofore only a great pasture, was converted in a few weeks +into a state of farm homes. Congress did not dare to repeat the experiment; +but when other Indian reservations were opened, provided for +the distribution of land by lot, giving the prize to the lucky man rather +than to the one with the swiftest horse and most accurate knowledge +of the country. Every opening since reveals the fact that only one in a +few can gain the coveted prize, so great is the land hunger of the +American people.</p> + +<p>This land hunger is not peculiar to any class of people nor to any +state. The merchant, the banker, the railroad official of New York and +Boston, each longs for a farm, possibly only as a summer home, but is +willing to pay for it in investment, in improvements and cost of management, +more than it is worth in dollars or ever will be. He, too, is +bitten by land hunger. Many small business men of our cities, who +cannot hope to secure a farm and live on it, invest greedily in acreage +in the suburbs. The workman in the factory aims to secure two or three +acres on which he can build himself a home, have a garden or cow pasture +or place for poultry, or at least a playground for his children.</p> + +<p>The growth of large cities has ceased to be in the business or even +in the old residence sections, and is entirely in the suburbs. The same +holds true abroad. According to the census for 1909, London in the ten +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>years previous increased about three-quarters of a million. Yet the population +of the old town, “Old Londontown,” decreased very heavily; the +administrative district just outside that did not quite hold its own; and +the entire growth and twenty thousand more was made in the outer +circle or the suburbs. If men cannot have country life in the country, +they are constantly aiming at “<i>rus in urbe</i>,” in other words, to get as +much as possible of the country in the city.</p> + +<p>As interurbans stretch out from the cities, farm after farm on their +lines is divided up into acreage; and thus while the steam railroads tend +to concentrate population, as they have from the beginning, the trolley +lines tend to lure the people back toward the country. Even our foreign +population, the men who dig our coal, mine our ores and swelter +in our furnaces, aim to have a few acres which they can call their own, +where they may live cheaply and die in peace and quiet, when the great +interests have used up their best days and cast them off.</p> + +<p>In fact, latent in the heart of nearly every man, be he man of business, +clerk or other employe, or laboring with his hands, there is a +yearning desire to have a piece of land to call his own. Perhaps they +do not consciously reason it out. It may be a revival of the instinct +of the primitive man, or it may be an instinctive fear of industrial wrath +to come and a feeling that, should it come, should our whole industrial +system be shaken to its very foundation, the family that has a few acres +of its own can at least live in comparative comfort and safety.</p> + +<p class="center">THE MOVEMENT TO THE CITY.</p> + +<p>Alongside of this movement, back toward, if not always to the +farm, the counter-movement from the farm to the town, which has been +going on for fifty years, continues with increasing and accelerated force. +Farmers all over the older West move in great numbers or retire to the +country towns; and notwithstanding all this constant influx of population, +these towns, as the late census reveals, have barely held their own and +often have lost population, the natural increase of the towns themselves +pouring into the larger towns and cities, in which the majority live with +less comfort than the farmers who remain on their farms. Vast numbers +of boys and girls fall a prey to the alluring vices of the city; and many +of them eventually take their places with “the down and out.” Comparatively +few succeed and become well-to-do. The children of these +few become wealthy; their grandchildren usually spend gaily the fortunes +they never earned; and naturally the family dies out, at least, so +far as force and power are concerned, in another generation or at most +two or three. The city uses up men and families as it uses up horses. +And this is true not only in this, but in the older countries as well. +All Ireland, for example, except Dublin and Belfast, has lost population +in the last ten years, as has also nearly all of Wales and Scotland.</p> + +<p>I regard it as important that you should understand as clearly as +possible the conditions that have caused this world-wide movement from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>the farm to the city, as only in this way shall we be able to foresee and +describe the conditions that will cause and are even now causing a return +flow or movement back toward the land.</p> + +<p>This movement townward began with the use of improved machinery, +or the application of science to the operations of manufacturing +and distributing the things necessary for the supply of our ever-increasing +human wants. It has increased in proportion to the success +of the inventions and discoveries. The power loom put all other looms +out of business. The spinning jenny sent the spinning wheel to the +attic. The small industries—the wagon shops, the blacksmith shops, +the grist mills and carding mills found in and around the county seats +and smaller towns fifty years ago—“folded their tents like the Arab and +silently stole away,” when it was found that a large plant and improved +machinery, coupled with transportation facilities, could supply human +wants at less cost.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CORPORATION.</p> + +<p>What followed? Large capital was required for the larger plants. +The individual gave place to the firm; the firm eventually became a +corporation, and finally a trust. At last the workman could no longer +own his own tools, and became an employe. Large numbers of employes +were soon necessary, and for self-protection they formed the union. +The organization of labor followed logically the organization of capital +and gave us one of the greatest and most difficult of modern problems, +that of labor unions.</p> + +<p>In the factory we no longer aim to supply local demands, but state, +interstate, national and even international. For this there must be +transportation, and therefore we have now a railroad problem closely +intertwined with the labor problem, intimately connected with the whole +process of manufacturing and distribution. The products of these great +factories must be used by consumers living at long distances. Hence +we have the problem of distribution, or the problem of the middleman, +and all the direct results of the application of science to industry. Since +the world began the like has never been seen before. We have gone into +this troubled sea without chart or compass. Problems are evolved, for +the solution of which we have neither precedent nor guide.</p> + +<p>While all this was going on, an empire of virgin soil, the counterpart +of which exists in such mass nowhere else in the world, was opened +for immediate settlement, and that settlement was powerfully stimulated +by the homestead law and immense railroad grants. As a result +the Old World and the New were literally sluched with food for man +and beast at the bare cost of mining the soil fertility, the storage of unnumbered +centuries. Had this Mississippi Valley been covered with forests +like Pennsylvania and Ohio, and opened slowly as the world needed +food, our history would have been written differently, and the problems +to be met would have been of an entirely different character.</p> + +<p>With corn at from 20 to 25 cents, wheat 50 cents, oats 15 cents, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span>manufacturer could afford to pay higher wages than the farmer and +give shorter hours. The city could furnish plank walks, then cement, +paved streets, light, amusement, society—the joy of living. Is it any +wonder that the farm boy and girls fled to the cities, away from the +old-time isolation of the farm, from bad roads, from lack of society, +when offered better pay and shorter hours? Better pay; shorter hours; +larger life; amusements for all, whatever their tastes might be; what +boy or girl could resist all this?</p> + +<p class="center">THE EVOLUTION OF MACHINERY.</p> + +<p>The farm itself finally began to use improved machinery. The +farmer hung his scythe in a tree and bought a mower; hung up his +cradle and bought a binder. He used more horses, better tools, and +grew more crops with less than half the labor. All this was natural, +logical, inevitable. The older farming sections do not have so dense a +population as of old, simply because they do not need it as they did +when farming under old conditions. They could not use it with profit +when they had to compete with town wages and town hours.</p> + +<p>What then followed? Inevitably, soil impoverishment. The nineteenth +century farmer was, speaking generally, no farmer at all, but a +miner, a soil robber. There was a good farmer here and there, a good +settlement here and there; but, speaking generally, there was no farming, +nothing but mining. The nineteenth century farmer sold the stored +fertility of ages at the bare cost of mining it. With his gang-plow and +his four to eight-section harrow, he could do more soil robbing in five +years than his grandfather could do in his whole lifetime. The evidence +of it: The now general use of commercial fertilizers from the Atlantic +to the Pacific, which means that the farmer of today is paying good +round sums for the fertility his father literally gave away; and the disappearance +of crops which grow during a short season, and therefore +must have fertile land. Our flax crop, for instance, is now disappearing +up into Canada, spring wheat closely following, and our oats crop +preparing to follow.</p> + +<p>We are now nearing a point where we will need practically all our +grains to provide for the wants of our own population. Our export of +corn is merely a dribble; in our last census year 100 million bushels less +than the average ten years before. Our exports of meats and dairy +products have shrunk in ten years over 50 per cent. We sent abroad last +year only about one-third the number of cattle we sent ten years ago. +There is not the slightest indication that this decline will be checked. +If checked at all, it will be but temporarily, due to an industrial crisis. +Were it not for over 500 million dollars’ worth of cotton that we send +abroad each year, the country would be drained of its precious metals +to settle our foreign obligations, and we would be on the verge of +national bankruptcy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE PRODUCTION PER ACRE.</p> + +<p>Is it not amazing that, mainly since our Declaration of Independence, +135 years ago, we have been able to so waste our fertility that we produce +less wheat per acre than any people of the Eastern Hemisphere, +except Russia and India? Lands in England that have been farmed for +more than a thousand years produce more than twice as much wheat +per acre on the average as we do in the naturally better lands of the +Mississippi Valley. That demonstrates the difference between farming +and merely mining the soil fertility.</p> + +<p>This condition has been greatly hastened by our statesmen. The +gift of an empire of land to railroads to enable them to furnish speedy +and cheap transportation for a vast continent, together with the enactment +of the homestead law, so excessively stimulated agricultural production +that the farmer was often, and in fact generally until about +twelve years ago, forced to sell his products at and often under the cost +of production. This gave the world cheaper food than it will ever see +again, and made possible the wonderful growth of great cities the world +over.</p> + +<p>The anxiety of the farmer to find a home market instead of having +his prices fixed in a foreign market under competition led to the continuance +of the system of high tariffs long after the reason for it had +ceased to exist, thus wonderfully stimulating the growth of the cities +of our own land, cities which with all our boasted ability we have never +been able to govern decently. When this undue stimulus is removed, +as it will and must be sooner or later, our manufacturers will have to +take the same medicine which sickened the farmers in the 70’s, 80’s and +early 90’s.</p> + +<p>Inasmuch as there are no more Mississippi valleys to be opened, +we are now nearing the turning of the lane. We must from henceforth +learn how to farm. We cannot greatly increase our acreage; +will, in fact, be compelled by the return of normal climatic conditions +over our western territory to reduce it. The only thing left to do is to +grow more grain per acre, better stock in greater numbers per quarter +section. Only in this way can we reduce the cost of living.</p> + +<p class="center">HOW TO PRODUCE FOOD CHEAPLY.</p> + +<p>Our great problem, as I said to this Congress a year ago, is how +to produce food for our own people at prices which they can afford +to pay. But how? Partly by putting more brains into our farming. +There is a great deal of agricultural labor wasted simply because many +farmers do not have even an elementary knowledge of the forces with +which they have to work. It is hard to convince them that the fertility +of the soil is not inexhaustible. Farmers of this class have been +soil robbers too long, and they continue to grow the same crop year +after year, trusting to luck. It is hard to get the farmers of this class +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>to understand the philosophy of crop rotation, of the natural movement +of water in the soil, or of the ideal seed-bed, or the fitness of certain +soils for certain crops; in short, of the requirements of plant or animal +life, or to persuade them to active coöperation with each other, or to +get them in actual touch and sympathy with the new agriculture. This is +an educational process, and therefore slow, even when there is a disposition +to acquire the knowledge. Many farmers have more faith in +moon signs than in agricultural colleges and experimental stations; more +faith in ordinary politicians than in college professors and scientists; +more faith in yellow journals than in the best agricultural papers.</p> + +<p>For this reason we now grow on an average two-thirds of a pound +of corn to the hill; whereas the good farmer often grows on no better +land originally two pounds per hill of three stalks, and three pounds are +possible. We grow fourteen bushels of wheat per acre (this year but +twelve and a half), while on land no better naturally, and often not so +good, England grows thirty-two and Germany twenty-eight bushels. +We are now passing through a stage through which English farmers +passed when they grew but twelve and a half bushels of wheat per acre. +The new agriculture has lifted the English and the Danish farmer out +of the rut. It will lift us when we begin to use our brains. Before +this Congress adjourns we will have some illuminating discourses on this +branch of the subject, addresses by men of national reputation, who +have devoted their lives to some particular phase of the problem of +conserving and restoring soil fertility. I would not, even if I could, +anticipate what they will say and say so well.</p> + +<p>The farmer complains that he cannot employ labor necessary to grow +full crops on his land, and therefore that he cannot now engage in intensive +farming. There is just ground for his complaint. The factory, +the store, the railroad, the trolley line outbid him for the labor, +even that which is farm born and farm bred. He cannot use the cheap +labor of Southern Europe, nor the hobo or tramp, nor the ne’er-do-well +of the city, because the farm with its improved machinery and its live +stock requires skilled labor, and a kind of skill that can be acquired +only on the farm. He can use Russian and the Japanese in the beet +fields. He can use the emigrant from Southern Europe in the vegetable +garden, in digging ditches or making roads; but he cannot use this labor +in modern farming operations. He dare not employ an unskilled man +in milking, nor in feeding his cattle, nor entrust to his care the management +of either improved machinery or team.</p> + +<p class="center">BOYS AND GIRLS AND THE FARM.</p> + +<p>Therefore the very root and kernel of our modern farm problem +is how to retain on the farm all the boys and girls born there, who are +fit to be farmers or farmers’ wives. This can be done only by making +farm life worth living. Making money or owning a farm is not all of +farm life. We have but one life to live on this earth, and we should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span>get out of it all that is possible. In many sections in the country, with +bad roads, poor schools, poor churches and no social life, farm life is +not worth living. That proof of this is seen in the fact that farm boys +and girls flee from it, and the farmer himself, as soon as he thinks he is +able to live in town.</p> + +<p>The farmer himself is to blame for much of this. He has played +on the roads under pretense of working them. He has hired the school +teacher at the lowest wage and starved the preacher. He has accepted +the town ideal of life, regarding himself as “only a farmer.” His school +has not been a rural school at all, but a poor kind of city school moved +out into the country; and its teacher gaining at his expense the years +of experience, while teaching farm children in terms of the town instead +of the farm and in the spirit of the farm, that will enable her to +get a position in the city. His preacher has been hoping he would get +a call to a city church. If the farmer has got on in the world, his wife, +if she is very foolish indeed, is inclined to boast that her society is not +in the country, but the town. He allows the politician in the city to fix +up a slate and tell him how he must vote.</p> + +<p>All that is needed to convert the farmers of the West into peasants +is to continue this policy for another generation. Fortunately this policy +will not continue. All over the country there is the beginning of a +great social and industrial awakening. The farmer is beginning to “magnify +his office,” to cut loose from partisan bias, to do his own thinking +and act for himself. He is paying better salaries to his school teachers, +and insisting that the teaching have some relation to the life of the +farm. He is buying his own automobiles, and paying cash for them. +He is beginning to realize that farm life is essentially different from the +life of the town. The man who steps high because accustomed to walking +over clods and has the far away look of one who studies the clouds, +is a different type of man altogether from the man who glides along the +pavement and to whom the weather is a matter of little or no immediate +concern. The man who glances over the headlines of his daily paper +while he sips his coffee is a different character from the man who reads +and studies the editorial of his weekly paper. This farmer’s wife is now +organizing her own clubs and giving her town sisters lessons in club +work. The movement to organize life clubs is spreading. The boys and +girls are organizing for games. The country church is beginning to realize +its mission, and in several states country preachers are taking short +courses in agricultural colleges in order that they may teach morals and +religion to farmers in terms of their daily life.</p> + +<p>The conservation of the life of the farmer, using the word in its +broadest sense, is essential to the conservation of the fertility of the +soil; and for that reason the executive committee of this Congress has +invited some of the leaders, men whose hearts are in this work, to discuss +before you its various phases. You have a real treat before you.</p> + +<p>In conclusion, permit me to say that the ultimate prosperity of the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span>city, its ability to govern itself wisely and well, depend on the development +of rural manhood. More than that, the very permanence of our +republic will depend on the development of the manhood of the farm. +Rome ceased to be a republic shortly after the farmers moved to town +and left their lands to be tilled by mere hirelings and slaves.</p> + +<p>We keep the best wine to the last always, and the last address +of this morning will be a response by Hon. J. B. White, of Kansas City, +chairman of the executive committee of the National Conservation Congress. +Mr. White. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">White</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of this Congress: +It is not necessary that I should reply to the address of welcome, +the ground has been so fully covered by the President of this +Association. I feel like endorsing from my heart everything he has said, +but as a matter of form, because it is expected that the chairman of +the executive committee will have something to say, I want to join as +a private citizen of Kansas City in welcoming the farmers and the conservationists +of the entire country here today, and as the chairman of +the executive committee I want to thank the good people of Kansas +City for the admirable and perfect preparation that they have made. +I want to thank the board of local managers. I want to thank the +Secretary of the Commercial Club, Secretary Clendening, personally, +and the organization of which he is the main worker. I want to thank him +for the great work which they have done in making this Conservation +Congress possible. The Commercial Club of Kansas City has been well +spoken of as the eye and the ear of the people of Kansas City, and it is +truly so.</p> + +<p>Now, this Conservation Congress was called here because it was +thought there ought to be special attention given to conservation of +farms—to the conservation of soil. And it was thought that Kansas +City was in the center of the greatest agricultural district in the world. +I suppose, going two hundred miles in either direction from Kansas +City, another piece of ground naturally so fertile is not to be found in +the world. It takes in a part of Iowa, and it takes in the State of Kansas, +a large part of it, and nowhere is there a better. If it were formed +into one state it would be the greatest state agriculturally in the world. +I am a farmer and a lumberman, and there was a time not long ago +when conservation was thought to apply only to forestry, and that the +lumberman was the great and ruthless destroyer of the forest. It was +a matter of sentiment that went all over the country, and they thought +conservation ought to begin by saving the trees. Now, we have passed +beyond that. The lumbermen of the State of Missouri paid thousands +of dollars to help endow a chair of Forestry in Yale College. I see before +me one gentleman here who paid $4,000 toward that cause, and my +company has paid a great deal of money towards a chair of Forestry, +and we have done everything that we could. We invited the students +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>of forestry of Yale College into our forests. One season I had forty +for two or three months, and thirty-five for another season in my forests. +We built them cabins and furnished them men and horses, and +everything we could do to help them study forest conditions was done. +We began it in Missouri over twenty years ago, and later, as lumbermen, +we have taken the greatest interest in practical forestry and the +conservation of the forest, but we found it true that conservation of +the soil must come first, because it is of the greater importance. There +are substitutes for wood for the purpose of shelter, but there are no +substitutes for food, and he that make two blades of grass grow where +one grew before is doing his utmost for this and future generations. I +notice that my friend, Mr. Wallace, touched on politics. Now, I am +not certain whether it was politics, because the line drawn is so fine. +It is so hard to draw a line between conservation economics and real +good politics. I remember I got my foot into it one time; I used to +belong to the Grange—thirty-five years ago. In order to organize a +grange you have to have at least fifteen members, and four of them +must be women, because it was supposed that in any like proportion, +four women to eleven men, gives the women the majority, and wherever +four women, or of that proportion, get into a convention they are +always in the majority. I got up, under the good of the order, addressed +the master of the Grange, and began to tell how I thought benefit +might accrue to the members of the Grange. I stated some of the +benefits that we were then enjoying; that we had 6 cents a pound protection +on lumber, and 6 cents a pound protection on cheese, $4.00 a ton +on hay, and $1.50 protection on straw, and 15 cents a pound protection +on butter. And then I had a complaint, because just then they +had taken the tariff off of lumber, and I said, “I own a saw mill and +I don’t think it is fair to let in lumber free.” (They did it at that time, +back in 1878.) One sister got up and replied, “We can stand 6 cents a +pound on butter, and 6 cents a pound on cheese, and $4.00 a ton on hay, +and 15 cents a bushel on potatoes, but, Good Lord, we ought to have +something free, and I think it ought to be lumber.” And they ruled I +was talking politics and I could not go any farther. That was the +situation. It summed up a good deal like this, that we want protection +on everything we produce, and we want everything to come in free +that we have to buy, and I think that is good economics. That would +not be politics.</p> + +<p>Brother Wallace sees a great deal of good in everything, and he +can draw his lesson and illustration to prove conclusively any point he +entertains. I found that out. Why, I did not know that Samson was +a saint until I attended a church here in Kansas City four weeks ago +yesterday, and I listened to one of the best sermons I ever heard. It +was shown conclusively that Samson was a saint, and that it was so +recorded in the Scriptures. There were good reasons for his being a +saint; the chief of these reasons was that he was the best material they +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>had at that time to make saints of. My friend, Uncle Henry Wallace, +delivered that sermon, and it is the only sermon that I ever heard where +politics and religion were not touched upon at all. And I am sure that +he will preside at this Congress with that same justice; that there will +be no complaint that there has been any offensive politics entertained +upon the floor. I want to thank you again that you are here. And I +want to say before I sit down, that a session of the executive committee, +of which I am chairman, will meet at room 1111 Long Building +tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock. We will get here at 10 o’clock, having +an hour to confer and pass some important resolutions and make some +suggestions as to matters that will be presented to this Congress. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Please be seated just a moment. I wish to +announce the appointment of the following committee on credentials: +Prof. George E. Condra, of Nebraska; Dr. H. E. Barnard, of Indiana; +Mr. Ralph H. Faxon, of Kansas; Mr. E. T. Allen, of Oregon, and Mr. +W. E. Barnes, of Missouri.</p> + +<p>Col. John I. Martin, of St. Louis, representing the City of St. +Louis, Lakes-to-the-Gulf-Deepwaterway Association, and the National +Rivers and Harbors Congress, has been selected as the sergeant-at-arms +for this Conservation Congress. He has accepted the office and is now +in charge of its affairs, and you will do just what he says, and do it with +great pleasure, and with great profit to yourselves.</p> + +<p>The secretary has some announcements to make. Before he makes +them let me say that the meeting this afternoon will be at 2 o’clock, +which is sixty minutes past one and sixty minutes before three. This +afternoon’s meeting will be a conference of governors of states and their +representatives, and the presiding officer will be Honorable Herbert S. +Hadley, and tonight we shall hear the President of the United States. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Secretary <span class="smcap">Shipp</span>—All delegates or committees that have any announcements +to make are requested to send them in writing to the secretary, +so that they can be read from the platform, and posted at the +information bureau.</p> + +<p>The delegates from each state are requested to meet immediately +upon the adjournment of the morning session, and organize by selecting +from each state delegation a chairman and secretary, and a member +of the committee on resolutions, and a vice-president to represent the +state at the next Conservation Congress. The names of those selected +should be handed in writing to the secretary at registration headquarters +at the south entrance of the hall, or on the platform.</p> + +<p>All state conservation commissions, and other state conservation +organizations that have reports to make to the Congress, are requested +to be ready to report this afternoon. The reports will be made as the +roll of the states is called. In view of the number of reports to be presented, +it is suggested that no report be more than ten minutes in length.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p> + +<p>The delegates from all national organizations represented at the +Congress are requested to assemble at some time during the day and +organize by the selection of a chairman and a secretary, and choose a +representative for membership on the proposed advisatory board of +the Congress. If only one representative of a national organization is +present, that representative should send in his name to the secretary.</p> + +<p>Reports from national organizations are to be the first order of +business Tuesday forenoon. In order that proper provision may be +made for these reports all national organizations that have reports are +requested to notify the secretary, either at registration headquarters, or +on the platform, giving the name and address of the representative who is +to make the report.</p> + +<p>All delegates or committees that have announcements to make are +requested to send them in writing to the secretary so that they may +be made from the platform, and posted on the bulletin board at the information +bureau.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I forgot to mention one of the greatest +features of this afternoon will be an address by the Honorable Ben B. +Lindsay, of Denver, Colorado, on the “Country Child versus the City +Child.”</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—The chapters of the Daughters of the +American Revolution of Kansas City will give a reception in honor of +Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, president general and the vice-president, from +four to six this afternoon at the Coates House. All visiting and resident +Daughters of the American Revolution are invited.</p> + +<p>The club women of Kansas City have established a rest room within +the convention building, to which all women delegates and visitors are +cordially invited.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">J. T. Baumgartner</span> (of California)—In addition to the +announcements that have been made, I wish to ask the California delegates +to meet at the Standard immediately upon adjournment.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Congress is now adjourned to meet at this +place at 2 o’clock this afternoon.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SECOND_SESSION"><i>SECOND SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p>At 2 o’clock in the afternoon President Wallace called the Congress +to order.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Congress will come to order, and the +Divine blessing will be invoked by Rev. Dr. R. M. Kerr, pastor First +United Presbyterian church of Kansas City.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span></p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p><i>Our Father and our God, we pause at the opening of this meeting +this afternoon to ask Thy blessing upon the National Conservation +Congress in this and its other sessions, in all of its undertakings. We +are asking of Thee the wisdom that is beyond the mind of man, and we +come only to Thee. We are dealing with affairs of national interest +and import, and we dare not come to any one but Thee, because we believe +that in Thy power this land has been made, and in Thy Providence +it has been discovered. And that our forefathers in Thy fear have established +a nation which has often realized Thy signal blessing. We would +recognize Thee as the God, and the giver of every good and perfect gift. +Thou hast locked up in the mountains, hidden away in the soil of this +country those elements that have made possible our material welfare +and prosperity. We ask Thee this afternoon that Thou wilt grant unto +the officers of this Congress, unto these its delegates and all of the people +in this land interested in these problems the wisdom that will rightly +enable us to appreciate Thy gifts, and rightly conserve them, to use them +for the greatest good of the greatest number concerned. And we ask +for Thy blessing to be upon our President, and his cabinet; upon the +legislative bodies, state and national, upon all the courts of this land, +that as the people of this country through these officers are striving to +enact and execute just laws, they may do so in Thy fear, and that the +righteousness of a Christian civilization may become more and more a +reality. We would pray today that Thy material blessings to us have +chief value in relation to human life and human deeds, and human development, +and may the conservation movement that is on foot in this +country always be broad enough and high enough to include the conservation +of human life, the integrity of manhood, the virtue of womanhood, +and the beauty and the innocence and the true worth of child life. +We believe that these blessings will mean the highest good to our beloved +country, and mean the advancement of Thy kingdom here in this +earth, and we ask these favors through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.</i></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I take great pleasure, Ladies and Gentlemen, +in announcing Governor Hadley of Missouri as the presiding officer this +afternoon. Governor Hadley. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Governor <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Mr. Chairman and Members Of the Congress: +I was selected to preside this afternoon in the expectation that this afternoon +would be distinguished by a conference of governors. I say +distinguished advisedly, because nowadays when governors confer there +is distinction to be passed around on all present, and some for others. +However, there were a number of governors here yesterday who were +unexpectedly called out of the city, but who will return during the +sessions of the Congress. There are some who will be present who +have not yet arrived, and consequently it has been decided by the officers +in charge of this Congress that upon this afternoon prior to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>the address of Judge Lindsay, there will be a call of the states, upon +which call the representatives of the various states who are here, other +than the governors, will speak for a few moments in reference to the +general question of conservation in their respective states, and the conference +of the governors will be held later. After this call of the +states you will have the pleasure, I understand, of listening to the address +by Judge Lindsay. In calling for the representatives of the several +states, those who are here representing the governor, or those who +may have been selected by the delegates from any one of the states to +speak in reference to the situation in their state relating to the general +policy of conservation will arise, and either speak from the floor, or +come forward to the platform. The representatives of the press, whose +requests are always entitled to consideration, if not to be followed, request +that the representatives come forward so that their names and +their remarks can both be heard and preserved. I will now ask the secretary +to proceed with the call of the roll.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Alabama. Is there a representative +from Alabama present? (No response) Arizona. (No response) Arkansas. +(No response) California.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Mr. J. C. Baumgartner of the State of California +will speak for that state.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Baumgartner’s speech will be found in the supplementary proceedings +at back of book.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I am certain we are all glad to know that +though California may be a little short upon water, it is not short on +good society, the possibility of good development. The secretary will +proceed with the call of the states. The secretary calls my attention +to the fact that the number of the states makes it necessary to somewhat +limit the statements from each, and they will be limited to five +minutes. The chairman, however, has a slow watch, so govern yourselves +accordingly.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—The next state on the roll is Colorado.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Is the State of Colorado represented here?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Connecticut. (No response) Delaware. +(No response) District of Columbia. (No response) Florida.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Is the representative of the State of Florida +in the hall? Go ahead.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Georgia.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">E. L. Worsham</span>, of Georgia—I am not the speaking +representative from Georgia, but I will make a brief report as to what +conservation is doing in that section of the United States, or what we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span>are doing along conservation lines. I regret very much indeed to see +so many vacant seats in the audience from the states to the far south. +This is a very busy time with the people in the south, as most of you +know, and there are a great many conservationists who would like +very much indeed to be present at this meeting, and I think it is safe +to say that the fact that they are not here does not mean that the +South is not interested in conservation, and that they are not doing +something along those lines. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen, it is true, +however, that the people of the southern states are not quite as active +in the conservation movement as the people of the North and West, +and why, I cannot see, because there is no doubt but that in the beginning +God smiled more sweetly on this section than on any other +section of the American continent. He did more for those people +than all the rest. He endowed us with resources more wonderful than +those of any of the other sections of the United States. Those good +people have gone on from time to time not realizing what these resources +meant, until they are gradually passing out of their hands. I cannot +speak for other states, but for Georgia, Mr. President, I want to say +that we have enough water to supply California, and a good many +other Western states. That is the least of all of our troubles. As +to water power, we have water power enough running waste to run +every spindle in the southern states. It is simply awaiting the hand +of the developer, and we want to see it properly developed, and not +gobbled up as it has been done in many of the western states. This +is one of the big problems that the State of Georgia has on its hands +today. It is a natural section for manufacturing interests of all kinds, +and you can get the cheapest power on earth on account of this wonderful +water power that is stored up in its mountains.</p> + +<p>We have coal enough to run Georgia and California a thousand years. +We have rich stores of iron that run higher in per cent of iron than +those of the Birmingham district, and very few people know its value. +I understand the State of Georgia supplies three-fourths of the asbestos +output of the United States. Our marble speaks for itself in monuments +like that beautiful capital of Minnesota. Our granite speaks +for itself in buildings like the federal building in San Antonio, Texas, +and other buildings which I could point out. Our rich stores of bauxite +many of you know about, but, there are numerous other things of +this kind, Mr. Chairman, which I could mention, but I don’t care to +dwell on them at this time. The main thing that we are here to discuss +is the conservation of soil fertility, the conservation of agricultural +resources. We of the South are an agricultural section. You +take away from us our agriculture, and while we are rich in minerals +and various other things, in a measure we would be helpless. It is +the only spot on earth, you might say, that has a monopoly on the +greatest crop on earth, and that is the cotton crop. This I consider +by far the most interesting, the most valuable phase of conservation. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span>The people of the South, while their soil is extremely fertile, or was +in the beginning, have allowed the rain to wash it down in the valleys, +and it has washed into the sea. They had thousands and thousands of +acres of land that would produce anywhere from 25 to 100 bushels +of corn per acre, and from one to four bales of cotton per acre, if it +was simply cared for in a proper way. I have visited the spot which +holds the record for the greatest cotton yield on earth, which produced +four bales per acre. In the beginning it was the poorest, reddest soil +you ever saw in your life. It was taken over by a man who knew +his business, and in the course of three or four years he had it up to +a point where it produced almost anything. And there is another thing, +Mr. Chairman, we have a section there that will produce almost anything +under the sun in the way of crops. There is only one other +state in the union that can compare with Georgia in that respect, and +that is California, and, as the gentleman has just stated, they have not +water. Our sections, from blue grass to oranges, will produce all of +the various things in between.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chairman, we of the South have got the biggest problem on +earth to solve, as I see the problem. The problem of conservation of +soil fertility, the conservation of agricultural resources in general, are +undoubtedly among the important questions confronting this Congress, +but we have the biggest part of that problem. Why? It is because of +the much discussed negro problem of the South. There are a thousand +and one solutions of this offered, but the question remains unsolved, +and will pass on to future generations. As long as we have the negro +we are deprived of having other classes of labor, which you have here +in the North. (Applause) Because of his presence, we, of the South, +are dependent on the negro, and he knows it. We have got to get +along in the very best way we can, but we need a better class of labor. +I don’t know what we are going to do. That is the reason that this +is such a grave matter to the people of the South. Mr. Chairman, +I see I am taking up too much time here, but I do want to get back +to Georgia, and the part she is playing in conservation. (Cries of Go +on. Go on.)</p> + +<p>Since the Congress met one year ago, at St. Paul, the South has +had a conservation congress, and I think I can say that it was a success. +There are a number of speakers on this program that were there +and noted the interest that was manifest in this meeting. Following +that meeting the Georgia Conservation Association was organized, and +it is taking up a number of these problems which we are so anxious +to solve. The president is a distinguished man in Georgia, Judge John +C. Hart. He is a man who went before the Supreme Court of the +United States and presented on behalf of the State of Georgia one +of the most famous cases in its history. The State of Georgia filed +an injunction against an immense copper plant in the northern part of +the state, which was responsible for a great deal of destruction of property, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>of vegetation in general. This company had, at an expense of +millions of dollars, put in this plant, and I understand it is the largest +of its kind in the world. At that time copper was the plant’s main output +and the state filed an injunction requiring these people to consume +the fumes that were destroying vegetation. The case was carried to +the Supreme court, and the injunction sustained, and at a cost of five +millions of dollars the Ducktown copper plant put in a consumer from +which they produced sulphuric acid, and, today, it is one of the largest +sulphuric acid plants in the world. There is one of the solutions to +the problem which your able president presented this morning in the +fact that you have, throughout the West, as well as the South, to fertilize. +Georgia, as a result of that injunction, saved two million dollars +last year in its fertilizer bill. The representative of the State of Georgia +Conservation Association framed a bill creating a state conservation +board, not a commission, but a board that was to be created by special +act, taking up all lines of conservation. This bill was unanimously +passed by the senate, and unanimously recommended by the committee +of the house, and will come up for passage at the next session of the +legislature.</p> + +<p>We passed a bill protecting bird life, and wild life generally in +the state, a very strict law, which we have needed for many years. The +state, as a result of the conservation work, has enacted a drainage bill, +which, I think, will result in great good to the people in the southeastern +part, in the drainage of swamp lands, which will make perhaps +the greatest agricultural land on earth.</p> + +<p>Mr. Chairman, I cannot go into details on any of these problems. +Other states in the union, every state in the union has agencies working +for conservation. In the first plant, the United States Department +of Agriculture is working wonderful results in the different states, along +lines of agriculture. The state colleges of agriculture are doing great +work; the experiment stations are doing great work; the various state +departments of agriculture are doing great work, but there is a certain +class of work which these agencies cannot do. There is a great work +for the independent organizations, such as the State Conservation Association +in the different states, and I would urge each state that has +not organized to get busy at once, and begin to take up these problems. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Instead of a statement of the resources and +developments in the various states, I would suggest that this call of +the roll is particularly designed to accomplish a statement of what is +being done by public or official organizations in dealing with the question +of conservation in the several states. I think it is a very satisfactory +indication of the modern trend of conservation that this work +is now being done by the people of the several states instead of the +national government. It is an indication that the people do not intend +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span>that their state governments shall sink to a lower level of efficiency. +They intend to exercise every power which they possess under the +federal constitution.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Idaho.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I have the pleasure to introduce to you Mrs. +Holland C. Day, who will speak for and represent Idaho.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mrs. Day’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I am very glad indeed in listening to the interesting +speech of Mrs. Day to note what a serious attraction a state +might have for a woman by reason of having woman suffrage and +caused her to transfer her allegiance to the Governor of Idaho. I would +suggest, however, that she should not, in her enthusiasm for the horticultural +possibilities of the State of Idaho, forget that she still belongs +to a state that is distinguished as the state of the “Big Red Apple.”</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Mrs. Day</span>—I will also say that the female suffrage movement is +going right straight along in Missouri. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I do not want to start a discussion right now. +This, being a conservation congress, is a peace conference. I will now +call on Col. Isham Randolph, who will speak for the State of Illinois.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Col. Randolph’s speech will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I am certain that every person interested in the +general question of Conservation, and particularly the state ownership of +its water power, is interested in Colonel Randolph’s statement as to what +they are doing in the State of Illinois. And I know that all of you, and +all other friends of Conservation, will be glad to have Colonel Randolph +convey to Governor Deneen the best wishes of the Congress. I would +suggest that on account of the fact that there are a number of speakers, +and Judge Lindsay, whom you are all anxious to hear, that the speakers +will please confine their statements to the official activities of their various +states in dealing with this question of Conservation.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Indiana.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Mr. Harry Everitt Barnard, chemist Indiana +state board of health and state food commissioner, will speak for Indiana. +I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Barnard.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Barnard’s speech will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—I have a telegram from the Mexican +Ambassador:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Washington, D. C.—Accept sincere thanks for kind invitation. Regret +exceedingly that official duties here prevent me from accepting hospitality; +would thank you greatly for minutes of meeting. Gilberto Crespo, Mexican +Ambassador.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The next state is Iowa.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I would suggest that the representatives of the +several states yet to be called come up on the platform.</p> + +<p>I have the pleasure of introducing to you Mr. Thomas H. MacBride, +who will speak for the state of Iowa. Mr. MacBride. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. MacBride’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I am certain that the representatives of all of +the states present appreciate Mr. MacBride’s not speaking of the resources +of the state he represents; although he did plead guilty to having +a legislature up there, which practically all the representatives of +the other states have to plead guilty to.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Kansas.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">A. W. Stubbs</span> (Kansas City, Kansas)—Missouri has elected from +our state, a native of our state as its mayor, and has also elected a +native of our state as its governor, and Kansas has therefore as its representative, +to speak for it, a most distinguished educator, formerly of +Missouri, now president of the state agricultural college. Kansas has +elected today Professor Waters as representative of that delegation, +as president. And we would like to hear from him.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—During the sessions of this convention you will +have the pleasure of listening at length to a paper by Dr. Waters, but +at this time, on the call of the roll of the states, Kansas has selected +him to speak for her, and I am advised that during his short residence +of a little over one year in that state he has learned to speak the Kansas +language. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Dean Water’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I am glad to see that Dean Waters with a +few slight and one noticeable amendments is able to effectively use the +speech he used to use about the State of Missouri when he lived here, +and spoke to the State of Kansas.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Kentucky.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I have the pleasure to introduce to you Col. +M. H. Crump, of Bowling Green, Kentucky.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Col. Crump</span>—Mr. Chairman. I am simply here this evening to +say that the president of the University of Kentucky is not here. He +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>will be here tonight, and I will state that he will tell you tomorrow +what we are attempting to do in Kentucky. We started the conservation +movement there some thirty years ago with Professor Shaler of +Harvard, when he was state geologist. He wrote the first paper I +know of in attempting to take care of forestry. It is found in his report +of 1873, about the time I came to the state. We are, through the +university, through the state colleges, and through the geological survey, +making some efforts along that line, and we are doing all the +state can do in that way. But there is a subject there that we think +is too large for the state to undertake. I picked up a circular when I +came in here, which says that an effort is being made to take care of and +preserve the forests, and the soil at the head of the Green river. This +paper states that some 32,000 acres of timber land, 2,000 of which +is virgin forest, the last of a great forest which once covered the Green +river, and in the center of which is Mammoth Cave, we ask that the +Nation come forward and help to take care of that, because it is too +large for Kentucky, and heretofore nothing has been too large for +Kentucky to do. (Applause) That is all I have to say. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Louisiana.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—Mr. Fred J. Grace will speak for Louisiana.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Grace’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I know that all true conservationists will be +glad to know that Louisiana is looking after the conservation of her +shrimps and oysters, and we will all be glad to hear whether Maryland +is interested in her terrapin and canvas backs.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—The next state is Maryland.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I have the pleasure of introducing Hon. Bernard +N. Baker, president of the first Conservation Congress. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Mr. Baker</span>—Fellow delegates. I will only detain you a few minutes. +I know you are all waiting to hear Judge Lindsay. The governor +limited us to what we were doing to preserve the oyster. Maryland +is doing her duty in that respect, and if you will do your part, we +shall all enjoy them in using the oyster when it is opened. I know you +want to hear Judge Lindsay, and I am going to only speak a word. I +thank you for this, and we will wait for Judge Lindsay.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Fred J. Breeze</span> of Indiana—I move that the report on the call of +the states be laid over until tomorrow.</p> + +<p>The motion was duly seconded.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—I think the Chair will declare that motion carried, +and on tomorrow morning where there is an order on the program +for the response of chairmen of organizations concerned in conservation +there will be statements of the representatives of the several +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>states. It is important in the consideration of this question that we +should not lose sight of the fact that conservation is a means and not +an end, and the real end is the formation and promotion of the happiness +and welfare and prosperity of the people. Consequently the most +important question of conservation is the question of the conservation +of human health and life. There are various phases of this question +before the American people today that are of commanding importance; +the immense toll that modern industry makes upon its workers amounts +to ten every sixty seconds; the number of deaths from unhealthful +occupations has presented a record as tragic as any that was ever written +in times of war. There is another phase of this question, of conservation +of human life, in the manner in which society deals with its +deficient and dependents. Any system devised for the prosecution of +crime and the protection of society against its enemies that deals only +with the question of punishment and revenge is a mistaken system, and +does not accomplish anything of permanent results in its benefits to +society. They talk of the system in the conduct of penitentiaries and +jails and eleemosynary institutes, but unless they send those they heal +out into the world better men, women or children, physically, intellectually +or morally than when they received them, that system is a mistaken +and misguided one. One of the most distinguished representatives +of a modern system in the enforcement of our criminal law for +the conservation of human life and character is a man who I now have +the pleasure of introducing to you, Judge Ben Lindsay, of the State +of Colorado, and of the City of Denver, (Applause) who will speak +on the subject of the “Country Child vs. the City Child.” Hon. Ben +B. Lindsay.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Judge Lindsay</span>—Governor Hadley and delegates, ladies and gentlemen: +I am sure it is a great honor to have the privilege of appearing +here at this National Conservation Congress to consider some phases +of the problem of the child. I do not know whether at past congresses +the subject of the child has had a part in the program, but I do know +that upon this occasion I feel a great deal as I think a particular boy +friend of mine must have felt once in a little episode that happened +in my own court nearly ten years ago. We found that when we made +an appeal to the loyalty, even of the street boy, the state might find +a helper and defender instead of an enemy. I recall when a certain +policeman could not capture a certain little rascal of the streets. He +went by the nickname of “Moochy.” He came in one day to say to me +that another little imp of Satan, as he was supposed to be, by the name +of “Mickey,” knew where “Moochy” was, and if he could enlist the +services of “Mickey” in the capture of “Moochy” he thought he might +save this little citizen. It was with some difficulty that I had to explain +to “Mickey” that we were trying to save “Moochy,” in order to get +him to tell me where “Moochy” was. When he found we had come +to save, to help, and not to hurt, that loyalty for his chum turned to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>loyalty to the state, and he said, “Judge, I know where the kid is, and +I will get him.” In about fifteen minutes down in the wing of a cheap +theater in our town there was a howl and a growl that somewhat disconcerted +the audience. And when they investigated they found it was +“Micky” pinching “Moochey,” as he called it. With some difficulty +my little gamin friend succeeded in getting the delinquent to the court +house, coming in to say to me with more or less disgust, “that the kid +didn’t seem to want to be saved nohow.” A newspaper reporter happened +to come along to write a story based upon this episode, to be +called “The Pinching of Moochey by Mickey.” It was not complete, +in his estimation, without a picture of the two, and he lined them up +outside to take their pictures, when “Mickey” balked. He would not +stand to have his picture taken. And I was somewhat puzzled, for +I rather feared the outcome of this situation when “Mickey” came in +followed by the newspaper reporter, to explain. He said, “Do you +tinks I want to get my pictur took wid de little giek,” as he pointed +to “Moochy” outside? “No,” he said, “I don’t; I got out of his class +two years ago.” Then he said, as he pointed to the newspaper man, +“If that guy wants to take my picture let him take it alongside of you, +put both in together, and I don’t kick.”</p> + +<p class="center">CHILDREN, THE BIGGEST CROP.</p> + +<p>When the Conservation Congress wanted to put the child in its work +I am certain I am not going to kick, but I am here to avail myself, as +best I can of this honor and this privilege. For after all this conference +has needed no apologies for including in its proceedings the problem of +the child, for there is not any problem that does not, in a measure, have +some bearing, some relation to the home and the child in the home. +These children are our best and our biggest crop. Without a proper +conservation of their welfare there will never be anything else worth +conserving.</p> + +<p>There should be a bond of sympathy between the problem of the +child and the conservation of our natural resources because of the +rather interesting fact that the systematic work being developed for +both has had most of its growth and development during the past decade, +and when the history of the first ten years of the twentieth century +shall be finally written the two great revivals recorded will be +those concerning conservation and the child. It becomes more apparent +each year that the children are the most important factors in whatever +the future may hold in store for us.</p> + +<p>Another significant fact is that the growth of popular interest in +the problems of the children has been almost identical with the amazing +growth of urban population for the past two decades.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus3" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus3.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Prof. E. Lee Worsham</span>, Chairman of the Executive Committee</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="center">CONGESTION PROBLEMS.</p> + +<p>The cry of “Back to the soil”; the stimulus given by the conservation +movement and the various activities that have grown out of it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>to promote the pleasures, advantages and opportunities of farm life +together with all the modern inventions, telephones, electric light, rural +mail delivery, the trolley, good roads and the automobile, I am sorry +to say have not served to check the onward march to the cities. The +proportion of our people living in rural districts declined from 63.9 +per cent in 1890 to 53.7 per cent in 1910, and our experts in social economy +assure us that in all probability much more than half of our population +will be residents of urban communities before 1920. In many +of the older states beyond the eastern center of population more than +90 per cent of all the people live in cities and towns with a population +of more than 2,500. During the past decade alone, according to +the census of 1910, the increase in the urban population of the entire +country has been at the rate of 34.9 per cent as against only 11.1 per +cent of the rural population. In six states this increase of urban population +as against rural population has been over 100 per cent, and while +not one state has failed to show a large increase of urban population, +the increase of rural population has been negligible in many states and +has actually shown a considerable decrease in seven states. Unless +some new and unexpected change shall come it is reasonable to assume +that the next generation will find more than half the children of this +country in urban communities. There is a temptation to follow that +diversity afforded by a subject like that assigned me, which may lead +us more into the pleasantries that are supposed to be a part of the life +of all country boys. The field, the farm, the orchard, the meadows, +the babbling brooks; those recollections recalled in the rhymes of a +Riley from the jam and the pies over to old Aunt Mary’s, to the joys +of the old swimming hole or of these fall days when the frost is on +the pumpkin and the fodder’s in the shock. The pity of it is that most +of these legends of the country boy are too much legend and too little +reality. If it were not so we can scarcely account for the growing +disposition of country boys to flock to the city. I regret to say that I +believe that the call to the city that is reaching the country boys of +the Nation will prove to be more effective than any call to the country +or “back to the soil” movement that has so far been inaugurated. One +of the chief complaints we hear on every hand among the farmers of +this country is the difficulty of the problem of farm labor and the +indisposition of the boys and young men in any such numbers as there +should be to become interested in the farm. I remember listening to +the almost pathetic story of one farmer of the Northwest, who told +me that every one of his five sons had gone to the city, and he had been +unable to induce one of them to remain. He said they either complained +of the hardships and the lack of opportunity, or pined for the +excitement, pleasure and possibilities of the city. The very advantages +that we had hoped would make farm life more attractive to the +youth of the Nation is also proving to be one of the factors that would +seem to emphasize its monotony. The daily newspapers, the magazines, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span>the trolley cars and automobiles and good roads are bringing the youth +in such complete touch with the city that instead of promoting that +satisfaction and contentment with the country as we had expected these +city advantages would do, it often has just the reverse effect. I am +not prepared to say that these modern conveniences upon which we +depended so much in the “back to the soil” movement will not in the +end increase rather than decrease the numbers of country boys. I recently +visited a city of about three thousand population in one of the +most rural of states. What did I find? It has its moving picture shows +along its Great White Way, limited to two or three blocks, with a +roller skating rink, dance hall, and other forms of excitement and +amusement—almost a perfect miniature of the larger city. The fact +that the youth of the farming community, through trolley cars and +automobiles, had convenient access to the city, where before it would +have been more difficult, I was assured only whetted the desire in the +country boy for the city life. It would seem then that we are booked +for disappointment in the hope that the extension of city conveniences +to the farm is going to increase the rural population and therefore the +number of country children.</p> + +<p class="center">COUNTRY AND CITY BOYS.</p> + +<p>But except as it shall present difficulties in the growth and evolution +of modern civilization, I am not sure whether this condition, if +it be the condition, need be viewed with any great alarm. There is a +gregarious and sheep-like tendency in mankind to flock together. The +phenomenon presented by urban and rural growth must be a natural +one or it would not be so. It is simply presenting in the course of +its natural growth an occasional difficulty in the body politic as we +have an occasional disease in the growing body of the individual. It +becomes our duty then, in the one case just as much as in the other, to +remedy the difficulty, to direct the growth along natural and wholesome +lines, and this calls for work and coöperation among those factors +that have to do with the life of the city or country boy—home, +school, neighborhood, church and state.</p> + +<p>It follows then that our difficulties, as they must develop from +time to time, will be with the city rather than the country boy. This +is not because the country boy is inherently any different from the city +boy—don’t forget that—any better or any worse, nor in my judgment +because he is capable of greater possibilities. It is rather because of +the environment and condition under which a great number of our boys +must in the future development of this country necessarily be reared. +I once attended a powwow of some Indian chiefs in North Dakota. +There was present old John Grass, the successor of Sitting Bull, and +Red Tomahawk, the slayer of the same old chief. I asked these Indian +chiefs about Indian children in their primitive days, in the days of the +real country and the wilderness. Did they lie? Did they steal? These +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>chiefs assured me that such things were practically unknown among +Indian boys in the days of their own childhood which was before the +white man came. “But,” said one of the chiefs, “when white man +come Indian boy he steal, lie just like white boy.”</p> + +<p>I asked one of these Indian chiefs why it was that in their primitive +state stealing was unknown among Indian boys—and surely they +were the original country boys. The old chief grunted and a smile +actually lit up that otherwise stolid Indian face as he replied: “It is +very simple, there wasn’t anything to steal. The child’s wants were +few and he had what he wanted.” Neither was there any poverty, any +crime. This virtue of the original country boy in America was acclaimed +without a taint of pharisaism. For it was admitted that the +honest little savage was no better than his dishonest little progeny. It +was rather a problem of condition, of occasion, of environment, than +one of inherent viciousness. The wants of the little savage were few +and generously supplied by nature. There was no temptation, no occasion +to steal.</p> + +<p>This fact no more favors savagery than it disproves the advantages +of civilization. It is the law of nature that men should multiply +and populate the earth, and the instinct among the greater numbers +to flock together in cities is precisely the same as it was in the days +of savagery when smaller numbers flocked together in smaller groups +more widely distributed. We must meet the change by doing two +things:</p> + +<p class="center">HOW TO MEET THE CHANGES.</p> + +<p>First. Perfect our system of education. We need to improve our +methods of moral training. We must more and more develop heart +and conscience that our children may be equipped for moral as well +as industrial efficiency. Boys need strength, but most of all the +strength that comes from within; self-control, self-restraint; a yielding +of more obedience to authority and respect for law and the rights of +others.</p> + +<p>Second. The application of a system of real justice among men +which means an industrial, social and economic world in which every +man shall really have an opportunity to develop the best that is in him, +and be assured that he shall reap the joys, rewards and profits to be +derived from his own honest toil.</p> + +<p>This means that the boy to keep pace with our modern civilization +must be better supplied with certain opportunities that are now largely +denied him.</p> + +<p>New conditions necessarily create new problems. It is the law +of growth and development. Since these new conditions are to be +found principally in the cities, and since most of the boys who need +our attention and interest are in the cities, it follows that the problem +of the child is largely the problem of the city. But as the country +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span>becomes more closely in touch with the city and many of its difficulties +reach into the life of the country boy, we will also in time find the difficulties +of the one are the difficulties of the other.</p> + +<p>Whatever the city does for the child is done for the community +as a whole, for the child cannot profit without equal profit directly or +indirectly inuring to the entire community. It is difficult to put any +limit on the duty of the community to the child. It is coextensive with +that of the parent, if there be no parent, or if the parent be helpless, +or the child suffers from the parent’s neglect. This duty of the community, +once recognized and accepted, is bound to be extended until +indeed the community shall become one great family possessing some +of the attributes, duties and responsibilities for the child that in original +country life were limited to the particular family or family group +of the child. The first general and accepted duty of the community +towards the child was its education. Then came the demand for playgrounds, +natatoriums, baths, trade schools, recreation centers, medical +inspection, visiting nurses, dental clinics, and finally the school free +restaurant. That is as sure to come within the next ten years as the +playground and the recreation center has come in the past ten years. +In a word, there is absolutely nothing that the child needs which the +parent for any fair reason cannot furnish, which it is not the duty of +the community to supply. This is so because it is simply the struggle +of the state for itself. The child is the state; when the child is neglected +the state is neglected; when the child suffers the state suffers; +when the child is lost the state is lost. To say that the child is the +chief asset of the state is undoubtedly true, but it is short of the real +truth. The child is the state. It is, therefore, futile to oppose the +movement going on in this country for the conservation of childhood +on the ground that it is paternal. If there is anything in the scriptural +injunction that “A little child shall lead them,” it is surely making +itself felt at this period of our civilization. If we would conserve the +real interests of the children of the Nation, we have simply got to be +paternal. The state has got to be the over-parent. It cannot escape +if it would; it would not escape if it could.</p> + +<p class="center">PALLIATIVES AND CURES.</p> + +<p>The last decade of agitation in behalf of the boys of the city was +for what is becoming more and more to be regarded as the palliatives. +We first asked for playgrounds only in certain bad neighborhoods, on +the theory that the children in that neighborhood were bad. We know +now that the children were no different from other children, and if +they need playgrounds, then all children need playgrounds, whether +they be country children or city children. The play instinct needs to +be wisely directed as much in one child as in another—in the country +as truly as in the city.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p> + +<p>We first asked for child labor law forbidding children to work +in certain industries, and we are realizing more and more that it is +not a good thing for the Nation to draw on the manhood of tomorrow +by sacrificing the childhood of today. (Applause) The recent report +of the National Bureau of Labor on juvenile delinquency and its relation +to employment makes perfectly clear the extra hazards and dangers +to which children are subjected from being too early forced into economic +competition with men. It demonstrates the necessity for not +only more stringent child labor laws, but the better enforcement of +those we have. It explodes the idea that the working boy and girl under +16 years of age is freer from dangers of delinquency than the non-working +child. It would seem indeed that the playing child in the street +is much less likely to go wrong there than while engaged in those occupations +in which they are mostly employed.</p> + +<p>From what is undoubtedly a very thorough investigation and study +of 4,839 cases of delinquents (of whom 561 were girls and 4,278 were +boys), we have carefully worked out for us interesting tables showing +2,416 working as against 1,862 non-working delinquent boys, and 251 +working as against 210 non-working delinquent girls, or a total number +of 2,767 working delinquent children as against 2,072 non-working delinquent +children. Added to these interesting figures is the further +fact that the ratio of working delinquents is very much larger than the +non-working in all these cities, varying in different cities from three to +ten times as great as the non-working, with the disproportion even +more striking among the girls, making it perfectly clear, as one chapter +of the report concludes, “that putting children to work prematurely +is not an effective method of training them for good citizenship.”</p> + +<p class="center">THE VALUE OF THE REPORT.</p> + +<p>Another interesting fact brought out by the report is that the +repeaters or recidivists (those apprehended for the second to the tenth +offense as carefully tabulated in the report) are to be found mostly +among the working children with the proportions much larger among +the younger working children between 9 and 14 years of age. Up to +this point the scale in this respect constantly ascends, beginning to +descend as the working age approaches maturity.</p> + +<p>The report is unusually fair in making every possible concession +to a variety of details and difficulties that might discredit its conclusions; +but even with all such concessions there isn’t any room to dispute its +final demonstration that working children not only contribute more in +actual numbers but in an alarmingly larger proportion than do the non-workers +to the criminal classes, and among repeaters or recidivists the +same condition is even more marked. No such interesting or reliable +set of tables has ever yet been added to the literature on this subject. +It forces upon us the idea that the virtues necessary to good citizenship +are not so much inherited as they are to be acquired. It follows that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>we are doing hideous injustice to our children in unnecessarily subjecting +them to temptations which their untrained, immature souls are not +yet able to withstand. These temptations naturally enough are greatest +among the six groups of working boys who furnish the most delinquents. +They are well known to juvenile court officers. These six +groups represent the six classes of occupations yielding the greatest +number of delinquents out of the total number investigated. Proportionately +they are, delivery and errand boys 491, or 20.3 per cent; news-boys +and bootblacks 449, or 18.6 per cent; office boys 46, or 1.9 per +cent; street vendors 66, or 2.7 per cent; telegraph messengers 73, or 3 +per cent; employed in amusement resorts 51, or 2.1 per cent; or a total of +2,416, more than one-half of the total number of 4,278 cases of delinquent +boys investigated. The greatest proportion of offenses among +the boys are of course larceny. This one offense constitutes more than +half of all the offenses reported. Putting these immature souls to work +simply violates the supplication of the Christian’s prayer “lead us not +into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” The temptation of dishonesty +constantly besets the working child, much more than the non-working +child. The results shown are rather to be expected. The +next in order of popular offenses are incorrigibility and disorderly +conduct, terms so indefinite as to frequently include larceny. Truancy +appears only in the cases of 185, and begging in the cases of only seven. +Every juvenile officer will appreciate the more than probable accuracy +of these tables, for, with one or two exceptions of minor importance, +they are confirmed by their common experience, for which heretofore +reliable tables are rather scarce.</p> + +<p class="center">A FALLACY EXPLODED.</p> + +<p>The tabulations concerning the parental condition of the delinquents +show equally creditable work. They are interesting as exploding +another popular fallacy (which indeed was long since exploded by Miss +Jane Addams and other champions of child labor laws) that most of +the working children were sons and daughters of widows. Only 419 +boys or 17.3 per cent of the entire number investigated were sons of +widows, and only 185, or 8.7 per cent, were orphans; while 1,318, or +more than one-half of the entire number, had both parents living. And +again, curiously enough, the tables show that proportionately the great +majority of these delinquent boys, employed or unemployed, came from +average good homes. Seventy-six and two-tenths per cent of the delinquent +working boys are recorded as coming from “fair or good homes,” +and 71.6 per cent of the working and non-working boys (that is, of +the total number of delinquents) enjoy the same favorable conditions +in so far as their homes are concerned. The results seem to prove +what has often been emphasized by juvenile officers, that a good home +is not as complete a guarantee of a good boy or girl as it would +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>seem we ought to be entitled to expect. The influences of the home—while +of course the most important influence and the one that counts +most—is by no means the only influence under which a child is placed, +especially in that kind of city life that has come to this country only +in the past fifty years and which in every particular is to become more +terrific in the next fifty years, unless there be some unexpected changes. +It is furnishing in many respects a new kind of environment under +which most of our children are expected to be reared. It means we +have got to make war against the street, the conditions, the environment, +the causes, if we are to perform our full measure of duty to our +children.</p> + +<p>Forty-four and seven-tenths per cent of the delinquent boys are +children of native born parents as against fifty-five and three-tenths per +cent of foreign born parents. Considering the far greater ratio of native +born parents, this clearly indicates that there is less control over their +children by foreign than by native parents.</p> + +<p>But I do not wish to be misunderstood. I firmly believe in work +even in childhood. By this, I mean the right kind of work. It is not +so much a question of work as the amount of work, the kind of work +and the conditions under which that work is performed. This need +not lessen our belief in happiness in childhood. I want to say very +candidly, that there are a great number of children in this country from +fourteen years of age upward about whom I feel more alarmed at their +failure to do or to know how to do any kind of useful work than of +any possibility of their being overworked.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DANGER OF IDLENESS.</p> + +<p>In our zeal for the protection of our boys subjected to extreme or +unnatural conditions, we must not lose sight of the dangers and difficulties +of idleness. There are thousands of boys in the cities of this +country who, if not employed at some useful thing, are generally on +the streets or in the alleys in the downtown public pool rooms and +bowling alleys, engaged not always in wholesome play, but too often in +idling, cigarette smoking and dirty story telling, with absolutely no +thought of work or the serious side of life. They are too constantly +occupied with thoughts of “having a good time,” and some rather perverted +notions of what a good time is. Too many of our boys especially +reach the age of moral and legal responsibility without the slightest conception +of work. They are too often more concerned as to how much +they earn than how well they do their work. In dealing with a certain +class of youth in the juvenile court, I say without hesitation that +the most hopeless fellow in the world is the boy who will not work—the +boy who has not learned how to work, or the value and importance +of work. There is always hope for the boy who works, especially the +boy who likes to work. I believe in the “strenuous life,” and I think +its importance should be taught our boys and girls at an early age. There +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>are too many young people in this country looking for “the life of ignoble +ease.” I can say all of this to persons sincerely interested in the +protection of the children from degradation or unnatural labor, and +yet not be understood as depreciating the importance of wise child labor +laws and their rigid enforcement for the protection of the children of +the Union. But we must be careful, in doing this, never to underestimate +the importance of work—the right kind of work, a certain amount +of work—in the life of every child, and especially that teaching which +inculcates good impressions in the life of every child as to the necessity +and importance of labor. On the other hand, my experience is that +most boys will work if given any kind of an encouraging opportunity. +The lack of a chance is often responsible for idleness. At least 90 +per cent of our boys and girls are forced out of the grammar school +to fight the battles of life. They must have a chance to earn a living +under such reasonably favorable conditions as not to destroy all chance +of happiness or else they must become idlers and loafers. My own +experience is that our common school education too often fails to equip +them for earning more than the most scanty wages. An opportunity +between the sixth and eighth grades in our city schools for children of +the toiling masses to learn some kind of useful trade or valuable work +with the hands—to learn to do what their fathers do—is a reform in +our educational system which the champions of child labor must, in +my opinion, espouse if they would round out a systematic and consistent +plan of battle in this fight for the salvation of the children.</p> + +<p class="center">PLACES FOR THE BOYS.</p> + +<p>I want to see the time come in this country when a boy of fourteen +years of age up may be a valuable help to the plumber, the carpenter +or the printer at a decent wage, instead of going to the messenger +service and the street. I do not believe that juvenile labor should +trespass upon the legitimate occupations of men and women, but we +must equip these children for some kind of industrial efficiency and +usefulness, or enlarge our reformatories and prisons for their care +and maintenance. One of the saddest things in my experience as judge +of the juvenile court has been the little fellows who have requested +me to send them to the reform school in order that they might learn +a trade. The principal of a school once said to me: “Judge, why don’t +you send that boy to the reform school so that he can learn a trade?” +On behalf of the boy, I replied: “In God’s name, why don’t you people +on the Board of Education give him an opportunity to learn a trade at +home?”</p> + +<p>I ask you, is it fair, just or decent that in most of the cities of this +country an American boy has no opportunity to learn a trade, to capacitate +himself for joyous, useful work with his hands, unless he commits +a crime? And yet, I am compelled to say to you, that such is the condition +in a very large section of this country.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p> + +<p>But there are wonderful changes just ahead of us in our educational +system. These changes are bound to come if we are to make +progress, and we are making progress.</p> + +<p>If the Nation is to do its real duty to its boys—whether they +be city boys or country boys, its children, city children or country children—it +should pass the bill that has for the last six years been repeatedly +offered in Congress providing for the establishment of a children’s +bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor.</p> + +<p class="center">CHILDREN VERSUS ANIMALS.</p> + +<p>It is a kind of protection that is sadly needed in this country, and +especially from the government we need a systematic scheme of national +investigation of all matters pertaining to the welfare of children +and child life. It would in no manner interfere with the activities and +agencies provided by the states but, on the contrary, through the help +and assistance that would come from the national government, do much +to strengthen all such agencies. Such a bureau would be of equal if +not superior importance to those now existing in several of the departments. +For instance, the Department of Agriculture, where we have +a bureau of animal industry, plant industry, of soils, of chemistry, and +the like. The Government spends annually millions of dollars investigating +the diseases of animals, the inspection of cattle, hogs, sheep, etc., +and the results obtained by the able experts are published and circulated +generously to the farmers and stock raisers of the country. The work +of these bureaus has more than justified the expenditure of money by +the Government. If we have a somewhat analogous bureau dealing with +the welfare of the child life of the Nation, it would be doing no more +for them than we are now doing for cattle and hogs. We have no +right to neglect the child crop of this country. It is scarcely necessary +to repeat that it is our most valuable crop, for there are born every +year in this country over two million children. What the state is, what +the Nation is ten, twenty, or thirty years from now depends not so +much on our business, our ranches, our great industries, as upon the +kind of men we have directing the great industries, the business, the +farms, the ranches of this country, and what these men are then depends +upon how well we care for our children now. If there are diseases +among the cattle of the Nation, or decrease in some of the staple +cereal crops of the Nation, the Government immediately becomes interested +and its investigators and experts are busy everywhere to ascertain +the causes, to furnish the remedies, to coöperate with the people +for the protection of the material wealth of the Nation. Now, the child +crop of the Nation is not to be measured in dollars and cents for as +important as such a standard may be it is insufficient to furnish a scale +for measuring the value of soul stuff. Yet if there is a large increase +in infant mortality, of the dependency or delinquency of the childhood +of the Nation, there is no bureau under the Federal Government that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>is even required to become interested in the matter. And, indeed, there +are very few states that provide sufficient and adequate agencies to +carry on the work that must be done if we are true to our children. +It is freely admitted that of the 300,000 little children—out of the +2,000,000 born annually—that die annually, one-half of the deaths are +preventable by the knowledge and application of preventive measures. +If through the dissemination of proper information about children, such +as is disseminated concerning cattle, an appreciable per cent of these +children could be saved as they certainly would be saved, such a bureau +would more than justify its establishment.</p> + +<p class="center">SOME PRACTICAL EXPERIMENTS.</p> + +<p>I remember recently, when the Children’s bill in England was being +considered, receiving a letter, I think, from one of the under secretaries, +to get certain facts, and it was simply impossible to provide the information +that was needed and expected that this Government could +furnish; and I, as a judge of one of the courts of this country dealing +with children, felt very much embarrassed that we could not say that +our Government was able to furnish such information.</p> + +<p>We have found, in our efforts to help these 100,000 children annually +that are dependent or delinquent, that nothing is so important +as facts. In my humble judgment—I may be wrong, and that is just +why we want a bureau of this kind, in order that I may know and you +may know whether I am right or wrong—in my judgment there are +100,000 children, dependent and delinquent, coming to the courts of +this country every year, and that means 1,600,000 children coming to +the courts of this Nation in every generation of childhood. Is this +great government of ours, with sufficient facts already gathered in +this imperfect way to demonstrate the necessity, going to neglect this +opportunity of spreading useful information concerning the children of +this country?</p> + +<p>I recall a certain city in which I asked the chief of police how +many children had been in jail that year. He said 100. When we +investigated the records, we found there were 650 boys alone brought +to the jail in that city of less than 200,000 people. In another city I +asked the jailer how many boys had been in jail, he said five or six +hundred. When we investigated the records, we found there were +4,000 arrests in that city among the boys alone under twenty years of +age and over 2,000 brought to the jail were under seventeen years of +age.</p> + +<p>But finally any work for children of the city or country must bring +us face to face with many of the social, economic, industrial and +political conditions that concern us as a people. There is no real +problem of the child that is not also the problem of the parent. We +cannot do our duty toward the children of this Nation without attacking +the conditions that deform the lives of the children. This must +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span>take us so far afield that I do not dare attempt to follow now lest it +take me so far beyond the immediate scope of this paper as to find +for it no satisfactory ending.</p> + +<p>The fight for the childhood of today is the fight for the parenthood +of tomorrow, the manhood of tomorrow; it is after all the supreme +battle for the country, the city, the state, for justice for all men and +women, and that means a day of better things, a happier country, a +more perfect civilization; the dawn of a tomorrow, a new day, a new +time in which the scriptural promise shall be more than fulfilled, for the +little child shall lead, shall teach, shall save the world.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Hadley</span>—The audience will remain seated a moment. +There are a few more of the states that will be called, and as it is +necessary for me to attend to some official duties, President Wallace +will now take charge of the meeting.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Congress is not yet adjourned, and we +have some good things in store. Please come to order as soon as possible. +I wish to announce Hon. B. A. Fowler, president of the National +Irrigation Congress, of Phoenix, Arizona, as chairman of the +committee on resolutions. Now, we want every state that has not +appointed a committeeman on resolutions to do so at once, and report +to the clerk, and Mr. Fowler will announce when and where that committee +will meet.</p> + +<p>Another thing. Any of you that have resolutions will please turn +them in to that committee at the time and place of meeting. The committee +will consider the resolutions and present them and their final +report on next Wednesday. It is to be regretted that many of the +governors could not be here this afternoon, but some of them have sent +representatives.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I have the pleasure of introducing to you +Mr. D. M. Neill, representing the governor of Minnesota.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Neill’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Honorable George Coupland of Nebraska +is here as its representative, and has been asked to speak next. Mr. +Coupland.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Coupland’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—When this meeting adjourns, which will be +at 5 o’clock sharp, it will adjourn to meet at 8 this evening, and will be +presided over by Hon. B. A. Fowler, the president of the National Irrigation +Congress. Mr. Condra has an announcement to make.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I wish to announce a meeting of the credential +committee as soon as I leave the stage about ten minutes to 5. Another +announcement: There are about a hundred state conservation commissioners +present, and they will meet in the white room at the Baltimore +Hotel tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock for a conference.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—This Congress intended to get Hon. Woodrow +Wilson of New Jersey to address us. He was unable to come, but has +sent a representative, Mr. Edward A. Stevens, Commissioner of Public +Roads, and he will be heard as soon as the secretary makes some +announcements, which will close the program for this afternoon.</p> + +<p>After announcements by Secretary Gipe, President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span> continued: +We will now hear from the representative of Hon. Woodrow +Wilson, Mr. Stevens. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Stevens</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I did not +come prepared to represent the Governor of New Jersey, or to make a +speech. That had been entrusted, I believe, to somebody better fitted +than myself. I find in the West the State of New Jersey is considered +and known for its mitigation of corporations which do not meet the +approval of the United States Supreme Court. But it is not that industry +I wish to interest you in, or in fact any New Jersey industry. All I can +do today is to give a slight enumeration of the work being done in one +of the smallest and most densely populated states of the Union. We +have commissions or officers in charge of the following branches of conservation +work: Forestry; the oyster industry; the conservation of +flowing water; the geological survey of the state (which is one of the +most complete and most accurate yet carried out by any state of the +Union); of agriculture; of public roads; of inland waterways; the regulation +of public utilities; the watching over health by the State Board +of Health, and also special institutions for the care of tuberculosis, of +epileptic and feeble-minded children. We have a fish and game commission, +because with us the ocean furnishes a vast source of wealth +in its fisheries. We have besides that a commission for the regulation +of factory labor, and especially for the regulation of child labor, for +children in New Jersey cannot enter into work without passing an examination +and without special permits. I am sorry that I cannot do much +more than merely enumerate the branches of activity which the state +is undertaking. I am only familiar with one of them, that is public +road building. If I can be of any service in that technical line to this +Congress I hope I will be considered at its disposal. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Prof. F. W. Rane, State Forester, will speak +for the State of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Prof. Rane’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Congress now stands adjourned until 8 +o’clock, when the conference of the states will be resumed. We will +meet tomorrow morning at 9:30 promptly.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="THIRD_SESSION"><i>THIRD SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p>In the absence of President Wallace, who was attending the dinner +given to the President of the United States, Prof. Condra acted as chairman +of the meeting.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen, your attention: We +will continue the program this evening from 8 o’clock until the arrival +of the President and his party. We will have reports from a number of +the states. The states which are represented should send their representatives +to the platform. If I understand it, we are now to hear from +Michigan, Montana, New York and a number of other states, and in +addition to that we will have a short talk which will please you I am +sure. The first thing on the program is a flashlight picture.</p> + +<p>After the flashlight picture was taken, the Congress continued as +follows:</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—Are there any announcements to be made by +the members of the different committees? Has the chairman of the +committee on resolutions an announcement to make?</p> + +<p>I wish to announce that there are a good many scientific men present +who are representing various bodies and they are going to hold a number +of important meetings. One of these will be held in the Coates House, +room 244, at 8:30 tomorrow morning. The question is, “What should +be the relation of Conservation to Science, to the Discovery of Truth?” +We must not divorce the two departments. They are identical when +we understand the two. All chemists, geologists, agriculturists, and +others who are ready to assist in this work and wish to meet with the +scientists are invited to do so tomorrow morning. I understand Dr. +Shinnick of Iowa is to preside at that meeting. He represents the American +Association for the Advancement of Science.</p> + +<p>Another announcement: We have gathered here about one hundred +state conservation commissioners. The conservation commissions of the +various states are not political bodies, neither are they partisan, but they +are men and women who are studying the truth underlying conservation. +The conservation commissioners, together with the various scientists, +namely, geologists, agriculturists, chemists and others, will hold meetings +tomorrow. I ask you to take notice. And representing these various +scientific bodies, the meeting of the conservation commissioners and the +friends of that kind of work; those who want to get at the details of +state conserving, including what we should investigate and give to the +people as the basis of conservation activity, how we shall do soil survey, +geological survey, what kind of maps must be prepared, what is the truth +of dry farming, what is true drainage, how shall we make up the various +inventories, what kind of forest study should be made in the state—in +other words, in what manner are we to coöperate in the various states, +and in what manner are we to coöperate with the Federal Government +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>in getting at the conservation facts? We ask all of you interested in +these subjects to join us in the white room at the Baltimore Hotel tomorrow. +We will have talks by such men as Prof. Holden, Dr. Hawarth, +W. J. Spillman, of the Department of Agriculture, and I might name a +number of others, men practically engaged in this line of work. I would +like to know whether there is anyone to speak for Michigan?</p> + +<p>At the meeting of last year there was not full opportunity to hear +from the men representing the states. We want these men to come +forward and tell us what they are doing. Michigan has not responded. +Is Montana represented? Is New York? New Mexico? We ask that +you will come here to the platform. Will the representative of Pennsylvania +please come to the platform? I ask those of you who are scattered +here and there in this great building to be as quiet as you can, +because there may be some who are not used to speaking before so many +persons and it is rather difficult to speak from this position. Mr. Emil +Gunther, representing Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia in particular.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Gunther</span>—The chairman has just announced I may have five +minutes. Realizing the importance of time, I wrote out my remarks so +that I could not speak more than five minutes if I wanted to.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Gunther’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—It is quite possible that the people throughout +this Middle Western country and all of the western part of the United +States may fail to realize the different phases of activity that are maintained +in the great empire state of New York. That state has recently +established a conservation commission, with three scientists as members, +paying those men $10,000 a year for the difficult task of organizing the +various lines of conservation activity in the state. I have the pleasure +of introducing one of the state commissioners of New York, Mr. John +D. Moore.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Moore’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—Is the representative of South Carolina, Dr. +M. W. Twitchell, present?</p> + +<p class="mt2">A <span class="smcap">Delegate</span> from Kansas—We have tried to hear two speakers +from the East, but in Kansas City, half way across the continent, we +have been unable to hear them. If you have any more Eastern speakers, +California, perhaps, in the rear end of the hall, would like to hear something +they say.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I would call attention to the fact that people +are coming in. I know that those who are here are as quiet as you can +be, and I ask that those in the rear on this first floor will call the attention +of the ushers to this fact so they may request people to enter more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>quietly. We realize that this is a very large building, and you ought not +to require every man to speak to all of you. They haven’t all got lungs +strong enough to make everyone hear, but we hope Dr. Twitchell has.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Dr. Twitchell’s address is in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—We will postpone the reports from the states +until tomorrow. The first speaker represents the National Soil Fertility +League, who will speak for ten minutes. After that we will have a talk +by Bernard Baker, our old conservation friend, the man who was the +president of the Congress at St. Paul during its last Congress. If President +Taft should enter during either one of these speeches, I ask that +the band may start up “America.” I think it would be appropriate to +sing “America” when the President of this great country enters such a +great hall filled with such an audience. (Applause) I understand that +the gentleman who is to speak is able to talk to the uttermost parts of +the gallery. I now introduce Howard H. Gross, president of the National +Soil Fertility League. Mr. Gross, of Chicago.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Gross</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: I want to thank +you kindly for the applause, for it may be the only occasion when it +would be proper. (Applause) I want to say as president of the National +Soil Fertility League that it is an organization formed to do a specific +definite work, and to work with this great Congress, and all who are +striving for a better agriculture. I have been doing considerable institute +work, and I made this observation: that the farmer was very quick to +see and demonstrate how some of these half-baked theories that he was +asked to subscribe to did not appeal to him, or, in other words, that we +are all from Missouri, and it was necessary to be shown. (Applause) +We know that we are not getting out of our farms what we ought to +get. We know that Europe is getting two or three times as much per +acre as we are. So, in the organization of the National Soil Fertility +League I felt that two or three things were necessary: First, we must +have an organization that would command the respect of the people, and +when I give you the names of the gentlemen who make up the advisory +committee I believe you will agree with me that they have been wisely +chosen, and we are under obligations to them, all of us, for joining in +a great work of this kind. On the advisory committee are Mr. James +J. Hill of St. Paul, whom I regard as one of the greatest men who it +has ever been my privilege to meet; the next is our most distinguished, +our first citizen, William Howard Taft (applause); Franklin MacVeigh; +Missouri’s great son, Champ Clark (applause)—gentlemen, this is not a +political convention. Dr. James, of the University of Illinois; William +Jennings Bryan (applause)—now, gentlemen, it would not do for me +to read the other names if you are going to break over like this. It is +against the rules. Mr. F. D. Coburn, Secretary of Agriculture of the +State of Kansas (applause); Benjamin Franklin Yoakum; William +George, banker and farmer; Samuel Gompers, president of the Federation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span>of Labor (applause); Alvin H. Saunders of the Breeders’ Gazette; +J. M. Studebaker, of wagon fame; Samuel Allerton; Henry Wallace, +you all know (applause), and W. D. Howard is no less distinguished. +The speaker is the only cheap skate in the crowd. (Applause)</p> + +<p>Now, gentlemen, the National Soil Fertility League was formed +for a definite purpose. It will have a paid organization. We will be +Johnny-on-the-spot every minute during the year, doing business. What +we propose to do is this: to supplement the great work that is being done +by the agricultural colleges, and insist that the state and the nation shall +recognize these great institutions with adequate contributions, so that they +may do extension work and reach every community in the land from +Maine to California. (Applause) We mean to have Congress appropriate +a million dollars to start with, and increase it to eight or nine or +ten millions if necessary, and every man who has anything to say in +Washington is committed to this proposition from top to bottom, and +we are going to get the money. Then we propose to have bills introduced +at the next meeting of the Legislature in forty-four states, and get the +people back of those bills, to the end that the money will be forthcoming +to enable the college of agriculture to take up this great work and +carry it forward. The plan will be to take a soil chemist, a skilled agriculturist, +and put one in every county in the state. That man is responsible +to the state university of where the county is situated. He will help +the farmer solve the problems of a larger field, coöperating with him, +studying the local conditions, to the end that we may establish a permanent +agricultural college, and get the largest returns possible and maintain +soil fertility. In Europe where they have been farming for a thousand +or fifteen hundred years they are raising two or three times what +we get, and our land originally was better than theirs. Now there are +several problems that are collateral to this. Let me know, Mr. Chairman, +when my time is up—and one is farm labor, how to keep the boy on the +farm. The new agriculture showing the boy that we can use his brain +as well as his brawn, that farming is profitable, far more than he thinks, +that he can make dollars out of dimes by proper manipulation, and so +he will see that the largest field of opportunity for a man of brawn and +brain is in treating with the soil. Show him also that it is a high and +noble and splendid business avocation. Also we must have better schools +in the country. (Applause)</p> + +<p>There is no reason why the boy and the girl on the farm should not +have as good educational advantages as those in the city schools. The +greatest product that we have on our farm is not cattle, hogs and alfalfa, +wheat and oats, but the boy and the girl in the farm home. (Applause) +Upon them depends the future of this great country. So let us realize +the personal equation and take care of the boys and the girls; give them +the education that they want and let them get it at home instead of going +to town. Home life is a great deal more pleasant. You must have good +roads, consolidated schools, fill your homes with the best there is in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>land, and there is no place on God’s green earth where society and civilization +can reach a higher plane and a better one than upon the great plain +of Illinois and Michigan, Missouri, Kansas, and all these great states. +But let the young men realize that they can learn something from the +green leaves of the field, as well as from the yellow leaves of the library. +When we get to doing business, and we are doing it now, we want you +all to help us get the legislation that is necessary, so that we can provide +abundant and cheap food supply for the country, and have plenty to ship +abroad, without impairing one single dollar of the farmer’s income, but +make it twice what it is today. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I wonder if you really believe what this gentleman +has said? (Sure we do. Yes.)</p> + +<p>In the course of my work I have run on a few individuals who have +an idea that it is not necessary for the state to be concerned with the +materials of conservation, or with the conditions that obtain in those +states. I hope that the time will come when the people on the farm, in +the factory, all the citizens in the state will realize that an American +state that does not have a full survey of its climate, its topography, its +structure, its drainage, its resources, is behind the times. I want you +people to pledge me, though not orally, that you will go home, return +to your places, and stand by the men like Professor Holden, like Dr. +Hawarth, like Dr. DeWolf, and those men who are farmer boys who +have gone to the land to study the real value that they may give of their +knowledge of farm management. Do you believe that? (Sure. Yes, +sir. You bet.) Well, suppose as delegates we might bring in a resolution +which says that conservation in these states must be based on that +basis, on the material, on the conditions, would you vote it down? Would +you believe that these men are sincere? Would you think those men +are put in a glass case, that they represent a museum curiosity, or would +you think that those men that are huskies, those men of brawn, would +you think that those men are your friends, that they mean what they +say and they know what they are talking about? They are the ones who +have seen this thing from the practical side, and they must work with +you. Let me sound this note: I make the plea that you may, in the +conservation of the various states, stand for conservation based on fact, +not on conservation based on dogma without foundation. Will you stand +for that? (Applause) I wish to assure all now I am not now making +an argument for the man who does the geological survey, the agricultural +survey, the nursery survey, the industrial survey; I am making an +argument to the people for the people who ought to have the truth of +the situation, the benefit of those surveys. We have seen too many concerns +floated without basis. We have seen altogether too much promotion +without basis. The time is when our agriculture will flourish according +to the conditions that obtain. We will not misrepresent for the purpose +of drawing a population from one section of our great country to +an unfavorable place in another section. We are going to take the land +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>as it is. We will take the climate as it is. We will take the resources +through and through as they are. And the state will place its stamp of +approval, based on the fruits, and the people can go here and there +according to the light that is found. And we condemn any concern in +the state that goes into another state and misrepresents things to the +people, taking them to a place for which they are not fitted, and to land +which they do not understand. I do not want to discourage you, and +here let me clear up a thought. We stand as conservationists for reclamation. +We intend to make more of these dry lands, those sandy lands, +those wet lands, and the various other kinds, and we want to get more +out of these trees, out of that coal, out of that gold, out of that iron.</p> + +<p>Let us stand on the basis of truth. Let us stand against misrepresentation. +May I sound another warning? There never was a +state that misrepresented industrial facts and attracted factories to +those unfavorable places, or attracted people to an unfavorable locality, +which they did not understand, there never was a state that permitted +that but suffered for the same sooner or later. We must take +truth as it is. We must abide by the facts. We must, as people of the +state, loyal to our state and our country, put our forces against all kinds +of misrepresentation, because they end up badly. (Applause) Now +you don’t understand that, all of you. The farmer gets occasionally +into some one of these concerns that ends badly. Then he objects to all +kinds of business, and he objects to the railroads, and he objects to the +men in the factory, and he thinks all business is illegitimate. We have +reached a time in the conservation of our states when we will base our +industry on investigation and reliable report, made by one who will not +pad the facts.</p> + +<p>I ask Mr. Baker to tell us a little about the Panama Canal.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Baker</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject +is not one as Prof. Condra said, that covers the subject of conservation +to most people, but to me it means a great deal. It means that your +government, your people are spending today some four hundred millions +of dollars for the purpose of conserving the interests of transportation +between the east and the west coast of the United States of all this great +country, the enormous commerce that has been absolutely and almost +entirely in the control of the railroads for so many years. So serious +has this control been that for nineteen years the transcontinental railway +pool paid to the owners of the Panama Railroad Company $1,080,000 +a year for nineteen years to induce them not to do business. Think +what that means. Not only that, but for many years they paid the United +States of Colombia, which formerly and originally was under the Republic +of Panama before it seceded, $10,000 a year to prevent the extension +of that line, to deepwater, so as they could utilize that route to develop +the commerce of the United States. Your Government, you people, are +paying for that. I am going to tell you a little, while we are waiting +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>for the President. I have just had the honor of being with him at +dinner. He was unfortunately detained, but I expect him every moment, +and it is not necessary for me to say that when he appears I shall retire.</p> + +<p>They started out with that wonderful enterprise—the Panama Canal—by +meeting the opposition of all the railroad interests that were determined +that it should not be completed. Many, many times able +articles, which many of you have read in the magazines, were written +and paid for by the most eminent engineers to prove how totally impracticable +the building of the Panama Canal was. It was a dream. A long +dream, they used to say. It began in the early days of Spain when +Columbus came to the Panama Canal. He was the first one to visit it. +There was located on the west side of the canal what is known as the +Treasure House of Spain. When our Government took hold of it, and +employed the engineers to make a thorough survey, the question came +up of building an open waterway free right down to sea level. When +it was suggested that they build lock canals—and as many of you farmers +to whom I am speaking may not understand that, I take a few minutes +to explain exactly how they work. You come in on the level of the +Caribbean sea, and the ship is elevated about thirty feet by sliding into +a lock, the water pouring from the upper lock, sixty feet above, into +this lower lock, thirty feet, and on this the ship rises. That occurs three +times, until they bring the ship up to a level of eighty feet above the +Caribbean sea. There is very little rise or fall in the tide of the Caribbean +sea, only about eighteen inches, maximum and minimum. Then +it enters into what is going to be—and now when I was there in November, +had about twenty-eight to forty feet of water in it—a most beautiful +fresh water lake some twenty-nine miles wide and some thirty long, +bordered with the most beautiful mountain ranges. The ship will sail +through that lake and will come into what you have all heard about, the +wonderful Culebra cut, a cut straight through the mountains. One of +the greatest difficulties, one that you have heard so much of, is the slides, +the land constantly sliding down into that cut, was due to the character +of the soil, it being a volcanic ash.</p> + +<p>Now, the most wonderful thing has happened, due to modern invention, +which has brought to work what is known as the cement gun, a +gun that will fire cement into those banks and make them practically +solid and prevent sliding. So they can go on and dig the canal without +further interruption. There is no question whatever that the waterway +will be opened to the people of the United States by the shortest possible +route, saving 7,000 miles of water distance between the Atlantic and +Pacific oceans, all the way around the Straits of Magellan, by June, +1913. (Applause) Not only have they made the cement gun, but they +have made the cement boat. I am an old steamship man of many years’ +experience. I can remember some years ago when they talked about +iron boxes floating as being impossible. Then they came to a steel box +floating. Now, ladies and gentlemen, they are floating a stone box there, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span>and putting on this stone box the gun which will fire the cement. It is +made of cement. The steamer will proceed through that large cut, which +is covered with the most wonderful vegetation that ever was written +about, right in the tropics, within eight degrees of the equator. The +ladies here—all ought to go to Panama and see the wonderful flowers, +blooms—things that we see here in our greenhouses—there growing as +trees—magnificent, wonderful—and the parrots playing through the +woods. If you go a little way off you can also see the monkeys playing +in the woods. All those things will be open to travel, and there will be +the big fine passenger steamers going through there.</p> + +<p>When you get over to the other side of the canal you meet first +what is called the Piedro Miguel Locks. Peter McGill was an Irishman, +but they called him, in Spanish, Piedro Miguel. A number of things +down there are named after him. A short distance below you come +to two more locks, lowering you to the level of the Pacific Ocean, which +has a rise and fall of nearly eighteen feet. That is known as the Miraflores +Lock, or many flowers. Now you have reached the Pacific Ocean. +I want to go back just a moment, however, and tell you why it was necessary +to make this lock canal. An old steamship man’s ideal way is +simply to sail through without any destination whatever, but there is +a river down there, you know, the Chagres river. Up to the time I was +last down there they never had yet found the source of the river. The +vegetation was so rank it was almost impossible to get through. That +river has been known to rise sixty feet in forty-eight hours, and yet I have +seen it when you could almost walk across the river bed. Imagine that +kind of a flood being taken care of in an open waterway constituting a +ship canal. I would not like to be on the ship that undertook to go +through a canal that might possibly meet that condition of floods in +Panama. I want to tell you another thing that to me is the most wonderful +work I have ever seen, and that is the way everything is managed +and controlled by one man, Col. Gilfos. He is a wonder. You can go +among the engineers, the laboring men, constituting all the nationalities +of that part of the country, a great many of them Jamaicans and West +Indians, Spaniards, and everywhere you will hear, “We are working for +Col. Gilfos.” No mistakes of any importance have been made. They +all live there in the most perfect socialism, if I may call it in the true +idea of socialism, the brotherhood of man, having everything in common.</p> + +<p>When a lady wishes to give a dinner, she asks by telephone—Government +telephone—for a carriage to be sent. It is a mule wagon generally, +by the way. But now they are getting some automobiles. It +takes her down to the commissary headquarters. She picks out what +she wants to entertain her friends with, and she uses no money. It all +comes up promptly just at the hour, and many times at prices which it +would be impossible today to duplicate in some of our Western and Eastern +cities. When the baby is sick she sends for the Government doctor. +Everything is done in that way by the United States Government. Why, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>they even run the most wonderful hotel in the most wonderful way, the +Hotel Tivoli. It is a beautiful place, a marvelous place, and a remarkable +arrangement they have there. If you stay one week it is a fixed +price per week. If you stay two weeks it is at proportionate reduction, +and three weeks again a reduction, so as to encourage people to +come there and stay in the hotel. They are now adding to the Tivoli a +very large $500,000 addition, just to accommodate travelers, and everything +is run by the Government. You never hear a word of complaint, +never any differences. There seem to be no social bickerings or differences +among the people. One goes everywhere and finds absolute social +enjoyment. I never in my life have seen such a marvelous community. +There is where we ought to raise our children. Little figures running +about with very little on them, there is so much bright sunshine and +beautiful weather they do not need clothes, and they seem to be perfectly +healthy. When you think of it, an old saying used to be that when they +built the railroad across there every tie cost a human life. Disease was +terrible. For five years there has never been a case of fever—yellow +fever—and it is the statistical record that it is one of the healthiest places +today in the United States.</p> + +<p>Of course it is not in the United States, but compared with any +place in the United States. There was, by the way, one death, I understand, +in Panama that was due to the curiosity of one of our dear women. +She came down as a nurse, a trained nurse from New York, and did +not believe that the mosquito could possibly convey fever. In the physical +laboratory of the hospital at Ancon were a number of them in a glass +case for experimental purposes. Talking to some of the other nurses +when the doctors were not about, she put her finger in and allowed one of +the mosquitoes to bite her. She was bitten all right. In five days she died +of fever, proving beyond any question that the mosquito was the one +thing that made all this unhealthfulness in the past. But not satisfied +with that, the Government has drained in the most effectual way all the +entire canal zone of some fifty miles long and ten miles wide. At the +head of every small stream where there is any possibility of drainage +or stagnant water producing mosquitoes, they place a small barrel of oil, +with a drip. That drip is regulated just in proportion to the flow of +water. Now today it is one of the most pleasant places in fair weather +I ever saw. There are few or no flies on account of this strict sanitation, +which includes also the removal of garbage. Everything of that +kind is done by the Government in the most sanitary and most effective +way. All the houses belong to the Government—they have single men’s +apartments, and married men’s apartments, and houses for the different +officers. There is provided a special can for the removal of all the garbage +and refuse from the houses. If anyone leaves that open they are +fined very promptly. No one does. An inspection officer is going about. +So today I know of no more pleasant place in the world to spend a +month or so than at the Hotel Tivoli, Panama.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span></p> + +<p>Another curious thing may possibly interest you. The first time I +went over to Ancon, which is on the west, the Pacific side—and I might +explain about Ancon—there are three towns. There is the town of +Panama, which stands on the Bay of Panama; a little distance off and +connected with it, you can hardly tell where, is the American town of +Ancon, and then across over a big hill is Balboa, the part in which the +United States is making all its improvements—getting ready to take care +of the transportation question. Now when I got down there, and I +arrived rather early in the evening, I had a beautiful room assigned me. +All the rooms have balconies. I went out and sat on the porch and +looked at the Pacific Ocean. What, to my surprise, did I see? I didn’t +know what had happened, but I saw the moon rising out of the Pacific +Ocean. Now take that in if you can. It was in the east—the Pacific +Ocean was to the southeast of Panama, and the moon was rising out +of the Pacific Ocean, as the sun did the next morning. I was completely +turned around. The Isthmus of Panama almost describes the letter “S.” +We do not realize that unless we take an atlas and put it before us. If +you ever see a drawing or illustration of the great work going on down +there you will see how they always place Panama on the right-hand side +of the map as you look at it. It seems all wrong. It ought not to be +there. It did to me when I first saw it. I think I have talked about +Panama long enough, and you must be tired, and I am quite sure the +President will be here in the next few minutes. He is trying to get here +as rapidly as possible. What he will tell you about conservation will be +so much more than I can do. I thank you very much. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I have a note from the director of the band +saying that they can sing a certain song to be dedicated to the President. +Dr. Hiner, have you the soloist there? Can you favor us with the song? +It is to be sung next Saturday at Sedalia, I believe, and it has been dedicated +to the President by his permission.</p> + +<p>After the singing of the song, the President entered, accompanied +by his official party and members of the Commercial Club and others, +the audience rising and singing “America,” after which long and loud +cheering took place for several minutes.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of the Conservation +Congress: It is my high privilege and duty to introduce to +you tonight, Hon. William H. Taft, President of the United States. +(Loud applause and cheers)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p> + +<h3>ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.</h3> + +<p>President <span class="smcap">Taft</span>—Your distinguished President, Dr. Wallace, a month +or two ago wrote me and asked me to come before this Congress and +advocate and talk about the conservation of the soil. If that subject +does not address itself to you as a proper one in this Congress, you +must blame your president. If what I say is not orthodox, you must +blame him, because he called on me. But I am going to read you the +best view that I can make from the consideration of the best authorities +that I can find on that subject. And if you will bear with me, I will +promise not to keep you long, for the reason that my knowledge on the +subject will not consume a great deal of time.</p> + +<p>At last year’s convention of this Congress I had the honor and pleasure +of delivering an address on the subject of conservation of our +national resources, and therein attempted to state what the terms “conservation +of our natural resources” meant, what were the statutes affecting +and enforcing such conservation, classified the different public lands +to which it would apply, and suggested what I thought was the proper +method of disposing of each class of lands. Nothing has been done on +this subject by Congress since that time, but it is hoped that the present +Congress at its regular session will take up the question of the conservation +of government land containing coal and phosphates or of furnishing +water power, adopt some laws that will permit the use and development +of these lands in Alaska and in continental United States, and +evolve a system by which the Government shall retain proper ultimate +control of the lands, and at the same time offer to private investment +sufficient returns to induce the outlay of capital needed to make the lands +useful to the public. The discussion did not invoke the consideration +of any question which directly concerned the production of food.</p> + +<p>Tonight, however, I wish to consider in a summary way another +aspect of conservation far more important than that of preserving for +the public interests public lands, that is, the conservation of the soil +with a view to the continued production of food in this country sufficient +to feed our growing population.</p> + +<p>We have in continental United States about 1,900,000,000 acres. +Of this the Agricultural Department, through its correspondents, estimate +that 950,000,000 acres of this are capable of cultivation. Of this, +873,729,000 acres are now in farms. The remainder, about 1,000,000,000 +acres, is land which is untillable. It is reasonably certain that substantially +all the virgin soil of a character to produce crops has been taken +up. It is doubtful how much of the part not included in farms can be +brought into a condition where tillage will be profitable.</p> + +<p>The total acreage of farms in the last ten years, although the pressure +for increased acreage by reason of high farm prices was great, was +only about four per cent, or about 32,000,000. There are upwards of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>25,000,000 acres that will be brought in under our irrigation system, and +perhaps more, and the amount of lands which can be drained and made +useful for agriculture will amount to about 70,000,000 acres.</p> + +<p>The total improved farm lands in the United States amount to +477,448,000 acres, which is an increase in the last ten years of 62,949,000, +or fifteen and two-tenths per cent. The product per acre actually cultivated +increased in the last ten years one per cent a year, or ten per cent. +The total product increased in ten years nearly twenty per cent.</p> + +<h4>INCREASE OF POPULATION.</h4> + +<p>The population in this same time increased twenty-one per cent. +If the population continues to increase at its present rate, we shall have +in fifty years double the number of people we now have. It is necessary +then that not only our acreage but our product per acre must increase +proportionately so that our people may be fed. We must realize that +the best land and easiest land to cultivate has been taken up and cultivated +and that the additions to improved lands and to total acreage in +the future must be of land much more expensive to prepare for tillage. +The increase per acre of the product, too, must be steady each year, and +each year an increase is more difficult. Still, even in the face of these +facts, there is no occasion for discouragement. We are going to remain +as a self-supporting country and raise food enough within our borders +to feed our people. When we think that in Germany and Great Britain +crops are raised from land which has been in cultivation for one thousand +years, and that these lands are made to produce over two and three +times per acre what the comparatively fresh lands in this country produce +in the best states, it becomes very apparent that we shall be able to meet +the exigency by better systems of farming and more intense and careful +and industrious cultivation. The theory seems to have been in times +past that soils became exhausted by constant cultivation, but the result +in Europe, by which acres under constant use for producing crops for +ten centuries are made now to produce crops three times those of this +country, shows that there is nothing in this theory, and that successful +farming can be continued on land long in use and great crops raised and +garnered from it if only it be treated scientifically and in accordance +with its necessity. There is nothing peculiar about soils in Europe that +give the great yield per acre there and prevent its possibility in the United +States. On the contrary, there is every reason to believe that the application +of the same methods would produce just as large crops here as +abroad.</p> + +<p>One of the great reasons for discouragement felt by many who +have written on this subject is found in the movement of the population +from farm to city. This has reached such a point that the urban population +is now forty-six per cent of the total, while the rural population +is but fifty-three per cent, counting as urban all who live in cities exceeding +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>2,500 inhabitants. This movement has been persistent, and has made +it very difficult for the farmers to secure adequate agricultural labor, +with an increase in the price of labor which naturally follows such a +condition. Still we ought to realize that enormous advances in the +machinery used on the farm have reduced the necessity for a great number +of farm hands on each farm.</p> + +<h4>THE COST OF FARM PRODUCTION.</h4> + +<p>Mr. Holmes, of the Department of Agriculture, in the Yearbook +of that Department of 1899, points out that between the years 1855 +and 1894, the time of human labor required to produce one bushel of +corn on an average declined from four hours and thirty-four minutes +to forty-one minutes, and the cost of the human labor to produce this +bushel declined from thirty-five and three-fourths cents to ten and one-half +cents. Between 1830 and 1896 the time of human labor required +for the production of a bushel of wheat was reduced from three hours +to ten minutes, while the price of the labor required for this purpose +declined from seventeen and three-fourths cents to three and one-half +cents. Between 1860 and 1894 the time of human labor required for +the production of a ton of hay was reduced from thirty-five and one-half +hours to eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, and the cost of labor +per ton was reduced from $3.06 to $1.29.</p> + +<p>In 1899, the calculation made with respect to the reduction in the +cost of labor for the production of seven crops of that year over the +old-time manner of production in the fifties and sixties, shows it to have +been $681,000,000 for one year. But while it is possible to say that there +may be in the future improvements in machinery which will reduce the +number of necessary hands on the farm, it is quite certain that in this +regard the prospect of economy in labor for the future is not to be compared +with that which has been effected in the last thirty years. Hence +we must regard the question of available population and available labor +in that population for the cultivation of the fields as an important consideration. +My impression from an examination of the figures is that +the change in this last decade from farm to city has not been as great +in its percentage as it was in previous decades, and if this be true, it +indicates that there is in the present situation an element that will help +to cure the difficulty. Farm prices are increasing so rapidly and the +profits of farming are becoming apparently much more certain and +substantial. While the acreage of the improved land only increased +65,000,000, or fifteen per cent, and the total acreage only four per cent, +the value of the farms in money increased from $20,000,000,000 to +$40,000,000,000 in ten years—an enormous advance. This, of course, +was due somewhat to the investment of additional money in the improvement +of land, and somewhat to the increase in the supply of gold which +had the effect of advancing all prices, but the chief cause for the advance +is in the increase in the price of farm products at the farm. So great +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span>is this increase that the value of the average farm has now gone from +$3,562 to $6,440, while the average value per acre has increased from +$19.81 to $39.09. In addition to this, comfort of farm life has been +so greatly added to in the last ten years by the rural free delivery, the +suburban electric railway, the telephone and the automobile, that there +is likely in the next ten years to be a halt in this change toward the city, +and more people in proportion are likely to engage in gainful occupation +on the farm than has heretofore been the case. Such an effect would +be the natural result of the actual economic operation of the increase in +the value of the farm product, and the increase in the certainty of farming +profits. It is the business of the country, insofar as it can direct +the matter, to furnish the means by which this economic force shall exert +itself along the lines of easiest and best increase of production. Of +course the Government by furnishing assistance in irrigation increases +the amount of tillable land, and the states, if they undertake the drainage +of swamp lands, will do the same thing. The cost of such improvements +will be considerable, and will affect the farming profit, but the +result generally in such cases is to yield such great crops per acre that +the farmer can well afford to pay interest on the increased investment. +Increased acreage from any other source is likely to be, however, in more +stubborn land, calling for greater effort in tillage and producing less per +acre. We may reasonably infer from the high prices of the decade +immediately passed that everything was done by those who owned land +to enlarge the acreage where that was easy, or practical, and that what +is yet to be brought in as tillable land presents greater difficulties and +greater expense. The way in which the states can help to meet future +increased demand is by investigation and research into the science of +agriculture, and by giving to the farming community a knowledge which +shall enable them better to develop the soil, and by educating those who +are coming into the profession of farming. It is now almost a learned +profession.</p> + +<h4>CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL.</h4> + +<p>The first great step that has to be taken in reformed agriculture is +the conservation of the soil. Under our present system the loss to the +farms in this country by the erosion of the soil is hardly to be calculated. +Engineers have shown how much is carried down the great rivers of +the country and is deposited as silt each year at their mouths. The +number of cubic yards staggers the imagination. The question is how +this can be prevented as it must be because the soil which is carried off +by this erosion is generally the richest and the best soil of the farms +which are thus denuded.</p> + +<p>Of the rain or snow which falls on the land, a part evaporates into +the air; a second part flows down the slopes to the streams and is called +the run-off. The third part soaks into the soil and subsoil, and thence +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span>into underlying rocks, perhaps to reappear in springs or seepage into +streams. This is called ground water. The fourth part is absorbed by +organisms, chiefly by trees, grasses and crop plants, either directly through +the tissues or indirectly through the roots penetrating the moistened soil. +Erosion is due to the run-off, and its quantity is dependent on the slope +of the farm and also the nature of the soil and its products. Any +reasonable slope, and any full cover of forest or grass with an abundant +mulch, or a close crop on a deeply broken soil, or a friable furrow-slice +kept loose by suitable cultivation, will absorb rain and curtail the run-off, +or even reduce it to slow seepage through the surface soil which is the +ideal condition. Now the ground water is the most essential constituent +of the soil, because solution, circulation and organic assimilation are +dependent on water. All the organisms and tissues are made up of this +solvent of water, and it constitutes a large percentage of the bodies and +food of men and animals. The question of the amount or ratio of ground +water in the soil is a vital one. If it is excessive it makes a sodden mass, +sticky when wet, but baked when dry, so that there is no possible absorption +further into it, and it sends on the water that falls on it to erode +easy slopes.</p> + +<p>The erosion begins on the farm and should be remedied there. Deep +cultivation tends to absorb the product of each rainfall and to reduce +the run-off. Deep cultivation brings up fresh earth salts to the shorter +rootlets, but carries down the humus and mulch to thicken the soil and +feed the deepest roots. In flat lying fields and tenacious soils, tile drainage +is the best method of relieving the farm from the danger of too +great run-off. Deep drainage permits both soil and subsoil to crumble +and disintegrate and through mechanical and chemical changes to become +friable and capable of taking on and holding the right amount of moisture +for plant growth, while the water which runs out through the drain is +clear without carrying the soil with it, and therefore without erosion. +Of course different farms require different treatments. Certain farms +require what is called contour cultivation, by which each furrow is to +be run in such a way as to level and to hold the water. On hilly lands, +strips of grass land are grown, called balks or breaks, separating zones +of plow land, and they should curve with the slopes, and the soil being +carried by the water will be caught by them and constitute them a kind +of terrace without effort. The use of forests, of course, in foothills +and deeply broken country is essential and should be combined with +grazing. They will prevent the formation of torrents by making the +mulch and soil deep and spongy. Of course over all mountain divides, +the retention of forests greatly helps to prevent the carrying off of the +good soil to the valleys below. The proper selection of crops has much +to do with the stopping of erosion.</p> + +<p>I gather these facts from the reports of the Secretary of Agriculture +as to the best method of preventing erosion. They are simple and +easily understood, but they need to be impressed upon the farmers by +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>education and by reiteration. Then the productivity of the soils might +very well be increased by more careful use of commercial fertilizers. +In 1907 $100,000,000 was expended in fertilizers, but the Agricultural +Department is of opinion that one-third of this was wasted for lack of +knowledge as to how to use it.</p> + +<p>Careful crop rotation is essential because it has been found that the +remains of one crop has a poisonous effect upon the next crop if it is +of the same plant, but such remains do not interfere with the normal +production of a different plant. Then a kind of crop should be selected +to follow which will renew that element in the soil which the first crop +exhausted.</p> + +<h4>FARM ORGANIZATION.</h4> + +<p>Then there is the organization of the farm on plain business principles +by which the buildings and the machinery are so arranged as to +make the movement of crops and food and animals as easy and economical +as possible. A study as to the character of the soil and the crops best +adapted to the soil; the crops to be used in rotation for the purpose of +strengthening the soil—all these are questions that address themselves to +a scientific and professional agriculturist, and which all farmers are bound +to know if the product per acre is to be properly increased. We have +every reason to hope, from the forces now making toward the education +and information of the farmer, as to the latest results in scientific +agriculture, that the country will have the advantage of improvement in +our farming along the proper lines. Further agricultural development +is to be found in the breeding of proper plants for the making of the +best crops, while the growth of live stock is made much more profitable +both to the owner and to the public by improving the breed and the +infusion of the blood of the best stock.</p> + +<p>The improvement in agricultural education goes on apace. All the +states are engaged in spending money to educate the coming farmer, +and this system is being extended so that now we have the consolidated +rural school, the farmers’ high school, and the agricultural college, and +one who intends to become a farmer is introduced to his profession soon +after he learns to read and write, and he continues his study of it until +he graduates from his college and applies for a place upon the farm.</p> + +<p>The land-grant colleges established by the Federal Government have +vindicated the policy in making the grant. Now the department employs +eleven thousand persons, many of whom are engaged in conducting +experiment stations and spreading information all over the country. The +coöperation between the state agricultural school system and the Federal +Government’s publicity bureau and experimental work is as close and +fine as we could ask. It is difficult to justify the expenditure of money +for agricultural purposes in the Agricultural Department with a view to +its publication for use of the farmers, or to make grants to schools for +farmers on any constitutional theory that will not justify the Government +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>in spending money for any kind of education the country over; +but the welfare of the people is so dependent on improved agricultural +conditions that it seems wise to use the welfare clause of the Constitution +to authorize the expenditure of money for the improvement in agricultural +education, and leave to the states and to private enterprise general +and other vocational education. The attitude of the Government +in all this matter must be merely advisory. It owns no land of sufficient +importance to justify its maintenance of so large a department or of its +sending into all states agents to carry the news of recent discoveries in +the science of agriculture. The $50,000,000 which has been spent in the +department, however, has come back many fold to the people of the +United States, and all parties unite in the necessity for maintaining those +appropriations and increasing them as the demand shall increase.</p> + +<h4>EXPERIMENTS FOR EACH COUNTY.</h4> + +<p>It is now proposed to organize a force of 3,000 men, one to every +county in the United States, who shall conduct experiments within the +county for the edification and education of the present farmers and of +the young embryo farmers who are being educated. It is proposed that +these men shall be paid partly by the county, partly by the state, and +partly by the Federal Government, and it is hoped that the actual demonstration +on farms in the county—not at agricultural stations or schools +somewhere in the state, but in the county itself—will bring home to the +farmers what it is possible to do with the very soil that they themselves +are cultivating. I understand this to be the object of an association +organized for the improvement of agriculture in the country, and I do +not think we could have a more practical method than this. It is ordinarily +not wise to unite administration between the county and state and +federal governments, but this subject is one so all-compelling, it is one +in which all people are so much interested, that coöperation seems easy +and the expenditure of money to good purpose so free from difficulty +that we may properly welcome the plan and try it. On the whole, therefore, +I think our agricultural future is hopeful. I do not share the pessimistic +views of many gentlemen whose statistics differ somewhat from +mine, and who look forward to a strong probability of failure of self-support +in food within the lives of persons now living. It is true that +we shall have to continue the improvement in agriculture so as to make +our addition to the product per acre one per cent of the crop each year, +or ten per cent each decade; but considering what is done in Europe, +this is not either impossible or improbable. The addition to the acreage +in drainage and in irrigable lands will go on—must go on. The profit +to the state or to the enterprise which irrigates or drains these lands +will become sufficient to make it not only probable but necessary to carry +through the project, and we may look forward to the middle of this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>century when 200,000,000 of people will swear fealty to the starry flag +as a time when America will still continue to feed her millions and feed +them well out of her own soil.</p> + +<p class="mt2">At the conclusion of the President’s address, President Wallace +declared the Congress adjourned until tomorrow morning, 9:30 o’clock.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOURTH_SESSION"><i>FOURTH SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The Congress will come to order and be opened +with prayer by the Rt. Rev. Dr. E. R. Hendrix, of Kansas City, Bishop +of the Methodist Episcopal Church (South).</p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p><i>Let us pray. Oh, God, our Heavenly Father, we bless Thee that +Thou hast been made known unto us as a God that works, and that Thy +Son coming into the world, declared, “My Father worketh even until +now, and I work.” We know that the gods of the heathen do not work. +They idle, they quarrel, they dishonor the very name of a god, and a +decent man is better than any of the false gods. But our God is revealed +to us as one ever employed, active mind, best and highest motives, +noblest, most wide-reaching plans, and honors man greatly by making +him a fellow worker. Grant unto us the wisdom to work together with +God. Give breadth of view, give clearness of perception of what needs +to be done. Give responsibility to the best motives, and give plans that +are as wide-reaching as the great plans of God. Upon this Congress, +upon all its methods and its plans, grant Thy richest blessing, our Father. +We ask in the name of Christ our Savior. Amen.</i></p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—A great number of states have not yet +reported their members to the committee on resolutions. I ask for the +names of the various states now, and let the chairman of the delegation +kindly rise, and give me the name, as I call the state in order that +the chairman of that committee may immediately assemble these gentlemen +to get to work at once. Alabama; Arizona; Arkansas; Delaware; +Florida——this is for the committee on resolutions. There is a delegate +here from Florida. Georgia; Idaho; Indiana——</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">H. E. Barnard</span> of Lafayette—I have not the report from Kansas.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Potter</span>—Kansas is here in force, but her officers are out +on committees. As they come in we will see that you have the names.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Do you know who was elected as a +member of the resolution committee from Kansas?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Potter</span>—I was—Thos. W. Potter from Peabody.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Kentucky is here. Louisiana; Maine; +Maryland; Massachusetts.</p> + +<p class="mt2">A <span class="smcap">Delegate</span>—William P. Wharton, of Massachusetts.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Michigan—Is Michigan here? This is +the committee on resolutions; we want your member from Michigan, +please.</p> + +<p class="mt2">A <span class="smcap">Delegate</span>—He has not turned up yet.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Will you not kindly see that the Michigan +delegation meets at once and names its member for the committee +on resolutions? The next is Minnesota.</p> + +<p class="mt2">A. W. Guthridge, Minnesota.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Missouri; Montana; Nevada; New +Hampshire; New Jersey—New Jersey is represented. New Mexico; +New York; North Carolina—they are represented. North Dakota; +Oregon.</p> + +<p class="mt2">F. J. Kinney, Oregon.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Pennsylvania—Dr. Henry S. Drinker, president of the University +of Pennsylvania, and delegate from Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Rhode Island; South Carolina; South +Dakota; Tennessee; Texas—J. B. Smith, of Texas. Utah; Vermont; +Virginia; Washington—Everitt Gregg. West Virginia; Wisconsin; +Wyoming.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Mr. Fowler, the chairman of the committee +on resolutions, would like to make an announcement.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Fowler</span>—Mr. President and Delegates: I hope you all realize +what the work of the committee on resolutions may be. Many states +have been called here this morning and no names have been given and no +one has responded. This is a conservation congress. There are representatives +here from these states, from every state I trust in the Union, +and there is not a state in the Union that is not interested in the question +of conservation. I hope then that the delegates from every state +will see to it that a good man is upon this committee on resolutions. +The committee is not near full. Many states are not represented, and +you must remember, my friends, that the work of the committee on resolutions +is the crystallization of the work of this Congress, and the resolutions +speak for the Congress, and speak for all the states of this great +Union; hence, we must have some one represent every state. I have +had some experience with resolution committees in other congresses, and +many of you have had the same, and you know that it is a working +committee. It is the committee that is compelled to sacrifice about everything +else after the work of the committee begins. Consequently, we +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>want working men upon this committee on resolutions, men who are +willing to give their time and make a few sacrifices of their own pleasures +and own enjoyment during the rest of the sessions of the Congress +until the work of the committee is done and the resolutions presented +to the Congress. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Is Prof. Condra of Nebraska here? If +so, he will kindly come to the platform.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Sergeant-at-arms—Ladies and Gentlemen: President Wallace desires +me to make this announcement: “Cincinnati, Ohio, September 26, +1911. President Conservation Congress, Kansas City, Missouri. Will +arrive on Alton, 7:45 tomorrow morning.—W. J. Bryan.” (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I would like to make one suggestion. We are +going to be very short of time. We are now coming to the call of +states. We want every state to be heard from, but we want you to confine +yourselves to five minutes, and to tell us, not what your resources +are, not what you are going to do (applause), but tell us what you +actually are doing in the way of conservation. If you have a conservation +association, as you ought to have in every state, tell us about it, +or anything that bears upon it. Boil it down to five minutes. We will +ring the bell on you if you don’t stop at the end of five minutes.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—I understand that some of the states +reported last night while you were at the dinner given to the President, +and I hope, that since I do not have the names of those states, +that the gentlemen will advise me when I call the roll. We do not +want any duplicates. The next state is Maine. The next is Mississippi. +Is Dr. Lowe in the room to respond for Mississippi? Missouri?</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I now introduce to you Mr. George B. Logan, +secretary of the Missouri Waterways Commission, who will speak for +Missouri. We will hear from him for five minutes.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Logan</span>—The Missouri Waterways Commission was created by +an act of the General Assembly in 1909. This act provided for a commission +of five members, who were to investigate “the various problems +associated with the navigable waterways of the state and the reclamation +of land subject to overflow; the construction of levees; the benefits to +be derived from proposed navigable waterways, and the reclamation of +lands subject to overflow or inundation.” The result of these investigations, +together with all obtainable statistics, was to be reported to the +succeeding General Assembly. The commission was allowed $5,000 as +expenses. None of the members were to be compensated for their services.</p> + +<p>At the time the Missouri Waterways Commission presented its statement +to the Second Annual Conservation Congress, the report which was +last January submitted to our legislature had been prepared. The commission +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>was very successful in obtaining information of a detailed nature +pertaining to conservation of the state’s resources, and from this information +extremely valuable statistics have been compiled and were included +in the report transmitted to the General Assembly.</p> + +<p>Because of the small amount of funds, the commission was forced +to do almost all of its investigating by correspondence, inasmuch as original +research was not possible, and they were gratified to find a widespread +interest in the state which caused its correspondents to answer +promptly and fully. The investigations were conducted under four +heads into which the subject of water conservation in this state seems to +be naturally divided. The uses of the water being in the order of importance: +First, water supply in which the water is consumed in maintaining +life; second, agriculture in which the water is consumed in the +growing of the crops yielding food and other necessaries of life; third, +power in which the water is employed in aid of, or as a substitute for, +human labor, and is not consumed; and fourth, navigation in which the +water is used for commerce and is not consumed.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp56" id="illus4" style="max-width: 32.8125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus4.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Hon. Herbert S. Hadley</span>, Governor of Missouri</p> + <p>Strauss Studio, St. Louis. Mo.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="center">WATER SUPPLY.</p> + +<p>Under the first head the commission delved deeply into the sources +of the state’s water supply, consisting of rainfall and watershed drainage. +From this point of beginning, the commission went into the question +of water supply of the various municipalities, considering the +character of the water used, the state in which it was used, and the +available quantity.</p> + +<p>In the conservation of human life, which is the ultimate end of all +conservation, the commission felt that nothing was more important than +the securing of a permanent and proper water supply for the inhabitants +of the state. Sixty-five communities in the state have been investigated, +and from the findings presented to the General Assembly the +commission hopes that much needed and beneficial legislation will result. +As was to be expected, the investigations of these communities +showed conclusively that the community water supply is nearly everywhere +closely involved with community sewage disposal. The legislature +will be asked to pass such laws as will encourage or compel +municipalities to dispose of their sewage as not to endanger the lives +of their own inhabitants, or of those who by geographical location are +forced to have the same source of water supply.</p> + +<p class="center">AGRICULTURE.</p> + +<p>While the quantity of rainfall remains approximately the same from +year to year, the effects on the soil, and the subsequent benefits resulting +to the soil from the rainfall, change materially. By improper +methods of agriculture, hillsides and slopes have been denuded of trees +and pasturage with the result that the soil on the hillsides is no longer +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>absorptive, and the rain falling thereon is lost to it. This is especially +true in this climate where a very large percentage of the annual rainfall +comes in hard or excessive rains, taxing the absorptive capacity of any +soil to its fullest extent. By proper education and agitation it is hoped +that this natural fact will be borne in mind by the agriculturists of the +state who have it in their power to be leaders in this work of conservation.</p> + +<p>The converse of the problem of too little water is found in Southeast +Missouri, where a very great area is burdened with an excess of +water. The solution of this problem has been drainage which is being +accomplished by drainage districts organized either in the county or +circuit courts. Already 1,271,470 acres have been thoroughly drained and +will be valuable agricultural land as soon as the heavy timber is cleared +off. The average cost of drainage has been approximately $5.00 per +acre, which is paid in small annual installments. The increase of the +value of the land thus drained has been many hundred per cent, while +the benefit to the health conditions has been great. Drainage is being +fostered and encouraged by the state authorities, and as fast as the +necessity for working laws is shown, these laws are forthcoming from +the General Assembly. There is need for further drainage, but the +energy and enterprise of the people in the communities where it is needed +will probably suffice for the solving of this problem in the future as it +has in the past.</p> + +<p class="center">NAVIGATION.</p> + +<p>Missouri is blessed with magnificent opportunities for vast conservation +of transportation cost, by reason of the presence on and within +her borders, of the two greatest rivers of this country. Accepting the +figures of unofficial investigators, the commission has estimated that the +demand for water traffic indicates that the through freight movements +between St. Louis and Kansas City alone would amount to four hundred +and sixty-eight thousand tons annually, while that through the Mississippi +in and out of St. Louis would reach a million or more tons. The +surplus products of the soil and mines of this state aggregate fully ten +million tons. If even forty per cent of these products could be moved +by water at the large water cost of one-quarter that of rail transportation, +the aggregate saving to the producers would amount to $11,250,000.00. +This saving, or the adding to the wealth of the state, is too important +to be disregarded.</p> + +<p>The commission feels that the sentiment among this state’s law-makers +is already strongly in favor of coöperating with the National +Government in any systematic effort to permanently improve our waterways.</p> + +<p class="center">WATER POWER.</p> + +<p>From the investigations conducted under this head the commission +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>believes that herein lies one of the greatest and least understood +of the state’s natural resources. Only ninety-nine water power sites +are in use, and one hundred and twenty-three formerly in use have been +abandoned. The abandonment is due chiefly to two causes: First, +economic conditions in agriculture have so changed that there is no +longer need of a manufacturing or consuming point at the place of production. +It is more profitable to ship the products of the soil and buy +whatever flour, meal and sugar is necessary than to have these small +quantities ground at local mills. Hence, grist mills and sugar cane mills +have disappeared. The second cause for abandonment of water power +sites is the failure of the streams, due, as mentioned above, to the +changed soil conditions. However, the advance in electro-mechanical +appliances has created new uses and put a new value on water power +sites. The point of application of the power may now be many miles +from its point of generation. Sites abandoned years ago have “come +back” and have greatly enhanced in value. Properly exploited, the value +of resources in this state is incalculable. One of the chiefest aims of +the commission in its present work is to sufficiently impress upon the +people and upon the General Assembly the great value of this natural +resource. While more expensive to produce, undoubtedly the greatest +latent power in the state is in the Missouri River. The commission has +planned to investigate in detail some site on the river which has the +most natural advantages and using this as an illustration to demonstrate +what can be done in this state.</p> + +<p>At the recent session of our Legislature the report of the commission +covering these topics, giving in detail the information meagerly outlined +above, was presented to the General Assembly and copies of this +report were widely distributed throughout the state. The $5,000 appropriation +for four years has increased to $17,000 for two years. The +resignation of members and political differences arising outside of the +commission have temporarily impaired and hindered the work of the +commission.</p> + +<p>However, since the presenting of its last report the commission +has put in the time of its executives in bringing up to date and supplementing +the statistics gathered the preceding year. Practically nothing +is now lacking in the figures concerning community water supply, water +works and sewage disposal. Pending the beginning of actual engineering +investigation of a water power site, the commission has studied the +water power laws of all the states of the Union to the end that accurate +information may be presented to the General Assembly when +legislation in this state on these subjects is asked for. The delays and +petty hindrances touched upon are undoubtedly temporary, and with +the very recent completion of the personnel of the commission we have +great hopes and expectations for the work which may be done in the +cause of conservation during the coming year.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">During the reading of a list of telegrams, Mr. W. A. Beard of Sacramento, +California, assumed the Chair as temporary chairman.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Temporary Chairman <span class="smcap">Beard</span>—The secretary will continue the call +of the roll of states.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Montana; Nevada; New Hampshire; +New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; North Dakota; Ohio.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I now introduce to you Mr. C. P. Dyar of +Marietta, Ohio, who will speak for Ohio.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Dyar</span>—I have no speech to make. Ohio simply sends greetings +to this Congress, and wishes it Godspeed and a large measure of +success in the work before it. Ohio has always been a great conservation +state throughout its entire history; it has had presidential, gubernatorial +and senatorial timber, and other minor political timber, sufficient +for the entire consumption of the United States. Ohio felicitates +her sister states on the scope and energy of this movement and she voices +the hope that has been expressed in this meeting, that the lesson of the +parable of the talents shall not be forgotten, that conservation shall not +be interpreted to mean simply to save, but development through wise use, +which creates wealth, not only for the present, but future generations.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Oklahoma.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I have the pleasure of introducing Mr. Milton +Brown, who will speak for Oklahoma.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Brown’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Beard</span>—We are getting down to business this morning, +and I think we are getting the meat out of the cocoanut. These addresses +have been directly to the point. I now have the pleasure of introducing +a representative of the State of Pennsylvania, Mr. A. B. Farquhar.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Farquhar</span>—Pennsylvania is a state of such gigantic resources +it would take all the rest of our session to begin to describe them, a +good portion of it, and tell what we are trying to do to conserve them. +It is only within the last month or two we created a state branch of the +National Conservation Association, and they wanted me to be its president, +I suppose because I have been interested in conservation for about +twenty years past, and was a director in the National Association.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Farquhar’s paper is in the Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Beard</span>—We will now listen to Dr. Henry S. Drinker, +president of Lehigh University.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Dr. <span class="smcap">Drinker</span>—It would seem that this third National Conservation +Congress in ordering its deliberations cannot do so more wisely than in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>giving heed to the closing words of President Taft’s luminous address at +St. Paul last year, when he said:</p> + +<p>“I am bound to say that the time has come for a halt in general +rhapsodies over conservation, making the word mean every known good +in the world; for after the public attention has been aroused, such appeals +are of doubtful utility and do not direct the public to the specific +course that the people should take, or have their legislators take, in order +to promote the cause of conservation. The rousing of emotions on a +subject like this, which has only dim outlines in the minds of the people +affected, after a while ceases to be useful, and the whole movement will, +if promoted on these lines, die for want of practical direction and of +demonstration to the people that practical reforms are intended.... +I beg of you, therefore, in your deliberations and in your informal discussions, +when men come forward to suggest evils that the promotion of +conservation is to remedy that you invite them to point out the specific +evils and the specific remedies; that you invite them to come down to +details in order that their discussions may flow into channels that shall +be useful rather than into periods that shall be eloquent and entertaining +without shedding real light on the subject. The people should be +shown exactly what is needed in order that they make their representatives +in Congress and the State Legislatures do their intelligent bidding.”</p> + +<p>It would seem well for us here to take account of stock of what has +been done, of the agencies that have been utilized and of those that have +been neglected, as well as to exchange views as to what we think that +others, or the interests we individually represent, should do.</p> + +<p>I have the honor of representing Pennsylvania as a state, and the +Lehigh University as an educational organization deeply interested in the +promotion of the cause of forestry and of conservation in general. We +have an efficient and active forestry association. Pennsylvania, as we +all know, has been, and is, famed for her deposits of iron and coal, +and for her pre-eminence in the iron and steel industries. The resources +in these directions are so great that it would be wearying to attempt even +to inflict on you a summary of them in these short talks, but what the +state has learned in conservation of mineral resources is of direct and +pregnant interest. Forty years ago the movement for stopping the waste +in coal was begun at the organization at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in +1871, of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, an institution +whose membership now runs into the thousands and whose influence +for good is world-wide. As a young engineer I had the privilege of attending +that meeting. Among the things done a committee was appointed +to study the question of waste in the mining, preparation and transportation +of coal. This committee was followed by, and, in fact, incited the +appointment by the Pennsylvania Legislature of a coal waste commission, +which made a valuable and exhaustive report, and we thus see +that in one phase of conservation, and a very important one, that of +mining, our engineers have been doing their duty, and that forty years +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>ago work in conservation was being done to which the public is only +just awakening. Our government officials are doing most intelligent and +good work in pointing out the way.</p> + +<p>Perhaps one of the best summaries of this great conservation question +now before our people, and in which the engineering profession is +so interested, and in regard to which our mining profession has so great +a duty to perform, was given by Dr. C. W. Hayes, Chief Geologist of +the United States Geological Survey, in an address some time ago at the +University of Chicago, when he defined conservation as “Utilization with +a maximum efficiency and a minimum waste,” and said:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The reform that is needed throughout the country as a whole must gain its +motive power not from sporadic instances where true business methods prevail, or +from the well-intentioned enthusiasm of the few, but from the well-informed intelligence +of the many. The campaign for conservation must be one of education.</p> + +<p>There appears to be an unfortunate confusion in the minds of certain advocates +of conservation. They have apparently confused conservation of natural resources +with destruction of the trusts, and the mixture has resulted in pure demagoguery.... +Anyone who has studied conditions attending the development of mineral +deposits must have been impressed by the fact that those deposits held by large +companies are being developed and utilized with a view to prevention of waste, in +accordance with the principles of conservation, to a much greater extent than are +the deposits held by small companies or by individuals.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>I was much struck, as I think we all were yesterday, by the statement +of our President followed by that of the chairman of the executive +committee, that at this Congress we were to discuss conservation +without any infusion of politics, and I take it that we use the word +“politics” in its broadest sense, and are to see how we can best use +capital and labor, and intelligently directed industry, all to the common +end of the promotion of conservation; and that we can and will recognize +what I have quoted above from the Chief Geologist of the United +States Geological Survey in regard to the proper recognition and utilization +of capital in conservation as highly important.</p> + +<p>In the report of the National Conservation Commission, made +through President Roosevelt to Congress in January, 1909, Mr. J. A. +Holmes (now director of the United States Bureau of Mines), in reporting +on our mineral resources, said:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>In considering the conservation of resources, it should be held in mind that:</p> + +<p>(1) The present generation has the power and the right to use efficiently so +much of these resources as it needs.</p> + +<p>(2) The Nation’s needs will not be curtailed; these needs will increase with +the extent and diversity of its industries, and more rapidly than its population.</p> + +<p>(3) The men of this generation will not mine, extract, or use, these resources +in such manner as to entail continuous financial loss to themselves in order that +something be left for the future. There will be no mineral industry without profits.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In his message to Congress, 1910, President Taft, speaking of the +anti-trust law, said:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>It was not to interfere with a great volume of capital which, concentrated under +one organization, reduced the cost of production, and made its profit thereby, and +took no advantage of its size by methods akin to duress to stifle competition with +it. I wish to make this distinction as emphatic as possible, because I conceive that +nothing could happen more destructive to the prosperity of this country than the +loss of that great economy in production which has been and will be effected in all +manufacturing lines by the employment of large capital under one management. I +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>do not mean to say that there is not a limit beyond which the economy of management +by the enlargement of plant ceases; and where this happens and combination +continues beyond this point the very fact shows intent to monopolize and not to +economize.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Let us consider these questions as business men, weighing the good +as well as the evil that the different powers can afford that bear on +conservation, and utilizing and encouraging all that will promote the great +ends which the conservation movement was started to serve.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—It was expected that the National Grange +would be represented on this platform. Neither the president nor the +gentleman whom he recommended could come. I have therefore taken +the privilege of appointing Mr. B. G. Holden of Iowa, who will give us +an address this morning, not on the Grange itself, but on the Grange +and other movements that tend to the uplift that we stand for. We will +now hear Mr. Holden, who is the evangel of the corn gospel in all these +inner states. We will hear him for half an hour.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Holden</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Members of +this Congress: You came here to listen to the great people of this +country, and you are anxious to hear them, so I will take just as little +time as possible, for I have already been warned by the president that +I must be brief. I have laid my paper upon the table, and I +am going to forget all I can and say the rest to you. I am going to be +something like the Irishman who was painting a fence. He was working +as hard as he could putting on the paint. A neighbor Irishman +came along down the street and said, “Pat, what are you hurrying so +for?” Pat kept right on putting on the paint. And he said, “Begorra, +I am trying to get my job done before my paint runs out.” I am trying +to get through before my paint runs out this morning.</p> + +<p class="center">SOCIAL LIFE ON THE FARM.</p> + +<p>To conserve humanity—to make humanity worth more to itself; to +direct human forces so that each person wastes the least possible energy, +and accomplishes the greatest good for himself and for others—this is +the most vital problem before our country today.</p> + +<p>No nation can long remain great whose rural people are oppressed, +or for any reason have degenerated.</p> + +<p>It was Goldsmith who said:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">Where wealth accumulates and men decay;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A bold peasantry, their country’s pride,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When once destroyed can never be supplied.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>It is not that country life on the farm is bad in the United States, +for it is not, but it can be greatly improved, and in my opinion it is the +greatest question before the Nation today. I am sure that when history +is finally written it will place foremost among the many good things that +President Roosevelt did, the inaugurating of the Country Life Movement. +Three things are necessary: First, and most essential, is an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>awakened and serious interest on the part of the rural people themselves; +second, there must be encouragement by both the nation and the +states in the way of better laws and financial aid; third, there must be +leadership—men and women who are willing to devote their lives to +this great work.</p> + +<p>Just how is this work of bettering country life to be worked out? +In my opinion it must be done largely by the following agencies now in +existence:</p> + +<p>First. The church, and allied organizations, such as Y. M. C. A., +Boy Scouts, etc. Second. The schools, libraries and county superintendents. +Third. The Grange, farmers’ clubs, and other organizations +of the kind which have for their main object the betterment of farm +life educationally and socially.</p> + +<p class="center">THE GRANGE AND THE FARMERS’ CLUB.</p> + +<p>The president has asked me to put particular emphasis on the Grange +and farmers’ clubs as factors in the improvement of the social life of +the farm. It is my opinion that one of the most important steps in this +great forward movement, especially in the corn belt, is the organization +of granges and farmers’ clubs in every community. There is need of a +tremendous awakening to the importance of organization as a means +of agricultural advancement. The effect of these organizations on the +community is most remarkable. Men and women in such communities +grow up with strong attachments not only for the business of farming +and home-making, but for the people of the community in which they +live. They remain on the farm instead of moving into town or out of +the state. But these organizations do more than this. They furnish exactly +the social and educational advantages so much needed by the rural +communities. They enable young men and women to discover themselves +and their powers of usefulness to humanity.</p> + +<p>Michigan has nearly nine hundred such organizations, most of them +granges, with a membership of 70,000. In each of the forty agricultural +counties there is an average of twenty-five live, active organizations. +New York granges have a total membership of 90,000. Quebec has +nearly six hundred clubs with more than 55,000 members. In strong +contrast to this, the corn belt, peculiarly and above all else agricultural, +has but a few dozen such organizations scattered throughout the entire +area.</p> + +<p>President Roosevelt, in his address at the Michigan Agricultural +College, said:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Farmers must learn the vital need of coöperation with one another. It is only +through such combination that American farmers can develop to the full their +economic and social power. Combination of this kind has in Denmark, for instance, +resulted in bringing the people back to the land, and has enabled the Danish +peasant to compete, in extraordinary fashion, not only at home but in foreign +countries, with all rivals.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Few people in the West realize what a tremendous influence the +grange and agricultural clubs of the eastern and middle states have exercised +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>on national legislation directly affecting the agricultural and social +conditions of farmers. As an illustration, attention is called to the following +laws which either had their origin in the granges and clubs or +were enacted largely through their initiative: The Department of Agriculture; +the position of Secretary of Agriculture in the cabinet was created; +the state experiment stations established; free rural mail delivery +provided for; the Grout Pure Food Bill, the Sherman anti-trust regulations, +the Interstate Commerce Act, the Denatured Alcohol Bill and the +Postal Savings Bank Bills all now enacted into laws.</p> + +<p>These organizations through their lecturers, legislative and promotional +committees are exerting a tremendous influence in moulding public +opinion and crystallizing it into definite form for new laws.</p> + +<p>These associations are now urging the election of United States +senators by popular vote, national aid for establishing agricultural high +schools and the introduction of agricultural and domestic science into +the rural schools; the establishment of the parcels post, postal telegraph +and telephone service; and national and state aid for highway improvement.</p> + +<p>While these influences have been great beyond calculation, yet by +far the greatest effect has been in the betterment of the social and intellectual +conditions in the home and in the community.</p> + +<p>Mr. G. A. Gigault, the Minister of Agriculture, Province of Quebec, +in a letter to the writer makes the following statement:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The Province has today 591 farmers’ clubs. Among the members of these +associations are to be found the persons the most devoted to and interested in the +development of our agricultural resources. Most of the agricultural improvements +of such locality are due to the initiative of the officers and members of the +clubs. In every new locality where farmers’ clubs have been organized, a butter or +cheese factory has been erected and other improvements have been made. This +organization causes progressive ideas to pervade everywhere, as well as contributing +towards the betterment of agricultural methods.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The movement will undoubtedly assume widely different forms in +different communities, ranging from local institutes, men’s clubs, women’s +study clubs and reading circles on the one hand, to agricultural clubs +and granges on the other. It is to be hoped that this latter form of +organization (granges and clubs) will predominate, for it is only when +the entire home is represented that we find the highest standards and +the greatest progress in the community.</p> + +<p class="center">THE PLAN OF RURAL CLUBS.</p> + +<p>The plan of operation with which I am most familiar is as follows: +The membership is made up of twelve to fifteen families. The meetings +are generally held every two weeks in the homes of the various +members of the organization or in halls built for this purpose. During +the winter months the meetings are held during the day, the program +beginning about 10 A. M. At 12:30 tables of planks or boards are prepared +on which the lunch is spread. Every family brings a basket of +provisions. The family in whose home the meeting is held is not allowed +under any circumstances to prepare a dinner, excepting to possibly +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span>furnish some coffee, popcorn, etc., as this would be a serious burden. +When the picnic lunch is over, some of the little tots are boosted +up on a box or chair, or on the table, to speak a piece or sing a song; +thus every member of the family has a part in the meeting.</p> + +<p>These organizations are nerve centers of progress. They develop, +they educate, they push their members out of the old into the new and +better ways. They set their members, young and old alike, to studying +their business. This means interest in the daily work, a love for the +farm life and the home life. This means a useful and happy life. It +means intelligence. It means freedom from drudgery, for drudgery is +“labor without thought.”</p> + +<p>This meeting together, talking together, working together, and acting +together for mutual protection and improvement brings us nearer to +the great law of “loving our neighbors as ourselves.” To know that +others are depending upon us, have faith in us, love us, and hope for +us, is a tower of strength, of courage and of happiness.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to criticise our school system. However, our +rural schools can and must be improved and redirected. They do not +meet rural needs. They do not interest the boy and girl in the things of +the farm and home. Frequently the teachers are town girls without +farm experience or sympathy. The farm children must either go without +high school training or get it in the town or city. Our present system +educates away from the business of agriculture instead of towards +it.</p> + +<p class="center">THE PRACTICAL SIDE OF THINGS.</p> + +<p>The following axioms will aid us in a clearer understanding of the +failures of the present system and the remedies:</p> + +<p>1. Education is that which trains or fits for the duties of life. To +illustrate, let me ask what are to be the duties of our girls? Ninety-nine +per cent of them must make homes, cook, sew, scrub and nurse. +How much are our rural schools doing to equip our girls for this greatest +of all duties, home-making?</p> + +<p>2. The whole boy should be trained, not simply his head.</p> + +<p>3. We should teach in terms of the child’s life and surroundings—things +that concern him and his home. He will then be interested and +will like his work, will put the best he has into his work. But instead +of teaching in terms of the boy’s lifework, our schools teach in terms of +brick pavement, bank notes, yards of cloth, foreign exchange, partial +payments, etc., etc.</p> + +<p>4. Boys and girls should be taught to think in terms of action, of +accomplishment. There is a more or less well founded prejudice that +our high school and college graduates are impractical and theoretical. +They have not been dealing with the real problems of life. At any rate, +few of these graduates return to the farm. The agricultural colleges +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span>are helping some through their short course schools, farmers’ institutes, +literature sent out, etc., but it is a mere drop in the bucket. What we +really need is a system of schools suited to rural conditions. We must +pay better prices for teachers. This will be done gladly when the school +sends back each night to the home boys and girls better fitted for their +work and interested in it. Teachers must be especially trained for the +rural schools. They must live in the community and be a part of it, +helping Saturdays and Sundays to guide, direct and stimulate. Not only +this, but the farm boys and girls must get their high school work under +agriculture and not city conditions and surroundings. In other words, +we must have rural high schools within the reach of every boy and girl +on the farm. These schools should become the social and educational +center of the rural community.</p> + +<p>It is true that the rural church has exercised great influence upon +the people of the country socially and morally, helping to create and +maintain good standards of life, but it has not kept pace with progress +in other lines. It does not measure up to its great opportunity. There +must be put into it not only more vitality and life, but there must be a +new and broader attitude towards life. The rural church must be as +broad as the rural community in which it exists, interesting itself in +every question which concerns the life of the people.</p> + +<p class="center">THE MINISTER’S DUTY.</p> + +<p>The minister, like the teacher, must teach in terms of the life work +of the people. The minister should be interested in agriculture, not only +<i>interested</i> in agriculture, but should really know something about it +as well as other questions which concern the community. The minister +of the future will be required to take a course in agriculture along with +his theological work. He must, like the teacher, be specially trained for +his rural work. The field and opportunity of the rural minister is as +broad as humanity itself. The minister should help the teacher in her +work. He should help organize granges and farmers’ clubs and be an +active member. He should help with their short courses and farmers’ +institutes. He should help with the county Y. M. C. A. work and the +Boy Scouts’ work.</p> + +<p>Think of the service a minister can render a rural community, by +organizing and directing the amusements and sports of the neighborhood. +If he could not direct them in person he could help the boys select +a capable, wholesome leader. He could develop or work out in time +a plan by which, during a part of the year at least, the boys would be +given one-half day every two weeks for baseball and other sports.</p> + +<p>As it now is the country boys have no intelligent leadership. While +the pastor is preaching a sermon to a small audience in the church the +boys have joined the little clique and are taking their first lessons in +card playing, smoking, etc.</p> + +<p>The pastor must be a leader or he will accomplish but little. One +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span>of the things he should do is to clean up around the church, mow the +weeds, repair the fence, set out shade trees and put some pictures on the +walls of the church. The pastor should live in the community and become +a part of it in every way.</p> + +<p>What we need is a rural society that belongs distinctly to the country. +Its schools, its churches, its clubs and its amusements must be so +directed and organized as to meet the real needs of the people who live +in the country.</p> + +<p>Many illustrations can be given of the splendid work now being +done in various localities and sections of the United States. I wish I +might tell you of the work which some of our ministers and their country +churches are doing. Men like Rev. M. B. McNutt of Plainfield, +Ill., Rev. Clair S. Adams of Bement, Ill., Rev. C. S. Lyles of Logan, +Iowa, and many others.</p> + +<p>It is remarkable what some of our county superintendents like Miss +Jessie Field of Page County, Iowa, have done and are doing through the +schools for better agriculture, better homes and better citizenship. +There are the rural high schools such as the one at Albert Lea, Minn. +How I wish I could tell you of the county Y. M. C. A. work which Mr. +Fred Hansen of Iowa is doing with the boys; how he has organized +them into clubs and is directing not only their religious work, but also +their amusements and sports, and even has them studying corn, stock +and other agricultural subjects.</p> + +<p>The Country Life Commission has done a great work, but the +movement has only begun. We must have more state “Country Life +Commissions.” There must be national and state aid so that the commissions +can bring to the people the knowledge of what has been accomplished +in the various localities throughout the country.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Be patient a moment, and please come to order. +We have two splendid speeches to be delivered this morning and +I am very sorry to announce that Mr. Barrett of the Farmers’ Union, +who intended to be here, cannot be here on account of sickness in his +family. We will hear a gentleman for five minutes who is about to +leave for Europe and must speak now or not at all.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—I would like to announce that Mr. R. A. +Long will speak as the representative of the wholesale lumber dealers +and yellow pine manufacturers.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Long</span>—I understand that Mr. Wallace said that I expected +to leave for Europe. I am not going to Europe and have no thought +of going to Europe. Permit me to suggest this: it is rather an imposition +upon you and embarrassing to me to be called on so short a notice +to speak in the midst of men who have carefully prepared papers, and +yet I want to suggest to you some thoughts that occurred to me, that +were put into my mind by the last speaker. We are having many important +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>problems before us at this time. The problems before this Congress +are certainly most important and have to do with the people of +today and of the future. We are to have in this city within a few +weeks another convention not pertaining to the conservation of the soil +or water, or the forest, but to a conservation that has to do with men, +and I am wondering whether or not this audience is going to place more +stress upon the problems that are involved in this Congress, or the +problems that are involved in the one to be held a few weeks hence. +That problem has to do with men and religion, and in my judgment no +problem on the face of the earth will have more to do with the conservation +of all the problems of life, this man and religion forward +movement, and I trust that the men and women—(applause) I only +have five minutes, don’t disturb me—and I trust that the men and +women involved in these problems will see to it that these teams which +commence the first of October and continue throughout the winter until +May of next year are supported with their means and with their presence. +The gentleman who just took his seat stated that he would like +to preach a sermon on what the preacher ought to do with reference +to the child life. I would like to have each of you assembled here this +morning ask yourself the question, and answer it if you please, what +are you doing in your own home. What are you doing, what is the +example that you are setting your children? Sunday morning I imagine +the large majority of you, instead of going to the Sunday School and +setting an example to your children in order that they may follow out +the life this gentlemen speaks of that you ought to live, are remaining +at home and reading your newspapers. Bear in mind, my dear friends, +fathers and mothers, the school teacher or preacher cannot do that which +you ought to do for yourselves. And I want to speak this word on behalf +the preachers of our land: when they stand up in the pulpit, when they +beseech us to do the things we ought to do, and then we fail to rally +to their support, ought we to censure them? Ought we rather not engage +with him arm in arm in this great conflict, that has to do with +the elevation of mankind, rather than stand aloof and say we want +to preach to the preachers? I want you to ask yourselves that question, +whether or not you stand arm in arm with your preachers, and carry +on that conflict that has to do with the uplift of mankind all over the +world. How much time have I got? I cannot take the time to talk +about the other problems which I had in mind, connected with the timber +interests of this country. But I want to say this to you, that the forests +of this country ought to be taken care of better than they are. The reason +why the forests are not being conserved better than they are is because +of the extremely low price of lumber compelling us who manufacture +lumber to leave twenty per cent of the trees in the woods because +we cannot get price enough out of it to pay for the labor to produce +it, and the transportation, to say nothing about the logs. And so +long as we have intense legislation, leading almost to persecution +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span>against the interests, even getting together and talking over the problems +pertaining to their industry, so long will the price of lumber be so low +as to prevent us from bringing in at least twenty per cent of these trees, +thereby prolonging our forests to an almost indefinite period.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We will now have an address by the Hon. +W. A. Beard of Sacramento, California. I have asked him to prepare +an address on the subject of “Coöperation,” one of the most important +subjects that can secure our attention. He will speak a half hour and +no more.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Beard</span>—Coöperation, as your chairman has said, is a very +hard term. It is so hard that I have found it difficult to determine the +particular phase of the subject which should be presented for your consideration. +I believe I was expected to talk on coöperation among +farmers, but upon careful consideration I was impressed with the fact +that coöperation among farmers is fundamentally the same thing as +among persons engaged in any other pursuit.</p> + +<p>It has seemed to me that what should come out of this Congress +is not an exhortation, addressed either to farmers or to any other class +of citizens, but a careful and complete statement of the facts—a review +of the progress made in coöperative development and a discussion +of the principles underlying successful coöperation. I shall speak, +therefore, of this movement.</p> + +<p>I refer, of course, to coöperation in business. By this term, I +mean the growth of coöperative societies in which individuals are associated +for mutual benefits and mutual profit. The ideal society is one +in which the benefits and profits are distributed equitably among the +members in proportion to their respective interests.</p> + +<p>Coöperation is little understood by the great majority of our citizens; +the full measure of its possibilities is comprehended by comparatively +few. Because there have been many and conspicuous failures, +and because abuses have marked the administration of some so-called +coöperative societies, the average citizen is disposed to regard coöperation +as an impractical dream, and in consequence, the really excellent +progress is being made in the face of distrust that should be removed.</p> + +<p>A knowledge of the facts will dispel this impression. Coöperation +is a demonstrated success. The movement is a world movement. Coöperative +societies are doing business successfully in every civilized +country on earth. In this country they are doing business in almost +every state. Everywhere the coöperative society, properly conducted, +contributes to the material welfare of its members; in most places it is +an important factor in social and moral advancement.</p> + +<p>The modern coöperative movement commenced less than a century +ago and began to assume importance about 1840. The earliest beginnings +of coöperative business enterprises as we know them were the establishment +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>of a little store at Rochdale, England, in 1844, and the founding +of a coöperative credit society in Germany in 1849. The pioneer in +agricultural coöperation was the rural credit society of Germany, the +first of which was organized in 1862.</p> + +<p>I mention these dates because they were the starting points from +which has grown, in the comparatively brief period of sixty-five years, +a vast web of coöperative enterprises encircling the earth.</p> + +<p class="center">SMALL BEGINNINGS LEAD TO LARGE SUCCESSES.</p> + +<p>Each of the movements began in the smallest way. The German +credit societies, both rural and urban, were founded for the purpose of +providing credit to men who had no security to offer beyond their collective +honesty, industry and business ability. The purpose was to help +the very poor, and the success attained is attested by the comparative +prosperity of German artisans and farmers, and by the present vast extent +of the coöperative banking system. The Rochdale society was organized +by ten poor weavers with a cash capital of twenty-eight pounds +sterling, and from it has grown the great system of coöperative distribution +of Great Britain.</p> + +<p class="center">THE COÖPERATIVE BANKS OF EUROPE.</p> + +<p>The coöperative credit society, or bank, is the most common form +of coöperation on the continent of Europe. Following the success of +the system in Germany, it has been introduced, in varying forms and +with varying degrees of success, in nearly all of the countries of continental +Europe, rural banks usually preponderating in numbers and in +importance. There are coöperative rural banks in Italy, France, Russia, +Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Austria and the Balkan states, also +in Ireland, India and Japan. They have been introduced into Canada, +and one such bank has recently been established in the United States.</p> + +<p>Mr. Henry W. Wolff, in “People’s Banks,” says, “The year 1849 +saw opened two vastly different roads to wealth—the California gold +fields and the principles of coöperative banking.”</p> + +<p>The advantages of the coöperative bank lie in the fact that it is +operated in the interest of the borrowers and its sole purpose is to provide +cheap credit. The members are the managers, the borrowers and +the recipients of the profits.</p> + +<p>It is estimated by competent authority that there are forty thousand +of these banks in existence, with a total of more than three million +members and assets worth more than a billion dollars.</p> + +<p>In Germany more than one-half of the independent agriculturists +are members of these banks.</p> + +<p>Altogether there are 24,000 coöperative agricultural societies in Germany, +of which about eighty per cent are federated in one great organization, +and all of which are closely associated with the rural coöperative +banks to which they owe their origin.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE ROCHDALE SOCIETY OF ENGLAND.</p> + +<p>The society formed at Rochdale, England, was wholly different from +the credit organizations of Germany, which it preceded. Its purpose was +not to provide credit, but to furnish the necessaries of life at low cost. +Unlike the German societies, which were started by philanthropists for +the benefit of the poor, the Rochdale society was started by the poor +themselves. The mite of capital employed at the outset was secured +by saving of two pence weekly from a starvation wage. Even this small +saving meant sacrifice to the Rochdale pioneers, but it paid, for out of +it has grown a great system that provides the British workman of today +with all he requires at wholesale and manufacturer’s prices.</p> + +<p class="center">LARGEST BUSINESS IN THE WORLD.</p> + +<p>The Coöperative Wholesale Societies Limited, of London, England, +is said to be the largest business concern in the world. In 1908 +it did a business of 570 million dollars. It is the central federation of +the coöperative retail associations, one of which is in almost every village +and town in England. It is a producer, manufacturer and shipper, +as well as merchant. It owns plantations in various parts of the world; +it sails its own ships; its chain of purchasing depots encircles the globe; +it manufactures almost every article of household use and supplies the +wants of more than eight million people. It is purely coöperative, all +of its profits being distributed among the consumers in proportion to +their purchases.</p> + +<p>We of America pride ourselves on the giant enterprises on this side +of the Atlantic. Even while we condemn the systems which have made +them possible, we marvel at the genius of the captains of industry and +finance who have built them. Yet here is a concern, said to do a business +four times greater than the Steel Trust, which is without a captain +of industry, a great financier or a merchant prince. It is a product of a +system, one of the best features of which is that it does not concentrate +great wealth in the hands of a few.</p> + +<p class="center">WHERE COÖPERATION IS A NATIONAL TRAIT.</p> + +<p>Agricultural coöperation finds its most complete development in +Denmark. Almost every Danish farmer is a member of one or more +coöperative societies. Coöperation is almost a national trait. So general +is the use of coöperative methods in Denmark that some one has +said when a Dane wishes to buy or sell anything his first impulse is to +form a society to do it.</p> + +<p>Yet coöperation is of comparatively recent growth in Denmark. +There have been coöperative stores since 1866, but it was not until +1881 that the first coöperative dairy was established, while bacon curing +and egg societies date from 1887 and 1895, respectively.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p> + +<p>There are more than a thousand coöperative dairies in Denmark; +there are five hundred egg societies, and numerous other coöperative +producing and selling price associations. Eighty-three per cent of the +cows milked in 1909 were in coöperative dairies; 66 per cent of the +bacon was cured in coöperative factories.</p> + +<p>The coöperative societies are thoroughly organized into federations, +and the whole business of production and sale is systematized. +The federations exercise the closest supervision over production. High +standards of excellence are required and long lists of rules are rigidly +enforced. A bad egg is occasion for a fine in a Danish egg society—and +there are no bad eggs in Denmark.</p> + +<p>In the twenty-five years from 1881 to 1906, Danish exports increased +from $11,840,000 to $77,800,000. Behind these figures is a story +of a nation’s progress from poverty to prosperity, a progress in which +coöperation has been the principal and dominating factor.</p> + +<p class="center">THE COÖPERATIVE PRINCIPLE AMPLY DEMONSTRATED.</p> + +<p>To tell, even in merest outline, of the successful coöperative movements +of Europe would require more time than is at my disposal. I +have cited these because they are the most conspicuous and far-reaching, +and because they afford three wholly separate and distinct and entirely +different demonstrations of the correctness of the coöperative +principle. Coöperation in Europe has been in most cases the resort +of dire necessity. It does not follow, however, that coöperation can be +successful only under circumstances of poverty and want. If it will +raise men from poverty to a competence, it will add to the prosperity of +the already prosperous.</p> + +<p class="center">RISE OF COÖPERATION IN AMERICA.</p> + +<p>The coöperative movement in this country began to assume importance +about 1850. Prior to this time there had been many associations +for the advancement of various interests, but these were, as a rule, +educational in purpose. Real progress in business coöperation began +after the close of the Civil War, and may best be described as a series +of great movements in which the farmers were usually the principal +actors. These culminated in the Grange movement of the early seventies +in which millions of farmers, united in a great national society, undertook +to revolutionize the existing economic system by taking over to +themselves the functions of middleman, merchant, baker and manufacturer, +and to form a great agricultural trust that would dictate the +price of farm products and combat growing railroad and other monopolies.</p> + +<p class="center">THE GREATEST REVOLT IN HISTORY.</p> + +<p>This was probably the greatest revolt of farmers in the history of +the world. It is simply astounding to read of the enterprises, colossal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>in the aggregate, that were launched. Millions were invested in banks, +stores, warehouses, implement and other factories, railroads and selling +agencies, nearly all of which collapsed within a few years leaving +only experience and deficits behind. Of those that survived, the greater +part soon adopted the methods, aims and purposes of ordinary corporations. +Here and there, however, a coöperative enterprise continued to +live, and some of these are doing business to this day.</p> + +<p>Following the Grange movement came a number of state, interstate, +and national organizations, which grew steadily more political in +their aims until they culminated in the Farmers’ Alliance and People’s +Party. The adoption of the main planks of these by then older political +organizations marked the close of an epoch in agricultural agitation and +opened the way for a more strictly economic development of the coöperative +idea.</p> + +<p class="center">THE FIRST GUN IN A GREAT FIGHT.</p> + +<p>While the great movements of the twenty-year period between 1870 +and 1890 did not accomplish all that was expected of them, they did +accomplish much. They were the pioneers in organized opposition to +the growth of monopoly in this country. The organization of the Grange +was the firing of the first big gun in the fight against special privilege, +a fight which will go on until equal privilege prevails.</p> + +<p>The Grange has never ceased to be an active factor in agricultural +affairs. It has been a principal agent in the development of agricultural +education and in the improvement of agricultural practice, a strong +local force in country life, and a constant factor in the later growth of +coöperative endeavor.</p> + +<p class="center">PROGRESS OF PAST TWENTY YEARS.</p> + +<p>Since the period of great organizations, the coöperative movement +has attracted less attention, but has accomplished more in the world of +business. The results are manifested principally in three classes of coöperative +enterprise, stores, marketing associations, building and loan +associations. Other forms of these societies that are making progress +include industrial plants, supply societies and insurance associations. The +coöperative credit society that has attained such proportions in Europe +is practically unknown here, but there seems to be an excellent field for +it, especially in the South.</p> + +<p>In all branches of coöperative activity in this country there is a +lamentable lack of coördination. The stores are as a rule isolated from +each other or associated in small groups, and they lose the advantage +gained by the British societies from the concentration of their wholesale +business. The marketing associations are for the most part separate, +although there has been some movement toward federation in certain +lines.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span></p> + +<p class="center">MOVING ALONG RIGHT LINES.</p> + +<p>While federation would, in most cases, work to mutual advantage +if well managed, the fact that such federations are rare does not argue +against the associations or the movement of which they are a part. On +the contrary, it is to the advantage of the coöperative movement that +it is developing for the most part in small units, each of which must +learn to stand on its own bottom. Federation, with its great advantages, +will come when coöperation in this country is ripe for it.</p> + +<p>According to a recent bulletin of the International Institute of Agriculture, +this country leads all others in coöperative marketing. Coöperative +dairies exist in every state where dairying is an important industry; +there are six hundred in Minnesota, three hundred in Wisconsin. There +are about sixteen hundred warehouses in the grain belt. There are marketing +associations in almost every important fruit district. There are +insurance societies in many states, coöperative associations for handling +cotton and tobacco. Coöperative irrigation has proven so successful in +the West that Uncle Sam is building irrigation systems to be operated +coöperatively and private capital is doing likewise, some of the largest +private projects selling the water system with the land with coöperative +ownership and operation by the farmers as the ultimate aim.</p> + +<p>The largest and most comprehensive farmers’ society is the Farmers +Educational and Coöperative Union, a national organization which follows +more nearly than any other now in active existence the early idea +of development by propaganda. It has branches in twenty-five states +and a total membership of about 3,000,000 persons. It is especially +strong in the South, where it operates 2,000 cotton warehouses and 6,000 +cotton gins. In other sections it owns and operates large numbers of +grain warehouses, also fruit handling and marketing agencies, coal mines, +fertilizer factories and numerous other enterprises.</p> + +<p class="center">THE CALIFORNIA FRUIT GROWERS’ EXCHANGE.</p> + +<p>We have in California what is probably the largest and most successful +coöperative association of producers engaged in marketing a +single line of production. This is the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange. +It maintains what is said to be the most efficient selling organization +in the world, having agents in all of the principal cities and many +of the smaller points of the United States, also at important centers in +Europe. It handles now about 75 per cent of the orange and lemon +crop of California and returns to its members, after deducting all expenses, +more than $20,000,000 a year. It has been in business several +years and is a demonstrated success in every particular. It has standardized +the fruit pack of the state, reducing packing and marketing costs +and increased selling values to the growers, and freed the citrus fruit +growers from the exactions of the fruit marketing companies.</p> + +<p>The exchange is purely coöperative. It is organized under the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>corporation laws of California with a capital stock of $10,000, but no +dividends are paid on this stock and no assessments levied. Money for +operating expenses is secured by levying an assessment on the growers +at the beginning of the season in proportion to the estimated crop of +each. When the crop is sold the proceeds, less the expenses actually +incurred and paid, are paid to the growers.</p> + +<p>The organization consists of a central exchange, which is the marketing +concern, sixteen district exchanges and 104 local associations. The +locals elect the directors of the district exchanges, which in turn elect +the directors of the central body. The fruit is gathered and packed +by the local associations, which are independent units and usually own +their packing houses. It is shipped through the district exchange. The +routing and sale is in the hands of the central exchange.</p> + +<p>It is worthy of especial note that the California Fruit Growers’ Exchange +has succeeded by the merit of its business methods. It does +not now and it never has had a monopoly of the California crop. It +began with less than a third of the crop, and for some years handled +less than half of it. It now ships about 75 per cent of the oranges and +lemons grown in the state.</p> + +<p>It should also be stated in this connection that there are a large +number of men in the business of growing fruit in California, who have +had extensive business experience before becoming tillers of the soil. +They were not afraid to unite, not afraid to adopt modern business +methods, not afraid to pay large salaries for the skill necessary to succeed. +I understand that the manager’s salary is upward of $10,000 a +year.</p> + +<p>Viewed in the large, the coöperative movement in America is making +rapid strides. It is handicapped by lack of knowledge of coöperative +methods, and by lack of adequate laws governing the organization +and conduct of societies.</p> + +<p>The most crying need is a more widespread knowledge among coöperators +themselves of the true principles of coöperation. There are +hundreds of so-called societies in which coöperation is by the many for +the benefit of the few. In some instances they are actually controlled +by the concerns which buy their products; in many more an excessive +profit is secured by a small coterie, usually in the form of dividends on +stock.</p> + +<p>Stock dividends are the rock on which many promising coöperative +efforts come to grief. It has been customary in many states to organize +under the corporation laws, the members taking stock. Where no restrictions +are placed upon the number of shares which one person may +hold, or upon the dividends that may be paid, the tendency is for the +stock to concentrate in a few hands, when dividends on stock are likely +to be more sought than profits for members. I know of instances where +so-called coöperative enterprises have paid as high as thirty per cent +per annum in dividends to a small ring of stockholders.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span></p> + +<p class="center">A CALL FOR CONSTRUCTIVE STATESMANSHIP.</p> + +<p>Where special statutes are enacted providing for the formation of +coöperative societies, there is often a lack of wise restrictions in the +interests of the average member. The laws are sometimes excellent +in what they permit coöperators to do but inadequate in what they +require them to do. The enactment of laws adequately fostering coöperative +enterprises and safeguarding the interests of the coöperators +calls for the best constructive statesmanship of the Nation.</p> + +<p>Among the provisions that should be inserted in every state law +authorizing the formation of coöperative associations are the following:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>That no person shall hold more than a stated number of shares of a stated +aggregate value.</p> + +<p>That dividends on stock shall be limited to a fair interest return.</p> + +<p>That all profits, in excess of interest on capital and such reserve as is deemed +necessary, shall be distributed equitably among members in accordance with business +done or work performed.</p> + +<p>That an annual report be made to the Secretary of State showing the nominal +and paid-up capital, the assets and liabilities, the dividends paid on stock, the profits +and how they are distributed.</p> + +<p>That the word “coöperative” shall be made a part of the name of any concern +licensed to do business under the provisions of this act.</p> + +<p>That all concerns doing business in the state at time of this enactment which +use the word “coöperative” in their titles shall be required to reorganize under this +act or change their name.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>A great stride forward will have been made when in every state +of the Union there are laws requiring the equitable distribution of the +profits of coöperative endeavor, control of societies by members, publicity +of all important acts, and confining the use of the word “Coöperative” +to concerns that meet these requirements.</p> + +<p>Good laws alone will not solve the problem. Some associations +are eminently successful under the ordinary corporation laws, some will +fail under any legal system that can be devised. The successful conduct +of a coöperative society requires intelligence, business capacity +and honesty. I know of no plan of coöperation that is “fool proof” +nor do I know of any legal safeguards that will render it safe from +those whose methods are of the dark lantern and the jimmy.</p> + +<p class="center">WHAT A COÖPERATIVE SOCIETY IS NOT.</p> + +<p>The coöperative society in its best sense is not a revolt against +oppression or unjust exactions. It is a business system. Its purpose +is the promotion of the three big “Es”: economy, efficiency and elimination +of waste.</p> + +<p>Coöperation is not a cure-all; it will not solve every problem; it +will not solve any problem unless it is handled properly and wisely.</p> + +<p>Successful coöperation does not mean monopoly. Few attempts +by coöperators to monopolize their product have been successful; I +know of none that have been successful for an extended period.</p> + +<p>Coöperation is not communism. It does not mean collective ownership +of property, but collective activity by individual owners of property.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p> + +<p>A coöperative society resembles a corporation in that the capital +and services of a number of persons are united for the purpose of +carrying on a business. It differs from the corporation in two very +important particulars as follows: First, the recruit in a coöperative +enterprise is the man and not the dollar; second, the purpose of the +coöperative society is not to build a profitable business, but to add to +the profit of the individual businesses of its members.</p> + +<p class="center">CAUSES OF FAILURE.</p> + +<p>Failures in coöperative enterprises have usually been due to too +much confidence and too little actual knowledge of the business undertaken. +Men engaged in production have undertaken the business of +distribution on a large scale without any previous knowledge of distributive +methods. In many cases coöperators have expected too much +and have been dissatisfied with moderate returns; in others there have +been no returns because the business was neither well conceived nor well +conducted. In many instances success at the outset has led to unwarranted +expansion that spelled disaster. Personal likes and dislikes +and petty jealousies have led to disruption; a good manager has been +discharged to make room for a favorite of a dominant faction, or a +poor manager has been retained because the membership did not know +he was a failure. There is a strong tendency among coöperators to +resent high salaries, and low grade managers are often the result. Members +are frequently disloyal and weaken the society by doing a portion +or all of their business with its rivals. Members of marketing associations +frequently coöperate as some men pray—only in times of impending +disaster.</p> + +<p>A coöperative enterprise, to be successful, must be one for which +there is a place and an opportunity. Sound business judgment must +characterize its management. There must be a responsible head and a +definite policy. The manager must be capable and experienced and the +one test of his work must be the results he is able to show. There +must be a system of accounting that will show these results in detail. +Dependence for success must be upon the merits of the methods employed, +never upon the mere right of coöperators to do their own business +in their own way. Most important of all, the membership must +be intelligent and willing, on occasion, to suffer temporary loss for the +greater gain to be secured by loyalty to the concern. It must be borne +in mind that a coöperative enterprise in entering a competitive field +has got to compete, and its strength lies in the loyalty of its membership.</p> + +<p class="center">SHOULD BE TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS.</p> + +<p>The American people need to be educated regarding the principle +and practice of coöperation. It should be taught in the schools, especially +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>in the agricultural schools, as it is now in some of the agricultural +schools of Europe. There should be state and national conventions +for the discussion of coöperative principles and methods. There should +be organizations of coöperators for the consideration of mutual problems +and mutual interests. Every great library contains the history of all of +the coöperative movements down to the present time, and the experience +of the world is available to those who will use it.</p> + +<p>What Americans most need is the coöperative point of view. We +are accustomed to extravagance and speculation, but the time is at hand +when we must practice the virtues of economy. We have been a nation +of individualists, each sufficient unto himself; we must learn to unite +with our fellows and consider their welfare as a part of our own.</p> + +<p>Do we need coöperation? Consider the wide margin between the +price on the farm and at the kitchen door! Consider the difference +in cost between the boot at the factory and on your foot! Consider the +enormous wastes and duplications of our system of distribution! Consider +the fortunes that have been amassed by the concentration of profits +that would have been widely diffused under coöperation!</p> + +<p>We complain of the concentration of capital in the hands of a +few; here is a system of business that will keep the profits of the people’s +business in the people’s pockets where they belong.</p> + +<p>We are concerned about the resources of Alaska lest they pass +into the control of trusts and syndicates and serve to enrich a few +at the expense of the many, as well we may be; but here is a wealth +more vast, a tangible, visible, present wealth, many times greater than +that of all the mines and forests of the Territory of Alaska, that is +slipping through our fingers day by day and accumulating in the coffers +of those who already have too much. The American citizen everywhere +is paying a tribute from which there is but one avenue of escape—the +adoption of coöperative methods of doing business.</p> + +<p class="mt2">During the reading of Mr. Beard’s paper Mr. J. B. White assumed +the Chair.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">White</span>—Mr. B. A. Fowler, chairman of the resolution +committee, desires to make an announcement.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Fowler</span>—Members of the resolutions committee having been +selected, the first meeting of the committee will now be held, and I +invite the members selected for that committee to meet in the room +back of the platform. This meeting will be for the organization of +the committee, and I suggest to the chairman that if nothing has been +said on that particular point, this a working committee, and you +get results. Those of you who have resolutions to present should +present them at the earliest possible moment. I will leave to you the +lateness of the hour when they may be presented, but it would seem +as if they all ought to come in to the committee some time today. +I also suggest that anybody who desires to present a resolution should +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>not send it up to the committee unsigned, and in the crudest sort of way; +but that you prepare your resolution as you would like to have it presented, +sign your name and send it to the committee.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—If I were the chairman of the committee I +would not consider any resolution offered after this evening. It is +unfair to the committee to throw resolutions at them at the last moment. +Now, we must have a report of this committee the first thing after +dinner tomorrow. Therefore, get your resolutions in.</p> + +<p>We want the members of the committee on resolutions to go up to +this room at once.</p> + +<p>Gentlemen, we will now hear an address from Mr. Herbert Quick, +of Madison, Wisconsin, editor of the Farm and Fireside of Springfield, +Mass., on the subject, “The Farmer and the Railroads.”</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Herbert Quick</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen of the Congress: It +is rather a difficult task which has been assigned to me, that of following +such men as have spoken in the last two or three addresses, and that, +too, at a time of day when the imperative calls of bodily sustenance +begin to make themselves manifest. I cannot undertake to emulate in +the matter of interest, in the matter of inspiration, any of these gentlemen +who have just preceded me and addressed you. It is utterly impossible +to be very interesting with reference to the subject of the railroads +and the farmer unless you trench on the subject of politics, and +they are barred here; therefore, ladies and gentlemen, I beg leave to +be dull in my talk to you today, very dull indeed. I am, however, hopeful +of giving you something to think about with reference to the very +important matters of the relation between the railroad and the farmer.</p> + +<p>The relations between the farmers and the railroads are not always +amicable, but they are always close. When capital was first solicited +for the building of our railways the capital that responded was in large +measure that of the farmers. Enterprise came from the cities, but +before it could successfully appeal to the bond market, it was obliged +to show something in the way of local aid. The history of railway +exploitation in the Mississippi Valley, and in the whole country at the +period of most rapid development in railway building has not yet, so +far as I am aware, been adequately written. When it is written, it +will show an astonishing array of facts relating to the extent to which +the farmers of the land really built the railways—by stock subscriptions, +by votes of aid, by donations of right-of-way, and by outright +gifts of cash. And a depressing phase of the story will be the tales +of bonds issued and upheld by the courts, although no railway was ever +built, and of the almost automatic manner in which the farmer’s interests +were closed out by receiverships. During the time when investments +in railway buildings were uncertain, donations of public lands, +gifts of rights-of-way, and votes of bond issues in the way of local +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span>aid gave them standing in the money markets. So to a great extent, +the farmers built the railways—and were then neatly beaten out of +their interests.</p> + +<p>That, however, is not the story of the farmers of today and the +railways of today. It belongs to the past. Our task relates to the +future. In that future, the relations between the railways and the +farmers must continue to be close, whether they are amicable or not. +The two parties belong to each other. One cannot exist without the +other. When the farmers succeed in wresting a good crop from the +earth, stocks go up in Wall street. A hot wind in Montana affects +Great Northern and Northern Pacific on ’Change; and when the railway +fails to furnish cars for the carrying of the crop, that failure +affects the notes of the farmer at the bank. For better or for worse, +the farmers and the railways are irrevocably wedded. A little careful +and dispassionate consideration of their marital relations may assist +in the maintenance of that peace which is necessary to happiness—and +as a mere outline of the broader principles governing such consideration, +this address has been prepared.</p> + +<p>The great railway men of the United States have always felt the +burden of a duty towards the farmers, even when denying any legal +claim back of it. Fifteen years or so ago an enthusiastic believer in +the semi-arid West worked out a plan for moisture-conserving farming—one +of the greatest steps in conservation ever taken in this country. +The management of the Northern Pacific helped him educate the +farmers in the principles of his science. The managements of the Chicago, +Milwaukee and St. Paul, the Soo Line and the B. & M. in Nebraska +also gave him assistance. They foresaw the development which +would come to Montana, Nebraska, the Dakotas and all the semi-arid +country if “dry farming”, as it has come to be called, could be made +to succeed. They saw a duty to the stockholders—saw it clearly; and +I believe there was not lacking to their vision a glimpse of the duty +they owed to the Nation through ministration to the prosperity of its +farmers.</p> + +<p class="center">HOW THE RAILROADS LEARNED.</p> + +<p>The management of the Great Northern, though since enthusiastic, +could at that early time see nothing in the Campbell method of farming +to enlist its sympathy or its dollars, nor could the Northwestern line, +though both of these systems ran through hundreds of miles since reduced +to the settled state through dry farming. But at that very time Mr. +Hill was showing his interest in agriculture through the introduction +of improved breeds of livestock along the lines of his system. And +the Northwestern officials withheld their aid from Campbell, because +it was believed on their part that it was better to leave the semi-arid +regions in the condition of unbroken prairie from which they might +receive trainloads of cattle, than to encourage its opening to an agriculture +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>which was likely to be unsuccessful. Perhaps that was the +controlling opinion in Great Northern circles, too. In any case, the +railways were exerting an almost monarchical power over farming in +their spheres of influence. Nothing, it seems to me, more clearly shows +the power of the railways over farms and farming, than these instances +of both action and inaction at the critical stage of development. We +do not see it so plainly in regions long settled and in agricultural equilibrium, +but the power is always there and always exerted for all that.</p> + +<p>Beginning, so far as I am informed, with Mr. Hill’s livestock activities, +and the aid of Mr. J. W. Kendrick to the great dry farming +movement, railway aid to agriculture has grown to a fashion. The +Pennsylvania maintains its demonstration farms on Long Island; the +New York Central strives to bring back to their old-time headship in +farming the Empire State’s half-abandoned farms. Scarcely a railway +system can be mentioned which has not run its educational trains for +the purpose of bringing agricultural science into touch with the farmers +along its line. “Dairy specials,” “corn specials,” “bacon specials,” +“fruit specials,” and dozens of other special trains have moved leisurely +from station to station with agricultural lecturers aboard and cars fitted +up as laboratories and auditoriums for the farmers. These are sure +to be increasingly frequent as the demand grows on the part of farmers +for accurate and authoritative teaching, and as the railway officials come +to understand that the most profitable thing to sow along the line is +knowledge, and that nothing gives such profitable crops as science. The +great Burlington system now hires one of the noted agricultural experts +of the world to work with the farmers, and another eminent agricultural +college professor has gone into the service of that system which, +while it may not reign, rules over the industrial destinies of “The Rock +Island States of America.” The railroads everywhere, are doing excellent +work in educating the farmers. This work is wise, and is sure +to bring the results the railroads desire. The introduction of good agricultural +methods, like the implanting of truth in any form, is one of +those germinal acts that go on of their own accord when once the initial +impulse is given. Dry farming will be practiced centuries hence better +than now, and the Northern Pacific will carry its tonnage.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DOMINANCE OF TONNAGE.</p> + +<p>But all these fine things have been done and are still being done +with a eye single to tonnage. The railway officials who are doing them +would strenuously deny any other motive than that of filling trains +with agricultural produce. “What justification,” says the old-fashioned +stockholder at the annual meeting, “can be given for using money of +the railway for such new-fangled flub-dub as this special train filled +with college professors and farmers?” “It’s a cold business proposition,” +says the general manager. “If we can get the farmers to grow +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>steers that will weigh a ton as against the present ones that weigh a +thousand pounds, our livestock tonnage is doubled, and at the expense +of a few special trains and an agricultural department, we obtain on +the present lines all the results of a greater mileage. Better agriculture +means more freight. That’s the justification, and the only one. It’s +a plain business proposition!”</p> + +<p>We may trust the enlightened selfishness of good business to push +this sort of activity to the limit of its profit; and it is a fine thing to +think that the railways cannot benefit themselves by spreading the light +of agricultural science without benefiting the farmers and the whole +nation. Favors of this sort bless him that receives quite as much as +him that gives. But does the duty of the railway end with tonnage? +Can we ask the railways to do anything for the farms and the farmers +beyond the things which mediately or immediately will fill trains of cars +with profitable freight? In the great task of conservation do the railways +owe any duty to the farms beyond what they are now performing? +This phase of the subject has yet to be worked out.</p> + +<p class="center">SOME HISTORIC PHRASES.</p> + +<p>A few striking phrases have thrown on the screen of history the +views of the generation of railway men who denied, and some of them +still deny, anything in the way of duty of the sort hinted at. Some +of these may be apocryphal utterances, but they tell the truth for all +that. It is recorded that a Louisville & Nashville official, on being asked +whether or not the people on his lines had any alternative other than to +pay what the railway exacted, answered, “Yes! They can walk!” The +historic Vanderbilt aphorism is “The public be damned!” It has been +related of Jay Gould that his cynical rule for the making of rates on +agricultural produce was that the farmers should always be allowed +to retain enough for seed. Such opinions as these were the prevailing +ones until recently. They were based on the view that the railways +were purely private things. Under their sway railway men claimed +the right to decide what cities should flourish and what decline, where +towns should be built and where not, what shippers should be prosperous +and what fail. They claimed these rights and they exercised +them. To men of that school the things I shall say will seem like nonsense. +They do not see that the control of the highways of a nation +carries with it the rulership of the people; or if they do see it, they +refuse to recognize the right of the people to say how that rulership +shall be exercised, how long it shall continue, and when it shall end. +And this is the lesson of the present and the immediate future for the +railroads of America. A railway official is of right a public official, +and he is nothing else. His duties to his stockholders are important +and call upon him for scrupulous fidelity, but they are subject to his +duties to the public. For on the highways depend the welfare of the +whole people; the stockholders are a part only of the people; and the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span>whole is greater than any part. In the last analysis, the stockholders +and bondholders of the railways must come to a realization of the fact +that they have placed their interests in the keeping of the people of +the Nation, and that their profits must depend on the sense of justice +of that people. Fortunately, there is no reason to expect from the people +the slightest failure to respect the real rights of capital. But that modifications +of railway policy are likely to be insisted upon, is not only +likely, but inevitable. These modifications will be along the line of +revisions of rates, the adoption of the principle that the railway must +be used as a tool in the development of the Nation along rational and +just lines, and not arbitrary ones, and in the conservation of the national +resources—among which one of the most important, if not the most +important, is the fertility of the soil.</p> + +<p class="center">RATES AND LIVING COST.</p> + +<p>First, as to rates. There has been a good deal written of late for +the purpose of securing for the railways an acquittal of every charge +that has been or ever can be brought against them of having anything +to do with the increased cost of living. Inasmuch as the cost of transportation +is a part of the cost of every article consumed, freight rates +may, and doubtless do, conceal much that makes for high prices. A +Johns Hopkins professor says: “The claim of the railroads that the +rates on foodstuffs are not high enough to enter as a factor in fixing +the selling price is fully substantiated by the dealers in such products.” +And again the same authority says: “The average weight of a carload +of food products is 30,000 pounds. If the freight on such a carload +be $300 the rate per pound would be only one cent, and there is scarcely +a commodity upon which a freight rate of one cent per pound makes +any difference in the selling price.”</p> + +<p>When one considers the staples on which a cent a pound constitutes +from six to twenty per cent of the selling price, these extremely sweeping +statements must be admitted to need a lot of verification. Those +who feel most keenly the pinch of high prices live mostly on things +which sell at from four to twenty cents a pound—of which price an +average of a cent a pound freight is a considerable increase. But the +efforts mentioned have not been confined to arguments of the sort above +quoted. We are called upon to believe not only that no appreciable +freight charge is added to the burdens of the consumer, but that nothing +worth mentioning is deducted as freight from the prices to the producer. +We thus have the great incomes of the railroads very neatly +palmed and effectually concealed somewhere between the professor of +economics and the Secretary of Agriculture. For Secretary Wilson asserts +that:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>With approximate accuracy it has been determined that when the farmer receives +50 per cent of the consumer’s price, the freight charge on butter is about +0.5 of 1 per cent of the consumer’s price; eggs, 0.6 of 1 per cent; apples, 6.8 per +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>cent; beans, 2.4 per cent; potatoes, 7.4 per cent; grains of all sorts, 3.8 per cent; +hay, 7.4 per cent; cattle and hogs, 1.2 per cent; live poultry, 2.2 per cent; wool, 0.3 +of 1 per cent.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>These things are very convincing. And they are, no doubt, reliable +as to averages. The trouble with them is that they are averages, and +that they have the merits and defects of averages. One of the defects +is that they do not tell the real truth. I have in mind a farmer living +at New Rockford, North Dakota. He grows wheat as his staple crop, +and about the only crop upon which it is at all safe to depend. His +task is to help feed the world. As this is written, his wheat is worth in +New York, if for export, a dollar a bushel, if for milling in this country +two cents more. In addition to the cost of handling, the New Rockford +farmer must submit to a deduction of twenty-four cents per bushel +in price for freight to New York if for export, and of twenty-six cents +if for domestic use. Something like 35 to 40 per cent of his returns is +deducted for freight. It may satisfy the city consumer of bread to be +told that this freight does not add “materially” to the cost of his living, +but the New Rockford farmer is stubborn, and merely because his freight +charge is a third or more of his returns, he is not mollified by Secretary +Wilson’s statement that all grains “on the average” get to market +with a deduction for transportation of three and eight-tenths per cent. +In Johns Hopkins and at Washington, the freight charge may not amount +to much. It is far otherwise at New Rockford.</p> + +<p>A North Dakota station and a low grade staple are selected for +the purpose of putting a finger on the point where the railways and +the farmers clash crucially. They clash thus in the heart of the continent +where distances to market are long, where there has been no +rate structure fixed under competition, and where the farm produces +in the main cheap and heavy staples. Whether grain, hay, root crops, +or live stock, the case is the same—prices at the railway station are reduced +to the point of vanishing profits by freight charges; and the cost +of living on the farm is proportionately increased by the same agency.</p> + +<p class="center">HOW TO DEVELOP THE REMOTE PARTS.</p> + +<p>The greatest transportation fact faced by the American people is +the problem of developing the remote parts of the continent under +conditions which are new to the experience of the human race. In the +past mankind has been content to develop its great civilization near +waterways. The sites of Egypt, Greece, Rome, Phoenicia and Carthage +were determined by ease of transportation. Whether or not it is possible +for the interior of the North American continent to be fully developed +industrially by land carriage only is a question which is as yet +an open one. It is safe to say that such development cannot take place +without the adoption by the railways of some new transportation principles, +applied for the express purpose of national welfare. And if +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>the only alternative—the building of a national system of waterways—be +resorted to, the aid of the railways must still be demanded if success +is to be attained.</p> + +<p>Rates as a deduction from the income of the farmer are even on +the face of the averages quoted, considerable; but in the interior and +on things produced at a close margin of profit, they are decisive of the +matter of agricultural prosperity. On butter they are so inconsiderable +as a proportion that the output of Dakota creameries has not infrequently +gone on the market under conditions which enabled the Western butter-maker +to pay his entire freight bill with the difference in his favor in +the matter of quality. On eggs the burden of freight is similarly light. +But on potatoes the freight is, according to the figures of the Secretary +of Agriculture, 7.4 per cent of the consumer’s price, or about fifteen +per cent of the farmers’ returns, as a national average. It is quite clear +that the Montana or Nebraska potato grower must often find the freight, +over the great distances to market, decisive of the question of profit +or no profit. An acre of onions takes the labor of two or three persons +a good part of the season. The cultivation is largely done with hand +tools manipulated while the worker kneels and bends his body to the +ground. His produce should be about a carload. If on this he pays +the railways $300 freight it is a not inconsiderable contribution on the +part of one gardener and one acre of land to the transportation system +of the Nation.</p> + +<p>Just what is included in these professorial and secretarial calculations +is not quite clear. The word “freight” may or may not include +such items as the charges for refrigeration and of refrigerator car +companies, fast freight lines and the like, and until we know as to these +items, we are unable to decide on the worth of the statistics. But one +item of expense which through the policy of the railway companies the +farmers are obliged to pay is clearly not included—I refer to the charges +of the express companies.</p> + +<p>The railways of the United States have enormously retarded the +agricultural development of the country, and added to the expense of +living, by permitting the lodgment in our transportation system of that +industrial parasite, the express company. Just what are the financial +inter-relations which have contributed to the willingness of the railways +to allow parcels carriage to pass from their hands, while sufficiently +obvious in a general way, cannot now be detailed. The glaring fact is +that the express companies, save for certain services which they have, +in violation of the criminal law, usurped from the postal system, perform +absolutely no functions which do not properly belong to the railways, +and no functions which the railways of other lands do not assume. +Every dollar of the huge profits which the express companies make is +a burden upon industry which is unnecessary and unjust. But instead +of seeking to remedy or lessen this burden, the railways pursue the +policy of making it greater. They practically abandon the field of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>parcels carriage to the express companies. They allow their agents +everywhere to work for the express companies on commission, so that +their wages are increased as express business increases, while their +interest in the growth of railway business is reduced to a minimum by +the receipt from the railway of only a small fixed salary. Thus the +railways not only turn over to the express companies the parcels business, +but saddle on that business, and on the shippers by express, a +good deal of the burden of their own payroll.</p> + +<p class="center">THE TOLLS ASSESSED ON AGRICULTURE.</p> + +<p>The effect of this policy on agriculture is not to be measured by +the amount of express tolls paid on shipments made. That is a great +burden, but it is inconsiderable as compared with its injury to the farmers +and to the Nation by reason of the immense volume of potential +traffic that does not move at all. Under the paternal governments of +the Australasian colonies of Great Britain, agriculture is fostered by +low railway rates and a carefully studied policy of encouragement to +the small shipper. Packages of poultry, eggs, meats and other farm +products are collected on the remote railway lines, brought to concentration +points, refrigerated, shipped to the world’s markets, sold and remitted +for to the great benefit of the remote farmers, who otherwise +would have no way of marketing their little shipments. But here the +trucker and poultryman and the fruit-grower are in most localities relegated +by the railways to a third party—the express company—who seems +to have no office but the exaction of tolls which the railway itself could +not charge, but which it divides with the railway. This is unjust and +is rapidly becoming intolerable. The farmer must be placed in such +position that he can work up trade in the city and ship in small packages +direct to the consumer at just rates. The head of one of our great +railway systems has delivered several powerful addresses recently, in +which he has asserted that the farmers, and not the railways, are to +blame for the spread of from 30 to 75 per cent between the price received +by the producer of food products and that paid by the consumer. +He advises farmers to “cut out the middleman.” Good counsel, but +let him follow his own advice. Let him, and let all railways cut out +the express middlemen, the private car middlemen, the fast freight line +middlemen, and the ordinary farmer will be placed in better position +for taking his advice. These agencies have no place in a rational system +of transportation. They are parasites, which suck blood and confer +no benefit. Transportation by rail should be a simple transaction between +the railway and the shipper, and with no third party whatsoever. +Whatever there may be in the way of parcels transportation which does +not properly belong to the railways should be assumed by the government +in the form of a general parcels post.</p> + +<p>With the way cleared to simple relations between shipper and railroad, +the matter of rate-making in the interests of national development +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span>may be taken up, and the railroads enlisted in such policies as +may be dictated by patriotism. In these the farmers are entitled to +so much of special consideration as is commanded by the importance +of agriculture as the basic industry of the world—no more, no less. In +many schedules the railroads have favored agricultural development. +These instances are those in which farming interests have been controlling +in the matter of dividends. Perhaps we should expect nothing +more of the purely individualistic philosophy of the past, but of the +future we must demand much more.</p> + +<p class="center">RATES AND DEVELOPMENT.</p> + +<p>Instances of the influence of railway policies on agriculture may +be found in almost every country of the world. The beet sugar industry +of Austria has been built up through the adjustment of railway +rates. Huebner says of the German policy in this regard:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>With the deliberate purpose of regulating industry and commerce through the +powerful medium of freight rates, 63 per cent of the traffic is given rates generally +about half as high as classified rates and seemingly unusually low as compared +with rates enforced in neighboring countries. These rates are given to build +up particular industries, to promote specified districts, to protect German railways +against foreign competition, to overcome emergencies, to build up German sea-ports, +to promote German export trade, and discourage the entry of specified imports.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>We have been told over and over again that the acquisition of the +railroads of Germany by the government has been dictated by consideration +of military strategy; but the world is just awakening to the +fact that it is rather industrial strategy which has impelled the Germans +to government ownership. The time is coming when the German railways +will be freed from the fixed charges of both bonds and stocks, +and German agricultural products will go to market, with her manufactures, +at rates based on actual cost of service. The fostering uses +of properly adjusted rates as applied to remote agricultural districts +in Australia and New Zealand have been known to the world for years. +Protection to home industries through tariffs has failed to benefit our +farmers in any direct way, and the policy of attempting longer to maintain +such tariffs seems to be in process of abandonment; but Van Wagenen +has pointed out that agriculture may be stimulated and fostered +through railway rates, and given all the benefits which clearly accrue +to protected industries through tariffs. It might be no more than fair +to the farmers if some of the taxes exacted from them through tariffs +in the interests of manufacturers, were returned to them in such freight +rates as would develop their agriculture along the intensive lines made +possible by nearness to market; but it might be unfair to ask privately-owned +railways to do it.</p> + +<p>The whole structure of rates as they now exist is devised to favor +the long line to and from market, and made up with reference to the +demands of certain trade centers, and certain powerful financial interests, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span>some of which are closely allied to the ownership of the control +of railways. A striking instance of this is to be found in the history +of the rates on the border line between the Gulf trade basin, and the +territory of the railways running to Chicago and the Atlantic ports. +From Kansas and Oklahoma points the distance to tidewater on the +Gulf is only from a quarter to a half the distance to the Atlantic. The +farmers of that region, and of a great part of Nebraska, Colorado, and +much other territory, are entitled to an outlet by way of the Gulf. It +is nearer. It is over cheaper track. It is on easier grades. It should +be in every way more economical. But when the battle between the +old lines and the new began with the building of the roads to the Gulf, +it was fought out, not along lines of what was best for the Nation, not +along lines of what was best for the farmers whose stake in the controversy +was the right to a fair price for their grain, but with sole reference +to the interests of the railways themselves, and of the grain trade +with which the railways have always maintained so intimate a friendship. +Such agreements were made that grain would be as likely to +go from Kansas City to the Atlantic as to the Gulf. In other words, +the building of the Gulf lines was robbed of its benefits to the farmer. +Rates were so adjusted, and still are, as to make the Gulf lines as bad +for the farmer as the Atlantic lines, instead of making the old lines +as good as the new should be. This is equivalent, as an economic +futility, to the plan of handicapping the binder so as to restrict its +work to the amount done by the same force in the old days of hand +binding. Financially it may be wise—for the elevator trade, and the +railway community of interest—but it is an economic crime as much +as the breaking of the power looms by the old weavers. The present +railway situation is full of such anomalies. One could spend days in +their discussion. They are familiar to the shippers of the nation. They +are apologized for by the wise men who write great tomes on transportation. +But they must sometime be so corrected that trade will go +on the railroad which can perform the transportation task most economically, +without regard to the historic channels of traffic and the +private interests concerned in the use thereof.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus5" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus5.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p><span class="smcap">Darius A. Brown</span>, Mayor of Kansas City</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="center">“TAPERING RATES.”</p> + +<p>I have spoken of the difficulties which confront the people of the +deep interior of the continent in working out their complete industrial +development. By complete industrial development, I mean that full +growth in industry which has come to such seaboard locations as Great +Britain, the Netherlands, our Eastern seaboard, our lake regions and the +like. One can scarcely conceive such complete development in Iowa, +Nebraska, the Dakotas, or Oklahoma. And yet it is merely a question +of transportation. The problem of the future relates to the question +of the ability of land carriage of any kind to furnish it. If it cannot +be accomplished by land carriage, the Nation will have recourse to waterways. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>New Rockford and her sister hamlets will reach the sea, either +by the way of the railroads, or by the Missouri river. If the railways +are to give New Rockford—and in her I typify all the interior—what +it must have if it is to develope completely, they must find some way +to compensate the place by means of rates for its remoteness from the +sea.</p> + +<p>This may be done by what is called “tapering rates”—that is, by +rates which increase not with the distance, but on some basis which +gives the remote point a less tariff per ton a mile than the nearby point. +The railroads have made such rates always when the demands of profit +called for them; and their policy has resulted in great benefit to the +interior; but the diverse ownership of the different lines and restrictive +laws, as well as the lack of a national policy in rate-making, conspire +to prevent the full application of the principle. Congressman D. J. +Lewis of Maryland has laid down the principle that rates along a line +should increase with the square root of the distance, instead of with +the distance. Thus, if the proper rate per hundredweight for twenty-five +miles is ten cents, for 625 miles the rate should be not $2.50, which +would be the increase directly with the distance, but twenty-five cents, +the increase over ten cents according to the square root of the distance. +The value of this formula may lie principally in the emphasis of the +economic justice, as well as the necessity, of tapering rates for long +hauls. As it is, rates taper from New York to Chicago, not according +to the square root formula, but in a manner not very much at odds with +it; but then they are increased by the fresh start from Chicago as a +basing point. Under a national policy in rate-making, these rates would +continue to taper to the point at which it would be more economical +to ship in some other direction—to the Pacific, or to the Gulf.</p> + +<p>The influence of tapering rates on the industrial development of +a people may be seen strikingly manifested in Texas, which has long +had a rate system peculiar to itself. This system is said to be the fruit +of the statesmanship of Judge Reagan, and was devised expressly in +the interests of a population deemed to be permanently agricultural. It +is exactly the opposite of the general policy which has built up a few +great cities at the expense of the rest of the country, and the best or +worst example of which is perhaps the case of Chicago. Chicago is +fed by livestock shipments which sweep past the very doors of packing +houses quite as well equipped to slaughter the stock as any in the Windy +City, and the livestock rates are only a sample of the system of tariffs +that keep in Chicago’s hands the headship in commerce to which in the +natural development of things she would not be entitled. Railroad +rates keep the great centers great by decreeing that the primary products +shall be sold there, and that the supplies of goods ready for consumption +shall be bought there. This is done by depriving other trade +centers of the natural advantages over Chicago, of their nearness to +the farms, while leaving them handicapped by their remoteness from +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>water transportation. And wherever a great city is found in the United +States, the same sort of rate structure is found. The economic result +is that long hauls are favored for the railroads, with greater profits +to them perhaps; but the farmers are deprived of the benefits of the +home markets which nearby large cities afford. The state of Iowa is +Chicago’s back field; and Iowa’s population is shrinking. This fact alone +is enough to condemn the rate system which permits it. And Iowa’s +case is glaring merely because she is an almost purely agricultural state. +The farm populations of the other states on Chicago’s back fields are +shrinking, also. And while I do not think it fair to attribute all this +to rate mal-adjustments, I feel sure that if the Texas system of rates +had been in effect in the Chicago-St. Louis basin, the phenomenon of +decreasing population would have been long postponed, and might never +have appeared.</p> + +<p class="center">THE TEXAS SYSTEM OF RATES.</p> + +<p>The Texas system, as perfected by the Texas State Railway Commission, +is based on the theory that many medium sized towns and cities +are to be preferred, for the agricultural welfare of the state, to one or +two overgrown municipalities with rates made to stimulate their growths +at the expense of the rest. This has been accomplished by the establishment +of a maximum freight charge, above which there can be no +increase, no matter what the distance—with the exception of certain +remote points in the cases of which additions are made, not according +to the entire length of haul, but according to their distance beyond the +limits of the zone which is established about every shipping point. Thus +merchandise taking the class rates pays a tariff from any shipping point +according to distance, up to 245 miles, beyond which the rate for 245 +miles is paid no matter what the distance. The maximum rate on +cotton is reached at 160 miles from any station; on flour, grain and +hay at 140 miles; on coal, 790 miles; on fruits, vegetables and melons, +180 miles, and thus for all shipments. The result is that the remote +truck farmer is as close, so far as rates are concerned, to the city 500 +miles away, as to the one 180 miles off—and the principle is applied +to all producers, with variations as to distance. This gives him a wide +choice in markets and rates, which equalizes conditions so far as rates +can do so, between the interior and the coast. And it fosters the small +and new city by enabling it to compete in jobbing and manufacturing +with the large and old one. Thus, while such places as Galveston, Houston, +Dallas, Fort Worth and Waco are among the most prosperous +towns of their size in the country, they are constantly meeting the competition +of that numerous class of smaller Texan cities the unsuspected +presence of which in the interior is such a constant surprise to the +traveler from the North. Business is decentralized to an extent nowhere +else seen in the United States in an agricultural community. And +decentralization, while opposed to the immediate interests of the railways, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span>is clearly profitable to the farmers, better for the people in general, +and in all probability will prove in the end better for the railways themselves. +For after all, railroad prosperity must depend on national prosperity.</p> + +<p>It may be said that the Texas system has been tried out on a small +and a state scale only. On a state scale, truly, but not on a small +scale by any means. From El Paso to Texarkana the distance is almost +exactly that from New York to Chicago, and from Brownsville to Texline +is as far as from Kansas City to Winnipeg. Moreover, Texas has +most of the problems which confront the Nation itself in working out +a national system of rate-making—a coast well settled and old in development +with all the wealth and power that the conditions imply—a hinterland +ranging in conditions from fine farming land like that of Iowa, +through semi-arid to desert. The Texas rate system may not be the +last word in rate-making, and probably is not; but it seems to work +well, and is certainly worth study. As will be seen at a glance, it is a +modification of the systems of tapering rates suggested above—in which +rates taper to a point where a maximum is reached, and then cease to +increase at all. It is also a modification of the zone system in effect +on certain foreign railways, under which within certain territorial limits +railway rates are flat, like postage. The economic basis for such rates +lies in considerations of national welfare, coupled with the well-known +transportation principle that the terminal charge which makes up so +large a portion of most shipments, is the same for a long haul as a +short one.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DECLINE OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE.</p> + +<p>For purposes relating to the fostering of such interests as seemed +necessary to the welfare of New England and New England’s tonnage, +the railroads have themselves put in effect with reference to that section +a system of rates which in some ways resembles the zone system of +Europe, or the maximum distance tariff of Texas. Cut off by the tariff +on imports from her natural hinterland, Canada, the decline of New +England’s agriculture under the competition of the prairie lands would +have brought to her a permanent industrial decline, had she not turned +her attention to manufacturing. And even as to that, she was placed +at a disadvantage as soon as the development of the Middle States and +Middle West brought that great region to the manufacturing stage. For +New England’s manufactures had to go to market through New York, +and most of her raw materials had to be imported from the West and +the South. The railways used their powers of rulership in the interests +of this whole group of states, as they are constantly doing in the case +of cities—they decreed prosperity to New England’s manufacturers +through a rate system. They made of New England a flat-rate zone +for raw materials, with the same rate to all points, and practically the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>same as the rate to New York. This applies to all raw materials coming +from west of a line drawn from Buffalo to Pittsburg through Wheeling. +For out-going shipments, they gave all New England points a flat +uniform rate to all points west of a line drawn from Cleveland to the +Ohio river. That the wage earners of New England might be favored +in cost of living—a feature reflected in low wages—the food products +from the West are given a rate practically the same as that to New York—and +thus the ruin of the old New England agriculture, already probable, +was made certain. Had it not been for these imperial measures, New +England’s headship in manufacturing would have been lost, first to +the Middle States, and then, perhaps, to the Middle West. The expedient +differs from the Texas system in the fact that it is applied partially +and in the interests of manufactures, with New York as a center, while +the Texas system is applied for the purpose of decentralizing business +by making every shipping point the center of its own flat-rate zone.</p> + +<p>But the most striking illustration of the power of the railroads to +foster or to blight industry, lies perhaps after all in the field of agriculture. +And it so happens that it is also the instance of the application +on the broadest scale of the zone principle in which all rates are +the same to all points within certain territorial limits. I refer to the +rate structure which has been built up for the transportation of the +citrus and other fruits and vegetables of the Pacific coast and the Pacific +Northwest to the markets of the eastern half of the continent. +While the principle is applied with more or less completeness to shipments +of deciduous fruits and truck, it is best studied in its relation to +citrus fruits. Oranges and lemons go to all points east of Denver at +a flat rate. From Cheyenne, Wyoming, to Eastport, Maine, the rate +on citrus fruit is the same. The effect has been most beneficial to the +agriculture of the Western quarter of the United States, to the people +at large, and to the railways. Whether or not the rates are just, the +principle upon which they are made is conducive to the development of +agriculture and is, perhaps, essential to such development, when the industry +is hampered by land carriage over great distances. And nothing +need be said in addition to citing these instances of the determinative +effects of our railway rates on the course of prosperity, in spite of the +averages which seem to show the economic unimportance of rates.</p> + +<p class="center">SOIL DEPLETION.</p> + +<p>Thus far, I have discussed the influence of railroad policies upon +the farmer as a man engaged in one of the many industries which +make up the sum of industrial activities. But there are certain respects +in which the farmer represents the everlasting welfare of the race, and +certain demands which he may legitimately make on the transportation +agencies of the land which are based on every man’s heritage in the +soil, and interest in its continued fertility. The depletion of the soil +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span>by cropping is largely accomplished through transportation, and its +restoration to fertility must be accomplished, where such restoration is +necessary, in large measure, through the same agencies.</p> + +<p>The soil is a reservoir of plant food. Most of the dozen or so +elements used by plants in building themselves up from the soil are +found in it in such great abundance that we need take little care for +their conservation. Only three—or possibly four—are so scarce as to +call for anxiety. These three are nitrogen, potash and phosphorus.</p> + +<p>Potash is ordinarily found in soils in such quantities as to render +its application unnecessary and yet there exist localities in almost every +state where a marked poverty exists in this element. Peaty soils are +always deficient in potash, and as the swamps of the Nation are drained +the potash problem will grow in importance. Commercial potash is +mostly imported from Germany, where the government’s conservation +measures have already brought its export into the field of somewhat +vexing diplomacy. The German supply would seem adequate for the +world’s demands for many centuries. The deposit underlies more than +a million acres, and in the Strassfurt district, where it was discovered +some fifty years ago, the total thickness of the potassium-bearing strata +amounts to the astonishing depth of 5,000 feet. It is estimated that +this wonderful supply at the present rate of mining will last 190,000 +years. It should be remembered, however, that reclamation activities +are likely more and more to be directed to swamps as the arid regions +are brought under irrigation, and that the drain on the German potash +deposits is likely to increase in a geometrical ratio. Our Government +does well, therefore, to push diligently the search for potash deposits +at home, which it is doing with some prospects of success. In any case, +we are not dependent on the German deposits as an ultimate fact; for +the waters of the sea are the source from which these great deposits +originally came, and there seems no reason to doubt the ultimate feasibility +of obtaining potash for all future time from that inexhaustible +source, if the geological deposits fail or are denied us. But the matter +of getting potash to the land, from whatever source it comes, is a railroad +problem in most cases.</p> + +<p class="center">IMPORTING FERTILIZERS.</p> + +<p>Since the guano deposits of the Pacific islands, and the nitrate deposits +of Chili were opened to the agriculture of the world, the carriage +of nitrogen to the soil has been a great transportation feature. For +nitrogen is often the limiting element in the soil. It exists in the earth +in small quantities only, and though all cultivated plants are bathed +in a limitless sea of it in the atmosphere, they have not the power of +using any except that which is fixed in the soil. They starve for nitrogen, +while blown about by winds filled with it. Not all plants, however, +are so helpless in the matter of taking nitrogen from the air. The plants +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>grown as crops are utterly unable to help themselves to the plentiful +atmospheric supply, but certain minute plants called bacteria have the +power denied to those of higher organization, and it is certain that +almost all of the fixed nitrogen in the earth’s crust, in the guano beds, +in the nitrate deposits of Chili and elsewhere, has been taken from +the air by these bacteria, aided perhaps by certain fungi which grow +about the roots of plants like the oak, and by the negligible fixation of +nitrogen by lightning. These bacteria are coöperators with certain plants +of the bean family—clovers, alfalfa, vetches, sweet clover, beans, peas, +velvet beans, cowpeas and the like. The microscopic plants grow on +the roots of these legumes—and to some extent free, or associated with +non-leguminous plants—on the basis of mutual aid. The bacteria reach +out into the soil and fix nitrogen for the legumes, and the legumes +furnish a host on which the bacteria live, just as we furnish a host for +the bacteria of disease. And when a crop of any legume is plowed down +into the soil, it is found to have added to the land nitrates to the value, +sometimes, of more than twenty-five dollars per acre. Thus by setting +in motion the forces of nature, the farmer may draw nitrogen from the +very heavens above his farm, without money and without price. This +is perhaps the most vital agricultural discovery of the ages.</p> + +<p>But how, you may say, is the nitrogen supply a matter of concern +to the railroads, if nitrates may be drawn from the air? Unfortunately, +there is work for them to do in assisting the farmer to adapt conditions +in his soil to the needs of these bacteria. For some reasons, the +bacteria of the clovers and their leguminous cousins will not do well +in a soil that is acid; and soils tend to become acid through cultivation. +Acidity is the bane of the older farms of the United States. When +acid phosphates are applied for the purpose of furnishing phosphorus +to the crops, the very process of fertilization tends to produce acidity. +Most of the prairie soils were originally alkaline, and finely adapted to +the growth of the favoring bacteria of the legumes, but plants that +thrive on acid soils—especially the sorrel—are appearing in the prairie +states of the Mississippi Valley, and wherever they appear, clovers cease +to thrive.</p> + +<p class="center">THE VALUE OF LIME.</p> + +<p>Nature’s remedy for acidity in the soil is lime. The basis of the +great alfalfa industry in the West and Southwest is the high percentage +of lime in the arid soils, which have retained this precious element +through that very dryness which, until irrigation redeemed it, made +some of it a desert. Now lime is needed over a great part of the United +States east of the Mississippi. Even where the soil is of limestone +origin, it may have become acid by the dissolving of the lime out of the +surface soil. In Wisconsin a great area of otherwise good land has been +found to be acid, though a stratum of limestone lies only a few feet +below the grass roots. The abandoned farms of New England need +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>lime. The old farms of New York and Pennsylvania, and all the South, +need lime. Wherever the legumes fail to arrive, lime is a prime need. +Carbonate of lime is the basis of legume culture, and successful agriculture +everywhere—in China, in Japan, in India, in the highly cultivated +nations of Europe—is based on leguminous crops. The supply of nitrogen +to these states of ours in which agriculture has languished must be +restored through lime in the soil and rotations in which legumes shall +have large part. And the supply of lime is essentially a transportation +question.</p> + +<p>Lime is one of the most plentiful of the elements necessary to agriculture. +Its application to the land has in some periods achieved such +bad repute that there is a maxim among farmers that lime makes the +children rich but the grandchildren poor. The evils referred to, however, +arise, I believe, from the application of caustic lime, and are not +necessary to the use of lime. It has now been determined, I believe it +is safe to say, that raw ground limestone is the best form of lime in +which it can be given to the soil. It may be applied in any amount without +injury. If raw ground limestone could be spread an inch deep over +the farms east of the Mississippi (and in many localities west of it) it +would bring about a condition which would soon swamp the railroads +with tonnage; and while there are some favored soils to which it would +do no good, it would nowhere do any harm. It would put the East on +a parity with the alfalfa lands of the West in the matter of the production +of legumes, and would bring hope to the discouraged farmers who +strive against the obscure evils of increasing soil acidity.</p> + +<p>Limestone occurs along the lines of every railway. It is almost +as common and cheap as gravel. It can be ground cheaply, and cheaply +shipped. It should be furnished to the farms at gravel prices. Burned +lime is sold at almost prohibitive prices, and thousands of farmers who +know their needs are deterred from satisfying them because of poverty. +This is a problem which enlightened statesmanship should solve in the +interests of the Nation, and one to the solution of which a railroad system +operated in the interests of the national welfare would surely address +itself.</p> + +<p class="center">PHOSPHORUS.</p> + +<p>Phosphorus is the element which is perhaps most commonly lacking +when a soil is infertile. A good soil should contain not less than 2,000 +pounds of it in the top foot of ground. Many so-called exhausted soils +are reduced to less than a sixth of this amount. A crop of corn of a +hundred bushels to the acre takes from the soil of each acre twenty-three +pounds of phosphorus; a fifty-bushel wheat crop takes sixteen pounds, +a two-bale cotton crop takes thirty pounds, and other crops in like manner +subtract from the phosphorus supply. Only about one per cent of +the supply is available to the crop of any one year—that is, in their hunt +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>for phosphorus the rootlets are unable to find more than one atom in a +hundred. Thus we see that a good soil provided with 2,000 pounds of +phosphorus to the acre within reach of the roots cannot produce a 100-bushel +crop of corn. Such a crop must have twenty-three pounds of phosphorus, +and the roots can find only twenty—and the next year the supply +will be reduced to 1,980 pounds, and the roots will be able to find but +nineteen and eight-tenths per cent of phosphorus for the dwindling crop. +The 2,000 pounds of phosphorus would be quite adequate to the needs +of the fifty-bushel wheat crop, but it would fall short by one-third of +meeting the demands of the two-bale cotton crop. As so of all crops. +They draw on the supply of a limiting element, and as successive croppings +reduce this supply, the crop falls off until we have the four-bushel +wheat crop, the ten-bushel corn crop, the third-of-a-bale cotton crop, +which marks the ruin of the farmer—and the railway.</p> + +<p>There is no way to supply phosphorus to the soil save by carrying +it upon the land and applying it. It is not found, like nitrogen in the +air. It may be brought back in manure and the bones of slaughtered +animals, and the process of depletion retarded, but this game is inevitably +a losing one like those gambling games in which there is always +a percentage in favor of the house. The fertility flushed into the waters +of the earth through sewers, the waste of manure, the leaching of soil +by rains—all these are the percentages in favor of the house, and against +the players. The players are we—the human race—and the house is +the massed forces of nature. There seems to be no way to play this +game of life without losing. If the earth ever becomes unable to sustain +human life, there is good reason to believe that our doom will reach +us through failure of the supply of phosphorus in the soil.</p> + +<p>There is no phosphorus in the air, and in the waters the supply is +negligible. It is an element, and until we discover the secret of the transmutation +of elements we cannot make it. As it disappears from the +soil there is no source of replenishment of the supply, except in the +phosphate rocks of the earth. And while the failure of the soil to give +its increase, and the depopulation of the earth through the exhaustion +of this element of plant food may seem remote and speculative, the necessity +of transporting the phosphate rocks from the quarries to the farms +is an actual and present one. And it is a matter which lies within the +relations between the railroads and the farmers.</p> + +<p class="center">PHOSPHATE RESOURCES.</p> + +<p>Fortunately for the permanent agriculture of the United States, +the largest known deposits of phosphorus in nature are within her boundaries. +Guano, which is merely the manure accumulated on rainless +islands where seabirds congregate, is of very limited importance in the +long run, though for so long the source from which most of the world’s +commercial phosphates were derived. The phosphate rocks of the world +are, so far as known, preponderantly in the United States. All the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>phosphate rock now mined, I believe, comes from the three states of +South Carolina, Florida and Tennessee—whence the rock is now shipped +at a rate which will exhaust them about the year 1930. On three Pacific +islands are known deposits of high grade rock of about the same amount +as that still remaining unmined in these three states—about 60,000,000 +tons in each case. These rocks contain from sixty to eighty per cent +of calcium phosphate. As they fall off in output, and the need for phosphorus +becomes more bitter, the farmers must use rock of lower and +lower grade, and the task of transporting it will become proportionately +greater.</p> + +<p>Indeed, the task of transportation will begin to increase long before +it becomes necessary to resort to the low grade rock. For far from the +depleted lands, in Utah, Idaho and Wyoming, are the greatest high grade +phosphate beds in the world—something like half a billion tons of rock +practically in sight (according to Van Hise), and averaging over seventy +per cent tricalcium phosphate. The existence of these great deposits, +and of the low grade beds known to exist elsewhere, together with the +probability that other beds will be discovered, justifies the highest optimism +as to the future of agriculture—if transportation facilities can be +afforded which will place the phosphates on the ground on terms tolerable +to the farmers and profitable to them. This is a railway problem. +As a mere matter of tonnage it is potentially greater than any other transportation +item, save the one of supplying the fields with lime.</p> + +<p>At present this sole supply of available phosphate rock is being carried +off to Europe as fast as the mills can grind and the railways carry +it to the ships. Nothing is being done to conserve the supply, so far as +I am aware, in emulation of Germany’s statesmanship in conserving her +potash beds. It would be unfair to blame the railways which only act +as common carriers in these shipments. But it might not be too much +to expect of the patriotism of the men who have these great interests +in hand to ask them to reverse the policy which they have adopted as +to many other commodities, and to make higher rates for export on +phosphate rock than for home consumption. The real remedy for the +drain of phosphorus lies, of course, with the Government. We are forbidden +by the Constitution to stop shipments abroad by means of an +export duty, but we have the right to stop exports entirely, or to limit +them. Our ethical right to refuse to divide the phosphate treasures with +the needy agriculture of the world may be open to question; but we +might surely demand that the foreign deposits be worked first for the +foreign demand. The shipment of our phosphates abroad, with the certainty +confronting us that at some future time we shall have to re-import +the same commodity, involves an economic waste to which the world +should not be subjected. And the railroads ought, in their own interests, +to adopt every policy legally open to them to keep the phosphate +rock for the use of the farms within their own transportation territory.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span></p> + +<p class="center">RATES AND FERTILIZERS.</p> + +<p>It has just been suggested that the railways might discriminate in +their rates on fertilizers, in favor of the home market, and against the +foreign. Most railway men are probably unaware of the extent to which +they are contributing to the exhaustion of our soils by their discrimination +against the American milling of American grains and in favor of +the export of the whole grains instead of the milled product. For generations +we have had a tariff on wheat, ostensibly for the protection of +the American farmer; and all the time the railways have made rates for +export wheat lower than for domestic milling. Flour is largely denied +the benefits of water transportation on the lakes, in part because it must +go to market over the docks which are to a greater and greater degree +controlled by the railways, while the great elevator companies with their +terminal houses standing at the water’s edge, and many of them provided +with their own lines of boats, send wheat and other grains to tide water +so cheaply as to make the shipment of flour a thing practically under +the control of themselves and of the railways with which they have been +traditionally closely affiliated in business interest. The result has been +that, while there are mills enough in America to grind all our grain, most +of our exports go unground.</p> + +<p>This will be intolerable to public opinion when once enlightened +upon the subject. The export of flour, of course, constitutes a drain +of fertility; but the phosphorus content of the grain is largely concentrated +in the bran and shorts. In the bran of every bushel of wheat +exported goes phosphorus in its most readily available form of the value, +at the ordinary rates paid by farmers for phosphates, of from twenty-five +to thirty cents. A system of transportation based on considerations +of national welfare would sedulously seek to retain that fertility for +our depleted farms. Where grain is milled there grows up a large local +use for bran, shorts and middlings—the by-products of milling. These +are used in the feeding of dairy cattle and other live stock, furnishing +what is needed in animal nutrition to balance the corn ration. Farms +to which they are carried for feeding increase in fertility. The fertility +of the prairie states has been sapped by fifty years of grain shipments. +This era should be succeeded by the golden age of American milling. +The wheat fields of Canada stand ready to send us fertility to replace +that which we have shipped to Europe; and our transportation system +should be used to the end that it should be retained here. The Hudson +Bay basin would thus, during its period of soil exploitation, return to +the Mississippi Valley what we have sent to the hungry soils of the old +world.</p> + +<p class="center">RAILROADS AND POPULATION.</p> + +<p>The existence of overgrown cities is to a large extent attributable +to the policies of the railroads with reference to them. The Texas system +has, I believe, shown the power of transportation influences to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span>decentralize population, just as the history of Chicago, Kansas City, the +Twin Cities, New York and almost every large city proves their power +in the direction of centralization. As a farming factor, the large city +is a drain on fertility. These great towns are flushing out through their +sewers the goodness of the Nation’s farms. In the carriage of lime, +phosphates, potash, cottonseed meal, bone meal, and of all the fertilizers +of commerce, the railways as national tools of right living should be +used to restore to the lands the fertility of which they have inevitably, +in some instances, mistakenly in others, deprived them. But in considering +the so-called commercial fertilizers, the coarser manures should +not be forgotten. The enormous waste of manure about the great cities +should be stopped. A German farmer of my acquaintance told me the +other day that he had never sold a load of hay or straw from his farm +in all his life. “Often,” said he, “I have had more than I needed, but +I have held it over, even when the price was high and I needed money. +It seemed to me as if that hay and straw didn’t belong to me, but to +the farm.” Under the renting customs of many British and other +European localities the tenant agrees that whenever he hauls hay or +straw to market he will haul back to the farm an equal quantity of +manure.</p> + +<p>This custom is based on the highest wisdom. The German farmer +was right—that hay and straw do not belong to the farmer, but to the +farm. And whenever hay or straw, or any of the vegetable substances +which are made into manure, are taken to the city, they should be considered +as lent, not sold. Getting them out to the farms—not the identical +farms, of course, but the farms—is a railway problem. And it +should rest on the conscience of the people and of the railways, as did +the similar problem on the conscience of my German friend.</p> + +<p>I am aware that the railways of the country are not entirely oblivious +to the wisdom of the policies here urged upon them. In some places +they are making commendable efforts to get the manure of the cities out +to the farms. In other instances, they are making what they probably +regard as very low rates on fertilizers and lime. Just recently a railway +in Virginia has made a rate of from one-half to three-fourths of a cent +per ton mile on lime. But I do not find that they have anywhere made +any such heroic efforts to cut down the cost of carriage of fertilizers +and manures for the farms, as they have in the case of coal from the +mines to the docks on Lake Erie, or grain from the elevators at the foot +of the lake to New York, or ore from lake ports to Pittsburgh, or packing +house products from Missouri river points to Chicago. In my opinion, +true national welfare demands that the fertility of our farms be +sustained at all costs, and that no freight is entitled to rates as low as +ground phosphate rock, ground limestone, and manures.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE GREATEST RAILWAY FOLLY.</p> + +<p>The demands made here upon the railways may be regarded in some +quarters as unwarranted. I am quite aware of their scope and character +as innovations. They go deeper than the relations between the railroads +and the farmers, and rise to the point of an outline for a national rate +policy for our railways. In what I have said I have regarded the railways +as public utilities in the strictest sense of the word. I have scarcely +more than alluded to the rights of investors in railway properties, and +I mention them now for the sole purpose of stating that in my opinion +no demands will ever be made in the interests of the public welfare, or +should be made, inimical to the rights of investors to a proper return +on their investment made for the purpose of serving the transportation +needs of the Nation. None of the things which I suggest are at variance +with these principles. The railways may properly adopt the policy of +hauling, or may properly be forced to haul certain public necessities at +or for less than cost, so long as on the whole job of transportation they +are allowed to earn legitimate profits. I do not believe that in the long +run the profits on the fertilizer traffic should be made directly out of +their haulage. I do believe that the time will come when no transportation +folly will rank as greater in the eyes of our railway managers +than that of allowing rolling stock to remain idle, while there is a chance +to get loads of ground lime, ground phosphate rock or manure at almost +any rate. I am not unaware of the various private interests which would +demand and secure monopoly prices if the railways should transport +these things at low rates or even gratis, if that were possible; but this +is not the time for the discussion of these things. They must be dealt +with by the statesmanship of the future. Institutions must be gradually +moulded to the end that the agriculture of the Nation may be enabled to +flourish; for on its agriculture and the status of its agricultural population +rests in the last analysis the welfare of the Nation and its railroads. +It may be urged that the present railway system of the land will not +permit of the exercise of the beneficent functions outlined here. If that +be so, it is no affair of mine. My task is to follow truth as I see it, wherever +it may lead. If the railway system under which we happen to be +doing business be at variance with the final demands of national welfare, +there is ground for optimism in the historic fact that nothing changes +more readily than railway systems. They have been almost revolutionized +in the past decade—and these considerations of national welfare +of which I am here privileged to speak will take many decades in coming +to a final decision.</p> + +<p>Mr. Quick closed by reading the following telegram from O. C. +Barber of Akron, Ohio:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Regret exceedingly my inability to attend Conservation Congress. I note from +several different programs there will be distinguished speakers on the question +from all over the states. I hope as a result of the meeting something more than +speeches will be accomplished in conservation of the equities of all American citizens. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>Things vital for their comfort have been transferred to corporate power by unjust +legislation, without adequate legal restraint on corporate power compelling fair +play and justice to all interested. A special interest should be elicited to compel +a rate of freight on all fertilizers for land from which we all derive our sustenance. +Not more than four-tenths of a cent per ton mile should be permitted for +long hauls, nor five-tenths of a cent per ton mile for short hauls. Any well managed +railroad could haul fertilizer for that price at a profit—referring to all kinds of +fertilizer, lime, phosphate, rock, etc. If you would take such action as would +accomplish this one thing, you would do more for the good of mankind than all +the conservation efforts have accomplished to date. Wishing you great success, +I am sincerely,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">O. C. Barber</span>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I have appointed the following committee on +nominations: C. E. Condra, E. G. Griggs, A. B. Farquhar and H. C. +Wallace, and B. N. Baker, Chairman.</p> + +<p>Get together and be ready to report nominations promptly tomorrow. +Remember, we will have a very busy Congress. I want you to be here +at 2 o’clock promptly, because we will commence at 2 o’clock if there +is anybody here, and some of you will be. This afternoon, I am very +sorry to say, we will not have the privilege of hearing Brother W. H. +Page. I have a letter stating that sickness prevents his attendance. +Instead of that we will take up the report from conservation committees, +and as far as possible from the states. Let me urge you to cut your +speeches down to five minutes, or I will shut every man off after five +minutes, no matter who he is. Don’t tell us about your resources. We +know about them. Tell us what you are doing. Make it specific and +to the point, and then this Congress will hear you patiently, but they +won’t hear you after that, and I won’t either. We must come down +to business. This afternoon we are to have Professor Mumford on the +subject of live stock and soil fertility, a matter of immense importance. +The ladies will come in after that, and I hope you will all bring your +wives and sisters and cousins and aunts. We will have an address on +the “Farmer’s Wife,” who you have heard is the most important person +on the farm and the one who bears the greatest burden—by Mrs. Ashby +of Iowa, followed by Mrs. J. N. Lewis of Kansas. Tonight we are to +have a great treat. Mrs. Moore of the General Federation of Women’s +Clubs; then the “Church and the Open Country,” by Dr. Warren H. Wilson, +New York City, superintendent of home missions of the Presbyterian +Church, and then finally, to round up, an address by Dr. Harvey W. +Wiley, Washington, D. C., Chief of the Bureau of Chemistry, United +States Department of Agriculture, of whom you have all probably heard. +That will be the closing address this evening. Be here promptly at 2 +o’clock. The Congress will now stand adjourned until 2 o’clock.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FIFTH_SESSION"><i>FIFTH SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Will the Congress please come to order. +The Rev. Dr. George Hamilton Combs will pronounce the invocation.</p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p>Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this world in which we +live; for its beauty, for its adaptation to our needs, for the skies that arch it over, +for the grass beneath our feet, for the seasons with their lessons, for all the wonderful +stories of life. Thou hast made it for man and Thou art in it now. Help +us to realize that this world is instinct with Thy life, and may we see and hear +God, not only in the skies and in the singing of the stars, but in the humbler things +beneath us, and in that stiller music of all growing things. May we seek this priceless +heritage, may we preserve this good world unimpaired, handing it down enriched +and beautified, to our children, those who shall come after. We thank Thee for +this Congress and for the great purposes and ideals for which it stands, and upon +the men and women gathered here we pray Thy blessing, upon their homes while +they are absent, that their children, their wives, their all, may be defended from +harm. Upon them, in their deliberations here, grant that in wisdom they may plan +and in strength they may execute, and that they may have a vision, not only of the +day, but of the years that shall come after. We thank Thee for this good work, +and oh, do Thou help us that we forget not that while in the pursuit of this material +good we do err; that after all and that above all the riches of our people are not +in the mines, in its fertile fields, in its forests, but in its men and in its women, and +so send us the greater harvest, not merely of corn and wheat, but of charity, of +goodness, of the great and patient fidelities of life, and help us all to live that we +shall have advanced at least a little the coming of the day when righteousness shall +cover the earth even as the waters cover the sea. And so upon this earth of ours +may God’s sovereign will be done even as it is in Heaven. Amen.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—I am asked by Mr. Baker, the chairman +of the committee on nominations, to announce that a meeting of that +committee will be held at 3 o’clock this afternoon at room 775 of the +Baltimore Hotel. I now have the honor to present Governor R. S. Vessey +of South Dakota, who will address the Congress and remain in the Chair +after he has finished that address. Governor Vessey of South Dakota. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Governor <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen of the +Conservation Congress: I have no set speech to make this afternoon, +and I think, if I remember aright, the president said we would be permitted +to talk five minutes on what we have done in our state in regard +to conservation. So I just want to enumerate a few things that we have +done up in our new state, practically only of age, twenty-one years old, +in the past half a dozen years. We have reclaimed, by drainage, several +hundred thousand acres, and we are reclaiming by irrigation something +like a quarter of a million of acres, and nearly one-half of that is a +Federal enterprise. We are in all parts of the western part of the state +planting newer and similar individual irrigation plants that will develop +a large part of the state. We have in the past been endeavoring to +conserve the fertility of our soils. We are endeavoring to conserve +manhood and womanhood by making them more efficient in the great +agricultural work, by sending out into their community and out in their +neighborhoods teachers along the line of agricultural and domestic science, +and other matters pertaining to make the home more efficient and more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span>modern. We believe that the time is coming, and that very soon, when +every rural district will have a social and educational center for the +upbuilding of that community. And when that is done, I look to see +the day when the people will not, as soon as they have accumulated some +wealth, move into the city for the purpose of giving their children an +education, largely so they may enter vocations in life other than the +farm life. We believe also that the heart should be educated the same +as the mind. A committee of educators in our state has reported, not +only along this line, favorably, but they have compiled a text-book and +are introducing it into our schools, and we expect that our teachers will +be trained along the lines of giving to our students ethical as well as +material education. So that we can, at the same time we are improving +the mind, build a character that will mean more to us in the future than +the accumulation of dollars and cents. We have, I think, a progressive +state, and we want to create conditions so that people from the further +East and the more congested centers of population will find a haven +of rest and a place where they can come and not only better their +financial condition but better their social condition as well. I appreciate +very much indeed having this opportunity of saying these few words +in the interest of the conservation of our resources. I think that we +have been looking so long upon the land that has been turned over to +us by the United States Government, as something that is only for use +for our own material well-being. We are beginning to learn that we +are only here for a short time, and that if we are going to be honest +with those that are coming after us, that it is our duty not to rob that +soil, but to turn that soil over to our children, and from them to their +children’s children, in just as good a state of fertility as it comes to us +in its virgin state. And when we do not do this, we are robbing our +posterity of something future generations are entitled to, that they are +just as much entitled to as they are to our good name. And this, I +believe, is a wonderful revelation. And it seems to be taking all over +the country, to know that in farming a section of land that I have an +obligation to those who may farm it a hundred years from now, and that +it should be my intention, that it is my duty, and I am under obligations +to keep that in just as good state of fertility when I leave it as it is +when I take the responsibility of taking the products that are needed +to sustain life from that land. It is a pleasure to meet the people of +this Congress, the Third Conservation Congress. Now we will listen +to the further program by the secretary.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I have great pleasure in reading to this Congress +a letter from a man you have heard about, commonly known as +“Teddy.” (Applause. Hurrah for Teddy.) I wrote him a month ago +and asked him to address this Congress. He declined to do so, but I +would not accept his declination. Then I had a letter from him, a personal +letter, which I did not care to read to this Congress without his +permission. Unfortunately, I do not have it here, but expect to get it +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>this afternoon or tomorrow from my office in Des Moines. So I will +simply read you the letter giving permission to read another letter which +I do not have, but you shall have if I get it in time. Here is the letter:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>My Dear Mr. Wallace: I greatly wish I could attend the Congress. You are +very welcome to read as much of my letter as you desire, or as much of this letter +as you desire. I most emphatically believe that there is no movement in our country +at the present time of such importance as the developing of a higher country +life. This was the object of the Country Life Commission which I established. +What we need most is good citizenship; that is, a good family life, a high quality +of individual manhood and womanhood; and above all things, we need these in the +country districts, for in the long run every nation’s welfare must primarily depend +upon the welfare of those who till the soil. The man is greater than his work. +The farm can only be made what it should be by paying chief attention to the +securing of the right man and woman on the farm. To develop soil fertility, we +must develop rural manhood and rural womanhood. We must have a social life +on the farm far better worth living than such life has been in the immediate past. +Pray accept my heartiest sympathy and good will. Very sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt</span>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—We are now going to have brief reports +from some of the national organizations. Mr. W. E. Mullin of New +York will report for the National Board of Fire Underwriters.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Mullin</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: The National +Board of Fire Underwriters has been interested for many years in every +element of conservation. They believe in the conservation of the soil, +the conservation of the waterways, the conservation of the mines, the +conservation of childhood and the conservation of our homes. We +believe in everything that savors of practical conservation, but they are +specially concerned in the conservation of our utilized forces.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Mullin’s paper in full will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I must ask a favor. I will not ask the Congress +to listen to more than three-minute speeches on these reports, and +I wish all the speakers to understand that when that bell rings it is time +for them to quit. They must learn to boil down. (Applause) As I +said before, we do not care about the resources of your states. We can +read that in books. We want to know what you have done in the way +of conservation. You can say all you ought to say in three minutes. +Moody used to say that a man had no business to pray more than three +minutes, that he could ask the Lord all he really wanted in three minutes, +and then it was time to quit. (Applause)</p> + +<p>I take pleasure now in introducing Major E. G. Griggs, president +of the National Lumbermen’s Manufacturers’ Association, who will give +the report for that association.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Griggs’ paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—We will now hear from Mr. W. J. Rushton, +of the American Association of Refrigeration. I have pleasure in introducing +him to you.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Rushton’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—We will now hear a report from Hon. E. T. +Allen, Forester for Western Forestry and Conservation Association, entitled, +“Private Conservation on the Pacific Coast.”</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Allen</span>—The Western Forestry and Conservation Association, +for which I report, is a league or alliance of a dozen coöperative forest +fire associations maintained by timber owners in the Pacific forest states: +Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and California.</p> + +<p>These five states contain over half the standing timber in the United +States. Already furnishing a fifth of the Nation’s lumber, they constitute +its great remaining storehouse of future supply. In other words, +they contain the mature timber which must bear the burden of bridging +national shortage until an adequate new crop is ripe. Because of climatic +conditions and rapid growing species, they also contain the deforested +land which, by reason of adaptability, most demands encouragement +to produce this new crop, to which you must turn in the future +for timber as you do to this region for iron and to the South for cotton. +This is why you are directly and vitally interested in what every agency +is doing to protect and foster these forests of the West.</p> + +<p>Believe as you may concerning division of responsibility between +state and nation, or policies of controlling the development of natural +resources; but never forget that the forest ranger is actually on the job, +saving the forests for the rest of us to talk about. If he had not been +there for the last ten years, the national forests would be mostly old +burns not worth arguing about. We want more, not fewer, of him, and +we want Congress to spend more money to hire him and build trails +for him to use.</p> + +<p>The states, too, are waking up, but progress in this direction seems +slow when we consider that of the tremendously important forest resources +in the West the majority is in private hands, and that it is the +attitude of the commonwealth that governs the ability of the private +owner to manage it to best advantage for all concerned.</p> + +<p>All these conditions I have hinted at—failure by Congress to give +the forest service adequate funds, slow awakening of state responsibility, +and realization that the Pacific Coast is both the last and the most +promising field of forest industry—have inspired the most vigorous and +efficient private movement for forest conservation ever known—the allied +coöperative associations of timber owners in the Pacific Northwest. +They fully realize that the control of such a stupendous community +resource entails grave responsibilities; that their ownership is largely +a public trust and that they must account for their stewardship. They +also know that no new fields remain and that this is by no means inexhaustible; +that to avoid heavy loss they must guard the forests they have, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span>and to perpetuate their business they must have new ones coming on. +Self-interest, more potent than philanthropy, demands abandonment of +the wasteful methods prevalent in the past history of their industry.</p> + +<p>With this new point of view, the Northwestern lumberman, far +from being an element requiring regulation by the public in the interest +of forest preservation, has become the leader in reform. It has been +chiefly through his aggressive campaigning that state laws have been +improved, bearing as rigidly on the careless member of his own brotherhood +as upon anyone else. He gives his financial support to educational +work directed at both lumbermen and public. He hires professional +foresters to help him try such better management as conditions will permit. +But particularly, through coöperative associations, he has taken +the lead in fire prevention. And admitting his motive to be largely +selfish, the benefit to the consumer is none the less. To the man who +needs lumber, to keep it from burning up is conservation that counts.</p> + +<p>After so much preamble you may wonder what we have actually +to report; what we can offer in the way of results. Here are some of +them: Last year was one of the worst for forest fires in American +history. Loss of life and property was terrific. But the private protective +systems allied with the Western Forestry and Conservation Association +carried safely through the season fully 16,000,000 acres of forest, +containing at least the stupendous amount of 300 billion feet of timber. +They kept the loss of private timber in Idaho, Washington and Oregon, +the three states hardest hit, down to one-fourth of one per cent. How +did they do this? By raising and spending $700,000 for patrol and fire +fighting, and actually extinguishing 5,580 fires.</p> + +<p>It was a telegram from the president of the Western Forestry and +Conservation Association, with the standing of our work behind it, that +caused the ordering out of the United States Army to assist the undermanned +forest service on the national forests.</p> + +<p>This year’s records are not compiled, but will be quite as interesting. +Through their alliance the associations turned to account every +lesson each learned in 1910, and spread increased patrols equipped with +new advantages of perfected organization, telephone and trail systems, +supply storage, and automobile and motorcycles where these could be +used. Organization permitted close and systematic coöperation with state +and federal forces. Every association ranger served as a police officer +and one Washington association alone got over thirty convictions. Offending +lumbermen were made the first examples. Hundreds of fires +were extinguished but not one was allowed to become serious in 1911.</p> + +<p>Our association serves as the one and only common meeting ground +for all agencies for forest protection, including state and federal as well +as private fire officials, and employs a trained forester to collect and +disseminate for all information that will assist in solving problems of +reforestation, legislation, education and like matters demanding expert +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>knowledge or central facilities. It thus had the chief responsibility for +forest legislation in several Western states last winter and did more +than had been done in all preceding Legislatures.</p> + +<p>It has published the first comprehensive book on reforestation and +forest management in the West ever issued, now used as a text-book +by the Forest Service and forestry schools.</p> + +<p>It furnishes all newspapers in the Northwest with regular bulletins +throughout the fire season, not only giving reliable news but keeping the +necessity and method of precautionary measures before the public.</p> + +<p>It issues hundreds of thousands of fire circulars and stickers, with +a highly perfected system for putting them where they will count. This +year, with the aid of state authorities, it put an illustrated folder with +simple questions and answers on forest protection in the hands of every +school child in the Pacific Northwest, an enterprise requiring the printing +and complicated distribution of thousands of pounds of material.</p> + +<p>It furnishes state officials and others with practically all the mottoes +and catchy material used for posters and other publicity matter in the +West. It has even placed this kind of thing in the time folders of every +railroad traversing our forest regions.</p> + +<p>I cannot take your time to recite the many other activities of our +coöperative movement, but these will indicate its scope and method. The +Northwestern timber owner is doing his part to protect your resources +that he holds in trust. If Congress, state and public will do as much, +you have little to fear.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—I now take pleasure in introducing Mr. Ferdinand +G. Schwedtman of St. Louis, chairman of the delegation of manufacturers +of the U. S. A. I have the honor to present him to you.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Schwedtman’s paper is to be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—The next speaker is William Edward Coffin of +New York, vice-president of the Camp Fire Club of America.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Coffin’s paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—I wish to introduce Dr. George W. Field, representing +the National Audubon Society.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Dr. Field’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Is Mr. McBrien, representing the National Educational +Association, here?</p> + +<p>Is Mr. Edward R. Taylor, representative of the Electrochemical +Society, here?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Taylor</span>—It is my pleasure to represent the American Electrochemical +Society. There are ten thousand chemists in the United States. +They are largely concerned in the working out of economic problems +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>and the best utilization of all substances capable of adding to our material +prosperity. Many of these chemists are members of the American +Chemical Society, the American Electrochemical Society, the American +Institute of Chemical Engineers, and the Society of Chemical Industry, +all of which societies are deeply interested in the best conservation of +our natural resources and are in full sympathy with the objects of this +Congress.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—We will next hear the president of the Iowa +Federation of Women’s Clubs. Is Mrs. M. H. Weller present? Those +who have papers that will take five or ten minutes to read can just speak +on a short synopsis of their papers, and have the papers filed. They will +be able to say more, so that the people will understand it better than if +they only read part of the paper.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. Weller was not present.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Is Mrs. Carl Vrooman, representing the D. A. +R., here?</p> + +<p>I am very much pleased to present her to you. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. <span class="smcap">Vrooman</span>—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I feel +weighted with a heavy weight of responsibility, as I am here to represent +77,000 Daughters of the American Revolution in general, but the +chairman of the conservation committee of this organization in particular—a +woman who has, I venture to say, done more for the cause of +conservation than any other woman of our day—I was about to say +than almost any man—since she is the very proud mother of Mr. Gifford +Pinchot.</p> + +<p>This society of women, “federated and organized”—to quote Mr. +Pinchot, “spells only another name for the highest form of conservation, +that of vital force and intellectual energy.” These 77,000 women do +indeed represent a perfect Niagara of splendid ability and force—enough, +if intelligently harnessed and directed, to furnish the motive power to +keep revolving all the wheels of progress in this country.</p> + +<p>But to revert from what we might do and ought to do in general, +to what we have done and intend to do in particular, for conservation, +a remark made by the Right Honorable John Burns of England, concerning +the American people, might apply perhaps with equal force to +our two-year-old conservation committee: “The American people,” said +Mr. Burns, “is a very young colt in a very large field.”</p> + +<p>The very able first chairman of this committee, Mrs. Amos Draper, +inaugurated and carried on during the first year a most energetic campaign, +a report of which you had submitted at the last Conservation +Congress in St. Paul. The next year, however, illness compelled her +resignation, when Mrs. Orton, of Cleveland, O., whose work in behalf +of children is well known, took the chairmanship for the ensuing six +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span>months, during which time the committee concentrated its chief energies +in efforts to help secure legislation for the protection and conservation +of that greatest asset the Nation has—its children.</p> + +<p>Now that we are standing well on our feet, a committee with Mrs. +Pinchot at our head, with over one hundred women on the National +Committee, representing each state, and a state chairman for every state, +with every chapter represented on the state conservation committee, we +hope we have the country well honeycombed with women who will take +an active and intelligent interest in conservation. And aided and abetted +by the National Conservation Association, which has promised to furnish +us with all the ammunition we need, we intend to carry on an aggressive +warfare, or, to speak less militantly, an active campaign of education. +For we feel, in the words of our President General, that women +today—even without any articulate voice in the councils of state—without +the vote that so many are striving for, and think is essential—women +today, when thoroughly aroused and awake to their present unquestioned +opportunities and responsibilities, as well as to their problematical rights, +can wield an incalculable influence, and become most potent and resistless +factors for good in helping create a healthy public sentiment—in +stimulating to higher activity that organ of the body politic (so often +prone to paralysis) known as the civic conscience.</p> + +<p>But since education, like charity, should begin at home, we intend, +first of all, to educate ourselves. And, for this purpose, a number of +our members have come from different parts of the country to attend +this Congress and learn all we can about this problem of conservation.</p> + +<p>We are glad to know that an officer of this association has written +such a capital book on conservation, and we shall make it a point to +advertise Mr. Price’s book, “The Land We Live In,” among the women +of the country.</p> + +<p>We hope soon to have a department on current conservation news +in our D. A. R. Magazine, giving every month items of conservation +interest, which can be supplied later to the local papers.</p> + +<p>We expect also to have something to say about the importance of +teaching conservation in the public schools—not necessarily as a part of +the curriculum, for children are fairly swamped these days with a surfeit +of extra studies—but we do feel that conservation as opposed to +wastefulness everywhere (especially in the form of domestic economy) +should be emphasized and inculcated as are other virtues—such as truth, +patriotism, obedience.</p> + +<p>Conservation in the kitchen is one of the most important problems +in American life, and I believe I am safe in saying that that modern +knight errant, Dr. Wiley, and his board of conservation of human health +by means of pure food, has the enthusiastic and whole-hearted support +of every one of our 77,000 daughters to a unit.</p> + +<p>I should like to say in passing that another man we are behind—heart +and soul in his fearless fight with the beast in our modern jungle—is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>that man who has made it his business and his mission to reclaim +not waste lands, but waste lives—that great-hearted champion of the +children, and of the people—Judge Ben Lindsey, first citizen of Denver +and one of the first citizens of the United States.</p> + +<p>I am aware that this is far from being an orthodox report, as it is +more prospective than retrospective, and deals rather with what we intend +to do than what we have already done, but we are drinking in so much +inspiration here, and getting so many new ideas, that next year you may +expect from us a <i>bona fide</i> report, fairly bristling with businesslike facts +and statistics.</p> + +<p>May I say just one more word? In addition to this definite program +of tangible things we want to carry out, we pledge you something else, +which, although it cannot be weighed and measured and appraised at its +face value, after all may be as worth while as the sum total of what +we actually achieve in a concrete way, and that is our unswerving loyalty +to the spirit of what this association stands for—to put it rather pompously—our +moral backing and support in this business you have undertaken +to help conserve the best interests of our country—a business in +which we have no intention of being altogether “silent partners,” although +we are women!</p> + +<p>We may not, it is true, formulate any new policies for you, or launch +any issues, or make any very original contributions to your program, +but there is one thing women can bring into a movement of this kind, +and that is—to use a very much overworked word—“atmosphere.” Even +if women don’t dig down into the earth—even if we daughters don’t +actually dig down into the earth, like you horny-handed sons of toil—women +may yet bring with them, when they put their hearts, as well +as their hands, into a thing, an atmosphere that, like the air and sunshine, +is absolutely indispensable to a good crop, to a bountiful harvest, +an atmosphere that makes ideas sprout and grow, and ideals expand +and develop and take deeper root in the subsoil of the masculine mind!</p> + +<p>So, then, we bring today to this Congress our heartfelt sympathy +with its ideals—a sympathy that is born of a certain intuitive perception +we have—not by any means of all the intricate problems involved in +this question of conservation—but a perception of the principles which +are at stake, and we promise you our whole-hearted allegiance to those +principles, as well as our contagious enthusiasm, in this splendid crusade, +to conserve not only the vast natural resources of this country, on which +depends our national prosperity, but those ideals of public as well as of +private morality, which we realize we must sacrifice for, and defend +and conserve and make to prevail, if, in the words of the Athenians, +which might well be the motto of the Apostles of American Conservation, +“we would transmit our fatherland not only not less but better +and greater than it was transmitted to us.”</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Baumgartner</span> of California—I want to extend a vote of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span>thanks on behalf of the entire audience by your leave, to the Lord High +Chancellor of the Bell for not having rung it on the last speaker. All +in favor of the motion say aye. Carried unanimously.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">T. L. McBrien</span>—A while ago my name was called to speak for +the committee representing the National Educational Association. I +would like to say that the committee of five representing the National +Educational Association met and unanimously selected Professor J. M. +Greenwood to speak for our association. We want to call attention to +the fact that he is the senior in educational work, having been thirty-eight +years at the head of the Kansas City schools, and there is no other who +has such a record.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—We have a request from the National Educational +Association that it be represented by Mr. Greenwood. Shall we hear +from Prof. Greenwood now, or go on with the program?</p> + +<p class="mt2">(Cries of “Hear him now.”)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Prof. Greenwood.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Greenwood</span>—I would suggest you go on with the regular +order of business.</p> + +<p class="mt2">(Cries of “Greenwood! Greenwood!”)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Greenwood</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen: The National Educational +Association of the United States is the largest educational association +in the world. The last session held in San Francisco enrolled 18,000 +teachers from all parts of our country, and at the Boston session in +1905 there were 35,000 teachers in attendance. This organization represents +in the broadest way the interests of the children of our country, +and for more than fifty years it has been endeavoring to solve the great +problems confronting our people. It represents the people of the South, +of the North, of the East and of the West, and it has been one of the +most important factors in bringing our people closely together when +they were divided, not only by armies facing each other when homes +were destroyed, but sadness was at every fireside. This was the organization +that immediately after the Civil war brought our men and women +who are working for the interests of our entire Nation together. This +organization is represented here by a representative from the State of +Arkansas, and by one from the State of Nebraska, and by one from the +great State of Iowa, and by another one from the State of Kansas, and +by another from the State of Missouri, and we have got to be shown. +Mr. President, we will draft and submit a resolution to your committee +at the proper time. There are just three things, it seems to me, that a +public speaker who comes upon the platform ought to know—what to +say, how to say it, and when to quit. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—We will now present on the regular program +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>Dr. Frederick B. Mumford, dean of the University of Missouri, at +Columbia.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Dr. <span class="smcap">Mumford</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen: The limits of the time +allowed for this subject are such that I shall have no time for the general +subject of conservation. I hope, therefore, you will bear with me +through this paper. I will confine myself somewhat closely to it, because +in so doing I will say what I want to say in the shortest possible time.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Dr. Mumford’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Next on the program is Mrs. Harriet Wallace +Ashby of Des Moines, on the subject, “The Farmer’s Wife.” I have +the pleasure of presenting to you Mrs. Ashby. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. <span class="smcap">Ashby</span>—The conservation movement, of which this National +Conservation Congress is the exponent, has for its object the transmission +of our natural resources, unimpaired, to posterity.</p> + +<p>Any movement for the promotion of the farmer’s interest must, if +it is to be a success, receive the support not only of the farmer, but also +of the farmer’s wife. The first problem of the farmer is how to increase +farm products through better farming; the first problem of the farmer’s +wife is how to improve the condition of the farm home. The mistakes +of the husband in his sphere during one season may be corrected in the +next; the mistakes made by the wife in rearing her children are never +entirely corrected.</p> + +<p>Believing as I do, that the great problems of farm life as they pertain +to us wives and mothers can only be solved through coöperation and +organized effort, I wish to advocate the union of farmers’ wives in country +women’s clubs with the object of breaking up the monotonous routine +of farm life and for the discussion of anything and everything pertaining +to the betterment of farm home.</p> + +<p>The salvation of most families depends on the mother; she is the +one who does so much to make for the happiness, health and long life +of her family. The health of any mother is liable to fail under her +responsibilities; the farm mother is especially subject to physical breakdown, +for she not only bears the responsibility of rearing her family, but +she also shares the anxieties of her husband if, as should always be the +case, the farmer’s wife is his business partner and assistant farm manager.</p> + +<p>The farmer’s wife is a most important factor in the conservation of +the soil, for she will in a large measure determine the efficiency of the +farmer. Then, too, the attitude of the wife towards the farm, and her +success in making a happy farm home largely determine whether or not +the country boy remains on the farm.</p> + +<p>The average country boy is devoted to his mother. How that mother +would like to clear the obstacles from his track, and to give him the best +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>the world affords. If the mother feels that the farm offers no future +for her boy, the chances are the farm will lose the boy. The training +which the boy reared in the city must secure before he can be an efficient +farm worker, and for which he must spend time, money and enthusiasm, +is the very training which the country boy absorbs from his infancy, and +which makes him the most valuable tiller of the soil.</p> + +<p>The farmer’s wife has for so many years taken no thought for herself +that her now misguided conscience reproaches her if she leaves home +when there is work to be done, to attend a club meeting, or if she spends +ever so small a sum of money to save herself. A neighborhood club +with its exchange of experiences with labor saving tools will teach the +folly of expending strength and energy when by spending a little money +to secure convenience and ease in work, the farm mother may be conserved +to her family, and continue to be a help in the busy world. All +farm women have, in a large degree, the same experiences, and therefore +they can and should help each other. They should meet to discuss +problems of mutual interest; they should organize country clubs with +the object of securing the best conditions in their home life; of broadening +the outlook of the home; of encouraging a social spirit and of elevating +the character of farm life.</p> + +<p class="center">THE FARMER’S DAY’S WORK.</p> + +<p>One of the most vital problems with which the farmer’s wife has +to do is how to shorten the farmer’s workday. The practice of working +from sun up to nightfall and afterwards doing the chores is driving +the boys from the farm. If all the farmers in a neighborhood would +quit work in time for a 6 o’clock supper, a long stride would be taken +towards making the farm home an ideal home. Most business men’s +work closes with the day, but how about the farmer and his family? +When townspeople are at leisure our husbands and sons are milking the +cows, bedding the horses, and doing the rest of the chores. They wear +overalls so many hours of the week that they are not entirely at ease in +other clothes. They are too tired to keep up their interest in the outside +world, frequently falling to sleep over the newspaper. Indeed, to +bed is about the only place this exhausted man of the early evening is +fit to go, for a tired man is not a social creature.</p> + +<p>Washing dishes after a late supper with a nodding husband in the +next room and your nearest neighbor from a quarter to a mile away +does not foster love for the farm. It need not be wondered at that +we are insisting that the farm day must be shortened and some time be +given to the development of the mental and spiritual, as well as the +physical side of the family.</p> + +<p>You may remember how the little waif, Glory Maguire, as she looked +through the windows at rich children’s parties use to lament: “Oh, the +good times going on in the world, and me not in them!” We farmers’ +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>wives want some of the good times that are going on in the world for +our children; we want a social center; a club room where neighborhood +gatherings can be held. We want a neighborhood library, a live +church and an up-to-date school. If our children are to be more than +little animals, they must go to church and Sabbath school; they must +have a well ventilated, well lighted school room and an experienced +teacher.</p> + +<p>Men and women of mature judgment are placed at the head of +town schools, where suitable courses of instruction and the most approved +methods are pursued. The graded school teacher refers any case +of insubordination, any report of vulgarity, any question of discipline, to +her superintendent, yet these same teachers have been required to take +months of training and practicing on country pupils before they were +permitted to teach in town under a superintendent.</p> + +<p>The country schools should have trained teachers; teachers of sound +judgment in understanding the nature of the child and tact in dealing +with him. A live, progressive teacher in every country neighborhood is +often the little leaven which “leaveneth the whole lump.” We need fewer +classes in the country schools; the long study periods are productive +of inattention and mischief. If a child is permitted to spend this study +time in idling and reading inferior fiction, he loses the power of concentration +on his lessons and his taste for solid reading.</p> + +<p>We need a well selected library planned for systematic reading; we +need recitation benches and desks which will not produce spinal troubles. +We need attractive school rooms, better furniture, good pictures and instructive +maps. Part of the returns of the farm invested in the school +is one of the farmer’s best investments, for all the improvements in the +condition of farm life must come through education. Many helpful +innovations on the farm have come about through a discussion of what +the child learned at school.</p> + +<p>We also need better playground facilities. Thousands of country +children don’t know how to play. When they are at school there is +nothing to play with; when they are at home there are chores, unending +chores, to be done.</p> + +<p>There is work right here for country women’s clubs to do in supplying +the school grounds with tennis, croquet, and any other equally +Wholesome and good sports which children can enjoy. Hence we must +plan to meet and discuss our mutual problems. We need the stimulating +influence which an exchange of ideas and the enthusiastic coöperation +of club membership bring. We can accomplish much by the concerted +effort which can only follow a reasonable getting together on the part of +the farmers’ wives. Working the handle of a dry pump won’t bring +results that a little priming brings. Women won’t attend a club unless +they get results; they must have something to help them through the +week—reading courses, and a study program, as well as the social half +hour. We should study dietetics and learn how to balance the day’s +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span>food; to provide such articles as will feed as well as fill the family +stomach. Man must eat to live, but he need not eat nearly so much if +we give him the right kinds of food. The more we study our business, +the more attractive it becomes; when we cease studying it, we lose interest +in our work. So country women are organizing clubs for discussion +and study. When a club is conducted in an orderly manner, and +every member made to feel personally responsible for its success, when +its membership is small enough to seem like a big family, yet large +enough to gain and hold interest of the members, it will work a revolution +in a country neighborhood. Wherever a country women’s club +has been organized, the women report that it gives them new energy for +their home work. Out of a small club at Adair, Iowa, have grown so +many smaller clubs that a joint picnic of the members and friends brought +out a crowd of nearly 1,000 persons. These ladies have issued a cook +book, with the proceeds from which they are enlarging their sphere of +usefulness.</p> + +<p>Another club, the Daughters of Ceres, at Bedford, Iowa, issues a +calendar for the year’s work, which compares favorably with the work +of any club. Country women’s clubs are usually short of money, and +difficulty is sometimes experienced in securing books for study. Would +it not be well for every state to supply a reading course for farmers’ +wives after the example of the Cornell Reading Course? If the Government +would send out a bulletin containing the essential rules of order +for country clubs it would be a great help in conducting meetings. A +meeting must be regarded seriously and conducted with dignity to get +the best results. A little time and money expended in helping the women +is well spent. When Secretary Shaw lived in Iowa he owned a number of +farms. It was his practice to give to his tenants’ wives pure bred cocks +and turkey toms. A neighbor remonstrated with him, saying: “You are +making our tenants’ wives discontented. We cannot afford to give away +pure bred poultry.” Secretary Shaw replied: “When I help the women +with their poultry, I always get my rent.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="illus6" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus6.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>1. <span class="smcap">Gifford Pinchot</span>, Executive Committee, 1911-12. + 2. <span class="smcap">George C. Pardee</span>, Executive Committee, 1910-11-12. + 3. <span class="smcap">Henry D. Hardtner</span>, Vice-President, 1909-1912. + 4. <span class="smcap">Mrs. Philip N. Moore</span>, Executive Committee, 1909-12. + 5. <span class="smcap">Walter H. Page</span>, Executive Committee, 1910-12. + 6. <span class="smcap">D. Austin Latchaw</span>, Treasurer. + 7. <span class="smcap">Thomas R. Shipp</span>, Executive Secretary. + 8. <span class="smcap">James C. Gipe</span>, Recording Secretary. + 9. <span class="smcap">A. B. Farquhar</span>, Vital Resources, 1911-12. + 10. <span class="smcap">L. H. Bailey</span>, Chairman Lands Committee, 1911-12. + 11. <span class="smcap">W J McGee</span>, Chairman National Parks Committee, 1911-12.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="center">FARM ORGANIZATION.</p> + +<p>The organization of the farmers has long been the end desired by +those who are seeking to promote the country’s welfare. By reason +of all his previous years of training when he has been acting on his +own judgment, and working alone, the farmer is not accustomed to organized +effort, and does not fully recognize its value; hence the influence +of his wife in this matter is of special help. The farmer knows +if he leaves home for any length of time that weeds spring up, fences +fall down, cattle get off their feed and cows fail in their milk. Hence +he stays at home year in and year out getting deeper and deeper in the +rut unless educational and social privileges are brought to him. This +the women can and will do. Through the united efforts of the women +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span>the farmer is going to think less of his taxes and more of his schools; he +is going to be one of an army of country men united to secure conservation +of the soil through longer leases, conservation of the child through +better educational facilities; conservation of the wife through the relaxation +of meeting with those of her own sex, and shall I not add: conservation +of the few hard-earned dollars in the purse by parcels post? +The farmer’s wife, in order to conserve to the fullest extent the best +interests of the farm, must be filled with the conviction that farming is +the most honorable of any pursuit for a man and is a career worthy +of his best endeavors and not merely a makeshift until something better +offers. Such a woman will impress upon her children the thought that +no calling or profession is so worthy of their best efforts; she will see +to it that the books and papers that come into the family are those that +treat farming and the farmer with respect. No one thing probably has +had a more invidious influence in creating a desire among farm boys to +leave the farm than the funny papers and cartoons which make the +farmer the butt of their jokes, portraying him as the victim of the gold +brick agent and picturing him with the vacant look and gaping mouth of +an imbecile.</p> + +<p>Cato, the Censor, lived at a time when Rome was at its height as +a military power. He had held nearly all of the great offices under the +Roman republic, yet in his old age he left this record, that: “No occupation +was so worthy of the dignity of a man as that of farming,” holding +that: “Farming makes the bravest men, and thoughts.” The farmer’s +wife should use her influence to see that this kind of literature is +kept before her children in the farm home, in the curriculum of the +school, and in the school library.</p> + +<p>In the time at my disposal I have been able to only hint at a few +of the very many and diverse problems, as well as opportunities which +belong to our women of the farm. I have tried to view them as a wife +and mother of the soil, where, indeed, my life is cast, and my energies +have been engrossed. I have endeavored to advance no fine spun theories, +but to suggest a solution which can be and is being worked out +today in many localities. That these and similar organizations are bound +to come in abundance and that they will work untold good to the cause +of conservation I fully believe. Once the farm wives of our country +are adequately organized there is no divining the power for good that +they may wield. There is an old saying: “Unless a man’s mother ordains +him for the ministry, he won’t make a good preacher.” When a +boy’s mother ordains him for the farm there will be no lack of good +farmers. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—I now have the pleasure of introducing to you +Mrs. Matthew T. Scott, President General of the Daughters of the American +Revolution, who will talk to you in regard to the “Farmer’s Wife.” +(Applause)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. <span class="smcap">Scott</span>—I have crossed the continent to be present today because +of my interest in the farm and the farmer’s wife—the class to +which I am proud to belong.</p> + +<p>We have considered here every interest of conservation in creation—vegetable, +animal and mineral, and now come to conservation of the +farmer’s wife, the greatest issue before this Congress.</p> + +<p>In the consideration of that problem which so far has baffled the +masculine intelligence, i. e., that of keeping the younger generation on +the farm, the key to the situation unquestionably is held by the farmer’s +wife.</p> + +<p>The call of the country rings out from garden, from forest and +stream, from acres of golden grain, and tonics pure from Nature’s own +laboratory. Back of all of this is the farmer’s wife, who by making +the farm home attractive and interesting is the magnet which draws +the boy and girl back to the farm, from the allurements and disappointments +of city life. The farmer’s wife is no longer the isolated +being of years ago—but with her free rural delivery, and the country’s +network of trolleys for her convenience—good roads, and with the use +of modern machinery, a large degree of leisure to give to her social +life, music and books, are now at her command. If she succeeds in +making life on the farm attractive, if she is able to add the distinctively +feminine touch of home charm to the freedom and zest of country life, +who can doubt that this great problem of retaining the farmer boys on +the farm will be solved?</p> + +<p>It is the farmer’s wife also, and she chiefly, who can enforce the +only education that is worth while—that is real and true, that education +which builds character, which educates not the intellect alone, but +at the same time the conscience and the will; an education that means +justice and truth and purity in this selfish work-a-day world. Moreover, +few farmers succeed whose wives do not do their part to see to it +that both ends meet. It is the wife of the farmer who sees where the +waste and loss are eating into the profits of the farm. It is the housewife +as a rule who has ideas of thrift in farm management and who, if +she has the chance, will contribute more than is often realized to make +the farm a business success.</p> + +<p>Upon the farmer’s wife largely rests this great responsibility, and +in this great work, with the help of the noble army of quiet, intelligent, +capable farmers’ wives, we hope to develop the most splendid crop +known on this fertile continent—the boys and girls, the youth of the +land. Largely is this work the prerogative of the farmer’s wife amid +the stress and strain which absorb the energies of modern masculine +business life.</p> + +<p>Another duty which devolves upon the farmer’s wife is to exert +her influence and teaching to train her boys so that they will see to it +when they are voters that in these days of political chicanery and corruption +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span>that only honest men and true are sent to Legislatures, to Congress, +and the United States Government, to make the laws that are +to govern this, the greatest Nation on the face of the earth.</p> + +<p>Sociologists and agricultural professors can aid the farmer’s wife +in her work, but, after all, it is upon her shoulders that the responsibility +of success or failure in this great task must ultimately rest.</p> + +<p>Today the great difficulty is that the farmer’s wife is trying heroically +to fulfill the double functions—that of assistant economic producer +and of housewife, mother and the organizer and inspirer of the happier +and higher activities and diversions of country life.</p> + +<p>To free the wife from the burden of money making and educate +her in the more difficult and equally important task of home-making and +the development of the finer and more humane and more enjoyable aspects +of country life, these are the problems we must help her solve and +she will do the rest.</p> + +<p>An old Frenchman once said that farming was the only profession +in which a man works in a relationship of direct partnership with God. +The ministry might object to the words “only profession,” but the fact +is certainly patent that in more than any ordinary occupation of life, do +we coöperate day and night with the sun, and the wind and the rain, +and all the other forces of Nature and of Nature’s God, and I believe +that for women today there is no profession more alluring, healthful, +or lucrative than that of scientific agriculture. If I had my life to live +over I would enter as a student one of our great agricultural universities. +I would familiarize myself with the work of experiment stations, +learn to test soils, know the elements best suited to and most needed +by the different stratas of earth. I would master the secrets of fertilization, +which have for a thousand years made sections of the old +world productive without exhaustion. I would inform myself as to the +value and methods of rotation of crops, the value of dairy and cattle +raising on the farm. I would also inform myself of the comparative +cost of nitrogen drawn from the air in the form of leguminous crops, +which imprison the nitrogen in the soil, and the cost of commercial nitrogen, +and their comparative values.</p> + +<p>I would learn the need of phosphate or potassium as applied to different +soils and the comparative value of tested fertilizers. We have +already an aristocracy of herds—cattle, horses and swine, but I would +undertake the breeding of an aristocracy of seed corn and oats and alfalfa.</p> + +<p>Oh! they are great the possibilities of woman on the farm—if she +would only take advantage of them. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We will now proceed with the call of the +states, and these organizations who wish to report.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">C. J. Dillon</span> of Manhattan, Kan.—Can’t we give five minutes +more to discussion by the ladies? We have a lady here I wish to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span>propose, who has been working in this same line for years, and I would +like to have you hear from her.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—Send her up to the platform, please.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Dillon</span>—I am glad to introduce to you Miss Frances Brown +of Kansas, who has been in active work along the lines of organization +of farmers’ wives. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">A <span class="smcap">Delegate</span>—Have her come down on the front platform.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—She has a pretty good voice, and I think if +you will be quiet you can hear her.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Miss <span class="smcap">Brown</span>—The first speaker on this subject this afternoon outlined +so ably and so well the needs of the farmer’s wife that it will be +my pleasure in just a very few minutes to tell you how we at the Agricultural +College in Kansas have tried to meet these needs of the farmers’ +wives. We have looked over the field as well as we could, and +we saw that in the very first instance the first thing for us to do was to +correct, as far as possible, the errors of those who had gone before +us. And so while it is only morning yet in Kansas, and the department +as organized is only two years old, we went out into the organization +that had already existed in Kansas and began to do work on these +subjects that pertained to the commonest things of life, the very household, +taking up for our very first work a sort of reformatory movement +on the subject of bread and bread making. Then we spread that +same movement before the Farmers’ Institutes, and by visiting every +one of the institutes and meetings that we could, we saw that the +cause of dissatisfaction on the farm lay largely in the fact that there +are not the conveniences in the farm home that we find in the town, and +that was the cause of the exodus from the farm to the town. So +we have begun a campaign for the country homes, and our women in +the institutes are so anxious that they ask us to help them effect an +organization which we call an Auxiliary to the Farmers’ Institutes. Of +these during the last year we have twenty organizations, with a membership +of 500, whose women have been studying the cost of putting in +plants for heating and lighting and bringing water into the homes, and +taking care of the waste from the home. Now we are getting letters +every day from farm homes where they are actually making use of +some one of these various systems.</p> + +<p>The next step was to take care of the younger members of the +farm home, and so we had to get something ready that could be used in +the public schools, as well as in the home itself. We have what you +may be more or less familiar with under the title of the Girls’ Home +Economic Clubs, by which we reach the girls through the printed page. +These printed papers are gotten up so that girls from ten to fifteen +years of age can master them perfectly. They are on the subjects that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span>we need every day, first, cooking, because you know that while man can +live without poetry, music and art, he cannot live without cooks, so we +are going to begin raising each one to be a cook for the future. We have +these courses in cooking out all over the state, not only being used by +the individual girls in the farm home, but being taken up by the public +schools where the towns or the communities are too poor to afford +a department in domestic science and art. During the past year 2,300 +girls took lessons either in cooking or sewing or both from this department +at the college, and already, as the new schools are opening, +letters are pouring in every day asking for more of that work in +the various sections of the state. Moreover, during the last year, due +to these efforts, seventy-five high schools put domestic science or art +or both into their systems where it had not existed before. Wishing to +utilize or bring together the organization that already existed instead of +forming new organizations, we have been getting together a course of +domestic lessons, or demonstrations, if you please to call them so, that +can be used by the women’s clubs that are already organized in the +state. That course is almost completed; and when we have that finished, +we hope to see every single organization of the women in the +state adopting part or all of it, not because they need it so much, because +women that have time for clubs, have more or less leisure through +their added efficiency. But it will mean that they are still thoughtful +along these lines, and that their efforts are going to be with us in spreading +this gospel of good housekeeping throughout the state.</p> + +<p>Now, we have a big work yet before us. We are not going to +stop. We are going to work at every single channel that we have +opened, and we are going to open as many new ones as can be helped, +until every roof in Kansas covers a harmonious home where we will +find every single thing that will tend to the highest efficiency and the +needs of every member of the family in that home. I thank you. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I know I voice the feeling of this audience +when I say we have already highly enjoyed these addresses from the +ladies this afternoon. The executive committee of this association has +some business that you must transact, and the report will now be read +by Mr. J. B. White, the chairman of the executive committee.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">White</span>—The executive committee met this morning and +adopted the following resolutions:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>In view of the very effective help which the national organizations have given +the Conservation Congress and the conservation movement in general, the members +of the executive committee of the Third National Conservation Congress feel +that the national organizations should have more adequate representation. Therefore, +at a meeting of the executive committee of the Congress today, it was decided +unanimously to recommend that the constitution be amended so as to provide for an +advisory board to be made up of representatives of the national organizations which +have appointed conservation committees.</p> + +<p>To this end the executive committee respectfully begs leave to submit the following +amendment to Article 5, Section 3, of the Constitution of the Conservation +Congress, by adding the following:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p> + +<p>“An advisory board, consisting of one person from each national organization +having a conservation committee, shall be created to act for that Congress and +during the interval before the next succeeding Congress. The board shall report +to and coöperate with the executive committee.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The executive committee is also of opinion that the scope of the +work of the permanent committees of the Congress should be extended +so as to cover a larger field. The present sub-committees are those on +forests, waters, land, mineral and vital resources.</p> + +<p>The committee, therefore, recommends that the constitution of the +Conservation Congress be amended as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Article 5, Section 5. The committee on vital resources shall consist of members, +each selected with the view to becoming chairman of the sub-committee and +that six sub-committees be created subordinate to the committee on vital resources +as follows: Food, homes, child life, education, civics, general (including wild life, +domesticated animals and cultivated plants). The chairman of each committee, +with the approval of the chairman of the executive committee, shall be authorized +to appoint as members of these sub-committees, such members as in their judgment +will best accomplish the object sought.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Bruce Dodson</span> of Kansas City—I move that the report of +the executive committee be received.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Wm. H. Dye</span> of Indianapolis—I second the motion.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Vessey</span>—All in favor of them will say aye. Contrary +minded. The amendments are adopted.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">White</span>—Mr. President, we invite all those who are here and +are delegates of the different national associations that have conservation +committees to come on the platform, that they may choose their +representatives, if possible, and confer with the executive committee immediately +after adjournment.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—What now is the pleasure of the Congress? +We have filled up the program of today. I take pleasure in introducing +Miss Mame E. Weller of Nathan, Iowa, of the conservation committee +of the Iowa Federation of Women’s Clubs.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Miss <span class="smcap">Weller</span>—I bring greetings from the Federated Club women +of Iowa, who today stand ready to help in all lines of conservation.</p> + +<p>We have been and are working for the conservation of child life, +health and happiness. We have done much toward procuring sanitation +in schools, and especially pure drinking water. We are trying to have +our bird laws enforced and shall petition our Legislature at its next +session to prohibit spring shooting of ducks and all shore birds, who +are our sanitary commissioners of lake, shore and stream borders.</p> + +<p>We have caused many hundreds of trees to be planted in Iowa, and +the coming year we are to work for state control of the banks of our +streams and shores of our lakes.</p> + +<p>We have done much to prevent the wanton mutilation of trees and +destruction of our wayside trees by telephone companies. Yet much +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span>remains to be done. We have in Iowa a statute that exempts from taxation +almost entirely all woodlands, native or planted, when kept and +used for timber purposes only.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We expected until today to have a paper or +address by Dr. Knapp of Washington, D. C., but I am very sorry to +say that he cannot come, but the Department of Agriculture has a gentleman +that can take his place, and I would suggest that Dr. W. J. Spillman +come forward and tell us about the wonderful demonstration work +that is going on in the South.</p> + +<p>Is Dr. Spillman in the audience? If not, we would be glad to hear +from Mr. F. A. Guthrie, a member of the Congress representing the +city of St. Paul, Minn. Five minutes, and then I promise you we will +adjourn.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Guthrie</span>—As indicated in the announcement, my work is on +a line somewhat different from almost anything that has been presented. +In connection with charitable and correctional institutions, we have +found that it is necessary to go to the country. This presentation this +afternoon relates to charitable and correctional work. The dreariness +of the country home is very important and has to do with most of that +which we have to treat. The national conferences on this matter have +come to the conclusion that it is necessary for leaders in the country +to engage some person specially qualified to advance social interests, to +organize country meetings of various kinds, or organize musical entertainments, +organize social entertainments, and organize educational work. +We present that to the national conference as something to which we +will have to come in order to bring about agreeable healthy country +life, a life which gives joy in living, as was presented by the President +at the opening. I thank you.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We are ready to entertain a motion to adjourn. +Ladies and Gentlemen, remember that the meeting is at 8 o’clock +sharp. We are to have a great program tonight. Mrs. Moore, Dr. Wilson, +and Dr. Wiley.</p> + +<p>The Congress stands adjourned until 8 o’clock this evening.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SIXTH_SESSION"><i>SIXTH SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The house will come to order. The secretary +has a telegram to be read:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Returning from two weeks on the firing line of conservation with Secretary +Fisher. I send through you the accredited representative of the American Civic +Association hearty good wishes for the great movement now being considered and +promoted by those who believe in a continuing and improving America.</p> + +<p class="right"><span style="margin-right: 4.0em;"><span class="smcap">J. Horace McFarland</span>,</span><br> +President American Civic Association.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We are to be privileged this evening to have +an address on the Community Club, by Mrs. Phillip Moore, St. Louis, +president of the General Confederation of Women’s Clubs. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. <span class="smcap">Moore</span>—Members of the Conservation Congress: I have +already said to the officers of the association that we very much prefer +“Community Center” to “Community Club.” It will cover the ground +much better, as you will see, from my viewpoint:</p> + +<p>It may be a question in the minds of many present why this particular +subject has been assigned to a representative of the General +Federation of Women’s Clubs. I am glad to present the very best of +reasons: because we have studied it for years, and have worked on the +findings of such study.</p> + +<p>At the Second Conservation Congress in St. Paul our honored +ex-president gave in some detail the history of the Country Life Commission +in which he had become much interested. Economic and social +questions engaged his attention; he had given thought to the economic +strengthening and social elevation of the Irish farmer, in connection +with the policies of conservation and country life in our own country.</p> + +<p>The results of the Country Life Commission were of the widest +import, but were never made public, inasmuch as Congress did not +appropriate money to print the findings.</p> + +<p>It was about this time that our interest was specially centered on +the life of the women of rural communities; one of the Eastern publications +supplemented the existing inquiries from the Government by +sending out letters to approximately 700,000 readers. There were +answers from nearly every state in the Union which would have +required a large office force to read and tabulate. The majority of +these letters was given to our general federation board members, representing +through their own and advisory states all the community interest +which we wish to bring to you today.</p> + +<p>The result was extraordinary—answers from a thousand women, +with facts, feelings, hopes, ambitions, possibilities and probabilities. The +bulk of correspondence came from women, whose letters showed that +they are not having for one reason or another what Mr. Roosevelt called +a “square deal.”</p> + +<p>The letters were distributed among the board members, were carefully +read, and they frequently gave an opening for further correspondence—with +most interesting, personal results. The letters were not +illiterate; many of the women have been school teachers and nearly +all have had a good education; many were eloquent in deeper modes +of expression than rhetoric.</p> + +<p>The volume of data which these letters presented is of high value +industrially, from a sociological point of view, and with reference to +sanitary conditions; the study of public schools and country churches +would gain largely from this material.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p> + +<p>Our board members represented, and naturally for that reason +understood, the New England and Eastern states, the sandy shores, the +Pennsylvania settlements, the sunny South, the mountain regions, the +near West, the river states, the Northern plains, the prairie stretches, +the Rockies and the Pacific shores.</p> + +<p>Only a fraction of the answers returned could we utilize to assort +and digest; we believe it is beyond the power of any but a commission +to recommend, and such commission might well give its entire time to +the work.</p> + +<p>We have, however, as I said in our reports, made further inquiries, +have come into closer personal relation, have assisted wherever possible, +and have certainly recognized the needs of many outlying, lonely homes.</p> + +<p>You will allow me to give from the experiences of these letters +through our members some few generalizations:</p> + +<p>Iowa and Nebraska happened to be grouped together. The eastern +and southeastern part of Nebraska are geographically one with Iowa +in soil, surface and products, and the two states are allied as to their +inhabitants. Except in isolated colonies, the farmers of Iowa and +Nebraska came from the Eastern and Central states. The foreign born +settlers come almost exclusively from Ireland, the north European countries +and Bohemia. The northwest portion of Nebraska, embracing the +“big Sixth” congressional district with the far western part, is grouped +geographically with eastern Colorado and Wyoming, and the problems +of the farmer there differ materially from those of the farmer in the +fertile and populous eastern division of this section.</p> + +<p class="center">THE DRAWBACK TO RURAL LIFE.</p> + +<p>Everywhere the isolated and primitive character has been the greatest +drawback to rural life. To those who have depended always upon +companionship and society for their interests and enjoyment, this loneliness +is intolerable. Physical conditions are changing this, the telephone, +the rural mail delivery, the automobiles and the interurban are bringing +the comforts and companionship of the town to the farm. There are +farmers’ families who planned ten years ago to move to the town as +soon as a competence had been accumulated, but who now, with more +than the hoped for income, are content to remain on the farm, the active +management having been turned over to a tenant or a son, and to enjoy +the comforts of the country.</p> + +<p>In the older settled portions of these states the farms are being +divided. The high price of land is driving the farmer to more intensive +cultivation and this will continue to eliminate the more disagreeable +features of rural life.</p> + +<p>Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota were +grouped and the interesting items were as varied as they might be in +more widely separated regions.</p> + +<p>There is no “hard luck” tale to tell of poverty and squalor in this +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span>region, although the conditions differ widely from very poor to very +good. Everyone is already familiar with the stories of the poor wives +who have not been away from the farm for five or ten years. There +are too many such in the Northern plains; these pitiful tales are all too +true, but they are not the whole truth. To get at that it is necessary to +know not only the worst, but the best conditions. The best are especially +worthy of mention because they indicate possibilities, and are an +example and inspiration to those not already arrived at prosperity.</p> + +<p>While there are still to be found one-room sod houses sheltering +whole families, there are others with all the modern conveniences of +steam heat, good plumbing, electricity for light and power, telephones, +and the rural postal delivery bringing each day from the outside world +papers, books and magazines. And these are the fruit of industry and +frugality; and between these two extremes are many homes of moderate +means where conveniences and luxuries are not yet possible, but where +there is wholesome, normal living.</p> + +<p>The great factor in improving rural conditions is education in scientific +farming, and in these states there are excellent educational advantages +offered to the young men and women who wish to make this a +business. Each state has its agricultural college, which is usually a +department of the state university, a school where agriculture and its +kindred subjects rank with the technical or professional courses; the +tendency is to dignify the business of farming, to make it attractive +from both the pleasurable and the practical standpoint. There are traveling +libraries equipped not only with books for entertainment, but books +in various languages for instruction on subjects of rural interest, and +these libraries go to the very remotest corners of the state.</p> + +<p>The women who have answered the questions in the rural conditions +inquiry are agreed that the farm presents great possibilities for +happiness, if they could only have a little more help with the farm work, +and more frequent chances for change and recreation. They rarely +complain that their work is too hard, but only of its dreary monotony.</p> + +<p>Fraternal societies afford the greatest opportunities for social intercourse +for our country people. Clubs—as we know them—are infrequent. +The varied nationalities represented in new states present no +common ground on which people of widely differing habits of mind and +modes of speech can meet, and this condition and the lack of help enhance +the difficulties of social gatherings.</p> + +<p>It is very evident that each section of this great country must +present its own problems. In the part of the country included in “The +Rockies” we find four types of rural life—the small town, the farm, the +ranch, and the mining camp. Answers came from all of these. While +the last is not, strictly speaking, a rural community, it must be so considered +in any effort to brighten the lives of the women who are removed +from the advantages of city life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE BUILDERS OF THE WEST.</p> + +<p>These people, who are in large measure the builders of the West, +have come from the more thickly settled states, to try their fortunes +under greatly changed conditions; and one of the great hardships that +face them is the fact that their means will not permit their first experiments +at farming—either dry farming or irrigated farming—ranching, +or mining to be a failure. And in the very nature of things, a failure +is too often made the first year. If the family finances permit the partial +loss of the first year’s work, and if the family adopts the methods proved +to be successful, the after years are brighter and not shadowed by poverty. +Poverty in the West is a removable cause.</p> + +<p>Loneliness is a second problem which is being rapidly met in these +states by the organization of women’s clubs and the foundation of local +libraries in the towns, and traveling libraries for those outside. Colorado +has done especially good work with her traveling library boxes.</p> + +<p>For the most part the people are hopeful and happy. They came +into this mountain region expecting difficulties and they have no complaints +to make that their problems are not all solved. They had the +grit to come into a new and unsettled country, and they desire to stay. +Every letter from the “farm women” of Colorado, Montana and Wyoming +was a happy letter. Such rural problems are hopeful.</p> + +<p>The North Pacific shores offer a diversity of agricultural and commercial +interests, and the farmer here differs somewhat from the Eastern +farmer in that he is more of a specialist. He is either a wheat, +cattle, fruit or dairy farmer. He specializes on one thing, and does his +work with the most improved machinery, or under the latest and most +modern methods; he seldom attempts to derive revenue from the hundred +and one little things that, in many districts, are made by the farmer’s +wife and hauled to the corner store to exchange for groceries. In other +words, his farming is more of a business than the old idea of making +it a semi-domestic arrangement. This relieves the wife of much of the +drudgery of the farm and puts her on the same business footing in the +home, as the professional man’s wife.</p> + +<p>With rare exceptions, the farmers have rural mail delivery, farmers’ +telephones, and very often electricity for light and other purposes. The +roads, as a rule, are good, and the automobile is fast displacing the farm +horse.</p> + +<p>The schools of higher education are filled with the children from +the rural districts, and many farmers move into town in the winter, that +their children may have better educational advantages.</p> + +<p>In the smaller towns many farmers’ wives join the women’s clubs. +While this is commendable, it is not necessary to the life or happiness +of the women, for in these states the grange is a great educational factor. +It is perhaps the only secret organization in existence where men and +women meet on an exact equality. In it some of the best legislation +originates, and the probe sinks deep into every proposed measure that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>affects the farmer; here the conservation of every resource is discussed, +and, knowing that they must enter into these deliberations, the farmers’ +wives read and keep abreast of the times. The grange meetings are +all-day sessions, with a goodly proportion of the day given over to social +pleasures; the young people enjoy all sorts of healthful sports, while +their elders discuss the prospect of parcel post delivery, the threatened +increase of postage on magazines, or the postal savings bank and many +other things that bring comfort or enlightenment to the rural home.</p> + +<p>The suggestions that came in the letters from New England will +be very helpful whenever needed, and have already come into some recent +government policies.</p> + +<p>The advantages and disadvantages of farm life, in the many letters +from the Pennsylvania settlements, would give thought to the most logical +mind. They have been culled, however, from a more than usually large +number of replies, and due somewhat to the fact that 180 sessions of +farmers’ institutes were held for women in one year throughout Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>I think I need not enter further into the details of all parts of the +country, or even give recommendations, which a special committee might +better bring to a future meeting; but there are certainly two policies +which are closely allied—conservation and rural life. When public opinion +is thoroughly aroused, it is but a question of time for the will to +find a way. There must be a voluntary effort, and such volition must +be aroused by education.</p> + +<p>One of the most vital items to those who are specially interested +in the educational progress of a country is the awakened public opinion +in the Middle West shown by the development of the agricultural courses +in all of our great universities and colleges.</p> + +<p>Even public schools in some parts of this region are giving practical +instruction to old and young. Meetings are being held upon the +farms; lectures, experiments and demonstrations are being introduced.</p> + +<p>The church has quickly realized that there must be a combination +of emotion and sanity; the practical and ideal have come into closer +relationship; clubs of young men and of women, sometimes of the two +together, are taking up all subjects pertaining to the farm life; and +wherever these subjects are alive, and the social element is not forgotten, +we find distance makes no barrier. At once means of communication +are increased. The telephone is in every home; the trolley line goes by +the farm—even the automobile becomes a necessity, and good roads are +at once established. Distance is therefore annihilated, and the lonely +life is a matter of the past.</p> + +<p>How short a time it is since insanity was a large concomitant of +the farm life for women! Recently, at a session of the Charity Conference +in Boston, there seemed to be very little reference to the need +for prevention of insanity among isolated farm women. I found it to +be largely a sorrow of the past; but I do not agree entirely with such +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span>statements, when I recall the letters, from the immense prairie farms. +Woods Hutchinson, in speaking of the change that had come into the +homes of all women—the removal of much of the old-time work from +the home to the factory—says that it is a convincing proof of the stability +of woman’s mental powers that generations of that semi-solitary +confinement at hard labor known as “home life” have not made her a +candidate for the insane asylum. “Man would have gone raving crazy +long ago.”</p> + +<p class="center">IDEAL CLUBS.</p> + +<p>A community club, as we would call a club, must be composed of +men and women, for they must, under ordinary circumstances, go +together to their meetings. The Farmers’ Institute is more in the line +of this particular thought, but the community center or grange covers +the ground fully. The institute comes but once or twice a year, while +the club might be regularly intermittent.</p> + +<p>This must mean a central meeting point with the very best and +appropriate reading matter pertaining to equipment of both home and +farm; the solution of the help question (shall we ever reach this millennium?), +certainly demonstrates in cooking and pure food, discussions +as to education of children, and the way to obtain better lighting and +heating, and good roads should be a part of these meetings.</p> + +<p>Where shall this center be—the school or the church?</p> + +<p>The women’s clubs of the nearby towns have attempted in an +entirely friendly spirit to maintain rest rooms for farmers’ wives when +on shopping bent, with a possible creche for the babies and a caretaker +and amusements for young children. This is excellent, but will never +take the place of the community center.</p> + +<p>A change in the attitude of public opinion towards the old question +of town and country means some practical outcome to all this discussion. +The interdependence of the two is real, each having its influence +on the other, the main consideration being human rather than material. +The town representative can talk out his grievances, political and economic; +the farmer has a full stock of grievances, but rarely gives formal +expression to them; and the farmer’s wife acknowledges that her +social life is barren. The two need to bring their problems to each other; +and a community spirit will surely lead to forms of organization for +mutual economic and social advantage. There must be in the rural community +such social life as shall withstand the attractions of the city, if +we wish the farms to remain in the control of their owners, instead of +in the hands of renters.</p> + +<p>What can be done to give the farmer’s wife a little leisure in which +to enjoy the advantages that might be hers?</p> + +<p>The answer to this is the answer to the question which confronts +every one who is striving to improve social conditions anywhere. It +is the great problem of work and the “out of works,” which city and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span>country are trying alike to solve, working from opposite horns of the +dilemma. With thousands of hands begging for employment at one end, +with thousands of jobs begging to be done at the other, it is not creditable +to our initiative that we have not discovered some way to equalize +the supply and demand of labor. We are already educating our country +youth to stay on the farm; what we need further is a campaign of +education to destroy the lure of the city, to teach men and women that +there is plenty of work under wholesome conditions awaiting anyone who +will take it, that those who cannot go the pace of the city can find pleasant, +profitable living where there is time enough, and work enough for +every one, if they will but go back to the soil.</p> + +<p>The conclusions drawn from the investigations into rural conditions, +which I have been able to make, have changed my opinion very +materially. Life is not so sordid and hard, poverty is not so pinching +as I had thought. That it is narrow and unnecessarily colorless is evident, +and that much can be done to brighten it is certain, but just what +form of help to offer is a grave question.</p> + +<p>There is always needed a plan and the machinery to carry it through. +I am not sure of name or method, but a central force there must be, +whether of men or women—possibly it might be well to appeal to the +woman, who makes the home life, to whom it is of so much importance.</p> + +<p>From all our letters we note that the women love the country life, +both for themselves and their children. They would doubtless be ready +to take up any coöperative plan that might be suggested. Certain I am +that no committee should be appointed to consider ways and means that +did not have in its membership some thoughtful, progressive farm +women. Towards this common end should be included also representatives +from all the agencies making the community life educational and religious.</p> + +<p>It is not difficult to draft a scheme, but it is essential that the elements +most needed to carry it out should feel themselves vitally interested.</p> + +<p>Horace Plunkett suggests “an institution which shall be scientific, +philosophic, research-making.” His arguments are so entirely to the +point that I quote some few sentences:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Every social worker knows how the knowledge of what others are doing will +help him. It is strange how little the problems of the rural population have entered +into the study of sociologists. At leading universities I have sought in vain +for light.... The fact is the subject must be treated as a new one, and it is +urgently necessary, if the work of the Country Life Movement is to be based on a +solid foundation of fact, to make good the lack of information, which has resulted +from the general lack of interest.... An institute is wanted to survey the +field, to collect, classify and coördinate information and to supplement and carry +forward the work of research and inquiry. The rural social worker requires as far +as possible to carry exact statistical methods into his work, so that he may not have +to depend on general statements, but may have at his command evidence, the validity +of which can be trusted, while its significance can be measured.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In agreeing with his desire for absolute data, let us not forget the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>human side, the personal evidence, which can never be obtained through +an institute.</p> + +<p>May we hope that the Conservation Congress, which has ever shown +a human interest in the conservation of vital force, will be the leader +in bringing to its own the vital center of the country!</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—You will all agree with me, Ladies and Gentlemen, +that we have had one choice treat tonight. There are two more +coming. The Presbyterian Church of the United States has taken a +very great deal of interest in the country church. Do you know that if +the Presbyterians do not revive their country church there won’t be a +Presbyterian church in the next generation, for this reason, that the +town, while it can get all the lawyers it wants, can grow them, and all +the doctors, can’t grow preachers enough to supply their own pulpits. +(Applause) Now, we are to have before us here tonight Dr. Warren +H. Wilson of New York City, the superintendent of the Board of Home +Missions of the Presbyterian Church, and he will give us a new phase +of conservation.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Dr. Wilson’s paper will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Here endeth the second lesson. (Applause) +We have been told about society. We have heard about the practical +everyday religion of feeding men. And now we are going to be told +by Dr. Wiley how to keep healthy, so that we may enjoy our religion +and feed more men. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Dr. <span class="smcap">Wiley</span>—Mr. President and Delegates of the third National Conservation +Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen: My sermon is going to be +short. I think a great many of these country churches were vacated by +two and a quarter hour sermons. (Applause) I want to insist, however, +that in this sermon I am going to preach I want to follow the +steps of my illustrious predecessor. I have been preaching sermons for a +number of years, and I think it is about time I was ordained. I believe +in all the principles of conservation that you have taught this week and +many previous weeks. I was an early and insistent and persistent conserver. +I believe I have the honor of having delivered the first public +address that ever took the term “conservation” as a text. In 1894 I delivered +an address on the conservation of the fertility of the soil, and +so, as well as my dear friends, the Presbyterians, I am a little bit conservative, +too. (Applause) I am sorry that that condition has obtained +which he described here, the empty country churches. But let me +tell you they are no more empty than the country houses of this country. +Everybody has been going to the town. They have taken the greater part +of country boys who would have made good farmers and made pretty poor +preachers out of them. On the whole the country boy thinks it is easier +to preach once a week than it is to plow corn every day and feed the +stock on Sunday. And naturally he chooses the line of least resistance +to make a living. That is the reason that the country is becoming deserted, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>and just as long as it is easier to make a living in the city than +it is in the country, the country is going to be empty, and all you preachers +can’t fill it up, and the object of these meetings is to make it easier +to make a living in the country than in the city, and then you will see +the tide flow the other way, and not before. (Applause) One reason +people ought to live in the country is because they can be healthier there. +I would rather be a healthy boy in the country than a sick boy in town. +If I have equal health, I think I would rather stay in town, for a boy +has more fun in town. If you take fun away from the boy you deboyize +the boy. Another thing, there is too much demanizing, and dehorning, in +the country life. I know about this Pennsylvania Dutch people, why they +are so prosperous, because their home life is in their life in the country. +It follows the Pennsylvania Dutchman to the grave. It is a pleasure +to go to a funeral in that community. (Applause) It has got to be +a burden, every time I am invited to a funeral, I don’t want to go. When +I was a boy I loved to go to a funeral. (Applause) They have a good +custom up there among the Pennsylvania Dutch, too. They all go to +the funeral, and nobody begins to cover up the grave until some neighbor +goes up, takes off his hat and says a good word for the departed. +Then they can fill up the grave. When old Jacob Shaffer died he was the +meanest man in the community. He was buried on a cold, rainy day in +November, when it was half rain and half sleet. They stood for ten or +fifteen minutes, or half an hour, and nobody said a word. They had to +stay there, and could not leave until the grave was filled up. Finally +one neighbor, in despair, went up and took off his hat and said, “Well, +I can say this about Jake: he wasn’t always so mean as he was sometimes.” +(Applause) Now, I want to say this about the preacher. He +is not always so inhuman as he is sometimes. When I heard this sermon +tonight I almost concluded that a minister of the gospel was a real +human being. (Applause) I want to tell you that he was not that to +me when I was a boy. I did not look upon him as the friend that he +ought to have been to me. And that is the reason one boy did not go to +the country church oftener.</p> + +<p class="center">CONSERVATION AND UTILIZATION.</p> + +<p>I believe in the conservation of the natural resources. I believe in +the conservation of the coal and the forests. But conservation does not +mean hoarding. It means utilization. I do not want to go through life +with cold feet to save the Alaska coal and warm up somebody that is +going to live a million years from now. (Applause) I want to get +some of the benefit out of the coal while I am living, and out of the +forest and out of the stream. My idea of conservation is to use the +natural assets of this country for the benefit of the people, and not +for some syndicate of rich men alone. (Applause) And I hope we +won’t spend all this generation quarreling about who is going to have +the coal, but that we will find some way to get it out and use it before +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>it gets out of date. Because I want to tell you that we will not need +coal much longer. The scientific men will find plenty of ways of finding +heat and motive power when the coal is all gone. And if we do not +use it now, it is going to become simply a specimen in the near future. +(Applause) I want to say that we want to use the lumber, and use it +wisely. There is no economy in allowing a tree to stand in the forest +until it rots. We want to cut the old trees down just like Nature comes +around and cuts down the old people and gets them out of the way. That +is the way that science will provide lumber and at the same time continue +to reduce the forests. Only the mineral resources are limited. +There is just so much coal, just so much gold, and when they are used +up, so far as I know, there is no more making, and they will be then +gone. But do not have any fear. When the iron is all gone and the +silver is all gone and the gold is all gone, there will be plenty of metals +at the disposal of man, because we have found now how to convert +clay into metal. I went into an automobile shop the other morning +where they were making the frames out of pure aluminum. We have +got enough clay in this country to last several years. (Applause) It +will take the place of the steel and the iron and the gold and the silver +and the copper. Have no fear of exhausting these supplies of humanity, +but exhaust them for the benefit of the public. (Applause) If we +could use one millionth part of the force of the wind we could turn every +wheel of industry in the world, warm every house, cook every meal in +this whole universe. And the wind and hot air shops are very abundant +still. (Applause) There are no signs of it giving out in the near +future, either. If the wind is going to blow and turn the wheels of commerce +and industry, there are 24,000 wind mills with a dynamo attached +to them and storage battery guaranteeing to the farmer all the light he +wants in the barn, cooking stove, and turning the sewing machine and +grindstone and engine every day of the year. Do not have any fear, +ladies and gentlemen, that the natural powers of this world are going +to be exhausted. They are here and here to stay, and here to be supplied +by the advance of science in such a way that no matter how populous +the world becomes in the future nobody is going to suffer for warmth +or clothing or power in this world of ours, and we want to get so many +people in this country that there won’t be any complaint of vacant country +churches. And there is no doubt that this country can supply the +food and clothing for untold millions of people yet unborn. We can +have every foot of our country as densely populated as Belgium and +still have plenty for everybody, because advancing science will supply +it. The capacity of a man’s mouth is limited and constant, but the +skill of his hands is unlimited. He has two hands, but only one mouth, +and the advancing skill of his hand is going to fill the mouth.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Turn around that way and face the audience, +please. (Applause)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span></p> + +<p class="center mt2">HEALTH, THE GREATEST ASSET.</p> + +<p>Dr. <span class="smcap">Wiley</span>—I would just as leave say it all over again if you didn’t +hear it. (Laughter) Now, there is one public asset of wealth that is +rarely mentioned in these conservation congresses, and that is the public +health. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen (applause), it is worth +in money more than all the gold and all the forests and all the water +power combined. If a man boasts of the wealth of Kansas City he +speaks of the railroads and the packing houses and the great centers +of distribution and the wholesale commercial houses and the value of +real estate. He never says a word about how much a people are worth +in health. I asked the children in the Central High School today how +much each one thought he was worth in money. They did not know. +I told them that in a year or two every one of them would be capable +of earning $50 a month. I think there are lots of parents in this town +that would not take $12,000 for a single child they have. And every +single child is worth in money, if it is developed into a man or woman, +$12,000. And if you take all of the people of the country and value +them at $12,000 apiece, all the rest of the wealth of this country sinks +into insignificance. And I am satisfied that that is the value of every +man who is able to earn a dollar.</p> + +<p>Now, some people think women are worth nothing because they +don’t get paid much for their work. Housewives do not get a monthly +salary usually from their husbands. She ought to, but she does not. +Practically all of them ought to get a salary every month. (Applause) +But that does not make any difference in the earning capacity of the housewife. +She is worth more than $50—every one. So I would say that there +are 40,000,000 of people in this country who are capable of earning $50 a +month and do earn it. That, in my mind, will give you a good idea +of the wealth of this country in health. But that wealth consists of +health. If you impair the machine, the human machine, you impair the +earning power of that machine, and thus you diminish its value. If +you let the child die you rob the father of a great asset. And we are +letting our children die every year. You may go into any graveyard in +this country and count the little graves of children under five years of +age, and three out of every five of them ought not to be there. The +little body that is crumbling beneath that tombstone ought to be in the +high school of the city or in the active walks of life. We let these children +die and never think of the responsibility that rests upon us. How +can we get to be healthy? Well, in the first place heredity. We have +got to begin away back. That don’t do us much good, but if we pay +attention to it it will do future generations some good. It was Oliver +Wendell Holmes I believe who said, “You have to begin to make a +man when he was a marsupial possibility.” We have got to go way +back now to shape the careers of men and women unborn. Heredity, a +sound body is one of the rights of every human being who is born. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span>(Applause) I am glad to know that many of the states are already +taking steps to insure that, and to forbid marriages with people who are +physically incapable of producing healthy children. Marriage we regard +as a sentiment, and we do not like to have anybody interfere with +our sentiments. But I tell you marriage is an affair of the state. If +the state has a right to demand a fee for a marriage license, and to prescribe +how it shall be performed, and make laws by which it may be +broken, it has the right to forbid the marriage as well as to regulate it. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="center">CONSERVATION OF FUTURE GENERATIONS.</p> + +<p>I say then that our first work for public health is to look after the +unborn generations and to see that they have healthy parents. That +does not help us now, but we must look to it right now. I asked a member +of the school board today if they had medical inspection of the +school children here. He said a partial one. I said: “Do you have a +dental inspection? Do you have a registered dentist come around through +the school and see what kind of teeth the children have?” That is just +as important as whether they come with clean clothes or not. I have +no use for a boy or girl who loses his teeth in childhood. We must +begin the conservation with the children of this country, of the public +health. The time is coming when there will not be a school in our +broad land without competent medical supervision. We demand now +that our children be vaccinated. We also should demand that they bring +to school no contagious disease to spread among their fellows. And +there are lots of contagious diseases that we do not think of as contagious, +such as tuberculosis for instance. And so by beginning with +the unborn generation we may add to the length of human existence. +Heredity then, sound bodies in which sound minds are and may be developed, +is one of the primal basic qualifications for the conservation +of human life.</p> + +<p>Then the next thing is, after we get healthy beings into the world, +to see that they are properly nourished, and unless the child and the +man and the woman have the proper food they cannot be expected to +maintain their health. Unless you feed an engine, or boiler, good coal +you cannot expect it to develop the maximum of power. Unless you +feed a man well, nourish him well, you cannot expect him to be an effective +machine, and to do his proper duty as a member of the community. +The thing to do to secure the maximum efficiency of the +machine—feed it well. What are we doing about that? We are making +a beginning in that line. And the first thing we are doing is +with the young child. We are saving the lives of the infants. I may +say there has been more progress made along that line than in any other, +and that is the place to begin. Here a few years ago if 125 children +did not die out of every thousand that were born we thought something +was wrong; we rather expected it. And in some communities a +great many more than that died.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p> + +<p>In many communities the death rate has been reduced to seventy +per thousand. There is no reason why over this whole country the +death rate of the children, of the infants and the child under five, +may not be reduced so as to make the death rate per thousand not +very much greater than that of the adult, namely, thirteen or fourteen +per thousand in a healthy community. And I do not know any reason +why the children of this country should die at the rate of more than +thirteen or fourteen per thousand when they are properly cared for at +birth, and have proper fathers and mothers to give them healthy bodies. +This will be a great addition to the wealth of the country, to save the +children. And we can save the grown person by a wholesome diet. I +am not one of those who believe in a starvation diet, cutting down food. +There are a great many preachers of that doctrine in this country. That +is a false doctrine. Nature provides that we shall have enough, and +intended we shall have enough and then a little more. When the engineer +fills up the tender with coal, he does not take just enough to get +him into the station. No. He puts in a ton or two in excess. So Nature +provides that when we eat to get strength to perform the mechanical +functions of life, we shall have just a little more than is necessary, the +factor of safety which enables us to go over the emergency safely.</p> + +<p class="center">THE RIGHT TO NUTRITIOUS FOOD.</p> + +<p>And, therefore, it is the right of every citizen of this country to +have nutritious food and to have plenty of it. Again, when the animal +does feel sick, it has the right to scientific attendance with good food; +in other words, the sick man has a right to be attended by a competent +physician, and to have remedies administered prepared by a competent +pharmacist and of pronounced purity. That is another thing we are securing +for the people of this country—pure drugs to help them get well +when they are sick. (Applause) And we are trying to keep men from +practicing medicine who have no qualifications to do so except a facile +pen to write an advertisement. The day is coming when a man cannot +practice medicine in Kansas City by the newspaper as he can today. I +looked at your newspapers. They are full of prescriptions, written by +physicians who could not begin to pass the examination of your state +board of health. They are quacks and fakirs, and the advertisements +are worded cunningly to separate your money from your income. And +the law permits it, while the regular physician cannot come to Kansas +City and practice medicine without taking out a license from the state +board of health, and yet you allow a fakir in any other county to come +to town and practice medicine <i>ad libitum</i>. We are going to stop that +for you and save your money and save your lives (applause) by securing +competent medical supervision of the sick of the community.</p> + +<p>Then we are going to protect you from contagious diseases. We +are building up now a cordon around this country against invasion, not +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span>from an armed enemy, but from one that has slain a thousand times +more than the armed enemy would slay—the germ of contagious disease. +While Europe has been suffering from Asiatic cholera for a year, +we have succeeded absolutely in wiping it out of this country, except one +or two sporadic cases, and we no longer fear yellow fever. We know it +because we know how to handle the mosquito that spreads it, and we +segregate it in the spots where it breaks out. We are beginning to control +that most dread of all diseases, tuberculosis. And the day is coming +when we will have full control of it. There are people in this house +who will live to see tuberculosis as rare as smallpox is today, in my +opinion. (Applause) Why? Because science has found out how that +disease is conveyed, and having found out the cause, we can proceed to +the remedy, and the day is coming when there will be camps of detention +for tuberculosis patients, just as there are today for leprosy. It +looks hard. It looks inhuman. But what we must care for is humanity, +and not the single life. You remember what Tennyson says: “Are God +and Nature then at strife, that Nature sends such evil dreams? So careful +of the type she signs, so careless of the single life?”</p> + +<p class="center">THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNITY.</p> + +<p>The individual must give way to the community, and if he is afflicted +with tuberculosis he must be segregated, so that the disease may +be conquered and kept within bounds. And so typhoid fever will be +conquered—all the diseases which are due to infection and contagion. +And great progress is making along this line today, so much so that +we are encouraged in the belief that other diseases yet unconquered may +meet the enemy and master, like for instance pneumonia and diseases +of that sort. And the result will be that by the advance of scientific +medicine and by the wise control of the state, men will be spared the +destruction of their usefulness and value in middle life. Why, how much +does it mean to die before your time? All the years of preparation, all +the money spent in your education, all that you have done to prepare +yourself for the duties of life, cut off in an instant by an enemy more +treacherous by far than any foreign invader could be, more to be feared +than any armed foe could possibly be feared. We have no need to +build sixteen-inch guns to protect our trade on the Panama Canal. What +we have protected are the men who builded them. The greatest triumph +of the Panama Canal is not that it is a wonderful cut, is not that it +is protected by sixteen-inch guns, but that the men who build it are as +healthy as you people who have stayed here in Kansas City. That is +the great triumph of the Panama Canal. (Applause)</p> + +<p>Then we want to preach sanitation in the outplaces where the +church ought to be built in the country. That is one reason that the +country is not attractive, because there are no sanitary conveniences +there. The farmers are living today in a state of barbarism almost in +that respect. What we need to do is to populate the country in order +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span>to make the country attractive, and it can be done at little expense. +There are preachers today who are preaching sanitation about the country +school house, and to the country farmer, how to make himself comfortable +at home. The roller towels have been abolished in Kansas. The +Pullman Company has taken out its public drinking cups in the State +of Illinois, and failed to give any other, so you can go all through Illinois +without any danger of drinking the Pullman ice water. (Applause) +The day will come some time when the Pullman Company will ventilate +its cars. (Applause) On the train coming out from Washington there +were at least five hundred free passengers called flies that came all the +way and enjoyed the trip (laughter) and never lost a moment from +sleep. (Laughter) Think of it at this modern day, to start a palace +car from Washington that cost $20,000 full of flies! But we are preaching +sanitation in out of the way places like the country home and the +Pullman car, and the people are learning. And you will be able to +travel after a while without danger of contracting a disease in the car +where you sleep, or in the hotel where you eat. This gospel of sanitation +goes with the gospel of the country church, because cleanliness is +next to godliness, and sometimes it seems to me it comes first and godliness +second, because a dirty man has a great deal of trouble in feeling +godly. (Applause) So the gospel of sanitation is coming to our help. +Another thing will help, and that is the gospel of segregation. What +are we to do to prevent the influx into the city? I will tell you one +thing that the city could do. Every city wants to have more people in +it. They do not care what kind they are. They want more than their +neighboring city. It is the ambition of the town to pad the census. +Many of them are in jail for doing it today. If I lived in Kansas City +I wouldn’t care whether we had more people than Omaha or not, but I +would love to have, if I were in Kansas City, cleaner streets and purer +water and more segregated houses (applause) than Omaha or any other +city. And you ought to have them here with all your beautiful streets. +You have the principle here of keeping the houses apart. There is +plenty of ground in this country to build houses and have a little spot +of green by them where they can have flowers in the garden and potatoes. +That is what we ought to do to prevent the influx into the city.</p> + +<p class="center">THE CITY NOT FOR MANUFACTURING.</p> + +<p>I would recommend as a sanitary measure that every city forbid +any manufacturing of any kind within its limits. The city is not for +manufacturing. The city is for exchange only, and if you would banish +the factory you would do much for the sanitation of the city and for +the factory workers. You would get closer to the raw material which +the factory uses. You would save in transportation, and every workman +could have his little cottage with his little piece of land that would +help populate the country and help the church that was built near the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>factory, too. I say we can put the people into the country by legislation +if in no other way in that respect, and the moment the factory starts +the farmer is coming to raise garden truck. You will have growing +around the factory a prosperous agricultural community with its church +and it will be a great deal better than having a little church with a lonely +graveyard. The most awful thing in the country is the graveyard, especially +at night, when the boy has to go home past it. That is the way. +We will segregate the population and thus conserve the public health.</p> + +<p>Last of all, we can crown the work of the gospel of sanitation by +enacting into a law provision for a national board of health with real +power and with real authority, whose director shall have a seat in the +President’s cabinet and advise him in regard to the most precious of all +the assets of our country, public health (applause), and he can guide +and help the authorities of the state and cities, and furnish them the +material with which to work, and that is coming after a while. We are +going to conquer and bring together all the government authorities which +have to do with the public health in the one grand organization which +will conserve the health of this country and have a voice of power in +the councils of the Nation. And then when we do this we will have +instilled into the people the idea that there are things that are more +important than dollars. Every movement of this kind is stopped by the +dollars, the fear that somebody is going to lose some money, while at +the same time it could be easily shown that every single movement of +this kind is for the increase of our national wealth, and the day will +come when the doctrine of graft and greed will have to give way to +the doctrine of the sanitation of the people. (Applause) We have +today our Fourth of July when we celebrate. In some parts of the +country the colored citizens meet and celebrate the emancipation. So I +want to live to see the day when the people of this country will meet +together in one grand convocation to celebrate the emancipation from +the reign of greed and graft and for the establishment of the principles +of sanitation which keep them well and happy and patriotic American +citizens. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—This Congress will now stand adjourned until +tomorrow morning at 9 o’clock.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SEVENTH_SESSION"><i>SEVENTH SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p>Dr. Cyrus Northrop, President Emeritus Minnesota University, presided.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Northrop</span>—The Congress will be led in prayer by the +Rev. Dr. S. M. Neel, pastor of the Central Presbyterian Church of Kansas +City.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p>Our Father, Who art in heaven, we recognize Thy hand in every good. We +are dependent upon the bounties of Thy providence, and we invoke Thy blessing +upon these Thy servants, as they have met together to consider the best interests +that manifest Thy love and Thy goodness to the children of men. Thou hast +taught us if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, Who giveth liberally unto +all men and upbraideth not. We pray Thee that Thou wilt give us wisdom to guide +us in this Congress, that we advise those ways and means that shall be productive +of the interests of our fellow men in their various avocations, especially to those +who are called to labor and till the soil, and may Thy blessing rest upon them and +Thy providence be about us, sending the rain and the sunshine in season, and that +men may look up to Thee with thankful, grateful hearts, and serve Thee honestly +and sincerely, and finally meet Thee in richest reward in the world to come, and +the glory shall be Thine forever, Amen.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Northrop</span>—My instructions were to start the Congress +at 9 o’clock, but it did not seem possible to do that. So I have compromised +by starting it half way between 9 and 9:30. The regular order +of business probably cannot be pursued at this moment. Is Mr. George +W. Bailey of Missouri in the room?</p> + +<p>If Mr. Bailey will come to the platform he may have the ear of the +Congress for five minutes. Mr. Bailey, Deputy State Game and Fish +Commissioner of Missouri.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Bailey</span>—I was highly pleased with the remarks of the gentleman +Monday evening from New York on the conservation of wild life +in that state, and again yesterday we enjoyed another treat from a gentleman +representing the Audubon Society of the Empire State.</p> + +<p>The protection of song and insectivorous birds in this rich agricultural +land of the Middle West deserves more than a passing notice from +this great Congress.</p> + +<p>That the destruction of song and insectivorous birds means the increase +of pests, so destructive to fruit and grain crops, is acknowledged +by the best informed farmers of the day. And what a great pleasure it +was to hear reports like those from the gentlemen representing the State +of New York.</p> + +<p>Here in Missouri we have had some trouble in getting the attention +of farmers to this important subject, but they are beginning to realize +that the insect-destroying bird is one of the best assets to the farmer.</p> + +<p>The present Game Department of Missouri has never cost the tax +payers of the state one penny, but the revenue for the protection of game +is obtained from hunters’ licenses, paid into the State Treasurer’s office.</p> + +<p>In North Central Missouri I have organized districts in several +counties for the protection of prairie chicken and quail, and in these +localities the farmers refuse to permit the destruction of these birds out +of season, and we have now more than fifteen hundred prairie chickens +absolutely protected, and the farmers will remember that in many neighborhoods +of the state during the past season the grasshoppers were very +destructive to late corn, and, as a proof of the usefulness of the wild birds, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span>there was no complaint of the grasshoppers from the farmers in the localities +where the prairie chicken, quail and other insectivorous and song +birds are so well protected.</p> + +<p>Through the efforts of our efficient Game and Fish Commissioner, +Hon. Jesse A. Tolerton, the Chinese pheasant has been introduced in +many counties of Missouri, and has proven a very great destroyer of +insects, and especially so to the hated potato bug.</p> + +<p>Some time ago I read an article in the Dallas News saying that the +boll weevil had cost the State of Texas $20,000,000 in the last few years, +and the editor called attention to the fact that the boll weevil never +appeared until after the target gun in the hands of the vicious and +ignorant had so wantonly destroyed wild bird life in that state.</p> + +<p>Ladies and gentlemen, this is a startling statement, but true, and +what an object lesson for the great subject of bird conservation.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Northrop</span>—In the absence of the gentlemen who were +upon the regular program, will you indulge me for a moment or two +while I say something? In the papers in the South there has been for +some time special notice of the fact that a few years ago a small cotton +crop yielded to the cotton planter $240,000,000 more than the larger +cotton crop which succeeded, and the lesson sought to be taught is that +the products shall be kept down as low as is necessary to secure the +highest prices, and to that end if a large amount of cotton has been +raised a considerable portion shall be kept out of the market until the +prices rise to fifteen cents a pound, and then brought forward as fast +as the market will take it. There is some disposition among the wheat +farmers to keep back their wheat until the market is high enough to +enable them to get the best prices. There is nothing wrong in the farmer +doing that, and securing the best price he can, because the cotton and +the wheat are not ultimately lost. At some time or other they come +into human use. But there is another department in which the same +process does not meet with the same results. I refer to that most important +and, as it seems to me, growing important department, fruits +of all kinds in the United States. We talk about the high price of living, +and the price is high. Anything which will relieve the demand upon +the most common necessaries of life will tend to lower the cost of living. +Anything that we can introduce and make a common article of +food for a large portion of the people to take the place of beefsteak +is a blessing to the country, and we are receiving into this country hundreds +of thousands of immigrants at the present time, many of them—perhaps +most of them—coming from countries where the practice is +to live largely on fruits—the Italians and others. Now, you are conserving +the resources of the country, and how are we conserving our +resources in the matter of fruits? Why, there are millions of dollars’ +worth of fruits that are permitted to perish every year in order that the +price of fruit may be kept up to a certain grade all over the country, +and the consequence is that this million dollars worth of fruit that might +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span>feed the people, or might take the place of some other more important +food in some way, is all lost to the country. What is the use of +conserving the fertility of the soil if we are going to have our soil so +fertile that we can raise $50,000,000 worth of fruit and let $40,000,000 +perish, in order that for the ten millions we might get the price of the +forty millions? Some way ought to be provided by which the fruit that +is raised in this country shall be made available for food. I do not ask +that anything will be done that will interfere with the prosperity of the +fruit raiser. But that he shall raise a large amount of fruit and then have +it made impossible to put upon the market more than a quarter of his +product, and have that fruit maintain in price the same standard that +the whole of it would, is a wrong, it seems to me, to the people of this +country, and a detriment to its welfare. What we want is to feed people +comfortably and at the lowest rate that is consistent with existing +conditions.</p> + +<p>There is nothing that would contribute more to the health of our +people in a large way than increasing to a very considerable extent the use +of fruit. So many persons use things that are not really advantageous +to health. Fruit would be invaluable, and we are raising millions of +bushels of apples and kindred things that never come to the use of +man, but are permitted to perish. The same is true of peaches in many +cases, and with cherries in some states. It is remarkably true of apples. +Those states on the Pacific Coast, Washington and Oregon, and the +region round about there, are raising apples that are astonishing in quantity +and quality, and they are preparing to produce a great many more. It +will be of the greatest value to the people of this country if we can get +them. Twenty years ago it was doubtful whether Minnesota could ever +raise apples. We have apples by the thousands of bushels this year all +around Minnesota.</p> + +<p>Notwithstanding, green apples in the market when I left home were +$1.50 a bushel. That is not necessary. It ought to be so that the laborer, +the man who works with his hands, can have fruit. God has given us +a country that will yield almost everything. It will yield fruit in tremendous +quantities, and the people will eat it if they can get it. What is +the trouble? Why should three-fourths of the crop rot on the ground, +while only one-fourth gets to market and brings the price that the whole +should command? You see my point. It is not to interfere with the +man who raises apples. I want him to get his full reward. But it is +that this magnificent product with which God has favored us shall be +utilized for the needs of this country, for their good, and for the removal +of the stress in the demand for various other products, which +are now at a price that is not within the reach of many people. We are +met for the interests of people in general, for the good of mankind. +No man liveth to himself; no man dieth to himself. If there is not +grass enough and food enough to keep alive the cattle of the country, +and a man has a thousand tons of hay, do you think he has the right to +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span>burn up 999 tons, and then ask for the remaining ton the price of the +thousand? Has a man a right to destroy what is necessary for the +lives of his fellow men, when it is needed for those lives (cries of “no!”) +simply in order that by having only a part he may get the reward of +the whole? I say no. We have to look for something besides ourselves.</p> + +<p>It is not merely a matter of how much money goes into my pocket +and how little comes out. It is a matter of whether I am doing my part +in this world to make the world what it ought to be, and my fellow man +just as comfortable and happy as I can. (Applause) (Good!) I have got +to do it whether I am a farmer or anybody else. We have to so use what +we have that it may benefit others as well as ourselves. I am not proposing +any plan. I do not know what plan should be proposed. But, +ladies and gentlemen, what I want is to see the products of the earth +utilized for the support of men and women and children. And I want +some way to be provided by which the magnificent products of our +orchards may be carried all over the country, and the people may eat +and enjoy them and live, and the returns to the producer of that fruit +be all that they could ask. Can you help to secure this result in some +way in the coming years? It is not secured as it ought to be at the +present time. (Applause)</p> + +<p>I resign the chair to President Wallace.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I am very much obliged to Mr. Northrop for +taking charge of the meeting in my absence. I have been down to meet +Mr. Bryan. (Applause) I have persuaded him to put off his speech +until 8 o’clock this evening. (Applause) Mr. Bryan will talk on a +subject entirely in harmony with the spirit and purpose of this convention.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">A. W. Stubbs</span>—I have talked with a number of delegates +from the country and understand that many of them have made arrangements +to leave the city before 8 o’clock this evening, and I know it +would be exceedingly gratifying to them to have Mr. Bryan here for a +few moments some time. Do you suppose that could be arranged?</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Yes, sir; he will be here and you can get to +see him.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Stubbs</span>—We want to hear him.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—You may have a chance to hear him. We +have a strong program; we keep the best to the last (applause), but we +want you to assist us in putting through this program so that every +man who comes here and says something can be heard. We will appreciate +it, and push it through and just as fast as we can. Now, let me +ask whether Mr. Curtis Hill is present? He is to address us on good +roads. He is the State Highway Engineer of Missouri. What other +matters have we to come before the Congress? The next speaker is +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span>Mr. White. He is not here, but he will be here in a little while. We +will take up the call of the states. We do not care about resources or +coal mines, but we want to know what you have done in your state for +conservation, and what you intend to do, dead earnest, honor bright, +what you intend to do.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Recording Secretary <span class="smcap">Gipe</span>—Oregon (no response); Texas; Utah; +Vermont; Virginia; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming. We have a +request, Mr. President, from the chairman of the Arkansas delegation to +be heard. They were not here when their names were called.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I take pleasure in introducing to you Mr. F. +M. Filson, president Missouri State Association of Assistant Postmasters, +who will talk to you for five minutes.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Mr. Filson’s paper is in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Gentlemen: One reason for bringing this +meeting to Kansas City was that we might get the voice from the +South. Mr. Knapp, who has charge of the demonstration work in the +South, was to be here, but cannot come because of illness, and his place +will be taken by Professor W. J. Spillman of the Department of Agriculture, +who will talk to you about fifteen or twenty minutes. Professor +Spillman is engaged in the same work.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Prof. Spillman</span>—I regret very much that Dr. Knapp could not +be here himself.</p> + +<p>He is in charge of the farmers’ coöperative demonstration work in +the South. It has been suggested that I take his place upon the program. +I cannot tell you of his work. The Secretary of Agriculture has asked +me to develop similar line of work in the Northern states, and we are +now laying plans for its development. I want to discuss a few of the +problems that strike me very forcibly in my study of agriculture in this +country.</p> + +<p>Several years ago I spent two weeks in visiting the more successful +farmers in the New England states. I visited ten farmers in +that two weeks, and made a careful study of their methods. I want to +say that while we usually speak of the worked-out, bleak hills of New +England, that I found as good farming there on a few farms as I have +found anywhere in the United States. And one thing which struck me +very forcibly, indeed, was that the oldest boy or young man I saw on +any of those ten farms was fifteen years old, and the youngest man I +saw was forty years old. A short time after that I had the pleasure +of addressing the Vermont State Dairymen’s Association. There were +a thousand farmers there, and in that assembly there were six who were +under forty years of age. I asked those people where their young +men and older boys were. They said they had gone to the city. Why +have they gone to the city? Because they think they can better their +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>condition there. Is that true? “Well, we suppose it is. Most of them +are doing better in the city than they did on the farm.” I said, “They +are wise boys then, to go where they can do better.” I would advise +anybody to do that. The statistics of agriculture in the New England +states show that between 1880 and 1900, a twenty-year period, there +was a decrease of 30.1 per cent in the area of improved farm land, in +New England, a decrease of one-third practically. During the period of +1890 to 1900, there was a decrease of 10 per cent in the rural population +in New England as a whole. Since that time there has been a decrease +in the rural population of practically all of the states north of the cotton +belt and east of the great plains.</p> + +<p class="center">SOME STARTLING CONDITIONS.</p> + +<p>During the last ten years there was a heavy decrease in the rural +population of the state of Missouri, which I claim as my birthplace. +Why is that? There are several reasons. One is that farmers are using +more farm machinery today than they used to use, and they do not need +as many men to man the farms as they formerly needed. Another reason +is, many of the farms are not as well managed now as they were +before because of the scarcity of labor, and they are not so profitable. +But on the whole farms are more profitable now than they were ten +years ago. There has been a ten per cent increase in the yield of farm +crops in the United States in the last ten years. These conditions have +brought about a movement which we have heard a great deal of in the +papers recently, the back to the farm movement. Now, I am a farmer +myself. I own a beautiful little farm down in the southwest corner of +this state. I expect to be there next week picking my seed corn, and I +am in full sympathy with every effort to develop agriculture and to improve +the lot of the farmer, but I am not in sympathy with the efforts +to make a wholesale migration of city people to the farm. I do not believe +that is the solution of the question. In the first place we have on the +farms of this country already children growing up who are getting the +proper training to be farmers, aside from the schools they go to. Unfortunately +our country schools teach them everything except farming. +And as far as the farm experience is concerned those are the people +who ought to be our farmers of the future. The city man has too much +to learn. It takes too long to get adjusted when he goes to the land. +We have recently made a careful study of several hundred city men +who have gone out to settle on ten and twenty-acre farm tracts. And I +want to say unreservedly that these men have made failures as farmers, +and practically every one of them has his farm for sale at less than he +paid for it. There are a few exceptions to that, but they are mighty few. +I believe the solution of the problem of populating our farms is to keep +a proper proportion of our farm boys and girls on the farm. (Applause)</p> + +<p>I wouldn’t keep all of them on the farm. Why? Because they are +not needed there. If they were all kept on the farm, in a short while +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span>there would be overproduction in agricultural products in this country. +I want to see enough of them, and some of the very best of them, kept to +man the farms in this country, and at the same time I want to see a +small proportion, the proper proportion of those young men do what +they have always done, go to the city and take the lead in every line of +human activity. (Applause) I one time made the assertion before a +body of scientists that there was something in the life of the farm that +had a higher pedagogical value, higher educational value than the best +city schools had to give. (Applause) I was called down hard for that +statement, by a city scientist. Then I went to work to find out whether +I was correct. I looked up the history of the Presidents of the United +States, and I found that 92 per cent of them were born and raised on the +farm; there are only 36 per cent of our population live on the farm—a +little more than their share of presidents. Then I wrote letters to the +governors of every state in this Union asking them if they were brought +up on the farm; 91.4 per cent of them wrote back and said that they +were farmer boys. Why is it that farmer boys become governors? It +is because of something in their early training. We know it cannot +be the country school, because that is a thing to speak of with a blush, +generally speaking. What is it then? I asked those men. I said, “If +the country life is advantageous to the growing boy, tell me why you +think it is.” President Lucien Tuttle, of the Boston & Maine Railway, +New England, gave me this answer—(which seemed to be the answer +that most of them gave)—“When I was a boy on the farm by the time +I was 12 years of age I was buying and selling cattle and feeding stock +and taking care of them. I learned a sense of responsibility, and I +never forgot it.”</p> + +<p>I believe that the opportunity of putting responsibility on the farm +boy is the most important feature of his education. I am confident that +is correct. (Applause) We want a proper proportion of the farm boys +and farm girls to remain on the farm and become farmers that are a +credit to the Nation.</p> + +<p class="center">THE INCREASE IN LAND VALUES.</p> + +<p>Let me tell you another reason why I want that rather than see +city people go to the land. Land is going to become high-priced in this +country in the very near future. The value of the land in the United +States in the last ten years increased from twenty billion dollars to forty +billion dollars. What made that? Was it increase in income from the +land? No. Was it increase in the intrinsic value of that land for farming +purposes? No. It was increase in the demand and decrease in the +supply of free land. That is what did it. We only have to go across +the Atlantic ocean to find farm land selling at from two to six hundred +dollars an acre. Why? Because it is comparatively limited. There is +no free land for sale. As long as a man could homestead 160 acres of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span>good land in Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, no farm land in America could be +worth more than $100 per acre. But that day has past. We are now to +have high-priced land. I want to see the boys who inherit that land live +on it and run it. (Applause) I would much rather see that than to see +the boy who owns that farm, or will own it, go to the city and become +a street car driver and rent his farm to some fellow who will become a +tenant. I want to see the American farms, so far as possible, peopled +by those who own the land, who can hold up their heads and look any +man in the face and say, “I am a landed proprietor, a free born citizen +in a free land,” a thing which the tenant farmer can’t always do.</p> + +<p class="mt2">A Delegate—How to keep the boys on the farm is what we want to +know.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Prof. <span class="smcap">Spillman</span>—That is what I was coming to in just a minute. +Let me tell you what I have to say on that subject. There are lots of +men in this audience that have left the farm. Why did you leave it? +Because you thought you could do better, didn’t you?</p> + +<p class="mt2">A Delegate—Exactly.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Prof. <span class="smcap">Spillman</span>—That is it. Now, let us face the thing as it is. +You left the farm because you thought you could do better elsewhere. +Now, there is only one way to keep a sensible young man on the farm. +You can keep a blockhead there perhaps some other way, but a sensible +young man can be kept there in only one way, and that is to make it +advantageous for him to stay there. You insult his intelligence when you +ask him to stay at a disadvantage. (Applause) How are we going to +make it advantageous for that boy to stay there? Well, I think I know +how that can be done. We have tremendous agencies in this country at +work learning how farming ought to be done. We have agricultural +colleges, teaching young men, but one thing I want to impress +upon you is that in order for the agricultural college to reach and affect +every farmer in America, it would be necessary to graduate every year +in agriculture alone 4,000 men in every college in the country. You +know that they cannot reach that, and the function of the agricultural +college is to prepare leaders and teachers and as many farmers as possible, +but not all farmers.</p> + +<p>The agricultural college of Kansas cannot graduate 4,000 men a +year in agriculture. Kansas is a pretty liberal state in the matter of +education, but I do not think she would want to go into her pocket deep +enough to provide educational facilities at Manhattan for that many +men. I would like to see her do it, but I do not think she can. Now, +we must reach the farmer in other ways. These institutions have learned +a tremendous amount. They have discovered the principles in fertilization +of the soil; they have worked out thoroughly the principles of feeding +live stock, so that today it is practically reduced to an exact science. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span>They have worked out methods of selecting seed corn. How many farmers +in Missouri plant carefully prepared seed corn? You ought to do it. +I have just two minutes to tell you the gist of the scheme.</p> + +<p>The President of the United States the other night told you that he +was willing to approve the appropriation of a million dollars to begin a +work of carrying to the farmer what the scientists already know. Let +me add to that, that some of the most important work these men are to +do will be to carry to those farmers what that farmer knows. I know +farmers at whose feet I would be willing to sit for weeks, and I have +done so, and I have learned more from the men whose farms I have +studied than I ever learned from anybody else. But those men had +worked out the methods of putting into practice what the agricultural +scientist knows. We propose to put in every county in the United States +a man to carry on an investigation of the work of the successful farmers +and find out how they do it. A man who will investigate local agricultural +problems and become an agricultural adviser of the farmers in these +counties. (Applause) We are going to take the best men we can +get. Most of them will be men who cannot afford to take the positions, +men who are already making more than $1,500 or $2,000 a year on their +own farms. Most of them will be young men, and the others, who, if +they were a little older, would be doing the same thing. Now, my time +is up, and I just want to add in ten seconds that we propose to join the +state and the county and all divide the expense of establishing this system +all over the United States for you.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I will now introduce to you, and it gives me +great pleasure, Mrs. E. R. Weeks of the National Congress of Mothers +and Parent Teachers’ Association, who will speak to you for five minutes +only. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mrs. <span class="smcap">Weeks</span>—I told you to make it three minutes.</p> + +<p>The National Congress of Mothers reports here, not because it has +a committee on conservation, but because it is an association organized +for conservation, the conservation of the home and the child.</p> + +<p>When we gave the call for our first convention in 1897 a whirlwind +of protest swept over the land, that mothers should be called from their +homes and children to attend a convention, and the press, from one end +of the land to the other, ridiculed us as a lot of old maids and childless +married women.</p> + +<p>Today the press is our best friend, and we have taught the world +that a mother can not live for her home and children in the best way +unless she takes into her thought and work all other homes and children. +The wives and daughters of the land have learned through us +that a woman’s duty lies along the avenues by which she may bring into +the home the best from the outside world. We conserve the home and +child by our work in promoting the creation of juvenile courts, both in +this country and abroad, and by sending to this convention as delegates +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>our chairman of that committee, Judge Benjamin Lindsey. We organize +parents’ and teachers’ meetings in city and rural schools, and to make +these meetings possible we have a committee on good roads for country +children’s welfare.</p> + +<p>As a conservation congress for child welfare, we offer you, gentlemen, +our experience and our organization in any efforts which you +may put forth for the betterment of childhood whether in city or country. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I take pleasure in introducing to you Congressman +Fred S. Jackson, former Attorney General of Kansas.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Mr. Jackson</span>—As soils may be exhausted, it is even possible to exhaust +the conservation of soils—by discussion. We have listened to several +papers, each of which has been not only intensely interesting but +exhaustive on the subject of restoring and conserving exhausted soils. +I may be pardoned, therefore, in asking your attention to another great +national subject of conservation; that of conserving our lives and millions +of property from loss by fire. This subject has been already partially +discussed, before this Congress, through and by means of a report +of the National Board of Fire Underwriters, a national organization of +fire insurance companies.</p> + +<p>This report, though good in the main, is one-sided. It calls attention +to the public duty of citizens in general in preventing fire losses. We +desire by means of a national investigation under national supervision to +remind insurance companies of certain of their own public duties, relative +to the causes of fire losses.</p> + +<p>All agree that these losses are enormous and when compared with +that of any other country are excessive and abnormal. In the last decade +the amount of property insured has doubled and in spite of a campaign +for fire prevention by the insurance companies, fire losses have also +doubled.</p> + +<p>This disappointing result has led many of the best informed insurance +experts of the country to conclude that the real “bug under the +chip” in our fast increasing excessive and abnormal fire losses is the +insurance rate, for which our insurance companies are responsible.</p> + +<p>I hold no brief in this matter against the insurance companies. I became +interested in the subject merely as a state officer in an attempt to +enforce state laws and to secure state supervision of rates in the interest +of the public. Such laws are now in force in at least four states of the +Union, and are sustained by our courts on the theory of the state’s right +to protect the life and property of the citizens against loss from fire.</p> + +<p class="center">POWELL EVANS’ VIEWS.</p> + +<p>The importance of this subject has not been better or more strongly +stated than by Mr. Powell Evans, of Philadelphia, one of the leading +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>business men of the country, who spoke before this Congress in its first +session, in May, 1908. In a recent magazine article, Mr. Evans says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>Fire waste in the United States and Canada is about ten times that of western +Europe. It averages broadly $250,000,000 yearly with $150,000,000 added expense +for protective measures imperatively demanded by this great, continuous, and +increasing loss.</p> + +<p>The 1910 fire waste would pay the total interest-bearing debt of the country in +four years; or would build the Panama Canal in less than two years. In other +terms, it exceeds the combined cost of the United States Army and Navy and the +interest on the National debt; or nearly equals the combined annual failure and +pension payments in the United States; or exceeds the combined United States +gold and silver production and Post Office Department receipts—these all annual +figures.</p> + +<p>It represents about 40 per cent of either the total unused United States government +receipts or total expenditures, or the net earnings of American railways; it +represents about 80 per cent of either the United States Internal Revenue receipts +or the United States Customs or the interest paid on the railways in the +country. It exceeds the combined annual value of wheat, hay, oats, and rye crops, +and is twice that of the cotton crop. It costs about $30,000 for each hour in the +Year, or $500 for each minute. It costs, moreover, more than 1,500 lives and 5,000 +serious injuries annually.</p> + +<p>If all buildings burned last year in the United States were placed together on +both sides of a street, they would make an avenue of desolation reaching from +Chicago to New York, and although one seriously injured person were rescued +every thousand feet, at every three-quarters of a mile a man, woman, or child +would nevertheless be found burned to death.</p> + +<p>This fire loss averages three dollars per capita in America each year as against +thirty cents in Europe. It is absolute loss, and not ever transferrence of value. It +positively does no good to anyone. About two-thirds of this waste in life and property +in this country could easily be avoided by means similar to those employed +in western Europe, where the loss is about one-tenth of ours.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="center">INSURANCE COMPANIES IN CONTROL.</p> + +<p>Let me now tax your attention with a consideration a little more in +detail of the part played by the insurance system and the rate in the +fire waste of the country.</p> + +<p>By common consent the control of fire has been left almost entirely +to the care of the fire insurance company. The average man considers +that the company pays the loss and suffers loss in the payment. In his +opinion the company is impelled by fear of loss to exact a high state of +efficiency from all engaged in stopping loss, and that it is also in position +to know what ought to be done at any time to prevent loss or strengthen +the forces that fight fire. From the point of view of the average man, +to pay the insurance premium is to discharge his whole duty as a citizen. +All else is a detail of the business of fire insurance and none of his +business.</p> + +<p>The prevalence of this conception of the interest of the fire insurance +company explains the apathy of the public and prominence of the +company in all questions of public safety against fire. Nevertheless, it +is a misconception, and until the public bestirs itself in its own behalf, +fire waste will never be subdued. While the company pays the loss, +payment is made out of a fund taken from the public in advance. This +premium fund covers not only the loss but about as much more in addition +for the use and profit of the company. Up to the limit of price +that the public will stand for, the higher the losses, the more the premiums +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span>and profits to be collected by the company. Thus the doubling of +the loss, in the face of a ten-year campaign for reduction led by underwriters, +is not the reflection on the leadership that it seems. If losses +doubled, so also did premiums and profits.</p> + +<p>The actual control of the situation lies with the insurance rate. +However, the companies may protest and exhort, little will be doing +unless their admonitions find concrete embodiment in the rate. It was +the rate that doubled premiums during the last ten years, and it was +the rate which maintained the conditions of risk implicated in doubling +the losses. It is axiomatic that premiums cannot be doubled unless losses +double, and that losses will not double unless there is hazard to produce +them. A true rate could have been promulgated ten years ago, which +would have sent much hazard to the discard as no longer profitable and +much of the subsequent loss would not have transpired. But premiums +would have suffered a like shrinkage.</p> + +<p>Mr. Evans’ address before the first Conservation Congress, to which +I have already referred, became the basis of an official utterance by the +National Board of Underwriters, and the public therefore must regard +him as a creditable witness.</p> + +<p class="center">INSURANCE RATES.</p> + +<p>Here is what he says of the part of the insurance companies and +insurance rates in this great national calamity:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The world’s insurance bill is the measure of its fire waste. In the United States +insurance costs, on the average, about 1 per cent of the policy value or one dollar +per one hundred, with three dollars per capita fire waste; whereas, in western Europe +insurance costs on the average one-tenth of one per cent of the policy value or ten +cents per hundred, with thirty cents per capita fire waste.</p> + +<p>The sound rule follows that, as fire waste is reduced, the cost of insurance automatically +falls in proportion, and from this cause only. Insurance is not a commodity +in the usual term; it is a tax which distributes the fire waste of the country over +its population. It is fundamentally a nation-wide average. About one-half of all insurance +premiums collected are returned to the insured for fire losses, and the remaining +one-half goes for expense and profits in the insurance business. Unduly +numerous or large fires, or conflagrations, swell the total waste bill, and automatically +rates rise everywhere within the national boundaries, until the half of all +collections is great enough to pay these losses. Every inhabitant of the country contributes +an average share of these insurance bills; higher rents, clothing, and food +bills; and through them higher credit rates and interest on loans. No one can +escape. In the aggregate, it can safely be said that every workman pays this three +dollars yearly for every member of his family, through either one or all of these +channels.</p> + +<p>The insurance interests have limited influence; no power other than imposing a +high rate; and are in a measure, because of their own commercial interest, indifferent +to present fire waste. It would appear to the layman at first glance that less +fire waste would be welcome to the insurance business, yet the insurance +influence is far from making a united effort to reduce it. So long as an insurance +company does not have to pay out more than fifty per cent of its premiums +for fire loss the unit profit is good. Therefore one-half of a high rate nets a greater +final profit than the same proportion of a low one. Hence the automatic yard-stick +rate schedule which companies apply to any property, which totals up the final rate +in each case—having regard to the building, contents, and location (exposure hazard). +This might result in a premium as low as ten cents on new mills, and stores (not +contents); or as high as ten dollars per one hundred dollars on Southern wood-working +mills. Many insurance managers actually prefer the higher rate and risk +as making higher possible earnings for the company and permitting a higher absolute +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>payment to the broker, thus enabling the manager to produce a larger net +annual profit, and to interest and hold a better line of brokers through whom to +distribute his contracts of insurance.</p> + +<p>The broker, who gets from ten per cent to thirty per cent of the premium, +objects even less to the higher rate—although, as we have seen, it inevitably means +higher risk and more chance of fire, and in fact more fire waste; so the destruction +continues.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>There’s a siamese twinship between premiums and losses that forbids +a knockout. Packing houses afford an apt illustration of the control +of the situation wielded by the insurance rate. Public attention was +attracted last winter by a large loss in the Chicago stockyards which +was accompanied by the death of many firemen. This loss involves a +paradox which few observed. Why should appliances which would have +prevented this loss and catastrophe be absent in the congested Chicago +yards, and yet present in similar outlying plants owned by the same men? +No spot on earth needs precaution against fire more than the Chicago +stockyards, and in none is there a more profitable opening for investment +in the means of safety.</p> + +<p class="center">SAFETY NOT SOUGHT FOR ITS OWN SAKE.</p> + +<p>The answer lies in the fact that safety is not sought for its own +sake by the average business man. From the small dealer to the board +of trustees of a great university, no more is appropriated for safety +against fire than will pan out profit from the insurance rate. The rate +makes safety pay in the outlying packing house and makes hazard pay +in Chicago, and the packers are governed accordingly. Inquiry would +probably develop that competitive conditions made a reasonable rate +possible in the locations where the plants have been made safe, whereas, +in the Chicago yards, competition does not operate and the rate is made +by a board having only commissions at stake.</p> + +<p>How is this rate, so loaded with import to life and property, made? +This question assumed prominence when regulation of rates was undertaken +by certain states. Inquiries conducted by these states show that +rate-making is neither what it purports to be nor what the public imagines. +What it purports to be is indicated by the title given to schedules +promulgated by associated insurance companies for the formation of +rates throughout the West, namely, an “Analytical System for the Measurement +of Relative Fire Hazard.” It is claimed to be a system of measurement. +Something scientific, accurate and just is indicated by this +title. The public accepts the schedule at the valuation fixed by the title, +and believes that back of its provisions is a great fund of digested information +bearing upon every angle of the problem. It suggests information +collected by the companies with infinite patience and given freely, so that +the making of rates might be done with exact justice to all, charging to +none the burden that rightfully should be borne by another. What rate-making +really is may be inferred from the inquiry of Missouri as to the +reasonableness of the important schedule filed under the rating law of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>that state for the formation of rates for fireproof buildings and contents. +Some knowledge of premiums and losses in this class of property is +clearly essential for the making of reasonable rates.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus7" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/illus7.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption> + <p>Convention Hall, Kansas City, where the Third National + Conservation Congress was held</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p class="center">WHAT WAS ASKED OF COMPANIES.</p> + +<p>The companies were first asked by the Insurance Department of Missouri +to furnish their experience in fireproof buildings and contents. Companies +like the Aetna, Hartford, Home and Royal replied that they had +never kept a tabulation of this nature and were unable to furnish any +information which would show what premiums and losses might be +expected from such property. It was explained by these companies that +it was their custom, in keeping track of bakeries, for example, to class +together those of ordinary construction, improved construction and fireproof +construction.</p> + +<p>No useful information could be gleaned from such a source, and +the experts who prepared the schedule were called to the witness stand +and requested to justify their handiwork. It appeared on examination, +however, that the provisions of this schedule were prepared without one +iota of information showing what premiums and losses had been experienced +in this class of property. It was not known whether the rates +formerly used had proved unduly profitable or unprofitable, nor was it +known with certainty whether the new rates would increase or diminish +the premium charge as a whole.</p> + +<p>All classes of property receive this arbitrary treatment. In none +are statistics kept to show whether the schedule is producing too much +or too little revenue in comparison with the losses. It is admitted that +many classes pay too much, while others are being carried at a loss, but +no schedule is made to rectify this abuse, although the schedule purports +to be a system of measurement.</p> + +<p>The companies do not keep faith with the public. We are promised +that greater care to avoid fire will reduce the loss and lead to lower rates. +But the rating system is conducted so that the public will neither know +its just due nor receive it, except by resort to other forms of insurance. +When some organized industry undertakes self-insurance, ratemakers +soon find that conditions have improved and that reductions are in order.</p> + +<p>It is evident, however, that the end of this system of false measurement +is near. Four states are regulating rates under laws which call for +rates in reasonable relation to losses, and the sustaining of the constitutionality +of such regulation by the lower courts makes similar legislation +certain in practically all states. There is urgent need, therefore, for +accurate knowledge on all matters which affect the rate of burning in +the several classes of property. This knowledge does not exist. It must +be acquired by study of data yet to be gathered. The data in the hands +of the companies is worthless. It has been gathered by plain business +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>men engaged in the insurance business, and, whatever the purpose of +the compilation, it certainly has had no reference to the formation of +reasonable rates.</p> + +<p class="center">NEED FOR FEDERAL INVESTIGATION.</p> + +<p>Faulty treatment, and not incurability, is indicated by the persistence +of the high level of destruction by fire in this country. The treatment +is vague and characterized by irresponsibility. Diagnosis is wholly lacking; +the location of the trouble is not known, and the remedies are applied +haphazard in ignorance of the possible effect. No person connected +with the treatment has a definite result to produce, or is even asked to +prove that any result has been produced. The premiums and losses are +reported in bulk to each state. The summation of these reports into +one huge total constitutes all that is done by the insurance company or +the insurance rater or the public to discover the workings of this great +waste.</p> + +<p>Such blind methods can accomplish nothing. Risks must be enumerated. +Those in need of treatment must be singled out and something +economically appropriate be prescribed for each. To find out where and +how effort can be put forth to economic advantage—to define what can +be done wisely by the class and individual to reach the low economic level +of loss—to keep watch of results and register the efficiencies of fire +alarms, fire patrols, fire departments and fire resistants—these are details +which must be wrought out before fire waste can be attacked with definite +aim and for the perfecting of which the Federal investigation and bureau +is proposed.</p> + +<p>The states appeal to the Federal Government to standardize the +schedule for the formation of rates so that it shall become a true measure +of the conditions to which it is applied. Leaving this measurement +to the dictates of the “best underwriting judgment” has proved a costly +error to the people. The underwriter escapes the common lot; the cost +of his “error,” with a substantial addition for his profit, is borne by the +people.</p> + +<p>When the fog that envelops this waste shall become dispersed by +the Federal analysis, the way to its speedy removal will become clearly +visible to the individual states.</p> + +<p>I lay no claim to originality in the presentation of this subject. +I have given you facts and for the most part the comparisons and expressions +of the experts who compiled these facts. They are original only +in the sense that the testimony of witnesses recited in a brief or argument +in a trial are original.</p> + +<p>I have asked the assistance of the Congress of the United States +to secure an investigation of this important subject to the end that power +may be added to the arms of the states to restore natural conditions as +to fire losses in our modern business world.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—You will now hear the great highway engineer +of Missouri, Hon. Curtis Hill, on the subject of how good roads help +the farmer.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Hill</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: There is no +question but that we have been making as much progress in road work +during the last few years as we have and as we are in other lines of +work, and still in many places we are not making the progress that we +road-making enthusiasts, and I might say road cranks, would like to see +made. Still I do not believe that we can now apply to our highways +over the large part of the Mississippi and Missouri valleys that little +poem which, or a few verses of which, Robert Burns is said to have +written upon his arrival at a little town in Scotland, illustrating that +the highways of Scotland at one time were not much better than they +are today of Missouri, I might say. Speaking of those highways, he left +two verses, which run something like this:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">I am now arrived, thanks to the gods,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Over pathways rough and muddy;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A certain sign that making roads</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Is not these people’s study.</div> + </div> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">And though I am not with Scripture crammed,</div> + <div class="verse indent2">I am sure the Bible says</div> + <div class="verse indent0">That you people shall be damned</div> + <div class="verse indent2">Unless you mend your ways.</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Now, how good roads help the farmer must always include others, +and it can be best discussed in a short discussion, in a general way under +two heads. First, transportation systems, and the importance of our +social conditions. Referring to Robert Burns in Scotland, you will +see that the road question has been hammered upon for years and years. +Man has been considering it as a means, and as one means of transportation. +Now, in fact man has been forever trying to overcome gravitation, +from the first load that a man carried on his back, or put upon the +back of a pack animal, he has been endeavoring to lighten his burdens +by overcoming the laws of gravitation. And so it has been through all +history. The galley, the sail boat, the steamship, automobile, and air-ship. +The good roads is one line in the endeavor to overcome the laws +of gravitation and to make easier one method of transportation. Transportation +charges have entered more into the cost of living than any +other one item. Food, clothing, building material, all the staple necessities +of life have had to pay the freight. The freight is deducted from +or added to the price of the article which forms the basis of the price +which the producer receives or the consumer pays. The man who produces +the commodity, or he who settles the bill, pays the freight. Neither +the producer nor the consumer has gained by a high cost of transportation. +The question of good roads is therefore at the present time one +of the most vital with which we have to deal. There is no one internal +improvement so absolutely necessary and essential to a state’s progress +and prosperity as the betterment of the highways. (Applause) Good +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>highways are necessary to a state’s progress and prosperity, as well as +that of a community, because they involve the transportation problem. +With transportation is involved the problem of life, the cost and pleasures +of living, exchange of commodities, valuation of property and the +social and moral and educational conditions. The problem of life is a +study closely linked with the problem of transportation.</p> + +<p>Our very existence as a social and commercial body as a state is +dependent upon transportation to such an extent that without easy, quick +and economic means of transportation we must rank as a second, third +or fourth class state. The greatest assets of the most substantial nations +are transportation and agriculture, neither one of which can be fully +developed without the other. The transportation of the bulk of agricultural +shipments begins at the farm when the raw material is hauled over +the country roads. This country road is the farmer’s own road, which +leads to the collecting points of transportation by rail and water, and +over which he reaches his market. It is used one hundred times to every +other time for all other means of transportation. The good road permits +the farmer to watch his markets and not the road. Many a farmer +markets his grain at harvest time because it is a season of good roads, +at a less price than he would by storing the grain until the markets are +better and less glutted, and when he would have more leisure time for +hauling it to the market. The good road permits him to haul double +the load that he would over a poor one, and he is thus enabled to move +his crop in one-half the time. This, figuratively speaking, picks up the +producer and sets him down one-half the distance closer to his market. +You all know that distance in this age is measured in time and not in +miles. The country road is the people’s own road, their own means of +transportation, and it is the only transportation system that is owned, +operated and controlled by the people themselves.</p> + +<p>It is at the same time the most neglected system of transportation +in the United States, and the most expensive over which to transport +our produce, owing largely to this neglect. Many a pound of freight +originating upon a farm, or destined to a farm, moves over a common +country road at a cost three times as high as it would be if the road +were first class. Often the haul between the farm and the railroad costs +more than the remainder of the journey, and the railroad or any other +means of rail transportation cannot be expected to reach every man’s +farm, and it becomes necessary to provide means for transporting the +commodities to the railroad. The wagon road then becomes a system +of transportation, just as a line of boats or a railroad is a system of +transportation. Water and rail are the means for long distance transportation; +highways for local exchange. The highway serves the purpose +for local transportation, and is a connecting link for local traffic +with the railroads. The condition of this connecting link or highway +may make transportation reasonable or costly. Too frequently, as I +said before, the haul over the highway is the most expensive part of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>farm transportation. It requires a tractive force of 125 pounds per ton +upon an ordinary country earth road, and only sixty pounds upon a +rock road. The cost of transportation by water and rail seldom exceeds +one cent per ton mile. That upon a good road is from seven to ten cents +per ton mile. Upon our ordinary country highway, half kept roads, it is +from twenty cents up to anything, depending upon the condition of the +road. The railroad will haul a bushel of your grain thirty miles as +cheaply as the farmer can bring it one mile. If the farmer is situated +a few miles out of town on poor roads, the railroads will haul the produce +and the commodities to cities like Kansas City rather, and the +return merchandise from that city as cheaply as the farmer can haul it +to and from the railroad and to the farm. Now this high cost of transportation +can be decreased by increasing the size of the load. This can +be done by improving the road surface. The high cost of transportation +is not altogether due to the railroad. Good wagon roads are just +as important a factor in the reduction of this high cost of transportation +as are low rates by water or rail.</p> + +<p>By social conditions, in my opening remarks, I meant the pleasures +of community life, the exchange of visits and social courtesies, neighborhood +gatherings, social association, fellowship, and the home, the school +and the church. The roads should be built for some of the pleasures +and comforts of life as well as for their pecuniary interest. It has been +said that the pecuniary benefits of good roads sink into insignificance +when compared with their social, moral and educational advantages. +Man after all is only a social being, and is influenced by his surroundings. +The maintenance of a seat of learning, or of a good church in +and by a neighborhood has its influence upon the people of that community. +The maintenance of anything tending towards better living has +a good influence. The maintenance of a good road or improved road +has a good influence by permitting easier intercourse between the people +of country communities, between rural and urban population, and unifies +social and commercial interests. The rural mail delivery is one of the +greatest means of education today. Good roads facilitate rural mail +delivery, and therefore tend to improve educational conditions. The +improvement of our roads would also facilitate the central high school +idea for country districts, for while our roads are not an impassable +barrier in all of the districts, in some they are, and in many they are +obstacles. If our country churches are to be supplied with good pastors +and our country schools with able teachers, better libraries and other +facilities, it must be by the support of greater wealth therefor, by the +consolidation of the districts being possible only where good roads exist, +where people can be easily and safely transported. The schools and the +churches in many sections of our best land have a decayed, run-down, +neglected appearance. Churches which are practically abandoned certain +seasons of the year because of the condition of the roads, country schools +not accessible in seasons of bad roads, little children plodding through +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span>mud and water and compelled to sit all day in the school room with wet +feet and damp clothing—this may not apparently affect the children +today, but for all the parents know it may be instrumental in undermining +otherwise strong constitutions and laying up many aches and pains +for future life. As someone has appropriately asked, “Why should a +Christian people have heathen roads and a civilized people barbarous +ones?” One thought which possibly you have heard brought out time +and time again at these congresses for several years is that the trend +of population has been from the farms to the cities and the towns. A +large part of the best blood and sinew of the country has been trying +to get away from the farm. If this continues, it is going to sap the farm +industry of its best blood and its best energy. There is something wrong +today with our country conditions, when so many of our best farmers +leave the farms and seek homes elsewhere in order to give their families +better social and educational advantages and when so many of the +brightest youths from the country become discouraged with country life +and endeavor to escape from the farm. A fair percentage of the men +and women, boys and girls must be kept on the farm. This can be done +by making farm life worth living. Good roads will help to do it. Will +the best, most progressive farm ever be developed without these young +men and women, boys and girls to grow into intelligent farmers? Will +the increased yield per acre by means of better farming become fully +effectual without bettering the means for marketing that yield? Can +you incite better farming and maintain a higher order of intelligence +and social conditions in country life without easy means of communication? +Can country life be supplied with the necessary association and +good fellowship, without good roads?</p> + +<p>In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me state that I do not contend +that good roads is the whole solution for happiness and prosperity of +country life, but I do contend that a very necessary and important part +of it is the relation which our public roads bear to our social and moral +and our educational life. The home and the school are the nucleus +around which our social life exists, and this is especially true of country +life.</p> + +<p>Neglect your public road conditions and you will not only neglect +your transportation facilities, but you will neglect your social and your +educational environments.</p> + +<p>The articles that we eat and wear must come from the farm, and +the growth and the development of agriculture and the life connected +therewith, no matter how we may view this question of the development +of the farm, the betterment of life and the development of the country +community life, its transportation, exchange of commodities, the basis +upon which it rests will be found a question of good roads. No proposition +for the betterment of country conditions, no proposition for the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span>good country life is an assured success until good roads are assured. +It all rests upon the question of transportation, and communication, and +the basis of transportation is the public wagon road. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I beg leave to submit the report of the committee +on credentials.</p> + +<p>The Chair announces the appointment of the following committee +on credentials:</p> + +<ul> + <li>Prof. Geo. E. Condra, of Nebraska.</li> + <li>Dr. H. E. Barnard, of Indiana.</li> + <li>Mr. Ralph H. Faxon, of Kansas.</li> + <li>Mr. E. T. Allen, of Oregon.</li> + <li>Mr. W. E. Barns, of Missouri.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—If you want to get the proceedings of the +Congress, which will be worth their weight in gold, give your name and +a dollar to the secretary.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I move that the report be received and the +committee discharged.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—We will now hear the Hon. J. B. White, of +Kansas City, who will tell us what he knows about lumber in Europe.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Mr. White</span>—In Europe the experience of more than a hundred +years in forest management has resulted in a more or less scientific and +practical policy, although it cannot be said that a well defined, universal +policy has yet obtained. This is largely due to conditions of ownership, +with consequent variance in ideas as applying to various local conditions, +as well as the difference in necessities and financial ability of individual +owners to carry out in successful practice the best approved methods. +Hence there is a growing tendency towards greater governmental control, +whereunder the most economic working system, suited to different +conditions of soil, climate and kind of forestry, would be intelligently +considered and properly installed.</p> + +<p>In the German Empire 47 per cent of the entire forest area is +privately owned, and 32 per cent by the state, 19 per cent by institutions, +communities and associations, and 21 per cent by the crown. Thirty-three +per cent is hardwood and 67 per cent conifers. They are now +cutting about their annual growth, taking an average of hardwood and +conifers.</p> + +<p>Austria-Hungary exports more lumber than any other nation in the +world. It covers 46,500,000 acres, or a little over 30 per cent of the +total land area. In Austria the forests are composed principally of conifers, +spruce, pine and fir, only 15 per cent of the acreage being of hardwood. +Sixty-one per cent is in the hands of private owners, and one-half +of this, or 30 per cent of the entire forest, in the hands of small +owners. The state owns less than 11 per cent of the forests; the balance +belongs to churches and communities. The average yearly growth of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>all the Austrian forests is said to be about forty-two cubic feet per acre, +or an annual growth of about 1,100,000,000 cubic feet. They are now +cutting annually 250,000,000 cubic feet more than this, or 20 per cent +faster than it is growing. This excess of cut, over the growth, will in +large measure regulate itself, as the increasing demand makes the industry +more profitable and encourages the planting of greater forest area.</p> + +<p>In Hungary about 75 per cent of the total forest area is oak, beech, +maple and other hardwood species, and only 25 per cent of conifers. +The annual yield of conifers is about fifty-eight cubic feet per acre, and +that of oak about forty-one cubic feet per acre. Thus the conifers yield +the largest percentage of commercial lumber and are most valuable as +a crop because of more rapid growth, and because of their larger demand +for building purposes. Sixty per cent of the total acreage in Hungary +is private forests, about 18 per cent is state forest, and 22 per cent communal +and church forests. The annual cut in Hungary is estimated to +be less than the annual growth.</p> + +<p>England has not until very recently deemed forestry profitable, preferring +to buy her supply. Of her 3,000,000 acres of woodlands, mostly +devoted to parks and the chase, the state only owns 2 per cent. France +has 24,000,000 acres of forest, or 18 per cent of its land area, of which +only 12 per cent of its wooded area belongs to the state.</p> + +<p>Switzerland has about 25 per cent of her total area under forest. +The Zurich forest, known as the Sihlwald, containing 2,760 acres, is 85 +per cent hardwood, and is worked on a rotation period of 100 to 110 +years. The forest director claims an annual growth for the Zurich forest +of sixty-five cubic feet per acre, while the general average of all the +forests is only fifty cubic feet per acre. This means the entire growth—wood, +poles, limbs and all. Only 40 per cent of the total cut is saw timber +for building purposes. The net income from this forest for the past +twenty-five years has been from $4.00 to $7.00 per acre, not including +interest charges. It was $4.40 in 1890 and $7.69 in 1907. This forest +has its own mills and saves all profits.</p> + +<p>In Switzerland one pays taxes when the crop is harvested. In Germany +and Austria the method of taxation varies in different states, but +laws are always favorable to encourage private forestry. In some cases +one pays no taxes for twenty years. Then one begins to thin out the +poles for use of telegraph and telephone companies, etc., and get a revenue, +and leaving a stand in destructive forestry which, when sixty years +old, will yield in many cases 20,000 feet of lumber, board measure, per +acre. In fact, the average is 4,190 cubic feet per acre of timber and fuel, +which, according to values prevailing in England and Germany, amounts +to about $200.00 per acre.</p> + +<p class="center">CUTTING METHODS IN EUROPE.</p> + +<p>It was pointed out to us that mixed growth or conservative forestry +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span>is expensive. The most economical and profitable plan is the destructive +method. That is, a forest is planted and grown like any other crop, and +whenever interest, carrying charges and total cost meet the market value +at age and time of greatest profit, then trees are cut and they are all +about of a size. The entire acreage is cut clean and the cost of logging +is cheap. Trees are again planted and another crop grown. Under the +old plan of conservation of mixed growth and mixed sizes, or the shelter-wood +system, not as much can be grown per acre, and the cost of logging +out the large trees is vastly more expensive, and damage is done +to other timber in falling them, while in the destructive method all is +taken and a large crop harvested. It is nice to view these stands of +timber in strips, side by side, ranging in years from baby trees to stands +of ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty and up to sixty and eighty years of +age, when they are ready to be harvested.</p> + +<p>In growing forests in Europe, lands that are better adapted for agriculture +are not used. The degree of utility is considered. And in determining +the value of a forest property, one has to figure compound interest, +as the crop may not be harvested and the capital returned for sixty +or eighty years. Because of absolute protection from forest fires, capital +is regarded as safe, and investors in forests are satisfied with a low rate. +As an investment, forests require less labor than other crops, if one practices +the most economical method of what is called destructive forestry. +In times of temporary high prices, one can take advantage of the situation +and harvest more than the annual growth, and can then wait and +let the trees grow when prices are low, and this is the usual practice. +The rate of interest generally charged to the forests, and compounded, +is sometimes determined by rate yielded by government securities, which +is usually about 2½ per cent.</p> + +<p class="center">THE ROTATION METHOD.</p> + +<p>It has been ascertained by careful observations that Scotch pine +(which grows rapidly, like our short leaf yellow pine) yields, on medium +soil in every sixty-year rotation in best quality of location, 5,255 cubic +feet per acre, of which an average of 565 cubic feet have been removed +in thinning as the forest has been growing, figuring the thinning out being +done on an average of about every ten years, leaving at the end of sixty +years an average of 4,690 cubic feet per acre. If allowed to remain, +this has increased in ten years to 5,250 cubic feet per acre, besides 536 +cubic feet that have been profitably taken out in thinning in the last ten +years, leaving at seventy years 5,250 cubic feet. Now in the next ten +years there will profitably be taken an average of 493 cubic feet in thinning +as against the 536 cubic feet taken out the ten years before, leaving +at the end of eighty years standing on each acre an average amount of +5,720 cubic feet per acre.</p> + +<p>These interesting results follow: With average values of lumber +products as in the year 1910, an eighty-year rotation period with Scotch +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span>pine would pay 2½ per cent compound interest on soil value of $97.00 +per acre. With a ninety-year rotation period it would pay this interest +rate on land worth only $94.00 per acre. On a seventy-year rotation +period it would pay such interest rate on land worth $94.60 per acre, +and on sixty-year rotation it would pay such rate of interest on land +worth $85.00 per acre. This shows that the maximum profits at this +low rate of interest come from cutting the forests at eighty years’ growth. +The greater the variation from this eighty-year period the less favorable +the financial results. The maximum age for hardwood trees for best +profit is said to be rotation periods of about 100 years with a low rate +of interest suited to the safety of the investment. These statistics were +prepared by Sir William Schlich, professor of forestry at the University +of Oxford, and published by him this year, and are undoubtedly reliable.</p> + +<p>But it is safer to figure at a compound interest rate of 4 per cent. +A high rate of interest demands a low value of soil, and <i>vice versa</i>. And +as Sir William points out, the value is, however, not in inverse proportion +to the rate of interest, as the value of the soil rises more rapidly +than the interest falls. Under a low rate of interest, the expectation +value of soil culminates later than under a high rate of interest. So +that under a 2½ per cent interest rate, the timber could stand about +eighty years; under a 3 per cent rate, about seventy years, and under a +4 per cent rate it should be cut every sixty years. Or, to further illustrate, +if a party is satisfied with 2½ per cent compound interest on his +investment in European forestry, he could pay $97.00 per acre for his +land, and must cut it at eighty years of age.</p> + +<p>If he desires 3 per cent interest he must not pay over $55.50 per +acre, and must cut his timber when seventy years of age. And if he +demands 4 per cent interest rate he cannot pay quite $15.00 per acre +for his soil, and must cut his trees when sixty years old.</p> + +<p class="center">PERIODS OF PINE TREE GROWTH.</p> + +<p>Now this is the best than can be done in Europe (which, according +to statistics, is 37 per cent above the average yield), with the best results +as to soil and favorable location, with low-priced labor, with most favorable +consideration by the government as to taxation, and with the most +approved economical methods, where the limbs and twigs are sold for +fuel, and forest products are fully 50 per cent higher than they are in +the United States. So it is fairly well established that from sixty to +eighty years is the most profitable rotation period for growing Scotch +pine forests in Europe. The higher the rate of interest demanded, the +shorter the rotation.</p> + +<p>With advancing age the value of the stumpage increases so that +the value of the soil for forestry becomes nearly positive. But in time +a maximum is reached, and it falls again. This maximum, with 2½ +per cent money, is eighty years growth, and with 4 per cent money only +sixty years growth. The value of the soil under a very brief rotation +would be negative, so that the yield might not even cover the cost of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span>harvesting. And under a very long rotation, the value of the soil would +again become negative, because it could not stand the compound interest +and other expenses for an excessively long term of years.</p> + +<p>It follows that the expenses during the early part of the rotation +affects the expectation value disastrously, for compound interest is running +against this expense for a long term of years, lessened only by sale +of the thinnings in about ten-year periods. Of course a sudden and +heavy increase in the value of stumpage, at any given period after trees +are large enough to cut, may create a second maximum, differing from +the normal average because of an unexpectedly great demand, causing +an abnormally and temporarily high price. But the cost one has to pay +for the soil is really the true value, chiefly determined by its value for +ordinary purposes of agriculture; and as trees will thrive on land not +so well suited for farm crops, such lands are nearly always selected for +forestry. But if the soil can be more profitably used for agriculture in +the examples just mentioned, then the increased value will enter into +the account to change the length period of rotation of forest crop. And +where the acreage is not stocked to its full capacity (on account of poor +soil, or for any other reason), the rotation, for which the highest probable +value of the growing stock is obtained, can, as Sir William states, +only be determined by experimental calculations based on these special +cases.</p> + +<p class="center">THE YIELD OF FORESTS.</p> + +<p>But this method of calculation is absolutely logical, and shows under +the most normal conditions what we can expect, and it has been proved +by experience. The abnormal conditions that may occasionally present +themselves are governed by these same financial methods of reasoning, +differing only in degree of application, by reason of change of basic +conditions in each special case. A normal yield is what the forest can +permanently be depended upon to produce. It is a permanent interest +investment of greater or lesser rate, where the principal will never be +returned, while the land is kept in forest crops. These figures are based +upon the best yields in the clear cutting of destructive forest system, +which, as has been stated, is 37 per cent above the average. But the +principle of calculation applies equally as well in the shelter-wood system +of different age trees; but the average volume per tree in each age class +in the latter system has to be taken into consideration. On the whole, +it has been admitted by the best foresters that the system of clear cutting, +then pulling the stumps, fallowing or planting other crops for a +couple of years, and replanting again, gives the best financial results.</p> + +<p>So much for European forestry. Now how will this system apply +to us, under our conditions of taxation, high-priced labor, and low-priced +forest products, and considering the fact that there is little or no demand +for the thinnings until large enough for telegraph poles, and no market +for the tops and necessary waste in manufacturing? We are lacking in +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>statistics, because we have not sufficient experience along the lines of +growing new forests, at either private or public expense. But we are +soon to be interested in what it will cost to reforest and grow commercial +timber in the United States. And surely our present supply of old growth +timber from 150 to 300 years old is worth more than the cost of growing +timber sixty to eighty years old. The United States owns in national +forests 192,931,197 acres. The state forest reserves of 3,253,185 acres, +the national parks of 4,562,265 acres, and the Indian forests of approximately +10,000,000 acres, make the total of public forests over 210,000,000 +acres. Chief Forester Graves estimates the area of private forests as +over three times that of the public forests, and containing five times the +timber that is on the public lands.</p> + +<p>The countries whose wood exports exceed their imports are: Austria-Hungary, +Canada, Sweden, Russia, Finland, the United States of +America, Norway, Bosnia-Herzgovina, Roumania, and Japan. The countries +whose wood imports exceed their exports are: The United Kingdom, +Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, +Australian colonies, China, Greece, West Indies, Bulgaria, Servia, +and British possessions in Africa.</p> + +<p class="center">CONDITIONS TO BE CONSIDERED.</p> + +<p>The climate and other conditions in some countries render them not +so well adapted to growing trees as for growing other crops; and they +find it more profitable to exchange their products for the wood products +of other countries that either have a present surplus, or whose climate, +soil and land values enable them to grow trees at lower cost. This is +true with the different states in our own country. Illinois and Iowa, +for instance, will never grow what timber they require. They can more +profitably grow corn, and exchange for lumber products with those states +which have low-priced and mountainous land with plenty of moisture, +so that trees will grow twice as fast as in those prairie states where land +is very expensive and climate not so well adapted. Trees will be grown +here, as in Europe, where they can be grown cheapest, and they will be +harvested at an age which will bring the greatest net profit. The market +price of the product will be finally and surely governed by the cost of +growth and manufacture, insurance, and risk, and the price of money +used in the business.</p> + +<p>If the Government of the United States itself can get money at 2½ +per cent, as it can, while private owners have to pay 5 per cent or 6 per +cent, then it follows that the states and the Government can, for this +very important reason alone, grow commercial trees cheaper than private +individuals, and can remove the maximum rotation period to a more mature +age, giving better lumber from older trees at the same cost at which +private owners would have to furnish poorer lumber, because coming +from younger trees. But the people pay the cost, whatever it may be, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span>whether the Government or private interests grow the trees. The consumer +is interested that they be grown as cheaply as possible. It is likely +true here, as in Europe, that forestry will be a more general success with +private owners, if they are in some important methods placed under the +practical rules of government forestry. It will be found here, as over +there, that private forests will not prove so generally productive, or, as +a rule, so economically administered, as the government or state forests +under the management of expert foresters. And parenthetically, is it +not equally true that many farms and farmers would be better off if +directed by government or state experts?</p> + +<p>In Europe they have no forest losses from fire for the reason that +fires are prevented from starting. The railroad locomotive has been the +cause of most forest fires in the West, and I observe that these Western +roads are now equipping hundreds of their locomotives with spark arresters, +so as to prevent the starting of these fires in the future. United +States Chief Forester Graves very truly says: “Private owners do not +practice forestry for one or more of three reasons: First, the risk of +fire; second, burdensome taxation; third, low price of products.” Forester +E. T. Allen has pointedly said: “Forest protection is the cheapest +form of prosperity insurance a timbered state can buy.” It is not the +present generation so much as it is the future generations that will be +affected disastrously by our neglect. The principles of agriculture, horticulture, +forestry, and the science of conservation of soil and trees, and +of life itself, should be taught in our public schools.</p> + +<p class="center">THE EXAMPLE OF DENMARK.</p> + +<p>In Denmark, a country which fifty years ago was one of the poorest +in Europe, they have erected a statue to Captain Dalgas, who reforested +Denmark and changed a desert heath into a rich farming country. So +now Denmark is said to be, according to its size, one of the most prosperous +nations in the world. It was the patriotism and inspiration of +Captain Dalgas that enthused the citizens. He lectured to the people, +and talked to the children in the schools, and made converts everywhere. +He gave all he had, and begged and pleaded against doubt and opposition +of the most discouraging character, until success crowned his efforts. +He will be loved and his memory cherished by all the people of Denmark +through all future years as one who saved the nation. In many vital +respects, for energy and self-sacrifice, his work reminds us of our Gifford +Pinchot.</p> + +<p>We are, as a nation, too young to understand the dangers before us; +for we are just emerging from a condition of burning log heaps to make +farms, from a condition of too much timber for a small population to +a condition of too little timber for a large population. Yet we have +enough if we will now conserve and reforest. Our ancestors did the +best they could under conditions and the light that they had—what now +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span>seems waste, had then no market and was unavoidable. As a nation we +are proud of our past and we should also be more proud of what we +expect to become. As was said not long ago by one of our greatest statesmen, +“Conservation of our resources does not mean that we shall become +great in the present at the expense of the future, but that we shall show +ourselves truly great by striving to make the Nation’s future as great as +the present.” (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—The committee on nominations is ready to +make its report.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Baker</span>—Pursuant to an announcement made from the stage +at the opening of the afternoon session of the Congress this day, the +members of the nominating committee met in room 775, Baltimore Hotel, +at 3:00 p. m., and unanimously nominated the following officers for +election for the ensuing year:</p> + +<ul> + <li>President, J. B. White.</li> + <li>Secretary, Thomas R. Shipp.</li> + <li>Treasurer, D. Austin Latchaw.</li> + <li>Recording Secretary, James C. Gipe.</li> +</ul> + +<p>The report is signed by the following nominating committee: Mr. +B. N. Baker, Baltimore, Md.; Major E. G. Griggs, Tacoma, Wash.; Mr. +A. B. Farquhar, York, Pa.; Mr. H. C. Wallace, Des Moines, Ia.; Mr. +Henry S. Graves, Washington, D. C.; Mr. G. E. Condra, Lincoln, Nebr.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—You have heard the nominations. Is there a +motion made to accept and approve the report of the committee?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Baker</span>—I move that the report be accepted.</p> + +<p>Motion was duly seconded and, on being put to vote, was carried.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—I want to thank members of the Congress for +their kindness to me. And I am going to make a confession now. I +have been running a bluff on you, for I never in my life presided over +any convention or association of more than thirty persons, and it is only +by the marvelous patience that this Congress has shown and its endurance +that I have been enabled to carry it through. I thank you, and I +want to say that I do not believe the mantle could have fallen on a better +man than Mr. J. B. White. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—I hope the election has been fair, if there has +been an election. Has there?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Yes, sir, there has been an election and you are +president.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Has the committee reported?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—It has, and reported in favor of you, Mr. Shipp, +Mr. Latchaw and Mr. Gipe.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—This is a great honor, and I appreciate it very +much, more than I can tell. I have been in politics before tonight, but +not in this way. I will have to tell a short story. It will take less time +to tell it than it did for the events to transpire. I have got to tell it +straight because I see Governor Stone of Pennsylvania watching me. I +was a candidate one time when I thought it was necessary for someone +to represent some good principles. I published a newspaper. I owned +a farm and a small saw mill, and I was nominated because I was a +granger and because I had the reputation of being a laborer. I got the +nomination of the Democratic party of my state, and the nomination +of the National Greenback and Labor party of my county. Then the +Prohibitionists met. They were not quite sure about me as a Prohibitionist, +but they said that they would support me, and they would not +put any ticket in the field against me. So that I had the endorsement +of the Prohibitionists, the Greenbackers, the Labor party, and the Democratic +party, but I did not have the Republican party because there was +another man running in that party, and I had to have one opponent. +The fight waxed warm. I drove all over the county, to every school +house; I met the people, kissed all the babies in the county, and I was +elected by a very large majority. It was not quite unanimous, but it +was very large. This appears to be unanimous. And the next day +after the election a gentleman came down from the township, I think, +of Limestone, up above Warren on the Allegheny river. He came to +see me, and said “I see you are elected.” “Yes,” I said, “I understand +I am. It is very gratifying as it has been a very hard campaign.” “I +came down to see Davis, the treasurer of this campaign fund,” he said. +“Davis is in Warren,” I told him. “Well, I stopped off at Warren on +the way down to see him and Davis was not to home. I spent $30.00 +in this campaign and Davis said to come right down after election and +get my money. I thought maybe you could pay it. You are elected, +and I come down to see you.” “Let us see, what did you spend that +money for? How did you spend it?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “I told +Davis I could carry Limestone Township. The way I done it was that +I went and bought a ten-gallon keg of whisky, and I got down by the +ferry. The lumberman and tie markers from up in that township had +to go across the ferry. On the other side I put the keg of whisky in +the ferry house. Every man that came along I says, ‘Come on, boys,’ +and they came in to get their ferry tickets. And I says, ‘Here, have a +drink,’ and I gave them a drink, and I gave them your ticket. I says, +‘Here is a ticket for White; go right over on the other side and vote, +and then when you come back come in and get another drink.’ They +went right, every one of them, and voted, and they were so anxious to +come back and get another drink that they never stopped to talk with +anybody. And that is the way we carried Limestone Township solid +for you.”</p> + +<p>I said, “Well, that is very gratifying, but you know, of course, I am +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span>somewhat of a candidate on the Prohibition ticket. I think you had better +see Davis about this.” “Well, yes,” he says, “that is all right, I know; +I knew you was a candidate also on the Democratic ticket, and I thought +you might pay this out of Democratic money.” (Applause) So I think +probably Davis fixed it without my knowledge. I will ask the retiring +president to introduce to this audience Prof. Hopkins.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—Permit me to say that Prof. Hopkins has done a +wonderful work in the State of Illinois, and I have asked him to present +the results of that work, or to tell us about worn-out soils. If your +soils out in Kansas are not worn out, they will be unless you mend your +ways. Now you want to listen to Professor Cyril G. Hopkins of the +University of Illinois. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Hopkins</span>—As agriculture is the basis of all industry, so +the fertility of the soil is the basic support of every form of agriculture. +Without productive land there could be no American agriculture and no +American prosperity. The most important material problem of the +United States is to restore, to increase, and to permanently maintain +the fertility and productive power of our farm lands. In comparison +with this problem others fade almost to insignificance; and we do well +to pause in the rush and hurry of our business life, to measure the agricultural +record of the past and to consider the possibilities of the future.</p> + +<p>I come before this National Congress of patriotic, progressive and +influential men and women, not to present theories or opinions, but facts +and data, which deserve and should command your immediate serious +consideration and your subsequent persistent and effective action.</p> + +<p>Intelligent optimism is right and admirable, but blind bigotry paraded +as optimism is dangerous and condemnable. “Truth, crushed to earth, +shall rise again; the eternal years of God are hers”; and this Congress +has before it the duty and the right to uncover the facts, to face the truth, +and to plan intelligently for the solution of this mighty problem.</p> + +<p>That vast areas of land once cultivated with profit in the original +thirteen states now lie agriculturally abandoned is common knowledge; +and that the farm lands of the great corn belt and wheat belt of the +North Central states are even now undergoing the most rapid soil depletion +ever witnessed is known to all who possess the facts.</p> + +<p class="center">WHAT CROP STATISTICS SHOW.</p> + +<p>The crop statistics of the United States now cover two twenty-year +periods, and half a decade on the next. A comparison of these two +periods shows the average acre yield in the United States to have increased +only one bushel for wheat and one-half bushel for rye; while +corn decreased one and one-half bushels and potatoes decreased seven +bushels per acre. These crops constitute the basis of our human foods, +even our supply of meat being largely dependent upon the corn crop. +Thus, in spite of the vast areas of new land put under cultivation during +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span>the last twenty years, and in spite of the improvements in dredge ditching +and tile drainage, in seed, and in implements and methods of cultivation, +the average acre yield shows little or no increase. In striking +contrast the census returns show an increase in the population of contiguous +continental United States from thirty-eight million to ninety-two +million people during the last forty years; and in spite of the fact that +to feed our rapidly increasing population we have extended our area of +cultivated crops beyond the humid and far into the semi-arid regions, +and in spite of reducing our corn exports from 213 million to thirty-eight +million bushels and our wheat exports from thirty-four to twelve million +bushels during the last decade, nevertheless the most common topic discussed +in recent years is the high cost of plain living in these United +States.</p> + +<p>These are American facts; and, while there need be no sensation, +there is need for sense in their consideration. A few people can live on +blind optimism or hot air, but something more substantial will be required +to feed the progeny of ninety-two millions, and added millions of immigrants. +It is said that the high civilization of the ancient Mediterranean +countries went down into the Dark Ages with laughter—Dark Ages +which covered the face of the earth for a thousand years and which still +exist for most of our own Aryan race in Russia and in India, where +more people are hungry day by day, and year by year, than the total +population of the United States.</p> + +<p>The problem which now confronts America is nothing less than the +maintenance of prosperity for ourselves and of civilization for our children; +for civilization depends upon education, and only a prosperous +nation can afford the general education of its people. Poverty is at once +helpless, and soon ignorant and indolent. An impoverished people cannot +have adequate schools or schooling.</p> + +<p>No greater problem ever confronted any nation than now confronts +the United States, but the solution is plain: In a word, we must increase +production and limit reproduction, especially the reproduction of the unfit. +To solve half of the problem is not sufficient; and, in passing, I must +emphasize the fact that, with the most practical scientific systems of +farming applied to all the farm lands of the United States, there is still +somewhere a limit to the highest possible production of food and clothing +materials in this country; but there is no limit to the reproduction +and increase of population except the starvation limit, already reached +in Russia, India and China; unless the public sentiment of this Nation, +in these times of education and general intelligence, will support the +inauguration and enforcement of legal laws based upon the established +natural laws of heredity.</p> + +<p>Just and adequate legislation should be enacted by the Nation for +the better control of immigration, and by the states for preventing the +reproduction of every form of degeneracy, whether revealed by insanity, +criminality, idiocy, deformity, or beggary. Half of all the state revenue +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span>is already required in many cases for the support of the non-productive +degenerate classes, upon whose reproduction there is still no check in +most states.</p> + +<p class="center">CROP YIELDS CAN BE DOUBLED.</p> + +<p>That we can double the crop yields of the United States is not a +prediction, but a fact. To say that millions of acres of abandoned farm +lands in the older states can be restored and increased in productivity +far above the present average for the $200.00 corn belt lands is merely +to speak the truth. To accomplish these objects requires, first of all, +that agricultural ignorance shall be replaced with agricultural intelligence +in the minds of the people of influence in this nation.</p> + +<p>Why should not every influential man and woman in America have +a definite and quantitative knowledge of the basic principles that to increase +and permanently maintain the productive power of our normal soils, in +practical systems of farming, requires the addition to the soil and permanent +maintenance of adequate supplies of only three important constituents, +limestone, phosphorus, and nitrogenous organic matter?</p> + +<p>The limestone is contained in measureless deposits in almost every +state. All it requires is that it be quarried and pulverized and transported +at a reasonable cost.</p> + +<p>The phosphorus is contained in New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, +the Carolinas, Florida, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Utah, Idaho, +Wyoming and Montana, in the greatest deposits known to the world. +All that is required to utilize these great stores of phosphorus for soil +improvement in good systems of general farming is to mine and finely +pulverize the natural rock and transport it to the farmer’s railroad station +at reasonable cost.</p> + +<p>With abundant supplies of limestone and phosphorus thus provided, +the nitrogenous organic matter can then be produced upon the farm by +the growing of clover and other legume crops which have power to secure +nitrogen from the inexhaustible supply in the air; and by plowing under +this organic matter, either directly or in animal manures, the remaining +essential mineral plant foods, such as potassium, can then be liberated +and made available from the practically inexhaustible supply in the soil.</p> + +<p>The man who is willing to study this subject will find that these +facts are as true as the fact that the earth is round.</p> + +<p>Normal land contains thirty thousand pounds of potassium in the +plowed soil of an acre, and the air above contains seventy million pounds +of nitrogen; and yet the most common commercial fertilizer sold to the +general farmers in the older states contains both nitrogen and potassium, +with a small amount of phosphorus. The average farmer who buys +fertilizer at all merely accepts the teaching that reaches him, and as a +rule this teaching comes through the fertilizer agents, who are now selling +to the farmers of Indiana 900 different brands of fertilizers, and to +the farmers of Georgia more than 2,000 different brands.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span></p> + +<p>The result is that the ton of fertilizer for which the farmer pays +$25.00 contains less than a hundred pounds of phosphorus, whereas he +ought to receive and apply to his land a thousand pounds of phosphorus +for the same money.</p> + +<p>Phosphorus is the one element we shall always need to buy—phosphorus, +the master key to permanent agriculture, permanent industry, +and permanent prosperity in America; phosphorus, in which we are +exporting, practically giving away, as a nation, a value which amounts +to as much every year as the total value of all the timber on all the +Federal lands.</p> + +<p>In 1848, Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert began at Rothamsted, +England, an investigation to ascertain the effect of applying phosphorus +to normal soil where a good crop rotation and a practical system +of farming were followed. The Norfolk rotation, already well known at +that time as one of the best rotation systems, was turnips, barley, clover +and wheat. In these practical field experiments the turnips were fed on +the land and the animal fertilizer thus produced returned to the soil, +which was well supplied with limestone.</p> + +<p class="center">THE USE OF PHOSPHORUS.</p> + +<p>During the next thirty-six years $29.52 worth of phosphorus was +applied to one part of the field; and in comparison with another part of +the field cropped and managed, the same, except that no phosphorus was +applied, the $29.52 worth of phosphorus produced $98.02 increase in the +value of turnips, $37.45 in barley, $48.93 in clover (and other legumes), +and $45.99 increase in the value of the wheat. The total value of the +crops grown on land not receiving phosphorus during the thirty-six years +was $432.43 per acre, while on the phosphated land the crop values +amounted to $662.82, an increase of $230.39 from an investment of $29.52 +in phosphorus. These statements summarize the results of thirty-six +years of careful investigation in practical farming on normal soil; but +not one American in a hundred knows, utilizes, or imparts this information. +Meanwhile the ten-year average yield of wheat in the United States +is fourteen bushels per acre, while Germany’s average is twenty-eight +bushels and England’s thirty-two bushels per acre; meanwhile the United +States continues to export annually, for the paltry sum of five million +dollars, a million tons of our best phosphate rock, carrying away an +amount of phosphorus which, if applied to our own depleted and depleting +soils, would be worth not five million, but a thousand million dollars, +for the production of food for us for the oncoming generations of +Americans.</p> + +<p>As an average of twenty-four years of carefully conducted field +investigations with a four-year rotation of corn, oats, wheat and clover +on normal soil at the Pennsylvania State College, the addition of $5.04 +worth of phosphorus increased the value of the four crops from $32.55 +to $44.72; and a comparison of the two twelve-year periods reveals the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span>fact that the average crop value per acre per annum decreased on unfertilized +land under this rotation from $11.05 to $8.18, a decrease of 26 +per cent in the productive power of the land. Meanwhile the average +farmer, and even the average business man who owns a farm, allows the +land to be depleted and decreased in acre yield because of the erroneous +and widespread opinion that crop rotation will maintain the fertility of +the soil; whereas the truth, as revealed by every long continued and trustworthy +investigation, shows that the rotation of crops will no more maintain +the fertility of the soil than the rotation of the checkbook among +the members of the family would maintain the bank account.</p> + +<p>The rotation of crops should, of course, be practiced, for it helps +to avoid injurious insects and fungous diseases, and stimulates the soil +to produce larger crops for a time, with the result, however, that the +depletion of the essential plant food elements is even more rapid than +if wheat were grown every year on the land.</p> + +<p>In 1897 the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station began a field +investigation on normal soil with a three-year rotation of corn, wheat +and clover—and as an average of the next thirteen years, the application +of eight tons per acre of farm manure increased the value of the three +crops from $26.21 to $42.79, and the further addition of $1.20 worth +of fine-ground raw rock phosphate increased the crop values from $42.79 +to $53.28.</p> + +<p class="center">WRONG FERTILIZERS.</p> + +<p>Meanwhile the farmers and landowners of Ohio continue, in the +main, to use high-priced so-called “complete” fertilizers in the same +systems of land ruin that led to the agricultural abandonment of much +farm land in the older states.</p> + +<p>As an average of nineteen years, the Louisiana Agricultural Experiment +Station applied $14.45 worth of plant food, chiefly in organic +manures and acid phosphate, which produced an average increase of +$62.25 in the value of the crops in a three-year rotation of cotton, corn +and cowpeas, oats and cowpeas, grown on the typical much exhausted +upland soil of the South.</p> + +<p>The average yield of cotton exceeded a bale to the acre for the nineteen +years. Meanwhile the average yield for the Southern states is one-third +of a bale per acre.</p> + +<p>I have given you some of the cream of the world’s work in soil +fertility investigations on normal soils, which need for their improvement +phosphorus and organic manures, and sometimes limestone. Abnormal, +or markedly different soils, require markedly different treatment.</p> + +<p>Thus four plots of normal corn belt prairie soil in McLean County, +Ill., produced, in round numbers, only twenty-two, twenty-six, twenty-two, +and twenty-seven bushels of wheat per acre in 1911, although some +of them had received nitrogen and potassium; while four other similar +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>adjoining or intervening plots, which differed from these only by having +been treated with $2.50 worth of phosphorus, in 200 pounds of +steamed bone meal per acre per annum, during the past ten years, produced +fifty-eight, sixty, fifty-four, and sixty bushels, respectively, of +wheat per acre.</p> + +<p>But on the peaty swamp soil of Kankakee County, with the same +amount of phosphorus applied to several plots, the acre-yields of corn in +1903 were seven, four, five, and four bushels, respectively, on four separate +plots, while on four other plots, which differed from these only by +the addition of potassium, the yields were seventy-two, seventy-one, seventy-three, +and sixty-seven bushels of corn per acre the same season.</p> + +<p>Again, on the sand land in Tazewell County, Ill., four plots, including +some treated with phosphorus and potassium, both singly and combined, +produced eighteen, ten, eight, and eighteen bushels of corn per +acre in 1906, while four other plots whose treatment differed from these +only by the addition of nitrogen, produced the same season sixty-three, +seventy-one, seventy-five, and sixty-six bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>It is truly gratifying to acknowledge that the State of Illinois is now +devoting $100,000 per annum to soil and crop investigations and the dissemination +of the information secured, even though this is less than one +per cent of the revenue of the state, all of which come directly or indirectly +from the soil. It is also gratifying to acknowledge that, according +to the crop statistics reported by the Federal Government and confirmed +by the independent crop statistics of the Illinois State Board of +Agriculture, the last ten-year average yield of corn for the State of Illinois +is six bushels higher than during the twenty-five years before the +agricultural experiment station began to exert an influence upon our +agricultural practice, and also that a similar comparison shows three +bushels increase per acre in the Illinois wheat crop—increases whose aggregate +value for the state now exceeds twenty million dollars a year; +and yet I must confess to you that as an average the farm lands of Illinois +are yielding only half a crop; that by soil enrichment alone the average +crop yields of Illinois could be doubled even with the same seed as +we now plant, with the same amount and methods of cultivation and with +our normal climatic conditions.</p> + +<p>On one of our old experiment fields on the University of Illinois +farm the latest three-year average yield of corn grown every year upon +the same land is twenty-seven bushels, while in a crop rotation of corn, +oats and clover the average corn yield for the same three years has been +forty-nine bushels, and where proper soil enrichment is practiced in the +same rotation the average yield of corn has been eighty-seven bushels +per acre—all grown from the same seed, on the same kind of land, plowed +and cultivated the same, warmed by the same sunshine and watered by +the same rains.</p> + +<p>All these are examples not of theory, but of fact—examples of fact +which should be known and emphasized by all influential men and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>organizations. We talk of conservation, but 90 per cent of all the talk +during the last five years about the conservation of natural resources has +been directed toward 10 per cent of the resources. On the other hand, to +improve and to save the soils of America will require more than talk. +Thought and action are required, and the time for thought and action is +already upon us. Not conservation of soil fertility; but amelioration of +good soils, restoration of worn-out soils, and then permanent preservation +of all soils.</p> + +<p class="center">WHAT REAL RECLAMATION MEANS.</p> + +<p>Our reclamation of land must be more than the continued exploitation +of so-called dry farming and irrigation on virgin soils and the drainage +of virgin swamp lands; we must reclaim, in the truest sense of the +word, the millions of acres of depleted and agriculturally abandoned +lands lying at the door of our greatest markets and already favored with +an abundant supply of unused water in the normal rainfall of our older +states.</p> + +<p>If 145 million dollars of federal funds can be wisely and profitably +expended (and I believe they can) in providing irrigation for three million +acres in the arid regions of the Far West, and if 300 million dollars +can be expended annually to support our army and navy, as we are doing +even in time of peace, then what should we do in comparison for the +restoration or improvement of the 900 million acres of farm lands in this +country? I would affirm and emphasize the fact that 145 million dollars, +if wisely and economically used, would make a soil survey of every farm +in the United States and furnish every farmer with definite and much +needed information concerning the composition or invoice of fertility +of every type of soil on his farm and proof of practical profitable methods +for its improvement, and still leave an endowment whose income would +support a permanent experiment field or demonstration farm in every +county in every state.</p> + +<p>Private enterprise has already put twelve million acres under irrigation +in the United States, and the Federal Government has added one +million and has projects concerning two million more. This is doubtless +all good work and ought to go on, but the fact still remains that as a +nation we are penny-wise and pound-foolish, with millions of acres of +agriculturally abandoned lands in states surrounding the national capital.</p> + +<p>The rapid investigation of the soils of every state should be inaugurated, +and this should be accompanied by the wide dissemination of information +by demonstration farms showing by actual field trial the most +practical methods of soil improvement and preservation. This is local +work and is best done by the state institutions directly responsible to +their home people, while the Federal Government must direct and control +the reclamation work on the federal lands. Because the revenue of the +Federal Government is ten times the total or combined revenue of all the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span>states, the federal appropriations to the state agricultural institutions +should be largely increased for the specific purpose of increasing and extending +the knowledge of practical methods for restoring and improving +the fertility of the soil, and these increased appropriations might well be +made in direct proportion to the acreage of farm lands in the respective +states.</p> + +<p>All public schools should offer practical scientific instruction in the +principles of soil fertility, and every man and woman of mental power +should acquire information and exert influence toward saving the soil, +which is second in importance only to saving the soul. But the fact is +that not one American in a hundred knows what the soils contain or +what the crops require. They know of the rivers of Asia and of all +the kings of England, and perhaps of the wars of Caesar and the orations +of Cicero; but they do not know what is required to produce a +grain of wheat or a kernel of corn. And yet there is as much of culture +and more of use and value and of satisfaction in a study of clover roots +and plant-food compounds than in Greek roots and Latin compounds; +and I insist that the study of soil fertility is so simple and easy and so +interesting that any man or woman of ordinary education can become +master of the essential principles by studying the subject an hour a day +for a single month.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Mr. Wallace will introduce Mr. F. D. Coburn, +secretary of the Kansas Board of Agriculture, who will preside this +afternoon.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—You people in Kansas have all heard of Coburn +(applause), the man who adorns, advises, and advertises the State of +Kansas and the state of the West. Mr. Coburn will preside with you +this afternoon. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—President Wallace, I thank you for your kindly introduction. +Ladies and gentlemen of the Congress, and delegates: Your +temporary chairman will base his claims to your charitable consideration +this afternoon on the fact that he has no speech to make, and further +will go on the assumption that the program which is provided him and +for you will be carried out. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Ladies and gentlemen: The Missouri delegation +is requested to meet immediately after adjournment. We will now +listen to Dr. W J McGee, the well-known authority on soils, of the U. +S. Department of Agriculture. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2"><span class="smcap">Dr. McGee</span>—The relation of man to the earth on which he lives forms +a worthy theme for those who think and base action on thought. As it is +now, so it has been in every age; every early people had a creation epic: +the noblest of all recounts that out of the dust of the earth God made man +in His own image. The ancients gave chief thought to beginnings seen +vaguely at the best; moderns to current processes which may be seen +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>clearly and verified by repeated observation. In this way natural science +arose; and under the guidance of Darwin naturalists learned that living +organisms are controlled and perpetuated chiefly by the two factors of +heredity and environment. Into this scheme of nature man entered, and +through mental power gradually assumed control over lower nature; for +man differs from other organisms in that he adjusts himself to his surroundings +largely by reconstructing them. While still retaining heredity +as a vital factor like lower living things, man is essentially an environment-shaping +organism, and lives by doing. The factors of his existence +are heredity and exercise, and it is his role in nature to reconstruct +the face of the earth, to modify all other living things for the welfare +of his kind, and finally, by growing knowledge, to progressively improve +his own kind and ennoble humanity.</p> + +<p>The conservation movement marks a step in human advancement; +for it is a conscious and purposeful entering into control over nature, +through the natural resources, for the direct benefit of mankind. In +truth it means a revolution (arising, like all other beneficent revolutions, +in clear thinking) against an old order of things, preparatory to the framing +of principles on which a new order may arise; and in essence it +reaches those fundamental relations between man and earth which have +stirred deep thought and inspired high motives during all the generations +of men. Conservation is no passing caprice, no fantastic whim of a +day; the idea expressed by the term runs back to the mainsprings of +human existence and of righteousness, and it is in no way surprising +that it has already spread from sea to sea and found lodgment in millions +of minds—albeit still as seed rather than in the full bloom and +rich fruitage destined to follow as question grows into conviction and +conviction into action.</p> + +<p class="center">THE PRESTIGE OF THE TREE.</p> + +<p>As a vital factor in our national life, conservation began with forests +used and destroyed several times faster than they grew. Now a tree is +a noble object, a sacred thing; “the groves were God’s first temples”; +the apple is the theme of earliest legend, and the vine and fig tree are +emblems of domestic peace; the oak is the symbol of strength and the +pine of perpetuity; the memories and affections of the happily born cluster +about the old homestead trees under which their happiest hours were +spent. And so the material argument for conserving forests was supported +by deep-lying sentiment—and what obstacle can long resist the +united assaults of profit and sentiment? Then as growing knowledge +showed that the woods conserve the waters the force favorable to forests +was further increased. At the critical time the prophet of the forest +arose in Gifford Pinchot, and the gospel of conserving nature’s good for +the Nation’s strength took form.</p> + +<p>Even before the public conscience was awakened to the woodland +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span>waste the farm lands available for homesteads were nearly gone out of +public possession, and a plan to eke out the supply by irrigating arid +districts was framed by John Wesley Powell, soldier and scientist, whose +grasp of the relations between man and earth was stronger than any +other of his generation. His plan was extended and carried out by +Frederick Haynes Newell, engineer and builder, one of the live leaders +of the conservation movement. Thus Powell planted and Newell watered, +and the wilderness blossomed; and the aspiration for an independent +home-owning citizenry which shaped the Nation in its infancy, +and then fell into neglect, was revived. The Reclamation Service virtually +extended the habitable and productive area of the country; but its best +gift was a re-awakened desire for homes on the land, a re-kindling of +that home sense which is the mate of patriotism and handmaid of conservation.</p> + +<p>Through genius fostered by stress of pioneering, this became a +country of invention; and through plentitude of coal and wood and iron, +manufacturing grew as never before, until the riches of one after another +of the forests and coal fields and ore beds were exhausted. Meantime +the contact of free citizens with nature—the common touch of man and +earth—made this a country of science, and scientific surveys measured +the mineral resources used and remaining for use. More than any other, +Joseph Austin Holmes came up as the apostle of better things in economical +exploitation and in the saving of human life in mine and factory, +and the last of these stirred deeper sympathy and evoked wider +appreciation than could the merely material considerations untouched by +humane sentiment.</p> + +<p class="center">THE ROOSEVELT POLICY.</p> + +<p>Though moved directly by desire for better use of the rivers, it was +on these three pillars—forests, lands, minerals—that the original structure +of conservation was founded by Theodore Roosevelt, humanitarian and +statesman, no less than president. Yet—“lest we forget”—it cannot be +too strongly emphasized that while the argument for conservation was +and is statable in terms of board feet and acres and tons and dollars, +the strength of the movement lies in the human feeling behind the material +units: in love of trees, in love of home, in love of country, in love +of family and fellow men. In truth, the material argument merely justifies +and gives formal warrant for the sentimental outgrowth born of increasing +intelligence coupled with increasing interdependence between man +and earth—for even like Anteus of old, modern men gain new life by contact +with earth.</p> + +<p>Largely after the conservation movement was under way came the +realization that the water of the country is the primary resource, since +on it depends that productivity without which the lands would be uninhabitable, +the forests non-existent, and the minerals merely so much inert +and worthless matter. Now, the material basis for appreciation of water +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span>has been largely worked out; the quantity has been computed more carefully +than before; the amount required for the maintenance of life has +been reckoned, and it has been shown that the capacity of the country +for population is only half what it would be if the land were more freely +watered. It has been emphasized that there is no assimilation, or germination, +or tissue growth, or reproduction in the absence of water—indeed +it has been shown that these vital processes are apparently but +manifestations of properties inhering in water; but, except here and +there in arid regions and now and then in its esthetic aspects, water has +not yet fully found that place in sentiment which it deserves as the final +measure of life on the land, the direct medium between man and earth.</p> + +<p>As the movement proceeded it was realized, even before the National +Conservation Commission reported, that all the natural resources (as +commonly defined) are balanced against that human life in which alone +they find use and value; for without men to enjoy them the earth and +the fullness thereof were as dead cosmic matter. So human efficiency +was recognized as a sort of equation expressing the relations between +man and earth, measured by the powers of accomplishment, the prospects +of perpetuity, and the general welfare of mankind; and the survey +was extended, first by Irving Fisher to the public health, considered +with special reference to industrial capacity and viability, and later +(through another agency headed by Liberty Hyde Bailey) to that rural +living which may and should contribute so largely to national strength +and spirit. Thereby the material field and much of the moral purport of +conservation were rounded out, and the lesson of science that man is +master over lower nature became practical and entered into the daily +thought of millions.</p> + +<p class="center">THE SCOPE OF CONSERVATION.</p> + +<p>Such, in broad outline, has been the course of conservation to date, +that earlier course predetermining the present and future trend of the +movement. Yet forecast or even current view would be futile without the +fullest understanding that, despite the impressive material facts with +which conservationists point argument and convince contemporaries, the +conservation movement is primarily and fundamentally moral, and is +material only in secondary and empirical aspects; the material resources +form property, but the moral forces make men who create property at +will. It is the quality of human knowledge to advance, not uniformly but +per saltum. In the individual a great idea (perhaps the offspring of subconscious +cerebration) springs full-armed—like the daughter of Jove—under +momentary inspiration, and is gradually adjusted to the general +fabric of thought. In the people, a great idea (conceived in some individual) +sweeps from one to another swiftly, according to its fitness as +a new faith, or doctrine, or cult, or means of life, until enough are inspired +to reconstruct the old ideas and customs.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p> + +<p>Somehow, men need these inspirations; they are essential to advancement, +are indeed the very means of mental growth; and the whole +course of human progress is marked by great inspirations. In the unwritten +past of our ancestry (though in the observed life of other races) +the recognition of paternity came as a luminous idea, and the mother-right +of savagery was shifted to the paternal kinship of barbarism, while +the deific powers were transformed from fearsome to gracious. Within +the time of written record, consanguineal tribes gathered into civic +groups, yet civilization became effective only under monotheistic faith and +the great inspiration going out from Palestine with the injunction, “Do +unto others as ye would that others should do unto you.” Later, Luther +and Loyola fired mankind religiously, and Cromwell politically, through +inspirations influencing all Christendom. And then came, through resistance +to attempted tyranny over a strong people and unparalleled +weighing of human rights, the quickened conviction that all men are +equally entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness which inspired +enlightenment and gave a new form of government already spread +afar over the lands of the earth. With each inspiration, the moral impulse +quickly rose above material structures and yielded better institutions +on the higher plane.</p> + +<p>Now the conservation idea has spread and is still spreading as an +inspiration for which the national mind was ripe; it crystallizes intuitive +feeling as to eternal fitness—the feeling that the riches of the land belong +not to the few but in due share to all, both living and yet unborn. So +in its essence, conservation is a cult based on deep-lying moral sense; +and, just as in the earlier stages of human progress, all material structures +must be adjusted, albeit gradually, to the moral foundation. Happily, +the new cult is peculiarly adapted to our country, not only by our +plentitude of resources and our constructive genius but by historical +association. Ever the highest human aspirations have been for liberty, +equality, fraternity. Our Revolution was fought for liberty, and our +Constitution was framed for equality; and the end of conservation is +fraternity—a stricter honesty, richer patriotism, broader charity, and +warmer philanthropy ripening in the brotherhood of man.</p> + +<p class="center">MAN AND THE FOREST.</p> + +<p>Since 1776 and 1787, knowledge of the relations between man and +earth has multiplied. Then forests were but haunts for game and obstacles +to settlement—the waters unreckoned, coal unknown, and iron little +used. Then but two elements of national strength were conceived: (1) +land as both means and symbol of homes, and (2) the home-making +people; and on this balance between lower nature and the higher nature +residing in mankind the Nation was founded. In 1908 the several natural +resources, waters, forests, lands, minerals, were in large use and were +balanced against human efficiency, measured chiefly by public health and +viability; yet in the last three years, under the inspiration of conservation, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span>the spirit of citizenship has spread more than in the preceding century, +until today it is widely recognized that the earth and all its riches +are for all mankind, and the natural resources as a whole may now be +balanced against human welfare in the individual, the family, the community, +and the state, including commonwealth and Nation.</p> + +<p>In this broad view, conservation deals not merely with the sources +of welfare found in lower nature, but in still larger degree with the +higher powers involved in the relations among men—in human rights +and institutions and laws, social, industrial, civil and political. For it is +not enough for the free citizens of this new era to conserve the mere +materials for national power and perpetuity; the Nation itself, with all +that strength of national character which has given us the lead among +the nations, must be conserved for ourselves, our children, and our children’s +children! This is the chief duty of the day.</p> + +<p>While individual and family and community and state are interdependent, +human efficiency begins in the individual. Only in the individual +mind, howsoever warmed by association, are ideas conceived; only +by individual aptitude, howsoever instructed, are tasks accomplished; +only by individual conscience, howsoever quickened, is conduct guided. +Individual standards of righteousness are higher than those of crowds +of communities or states. In war it is the man behind the gun, and in +peace the man with hand on tool or throttle that achieves victory. No +state can be powerful unless its constituent individuals are efficient. Now, +individual efficiency involves suitable food and clothing and dwelling, +with health and sanitary surroundings assuring normal expectation of +life. And in even higher degree it involves those inspirations of humanity; +especially love of kind and love of country, in which incentive buds +and ambition blossoms. These things are among the rights of the individual +on which the strength of the state must ever rest—the rights to +life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, of late expressed in the single +term, “Opportunity.”</p> + +<p class="center">THE RIGHT AND NEED OF WORK.</p> + +<p>The clearest right and most needful opportunity is for work, that +exercise wherein men rise above lower nature, especially productive labor +in which visible results incite the mind and invigorate the hand. Despite +current clap-trap, there is no “inalienable right not to work”; none have +the right to idleness, and the country owes no man a living unearned, for +it is no less true now than of old that “they who work not, neither shall +they eat”; and neither community nor state can conserve its strength +without opening wide the door of opportunity to its constituent individuals.</p> + +<p>Within any generation, efficiency is attained by individual work—that +exercise which combines with heredity to shape human progress. +Yet it is only through the run of generations that heredity acts and that +individuals, like communities and states, are perpetuated. Indeed, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>essential human unit is neither the individual nor the social assemblage, +but the procreative family. So the ultimate strength of any nation, and +the progress of mankind in controlling lower nature, hinge on maintenance +of the family triad with its vital angles of mother and child.</p> + +<p>Herein moderns may learn something from the ancients and lower +races. When mankind commenced conquest over lower nature, mother-right +prevailed; the mothers were priestesses and law-givers for their +clans, and they and their daughters were esteemed as the bearers of the +line of life. Under the patriarchial condition, the child-bearers were +seen to measure tribal strength, and were set apart and supported, and +often multiplied, through warfare and polygyny, though sometimes degraded +into slaves and chattels. Under the militant motives of early +civilization, when the strength of cities and principalities was measured +by the fighting men, as shown by Fustel de Coulanges in “The Ancient +City,” and Sir Henry Maine in “Ancient Law,” wives and mothers were +debarred from councils and virtually disfranchised. Although “When +Knighthood Was in Flower” and romance in its heyday, the prolific sex +was often both cause and guerdon of strife; and it is only under enlightenment, +with its broad view of general welfare, that the pendulum is +swinging toward that equitable division of rights and duties and responsibilities +between the sexes and ages of mankind inhering in the +family.</p> + +<p>In the light of accumulated experience, it is to the interest of community +and state to vouchsafe mother and child exceptional rights; the +prospective mother has a right to family protection and to freedom of +choice in mating, and the bearing mother to both material sustenance +and the spiritual support of affection during her fruitful period. The +child has a right to be conceived in the inspiration of love (the most +potent force in humanity) and born to a welcome—and then to both +material sustenance and moral sympathy during infancy and early adolescence. +These rights may burden individuals and communities, yet the +burden is essential to the richness of heredity and the fullness of humanity. +Now the rights of the generation arise in the family. Conservation +came up with the new concept of continuity, added to that of present +power. It was first felt that each future generation is entitled equally +with the present one to a due share of the natural resources. Yet already +the moral light has shown that each generation in its turn is no less +entitled to the benefits of happy birth and good breeding, to normally +increasing numerical strength, and to the fittest laws and institutions +within reach of the parents, for each child and each generation naturally +inherit not merely parental traits but their share in the community and +state. Already conservation and eugenics and righteous decrial of race-suicide +are awakening a new sense of generational responsibility; and it +grows clearer every day that our present power and prestige were of +little worth unless assured of perpetuity by due regard for generations +coming up and yet to come.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE GREGARIOUS INSTINCT.</p> + +<p>Under gregarious instinct and desire for strength in union, mankind +is grouped in multifarious communities overlapping and combining in +such wise as measurably to control the action of each individual and +family, and shape the character and career of the state. It is the essence +of the community that each surrenders some share of individuality for +the common good; and the benefits usually vary with the nearness of +the constituents in person and in interest. While endlessly protean, communities +may be classed by purpose as (1) for public benefit, (2) for +class benefit, and (3) for private benefit—of which the first and some +of the second merge in the state. Now, the community may be likened +to a miller’s bolt, in that it grades individuals according to characteristics, +and in the overlapping communities of the country each individual falls +more or less fairly into fit place according to the judgment of contemporaries. +Yet the customary flexibility of the community allows the less +designing and more generous constituents to lose position and permits +the designing and selfish to gain undue power—and partly for this reason +the communities for private and class benefit tend to multiply, while +communities for public benefit tend to become subverted to the ends of +shrewd and self-seeking leaders.</p> + +<p>Despite primary dependence on individuals and families, the power +and continuity of the state are measured largely by the strength and +sagacity of its communities, especially those designed for public benefit. +Yet grave dangers lurk in that multiplication and subversion of communities +tending to subordinate public good to private greed. Two current +tendencies may be signalized as especially ominous: (1) through an insidious +legal fiction certain communities for private benefit (<i>e. g.</i>, corporations +for profit) have come to be viewed as possessing the property rights +of individuals, whereby their constituents (partners, stockholders, <i>et al</i>) +enjoy dual privileges as actual persons and in the pseudo-personalities of +their corporations. So that privileged classes are arising among us, +despite a republican constitution under which all are equal. (2) Through +a development not sanctioned by the constitution, and most solemnly denounced +by that steady balance-wheel of the constitutional convention, +afterward First President, the form of community known as “political +party” grew up, and, though first designed for public benefit, became +subverted through self-seeking leadership into the machine organization, +diverting attention of citizens from the public welfare and promoting +graft and bribery and worse evils, especially in cities—where the party +“machine” is commonly a cover for corruption. These two unrepublican +forces have not unnaturally drawn together, and often combine, interests +in private behalf and against the public welfare; and in them lies the +chief menace to the Republic. Clearly, maintenance of the integrity and +power of the state demands due regulation of these and other community +forces. Largely through the conservation movement, the public conscience +and the spirit of citizenship have been awakened as never before. Citizens +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span>are entering on exercise of their rights as a sacred duty, and through +such community devices as municipal commissions, direct primaries and +the gradual adoption of initiative and referendum and recall, they are +rapidly restoring government of the people, by the people, for the people—the +only form of government assuring perpetuity to a great and progressive +country.</p> + +<p class="center">THE GROWTH OF ORGANIZATION.</p> + +<p>In a republic such as this, the state (including commonwealth and +nation) merely sums the constituent individuals and families and communities, +and—theoretically—organizes the popular will. Now, the hardest +lesson of the long course of human progress is that of individual responsibility +for the general welfare, a responsibility first realized by the +founders of the Republic and fully realized today by few of our citizens. +But those are of the salt of the earth. Fortunately, our forebears saw +the way to develop a responsible citizenry united in popular government, +the chief requisite being the independent family home on land producing +the prime necessaries of life; and such was the real foundation of the +Republic. Later, manufacturing and transportation grew until a majority +of our electors became industrial dependents and only a minority +were primary producers. Still later, partly through the influence of a +great governmental department under the leadership of a great farmer +for fifteen years, agriculture has again become respectable, and the tiller +of the soil is once more the exemplar of that citizenship on which the +power and prestige of the Republic must ever depend. Thus far the +movement “back to the farm” is hardly shown in population figures, +though clearly indicated by farm values. During the decade 1900-1910, +the farm area increased only 4.2 per cent and the acreage of improved +farms only 15.2 per cent, while the acre value of farm lands increased +108.7 per cent and the aggregate value no less than 117.4 per cent. This +increase is connected with the high cost of living, especially in cities, +though the advance in prices has thus far benefited transportation and +trade rather than the primary producers. In 1900 we paid our railways +$1,650,000,000 and in 1910 about $2,750,000,000, 70 per cent of which +was freightage—an advance of 67 per cent. Considered as a tax on +improved land (justifiably, in that the cost of transportation limits production), +this was $4.00 per acre in 1900 and $5.76 in 1910, an increase of +44 per cent, or as a per capita tax it was $21.74 in 1900 and $30.00 in +1910, an increase of 38 per cent—all of which ratios of increase are far +higher than that of farm prices for farm products. Howsoever the +factors of our recent growth are arranged, it is clear that primary production, +fallen behind during recent decades, must be brought up—which +can best be done by fertilizing the acres with brains, and so controlling +natural forces and materials as to increase production both per acre and +per worker.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span></p> + +<p class="center">THE FARMER’S RESOURCES.</p> + +<p>It cannot be too strongly emphasized that if there be anything in the +lessons of past human progress or in modern science, this is feasible. +During the generations, natural productivity has been multiplied, and +today the sun-power with which the farmer plays is over 1,700 horsepower +per acre for each crop, so that the farmer has larger command +over natural forces than any other industrian. Nor can it be too strongly +emphasized, in the light of all human experience, that the needful apotheosis +of agriculture will at once revive individual and family life, relieve +the burden of living, and restore that independent citizenship without +which the free government in which we so justly glory may hardly be +conserved for the benefit of coming generations. Herein lies a sacred +duty; it is the duty of the whole people forming the Republic, but especially +of the farmer folk who furnish its strength.</p> + +<p>This vast interior, of which the like is not to be found on earth, is +the bread basket and meat hamper of the country. The career of the +Nation is destined to be shaped largely by the teeming crops of its acres +in foodstuffs and clothing wares, and yet more largely by that richer +crop produced through union of man and earth, the strong manhood +and gracious womanhood and prepotent childhood of the highest type of +humanity the world has seen. Yet this consummation will not come +without foresight and effort. The resources must be developed conservatively; +lower nature must be further subjugated; sun-power must be +better directed and water supply better used. The spirit of free citizenship +must be fostered and the franchise exercised fully; tendencies of +communities against public welfare must be counteracted; transportation +must be cheapened by regulation and by proper use of the finest natural +system of waterways on earth. Statesmen in sympathy with the people—and +in a republic he is not a statesman who lacks that sympathy—must +be developed in lieu of pseudo-statesmen serving special privilege. Laws +must be enacted and executed in behalf of all the people, and special and +class legislation must be checked. Public utilities must be controlled in +the public interest and their conduct kept open to the public; corporations +must be given opportunity second only to individuals, but must not +be permitted to invade individuality, nor must partisan issues be allowed +to delude the unwary. These are among the requisites for the continued +welfare of this interior and for the perpetuity of this Nation. The duty +and the responsibility devolve directly on the people; and it is the aim +of conservation to fan and keep aflame the moral light behind the material +movement.</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Ladies and gentlemen, we are now ready to +adjourn the morning session. We want you to be back here with all +of your friends and everybody that you can get to come, at two o’clock +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span>sharp. The afternoon session is going to be a very interesting one. +Everybody should be present. The Secretary of the Interior, Hon. +Walter L. Fisher, will speak at 2:30. We stand adjourned.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="EIGHTH_SESSION"><i>EIGHTH SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Ladies and gentlemen, delegates to the Third +National Conservation Congress, we will now come to order. Mr. Coburn +will preside this afternoon, and will now take the Chair. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting will be +opened with prayer by the Rev. Dr. Munro, of Kansas City.</p> + +<h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<p>Our Gracious God and our Father, we thank Thee for the inexhaustible +resources which Thou hast placed at our command. We thank Thee therefore +for the infinite possibilities that are at our disposal. We pray, therefore, that +we may use them wisely, doing those things that will serve and in themselves will +glorify Thee. Not only do we seek Thy glory but we seek the betterment of +mankind and the advancement of humanity and the elevation of our much loved +land. Direct us therefore in all that we shall undertake to say or do this afternoon. +We thank Thee that in order to make the best of what we have and what +we are and what we possess, even our very circumstances, Thou hast sent Thine +own dear Son to give His life for us that we might thus be able to reach the +holiest heights. Bless those who speak to us, and direct us in all our deliberations, +we ask in Christ’s name and for His sake. Amen.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Here Mr. Bryan entered the room and was received with loud +cheers.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—The first number on this program as presented +to the Chair is entitled “Practical Methods of Soil Cultivation,” to be +treated by Professor A. M. Ten Eyck, the very capable head of the +Kansas Experimental station at Hays. I have pleasure in presenting +him. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Prof. Ten Eyck’s address will be found in Supplementary Proceedings.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Prof. <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I have in mind a resolution that I think this Congress, +representing more than 1,200 conservation delegates, would like +to adopt. There is a man in the far Northwest who has done much, +in the way of labor and leadership, for the cause of conservation. Let +us send greetings to the Hon. Gifford Pinchot. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—I second the motion.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—You have heard the motion, which has been +duly seconded. All of you in favor of its adoption please manifest it +by saying aye. The motion is unanimously carried.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Conservation and the National Domain. We +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>are fortunate that this important subject is to be discussed here this afternoon +by the Honorable, the Secretary of the Interior, Mr. Walter L. +Fisher, whom I now have the pleasure of presenting. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Fisher</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, Delegates of +the National Conservation Congress: I am a conservationist who realizes +that many of the problems of conservation have not yet been rightly +solved, but who has no apologies to make. I am here by a very strenuous +effort and the cancellation of a number of important engagements, +in order to express my continued adherence to the general principles upon +which this movement is founded, and to offer my assistance, officially and +unofficially, in carrying those principles into execution. (Applause)</p> + +<p>As I said a little while ago at another meeting, my statisticians who +are traveling with me tell me I have covered something in the neighborhood +of 16,000 miles in an effort to get a little better acquainted with +a portion of the Department of the Interior. I presume that many of +you would rather hear from me today about that country in the Far +North, to which allusion has already been made, and upon which national +attention has been so rightly concentrated. I refer to Alaska. However, +it is my opinion that in that, as in all other matters, wisest conclusions +will be reached when all the facts are known. I have spent a considerable +amount of time in traveling through that portion of Alaska in which +the most acute problems have arisen. I have been peculiarly fortunate +in being able to cover much more territory than I had believed possible. +And I think I have reached some general conclusions which, while they +may be wrong, nevertheless are the conclusions which I expect to present +to the President and to the Nation in proper time and form.</p> + +<p>I would be perfectly willing to present them to this audience whose +interests in the question I recognize, were it not for the fact that I am +waiting for two reports upon the coal situation which I have not yet +been able to receive. One of these reports is from the geological survey +and one from the director of the bureau of mines, who is just now returning +from the largest and probably the most important coal field in +that country. I have gone over these matters somewhat in detail with +the President of the United States, and am gratified to be able to say +to you and to the public that there are no differences of opinion between +him and me upon those questions—that he is ready, as am I, to suggest +a solution which will at least recognize our obligation for constructive +recommendations upon this important matter.</p> + +<p>For I believe that the thing which is most important for conservationists +to understand is that they cannot shirk their full share of the +responsibility for constructive legislation. Criticism is justly levelled +at a policy of inaction, and that criticism should be disarmed at once +by the conscientious and sincere effort of men who are identified with +this movement, to find a way out. (Applause) I believe that conservation +in its last analysis means nothing but wise development, in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span>public interest. (Applause) And I believe that the first public interest +is wise development, but that the emphasis should be put on the character +of the development as much as upon development itself.</p> + +<p class="center">MISUNDERSTOOD AND MISREPRESENTED.</p> + +<p>The difficulty with the conservation movement so far has been that +it has been both misunderstood and misrepresented. There are those +who profess allegiance to the principles for which you stand, and yet +are quick to find objection to every concrete suggestion for carrying +those principles into effect. There are those who find that the present +situation presents many difficulties, but who content themselves with +insisting merely upon sitting on the lid. I think the proper place for +the conservation movement is with neither of those parties, but with +the men who genuinely recognize that when we have worked out those +principles under which development can go forward without danger of +monopoly and for the public good, the conservation movement should +get behind those policies and push them with all the strength that the +public sentiment which has already been manifested to be behind this +movement can exert. (Applause)</p> + +<p>The topic which has been assigned to me, as was first suggested, +is “Conservation and the Public Domain.” It is a large subject, and +as I have had no opportunity whatever to do more than to make a few +casual notes on the train, you will have to pardon the informality and +the inadequacy of the address which I shall present.</p> + +<p>I will probably make some mistakes in what I say; probably in the +wording of some things I shall not be quite as accurate as I would like; +but I reserve that right now, which I reserve at all times, to change my +mind tomorrow morning if I see things differently then. (Applause)</p> + +<p>In the first place, the conservation movement is a thoroughly non-partisan +movement, and it should be distinctly so understood. Perhaps +the best evidence of that that occurs to me upon the moment is that +when the Conservation League of America was formed, at the instigation +of Theodore Roosevelt, then President of the United States, he became +honorary president, and Mr. Bryan and Mr. Taft became honorary vice-presidents. +(Applause) While the position of president fell to me, +John Mitchell and Gustave Schwab, perhaps representing the two extremes +of industrial interest, were vice-presidents of the organization. +In this way I think we presented in the organization of that particular +association a thing which I wish to bring home, so far as I can, to the +American people, namely, that there is no partisan politics of any kind +in this movement, neither industrial politics, nor any other kind of politics, +but that it is the interest of the people, and the whole people, and +of no one but the whole people, that is at stake.</p> + +<p>The national domain naturally divides itself into the great subdivisions +of lands, minerals, forests and water. If you will pardon me +for a moment I will undertake to present, very candidly, some views of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span>my own upon each of these topics. Of course, the first to which I have +referred, that of land, embraces the entire subject, because, broadly +speaking, the land is supposed to include the mineral within it, the water +which flows over it, and the forests which grow on it. Nevertheless, +there are many problems included within the public domain which distinctly +relate to land as land, and contradistinguished from the other main +subdivisions or topics that I have mentioned.</p> + +<p class="center">NOT A NEW POLICY.</p> + +<p>Now, there is a great hue and cry, in certain sections, that in some +way the Nation has departed from its ancient policies, with reference +to land. It is my personal conviction that no change has been made +that has not been necessitated by changed or different conditions. For +instance, when we started out in this country, the forest area as a whole +was not particularly valuable for lumber, but on the contrary it was an +obstacle to agricultural development. The forest had to be cleared before +the land itself could be put under cultivation, and that related particularly +to the most valuable land. It was covered with forests. As we +got into the central West that particular problem began to disappear. We +had less difficulty in removing forests. We found more prairie and +upland ready for the plow, and the result was that the question of forestry, +the question of the removal of the timber became of diminishing +importance. When we got into the extreme West we found a great subdivision +in the character of our federal domain. While we found forested +areas in the mountains, and in the more broken country, we found +that the great territory lying west of the Mississippi river was in the +main free from trees. But we have only recently learned that the land +which never had the tree upon it, which has upon it today nothing but +the sage brush, is after all the most valuable agricultural land which the +Nation has possessed. We have found that the great problem of today +in the West is how to get water upon the desert so that it may blossom +like the garden and may become the most fertile and most productive +portion of our national domain. As a result, the relative importance of +the forest from the agricultural point of view has diminished, and the +problem in the West today, as I have seen it during weeks of travel +through irrigation projects, Indian offices, land offices, is how to get +the water on the land, and the settler to follow the water. And I think +if our friends who are particularly concerned about excessive forest reservations +would devote their attention, first to getting settlers on those +lands, which are worth ten times what their forest area is worth for agricultural +purposes, the development of the West will go forward more +rapidly than in any other way. (Applause) There are, however, many +special problems connected with the land question that it is necessary to +solve, and I shall pass rapidly to some of them.</p> + +<p>Let us take the question of coal. There is a large area of coal reserved +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>in the Western country from present entry. This coal land, under +the statute which now prevails, is rapidly becoming available. There is +considerable disappointment or disapproval of the policy of withdrawal +of coal lands in certain portions of the West. Usually, as I have found +by personal contact with the people of those areas, and by discussion at +public meetings, the disapproval is on the part of the people who wish +to exploit coal by getting it and holding it without present development, +in expectation of reaping the unearned increment from the future growth +of the country. Recently a letter was written to me, and given wide +publicity by a member of Congress, to which I intend shortly to pay +some attention, and I think perhaps at this time it would be just as well +to discuss one or two of the features that are embodied in this correspondence. +Congressman Mondell, of Wyoming, has written a letter in +which he complains that the present policy of classifying public coal lands +has resulted in increasing the price of coal to the consumer from fifty +cents to a dollar a ton; that it has created a monopoly in the hands of the +government, and that the prices are prohibitive.</p> + +<p class="center">SOME RESOURCE FIGURES.</p> + +<p>I think that at this time, perhaps, it would be well to give some +figures upon these various points, and I shall take this opportunity to do +so. There are estimated to be, west of the 100th meridian, 620 billion +tons of anthracite and bituminous coal; 650 billion tons of sub-bituminous, +and 720 billion tons of lignite. The valuation which the Department +of the Interior, through its geological survey, has placed upon these +lands, is based upon the theory that the purchaser, instead of paying a +flat rate per acre, pays by the ton for the coal which he buys at values +graded according to the character of the coal. For instance, the price +of land underlaid by anthracite and high grade bituminous coals is computed +at the maximum of three cents a ton, whereas sub-bituminous coal +of only moderate fuel value is rated at one-half cent per ton. An exception +to the tonnage basis is made in cases of lignite in the lowest grades +of sub-bituminous coals. These are valued at the prices fixed by law +as the minimum prices at which coal land can be valued. No lignites +whatever have been given values of hundreds of dollars an acre, as has +been claimed, nor any value better than the minimum, $20, fixed by the +statute if within fifteen miles of a railroad and $10 if at a greater distance. +The tonnage value for coal sold in the ground, according to the +best information obtainable, should be in general from one-fifth to one-half +of the royalty value of the same coal if paid for as mined. The +classification prices used by the Geological Survey are, in fact, lower—in +some cases very much lower. It is plainly impossible that the result +of the classification policy has been to increase the cost of coal to the +consumer as much as fifty cents on a dollar a ton, as claimed, since the +maximum government price is only three cents a ton.</p> + +<p>The State of Colorado charges a royalty itself of ten cents a ton +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span>for coal mined from the state lands regardless of the quality of the coal. +The State of Wyoming fixes royalties for all grades of coal mined from +state lands at from three cents to six cents per ton, depending upon the +quality produced. Private leases in Wyoming require as high as ten +cents, and for small local mines, much higher rates. Fifteen cents, for +instance, is the royalty in the Mills City and Roundup districts of Montana, +and in the Trinidad and Boulder countries in Colorado it runs from +eight to twenty-seven and one-half cents. The government price on federal +lands is in no case more than three cents a ton, and the great majority +of the Western fields are being classified at from half a cent to +two cents a ton. Now, that system of valuation results in prices of which +only a comparatively small part are $150 or more. Great areas are valued +at the minimum fixed by statute, and other great areas at comparatively +low figures. Values running into the large amounts will be found only +in the anthracite and the other high grade bituminous fields.</p> + +<p>In many of the cases the prices fixed are less than the actual market +price of private land of the same character in the same field. For example, +coal lands in the Rock Springs field of Wyoming are reported to +have been sold from $100 to $430 per acre. The government prices in +this field will run from $20 to $465, the high price being for land with +greater tonnage than that which would be covered by the $430 price paid +by private interests. In the Colorado Springs district of Colorado these +private land sales are reported from $100 to $500, while the classified +price in that district ranges from $20 to $50. Now, it is true that in some +of the cases prices by the acre are greater than the prices fixed for corresponding +acreage elsewhere, even in the Eastern field, but the reason +will be found to be in all those cases that the extent of the coal, the +thickness of the vein and the number of the veins is greater. Land in +certain fields of Pennsylvania is selling at $2,000 an acre, on the other +hand, whereas the highest price fixed by the government on any of its +lands is $600 an acre.</p> + +<p class="center">THE CLASSIFICATION POLICY.</p> + +<p>It has been said that these prices are prohibitive. I have had a +table prepared showing what the results have been in the four fiscal +years that have passed since the adoption of the classification policy as +compared with the preceding four years, and as a result I find that the +sales of public coal land have increased 12½ per cent in acreage and 36 +per cent in value, as compared with the four preceding fiscal years.</p> + +<p>I am giving these figures, and discussing this somewhat dry question +at this time because of the fact that public attention is being attracted +to these questions, and that a certain amount of either misunderstanding +or misrepresentation is going vigorously on. The truth of the matter +is that the government has offered incentive to development along this +line greater than prevails in the private field. Why has it not been more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span>vigorous? May I put the question to you, whether it may not be that +we are making the mistake which Australia and New Zealand have already +recognized and corrected? And that we should put our coal lands +where the conservation movement, where the National Conservation Association +and the other conservation organizations have advocated placing +it, under a rational leasing system? If I am right (applause) the present +objections largely disappear.</p> + +<p>I was very much interested at the reception which was given to the +presentation of some of these facts to the audiences that I addressed in +Seattle and in other places, and to find that the suggestions made to them +met with hearty concurrence so far as I could judge, when they clearly +understood the facts, when they once clearly understood what had been +the history in other fields where coal was put under a leasing system. +For instance, I find the suggestion made that Canada was proceeding +much more wisely and much more profitably and successfully in its coal +development policy than the United States. But when I read the statutory +law of the Yukon territory, and ascertained that every foot of coal +land that is disposed of in that territory now is under a leasing system, +I found that the argument went home. So it is with all of these other +questions. There are great problems to solve, and it should be up to us +to help solve them, although not entirely to us. The gentlemen on the +other side, who are complaining of delay, have their share; but the responsibility, +gentlemen, is upon us all, and we should all frankly recognize +it.</p> + +<p>What is the ordinary history of coal lands in this country? What +has been the history in the East and the central West? That the +coal lands have been originally entered or acquired in one form or +another by private owners, and that the original private owner seldom +developed the mines. He sold or he leased to someone else. If he +sold, the chances are that the purchaser himself leased the land; until +you will find that a great part of the coal lands of the United States +that are now under development, are being operated under leaseholds +of one kind or another. So in the far West. Take the railroad mines. +I had the pleasure of riding with the officials of some of these railroads +in the West, who have control of the coal lands of the companies. And +when I asked them what their policy was for the development of these +lands, without exception thus far—there may be exceptions, although I +haven’t heard of them—without exception this far, they stated they were +developing their coal lands under the leasing system, and regarded it as +the only proper way. If that is so we should at least pause long enough +to consider whether that policy is not the right one for the Nation, and +adopt it if right, and discard it if it is wrong.</p> + +<p>After this coal is leased what do we find? We find that unrestricted +development, that development which is thrown open to the laws of commercial +competition, does not always work wisely. Our coal fields now +generally throughout the country, are largely overexploited, with the result +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span>that during a considerable portion of the time the coal mines are +empty, the miners are idle and depression reigns, and we find what always +happens—demoralization and frequently disorder; for it takes, +gentlemen, steady work to make steady men. And you have got to get +that principle in your coal fields if you are going to be successful with +them. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="center">THE HISTORY OF THE FORESTS.</p> + +<p>Take the history of the forests to which I must hastily turn. When +I talk with the lumber interests of the country—and inquire about the +real facts as to the condition of the lumber trade—I find that large holdings +throughout this country are being held in private hands and undeveloped, +uncut, although they admit that much of it is ripe and ready +for the ax and the saw. Why? Because of conditions in the market. +I find them complaining of the fact that large areas have been thrown +open to people without capital who have thought that there was a way +to quick and easy wealth, who have made their obligations to the banks, +and who have to meet the interest charges, and the minute that the price +of lumber goes down the only way they can meet it is by throwing upon +the market more lumber, with the result of consequent demoralization +of the trade. And all the while the large interests protect themselves by +buying at the lower prices and holding out of development as much of +their areas as they can. Now, that, it seems to me, is fundamentally unwise. +We should wish to dispose of our national resources in such a +way that development will be absolutely assured and that holding them +for future profit will be absolutely prevented (Applause), because in +the last analysis, all of this burden comes back upon the consumer’s +shoulders. We never escape it. If we sell the coal land to the individual, +and he sells to another at an added price, and he to another, and then +finally it is leased to the fourth, who actually operates, we can depend +upon it that the consumer is paying the carrying charge upon each of +the profits that the first three have successively obtained. If we adopt +the policy, as in Australia, that the mine holder cannot hold his lease +unless he develops, that he must pay a fixed rental of a certain amount +in any event, we will create an automatic check which will work largely +to remedy the evil of which both the public and the honest dealer complain. +(Applause)</p> + +<p>Now, I want to turn for a moment to the irrigation question, because +no one can have traveled over this Western territory as I have done and +made personal investigation of the work of the Reclamation Service, and +of the work being carried on by private interests in the same direction, +without being tremendously impressed with the immense public benefit +derived from activities of this sort. And yet that service presents certain +concrete difficulties. For instance, our reclamation law provides that +we must divide our payments into ten annual installments, and that the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>settler does not obtain title to his land until he has paid all of the installments. +It requires continuous residence as well as continuous cultivation.</p> + +<p class="center">CHANGES OF LAW NEEDED.</p> + +<p>Some examination of the question has convinced me, as I now see +the facts, that a modification should be made in both of those directions. +I believe that the law should be so changed that the settler upon the irrigated +lands who has cultivated his land for a certain period of time, who +has lived upon it a sufficient period of time, to be fixed by law, to make +sure that he is a bona fide settler, should be enabled to get title to his +land and be enabled to borrow money upon it and develop it as any other +individual should (Applause), subject at all times to the lien of the government +for the unpaid installments. (Applause) I find that that suggestion +meets one of the principal, if not the principal objection which +has arisen in the West on the part of men who are enthusiastic adherents +of the policy of irrigation through the government agencies and who +still find that the law has not been completely adapted to their particular +conditions. For instance, suppose the law required that a settler should +continuously cultivate his land during the first two years, and that he +should live upon it the last three years of a five-year period, and should +then be enabled on proof of cultivation, continuous and progressive cultivation, +and of residence for the time I have mentioned, that he could +then acquire title subject to the lien of the unpaid five installments, I +believe that it would be to the great advantages of the public and to the +settler, to bring about that reform. What will be the result? In many +instances the farmer, the settler, would transfer the burden of the debt +from the government to the bank. He would go to the bank, make better +terms than it would be possible for him to make with the government +under the law with regard to the unpaid five installments, and the result +would be that the banks would be carrying the burden of the indebtedness, +as they should as a part of their legitimate function in the community; +while the government would have released to it those installments +for use in some other place where the settlers are crying for the +advent of the Reclamation Service. These are some of the great questions +that come up and which in very definite form impress me as being +the most important that we can consider. I believe that we should undertake +a solution of problems of exactly that character. I think when we +do this that the objection which has been raised in many quarters to conservation +as being theoretical will instantly disappear.</p> + +<p class="center">WATER POWER.</p> + +<p>There is only one other topic on which I wish to speak, and that +is the question of water power. I have very little to say about that. +At the last meeting of this Congress in St. Paul, I presented in a somewhat +brief and compact form my views upon that question. I believe +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span>that no solution of the water power question will be worked out in the +United States until state and nation are working together at the problem. +(Applause) Not only is there no necessary or natural conflict between +state interest and federal interest, but those two interests must be coördinated +before we reach a right solution. We find a quite general attempt +on the part of those who have interests that may not be free from +suspicion to arouse a feeling of state pride, of state interest, as against +the federal government. I think that those interests can be properly +worked out and reconciled. I believe that the natural and legitimate +interest of the state, the locality, is in the regulation of the service, and +of the rates at which the power is sold. I believe that the interest of the +federal government is in the development of the streams as units, and +that no other instrumentality can so effectively work out that portion of +the problem. Then why not adjust the two? Why not adopt, as the +cardinal principle in our water power development, that the federal government +shall make the grant subject to the reservation that the grantee +will at all times acquiesce in whatever reasonable regulations of service +and rates may be made by the state or by any delegated agency of the +state. There should be compensation and there should be periodical readjustment +of the compensation paid to the federal government, so that +every ten years, or whatever the period may be, there will be enforced +upon the public authorities, state and national, an inquiry into the condition +of the water power grants, and their development. If with this +we will adopt the fundamental principle that every dollar of the compensation +paid to the federal government, except that necessary for administration, +should go back into the development of the stream, and +the water shed of the stream, from which the revenue was derived, so +far as needed for that purpose, we, in my judgment, will have reconciled +and coördinated those two agencies so that they will work together like +the best team that any of you men drive on any of your farms. (Applause) +And the protection of the public interest, in my opinion, will +to some extent be automatic. For what will happen? If the federal +government at the end of the first ten-year period wishes to readjust +the compensation, it will make an inquiry, and if it finds that that particular +grantee is furnishing proper service at proper rates to the community, +that the state or its delegated agencies have properly exercised +their functions of regulation, there will be neither opportunity nor incentive +to increase the compensation. But if, upon the other hand, the +state has been derelict in its duty, if it has not protected the public interest, +the Nation will be able, by the increase of the compensation, to prevent +undue profits and, indeed, to make it to the financial interest of the +grantee to see that that situation does not happen again. And always the +legitimate interests of the grantee must be adequately protected.</p> + +<p>Now, these are some of the concrete questions which come up in the +Department of the Interior with regard to the federal domain. They +all relate to the general principle for which we stand. They all come +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span>back to that fundamental proposition, that the purpose of conservation +is to secure wise development in the interest of the public as a whole. +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—The powers that be, and over which I have no +control, have seen fit to readjust this program, whereby Mr. Bryan, who +was to have addressed us this evening, will speak this afternoon and +again to this Congress tonight at eight o’clock. He is with us on the +platform this afternoon, and I have asked him to stand up and say a +word to you, in order that you might give him the glad hand. I take +pleasure in introducing the Honorable William Jennings Bryan. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Bryan</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen. I did not come +to this Congress to speak as an expert. I came merely to testify to my +interest in a great and growing subject. When they told me that the +time of my speaking was postponed from this afternoon until this evening, +I consented on condition that they would appoint others to assist +me in entertaining the audience. I was afraid that I might not be able +long to satisfy the audience assembled. So they have arranged with +two others, with whom I shall divide the time and I know that that may +be an inducement to you to come. (Applause)</p> + +<p>I feel that it is necessary for me to fortify my invitation with theirs. +Now, if this were a subject upon which I had been speaking, I might +make it a condition that no one else would be permitted to speak (Applause), +for there are a number of subjects upon which I can speak at +sufficient length to occupy an evening. But this is not one. I mention +it at this time in order to emphasize the fact that as I have insisted that +two others shall help me tonight you will understand why I do not +attempt to divide my short speech into an afternoon and evening speech. +I am afraid that I will have little enough to say if I put it all into one +speech, and yet I confess to you that I do not know now how long I +shall talk tonight.</p> + +<p>I feel the spirit of the meeting taking possession of me (Applause); +and by night I may ask my associates to limit their time. (Applause) +I find that every time I hear a speech on this subject the subject seems +larger. I am gratified that I could hear the speech made this afternoon +by the Secretary of the Interior. Whatever others may say on this subject, +his speech must of necessity be of paramount interest, because most +of us can only advise without any great assurance that the advice will +be accepted, but the Secretary of the Interior acts, and we are all interested +in knowing the lines upon which he will act. I have been interested +in the brief outline that he has given us this afternoon—the conclusions +which will doubtless be set forth at more length in his official report. Tonight +I want to speak on a little broader line. He has covered conservation +as it commenced, conservation as it relates to his department; +conservation of land, of the forest, of the water and of water power. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span>These are the things that are in his domain; but I confess that as I have +studied the subject it reaches out until it touches all parts of our lives, +and that is why I am so uncertain as to how long I will talk tonight. I +know the limit of my speaking, the maximum, but I would not attempt +to fix a minimum. (Applause) I spoke once, twenty years ago, and +more, at a little meeting not far from Lincoln. On the train as I was +going out to this place I met a citizen of Lincoln who said that he did +not think a man could be interesting on any subject for more than one +hour. Well, I was in the habit of talking more than an hour, and it +worried me a little to think that anybody believed that I could not be +interesting as long as I talked. (Applause) I combated the proposition, +but he seemed so fixed in his opinion that I soon gave up the discussion. +When I arose to speak in the afternoon he was present, and his presence +embarrassed me, and at the end of an hour he arose and left the meeting. +(Applause)</p> + +<p>I don’t know how many of you entertain his views, and I may +hesitate to run beyond the hour. I heard of a man who spoke in Yale, +and just before rising to speak he asked the chairman of the meeting +how much time he would be permitted to occupy. He was assured that +he could speak as long as he pleased, but the chairman said that a very +careful examination of the records revealed the fact that no one who +had ever spoken at Yale had said anything after the first twenty minutes. +(Applause) I do not know how many of you have received your +training at Yale. I have a general outline in my mind; I want to sum +up some things; I want to speak of the phases of conservation that are +most prominently presented, and then I desire to show how this subject +is connected with every large thing, with these larger things that underlie +civilization itself, and I am afraid to commence on that speech this afternoon, +for fear I may become so interested that I will give it to you now +and have nothing to say tonight. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Wallace</span>—A letter from Col. Roosevelt, Mr. Chairman, and +Gentlemen of the Congress. We have had a great meeting, but we have +not had everybody here that we wanted to get. We wanted Gifford +Pinchot, but he had to go to Alaska. We wanted Mr. Page, but he was +obliged to go into the hands of a doctor instead of starting here. We +wanted James Garfield, and he was expected to come until the last moment, +and then had to stop. We wanted Roosevelt; I wrote him and +he declined. I wrote him that I would not accept his declination, and +then he wrote me a letter telling why. Then I wrote him for permission +to read that letter here, as that would be the next best thing to himself, +and here is the letter.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Mr. Wallace</span>:</p> + +<p>If only you could be in my office and see the numerous letters I receive requesting +me to speak for matters which I regard as of very great consequence to the +welfare of our people, you would realize, as naturally it is now impossible for you +to realize, that I simply cannot possibly accept the invitation to speak at the Conservation +Congress. I believe with all my heart in conservation; I believe in the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span>movement against child labor; I believe in the movement against the white slave +traffic; I believe in every rational movement to promote the cause of temperance; +I believe in the cause of industrial and agricultural education; I believe in the +movement for playgrounds in every great city; I believe in the movement for the +betterment of rural life conditions; I believe in the movement to secure workmen’s +compensation acts; I believe in the movement for bettering tenement house conditions; +I believe most emphatically in something being done carefully to investigate +the increased cost of living, and to see just how much of the increase paid by the +consumer goes to the producer, and how much is absorbed by the middleman, +properly or improperly; I believe in a very great number of similar movements, all +of them of very real importance. Within the last month, I have had requests to +speak for each one of the movements I have mentioned, and for very many others; +and each body of men who made the requests sincerely felt that their movement +stood on a very different plane from any other, and that while they entirely agreed +with me that I ought not to speak generally, and that especially I ought not to +speak for the other movements, yet they were perfectly sincere in their belief that +for their movement I must and should speak. Now, my dear Mr. Wallace, I cannot +speak for one unless I speak for the other movements. After I came back +from abroad, I felt that I ought to try to show my appreciation of what the American +people had done for me in the only way that was possible—by trying to visit +each section, and if possible each state, and speaking therein for some one of these +causes in which I believe. In different sections and different states, I have spoken +for all of them, and for innumerable others. In particular, I have spoken again +and again for the cause of conservation, and as a matter of fact have spoken for +it far more frequently than for any other of the great social and industrial movements +for righteousness in which I so thoroughly believe. I have found by actual +experience that every speech I make simply means that I am asked to make a hundred +others, and that (and this is notably the case as regards conservation) instead +of the fact that I have spoken with all my heart for any movement and said all +I have to say for it, being accepted as a reason why I should not speak for it again, +it is apparently accepted as a reason why I should keep on speaking, and keep on +repeating these speeches I have already made. This, however, is not only true of +conservation. In Berkeley, last year, across the bay from San Francisco, I delivered +an address on the three hundredth anniversary of the authorized version of +the Scriptures, and not only did this result in my being asked to repeat the address +in New York, Detroit and Memphis and a number of other Eastern cities, but I +was actually and in good faith urged to come back, only one month later, and +repeat the address in San Francisco itself!</p> + +<p>If I had gone on speaking as my good friends wished me to speak, I not only +should have had to abandon all thought of doing anything else, and have become +practically an itinerant giver of free lectures, but what would be much more serious, +I should have lost all weight and power to do good to any cause and this +purely by yielding to the demand of good men who wish me to speak for good +causes. If I stop at all I have to stop entirely—at least for the time being. Now +I hate to have to answer you in this way. If you will come on here to New York +and give me the chance to have the talk with you that I would so like to have, I +will show you a mass of correspondence which I am sure will make you realize +that I cannot answer in any other way than I am now answering. I am very sorry.</p> + +<p class="center">Very sincerely yours,</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Theodore Roosevelt</span>.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—The next number on this program is by Mr. A. +P. Grout, of Illinois, representing the National Soil Fertility League, who +will talk to you on “The Rape of the Soil.” I may say in passing that +Mr. Grout is one of the biggest farmers in Illinois, and this is he. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Grout</span>—Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I am to speak for a few +minutes upon a subject or condition that has been developed in the soil +management of this country. I speak to you as a farmer, one who has +not only had experience as a farmer, but who must plead guilty to the +charge of having been, in the no distant past, no better than the rest, for +a due regard for truth compels me to admit that I have been something +of a soil robber myself. In the course of time my connection and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>familiarity with the work of the Illinois College of Agriculture, the Illinois +Farmers’ Institute, and the constant reading of Wallace’s Farmer +and other good agricultural papers, awakened and brought me to a realization +of some of the facts or truths regarding soil fertility.</p> + +<p>One of my first attempts at reform was with a tenant to whom I +had rented a farm, for cash rent, for fifteen years, with full license to +manage and farm as he pleased. On the occasion of the renewal of the +lease after my awakening, I suggested that I have a part in directing +how the land should be farmed, with a view of making a start toward +a better conservation of the soil. One of the first things I mentioned +was that the straw be put back upon the land and not burned as had +been the practice. I was very emphatically informed by the tenant that +he would not scatter straw on the land for any man, and so far as I +know he kept his word. He is no longer my tenant, for having once +been converted to the reform soil conservation movement I had no idea +of turning back. From my own experience in farming and from a +longer experience in renting lands and in watching the methods of many +farmers and the results they obtained, I have formed some very positive +opinions in regard to the subject of soil treatment.</p> + +<p>The maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil is paramount +to all other industrial problems, and upon our ability to solve this +problem and the extent to which corrections can be made in the present +ruinous and destructive methods of soil management, depend the future +prosperity and welfare of the Nation.</p> + +<p>No country in the world has been so favored in those natural conditions +and resources which are necessary for the maintenance of an +independent and prosperous people. This wonderful heritage has been +bequeathed to us, not to dissipate and destroy, but to use and enjoy and +transmit unimpaired to our successors.</p> + +<p>We are tenants in possession of this vast estate, but the obligation +to maintain to the end of our tenancy in as good condition as when +entered upon has been given little or no consideration, but has been +recklessly disregarded.</p> + +<p>We view with alarm the advent of the time when what remains +of the forests, the coal, the iron and other valuable minerals and utilities +shall become exhausted or come into the possession of purely selfish +interests.</p> + +<p class="center">THE FUTURE AND ITS NEEDS.</p> + +<p>We are solicitous not only regarding our own present wants, but +are beginning to think of the future and of the results that will accrue +to coming generations.</p> + +<p>It is not surprising, therefore, that the conservation of our natural +resources has aroused a deep and widespread interest, but the great and +most important and far-reaching of all our resources, namely, the fertility +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span>of the soil, is the last to receive recognition. While the situation +regarding this most important resource, the very foundation upon which +is based our national prosperity, is most alarming and fraught with great +danger and disastrous results, it is not a new development, but is as old +as the hills. It is the culmination of the customs and practices handed +down to us from the earliest settlement of the country.</p> + +<p>The attempt of a few men to monopolize and profit by the undeveloped +resources of the country is an unimportant and trifling matter compared +with the wanton depredations of thousands and tens of thousands +of soil robbers in every part of the broad domain who are madly striving +to mine and forever remove from the soil those natural deposits +without which our once rich and fertile lands must become a barren +waste.</p> + +<p>We are now reaping the legitimate harvest of blindly and persistently +following the traditional methods handed down from father to son. +Traditions and practices based upon no scientific knowledge, but founded +upon the belief that all of agriculture, all of the necessary knowledge +and wisdom for its successful practice, is vouchsafed only to him who +drives the team and follows the plow.</p> + +<p>The fertility of the soil, the most important and valuable asset of +this or any other country, is being dissipated, squandered, stolen and +carried away to an extent that calls for serious and thoughtful consideration.</p> + +<p>It is not an easy matter to discover or to frame an excuse for the +dissipation of the thing that is now, and ever has been, the foundation +of all our prosperity and upon which we are absolutely dependent for +food and clothing as well as the comforts and luxuries of life. Perhaps +the most charitable view of the situation is to attribute it to ignorance, +to a lack of scientific agricultural knowledge, or to the fact that those +who have classed themselves as farmers have been attempting to do +business with little or no fundamental knowledge of the business in +which they are engaged, and may be denominated only as “near farmers.”</p> + +<p>Surely it never was contemplated in the great plan of the universe +that the provisions for the support and maintenance of millions of inhabitants +should be gradually diminished until starvation and destitution are +the ultimate end.</p> + +<p class="center">THE WASTE OF RAW MATERIAL.</p> + +<p>Science has come to the rescue and demonstrates that the enormous +waste and destruction of raw material, of the elements which go to make +up what we denominate soil fertility and which should continue unimpaired +for the benefit of future generations, is not only unnecessary but +fundamentally and perniciously wrong. Who are the conspirators in +this wholesale robbery, which sooner or later must result in national +calamity? Contrary to every business principle and to every known law +of compensation, and almost without exception, every land owner, whether +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>he be a farmer, a banker, a professional or business man, all have been +imbued with the idea that the soil is an inexhaustible asset from which +they can continue to draw indefinitely and without replenishment.</p> + +<p>The banker is accustomed to look upon the ownership of land as a +safe investment, and if he can rent it and make a fair per cent on his +original investment he is content and takes no thought of any encroachment +that may be made by the tenant farmer upon his principle, upon +that which constitutes the real value of his land.</p> + +<p>The same is true of most business and professional men who own +farms. They do not appreciate or understand that every crop requires +that certain essential elements must be in the soil for its growth and +development, and that the removal of each crop takes away a certain +amount of those elements, and the future productive capacity of their +farms are thereby lessened. As a rule these men do not profess to have +very much knowledge either of the art or science of agriculture, but they +are guided in the management of their farms by the methods and customs +of those who claim to be farmers and make farming their business.</p> + +<p>They are led to do this on the presumption that the farmers know +and understand the business of farming just as thoroughly and completely +as the business man knows his specialty. They have overlooked the fact +of the old prevailing idea that education, preparation, and even very much +ability, is not only unnecessary, but a positive detriment to the business +of farming.</p> + +<p>The renting of land has, by long usage and practice, been construed +as a license to rob and pillage without fear or hindrance.</p> + +<p>The problem at this time is to combat the customs of long standing +and introduce sane and scientific methods of farm management and soil +treatment. The real offenders in this great wholesale scheme of soil +robbery and dissipation are the farmers themselves. The men who are +supposed to possess a thorough knowledge and understanding of the +business of farming and who, above everything else, should most scrupulously +guard, preserve and protect the thing that denominates and is the +unquestioned and absolute measure of their success. When we judge +of their qualifications as farmers by showing they have made in permitting +the farms intrusted to them to deteriorate in productive power, the +true situation reveals itself. There is no use in sugar-coating the situation. +These men are not farmers, but soil robbers. I speak as a farmer +or I would not dare to make such a statement. We have mined and +shipped away the valuable constituents of the soil until its productive +capacity has been, in a comparatively few years, reduced far below that +of many European countries that have been farmed for a thousand years.</p> + +<p class="center">THE BUSINESS OF FARMING.</p> + +<p>What further proof is wanted that there is urgent need of reformation +in farm management? We cannot disguise the fact that many men +have adopted the vocation of farming, and have thereby undertaken the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>conduct of a business which requires not only intelligence of the first +rank, but more fundamental, scientific knowledge, better judgment and +greater ability than any other industrial calling in the world, with few +or none of the necessary qualifications for the business. To be more +explicit, in the great majority of cases, the man has not made good in +his calling.</p> + +<p>The business now demands a higher order of qualifications and +more knowledge than is possessed by the majority of our farmers. I +do not mean by this that the farmers of this country are incapable of +better things or that they have not the ability, when properly directed, +to do intelligent and scientific farming, but quite the contrary.</p> + +<p>The farmers of this country need and must have more education +and scientific knowledge along the line of their special business. They +must learn what the farmers of the older countries learned through force +of circumstances many years ago.</p> + +<p>We have heard from this platform during this Congress that +average yield of crops in some European countries is more than double +the yield in this country, although their lands were originally not so rich +and fertile as ours and they have been cultivated and cropped for a thousand +years.</p> + +<p>There is one fact in connection with this statement that must not +be overlooked. Mark it well. Those countries that are now excelling +us in crop yields and are being referred to as proof of the assertion that +all soils are inexhaustible and contain the necessary plant food for all +time to come, have imported from this country millions and millions of +tons of phosphate and applied to their lands to take the place of the +phosphorus removed by the growing of crops and to supply in sufficient +quantities the food necessary for plant growth, the plant food that has +enabled them to double and even treble our yields.</p> + +<p>This importation and use of plant food has not been confined to the +phosphate imported from this country, but they have procured and used +whatever elements of plant food their experience has taught them was +necessary for maximum plant growth. They have fed and not starved +their growing crops. They have replenished what they have removed +from the soil and made it richer instead of poorer.</p> + +<p>The importation by these countries of millions of tons of those elements +which enrich their soil should cause us “to sit up and take notice” +and then explain why they have been permitted to invade our shores and +carry away such enormous quantities of phosphate when every pound is +needed in this country and is just as valuable to us as to them. The intelligent +use of this element, which has been allowed to get away from us, +would have doubled the yield of our crops and proved the greatest investment +on record. How shall these facts and the requisite knowledge be +brought home to the farmer?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p> + +<p class="center">SOIL ROBBERS.</p> + +<p>The great majority of the men who own and farm their own land +fail to “play even” in the matter of soil fertility and must therefore be +classed as soil robbers.</p> + +<p>The retired farmer who has moved to town and rents his farm, as +a rule, is a soil robber of a still higher degree. The renter who meets +the exactions of the landlord and can make a living for his family has +got to be an expert and accomplished soil robber. If our soil is to be +conserved and not wasted as at present, there must be a universal or +nation-wide campaign of education that will enlighten and bring home +to the people, including the land owner as well as the tenant, the real +facts of the situation.</p> + +<p>The work of our colleges of agriculture, experiment stations, farmers’ +institutes and various agricultural organizations are doing a great +work, but this work as yet is only effective in a small degree when we +take the whole country and all of the farmers into consideration.</p> + +<p>The plan proposed by the National Soil Fertility League and others, +and to which reference was made by President Taft in his address from +this platform, of placing a man with scientific agricultural knowledge in +every agricultural county in the United States, to advise, direct and +carry on experiments in every community with the aid and coöperation +of the farmers themselves, and where they can see and know every step +and every process and then note the results, is a most admirable one and +one that will hasten and finally solve the problems of soil conservation.</p> + +<p>As an illustration of what may be accomplished by actually doing +things in a community where all other educational methods have proven +ineffectual, I desire, briefly, to call attention to my experience in growing +alfalfa in Illinois.</p> + +<p>It was undertaken twenty years ago, and at first without marked +success. Later, when inoculation was found to be necessary and dirt was +brought from Kansas to sow upon Illinois land, the climax of folly in +the eyes of neighboring farmers was reached. The idea of sending to +Kansas for anything to put on Illinois soil was ridiculous in the extreme, +and the sanity of the perpetrator of such an act was called in question.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the study of alfalfa growing and its adaptation to Illinois +conditions went on until this season I have harvested better than +five tons per acre, in three cuttings, from a twenty-five-acre field, in less +than one year from seeding. And the end is not yet, for it is still growing, +and fear has been expressed that I may have to hay all winter.</p> + +<p>I want to serve notice upon Mr. Coburn, chairman of the meeting, +that Kansas must look well to her laurels as an alfalfa state, for Illinois +is going to grow alfalfa and lots of it.</p> + +<p>When I was preparing this ground for alfalfa and was applying +manure, lime, phosphorus and inoculated soil, and when I was plowing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span>and following with a subsoil plow and making a perfect seed-bed, my +neighbors were not interested except to regard it as more folly and foolishness +on my part, but when they saw the result and realized that the +crop taken from one acre of that land was worth at least $100.00, and +that it represented ten per cent interest on $1,000.00 as the value of the +land per acre, they were compelled to take notice, and now they are, figuratively +speaking, falling over themselves, to learn how it was done. +There is no mistake about the effect of the demonstration. The farmers +of that community saw the preparations; they saw the alfalfa growing; +after it was cut; in the winrow; in the shock, and on the way to the barn. +The lesson could not have been brought to them as effectively in any +other way.</p> + +<p>I want to reiterate my approval of the plan proposed, of placing a +qualified instructor in every county devoted to agriculture, to do things +on the farms that the farmers can see and show them how to procure +the results they read and hear about.</p> + +<p>I know that the plan is feasible and that it will bring results, for I +have tried it.</p> + +<p>We have reached the point in the extension of agricultural knowledge +where less talk and more demonstration work is demanded.</p> + +<p>If this Congress does nothing more than to get behind this movement +and assist in making it the success it deserves, it will have accomplished +more for the maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil +than any other agency, and helped to solve the greatest of all industrial +problems.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—The report of the committee on resolutions, Mr. +Fowler, chairman of the committee.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. Fowler read the resolutions (which will be found in full at the +beginning of this volume) to the Congress, framed and unanimously +adopted by the following committee: Arkansas, E. N. Plank, Decatur; +California, L. R. Glavis, San Francisco; Colorado, Dr. Hubert Work, +Pueblo; Connecticut, Prof. J. W. Towney, Hartford; District of Columbia, +W J McGee; Illinois, A. P. Grout, Winchester; Indiana, H. E. +Barnard, Indianapolis; Iowa, J. R. Doran, Beaver; Kansas, Thomas +Potter, Peabody; Louisiana, Oscar Dowling, Shreveport; Massachusetts, +W. P. Wharton, Groton; Michigan, Henry N. Loud, Au Sable; Minnesota, +A. W. Gutridge; Mississippi, H. L. Witfield, Columbus; Missouri, +Dr. W. H. Black, Marshall; Montana, C. Q. O’Neil, Kalispell; +Nebraska, Geo. Coupland, Elgin; New York, Albert B. Sheldon, +Sherman; Ohio, Edmund Secrist, Wooster; Oklahoma, Thos. P. Smith, +Muskogee; Oregon, M. J. Kinney, Portland; Pennsylvania, Dr. Harry S. +Drinker, South Bethlehem; South Dakota, R. Newbanks, Pierre; Texas, +W. H. Gray, Houston; Washington, Everitt Griggs, Tacoma; Wisconsin, +Herbert Quick, Madison.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—You have heard the report of the committee on +resolutions.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Potter</span>—I desire to move its adoption by this Congress of +the able report that we have just heard read by the chairman of the committee +on resolutions.</p> + +<p>The motion was duly seconded.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—It has been regularly moved and seconded that +the report of the committee as read be adopted. Are you ready for the +question?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">John C. Shoffer</span>, of Chicago—As one looks over this hall +and compares the number of suggestions made by the committee on resolutions, +it would seem that there are more resolutions offered than there +are delegates here. I think it is an unfortunate thing, sir, that this platform +or these resolutions should go out as expressing the sentiment of this Congress. +There are too many absentees to vote on this question at this +time. If we are going to put this forward as an expression of this great +Congress, the delegates should be here to vote on it, and not be bound +by the vote of the few who are here this afternoon. It is not fair that +this should go out as an expression of this Congress when there are +only a handful of delegates left to vote on it.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—We have a committee, one from each state. It +is perfectly regular, and there is a pretty big handful here to vote on it.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Are you ready for the question?</p> + +<p class="mt2">(Cries of question, question.)</p> + +<p class="mt2">All in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution as read, signify the +same by saying aye. Contrary no. The motion is carried and the resolutions +as read adopted.</p> + +<p class="mt2">[Resolutions will be found in front part of this volume.]</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">A. W. Stubbs</span>, of Kansas City, Kan.—I realize what the +gentleman has said, that the resolutions are very long, and I am greatly +embarrassed by the enormity of the subject taken in hand by this National +Congress. There has been one disappointment to me, and I have embodied +that in a resolution which I believe will be appreciated by every +delegate present, as well as by the officers who have had to sit and listen +to some of the addresses, well intended, on this floor, but not germane +to the subject at hand, and I have prepared this brief resolution to submit +now, not as a part of the platform, but more as an expression from +the delegates to this Congress.</p> + +<p><i>Resolved</i>, that we recommend to the executive committee of this +Congress that in the preparation of future programs care be exercised +to prevent the time of delegates being taken up by papers and speeches +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span>not germane to the purposes of the Congress, and that provision be made +for brief discussion of papers presented by the delegates from the several +states.</p> + +<p>I move the adoption of this resolution.</p> + +<p>The motion was duly seconded.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—You have heard the motion. It has been moved +and seconded that the resolution as read by the gentleman be adopted. +Are you ready for the question?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—Will you please read the last section of that resolution?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Will the gentleman read the last, about the several +states?</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Stubbs</span>—And that provision be made for brief discussion of +papers presented by the delegates from the several states. Many interesting +papers have been read here, and many delegates have come hundreds +of miles who would have been glad to say just a word perhaps, not +any extended discussion, but express themselves from the body of the +Congress, and expressions from a body like this would be found invaluable +to the entire audience.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I asked the question because I misunderstood. I +thought that he meant representation on the program from the various +states, which would absolutely kill this Congress.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Stubbs</span>—Oh, no.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Condra</span>—I hope that the matter he refers to may be taken up +and by departments, thus giving opportunity for further discussion.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Potter</span>—I don’t want any misunderstanding of the intent +of this resolution. The author of it, as I understand it, does not mean +to embody this in the general resolutions, but only as a suggestion of the +desire of this Congress through our committee to make arrangements for +the future.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Delegate <span class="smcap">Stubbs</span>—That is correct.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Those in favor of the adoption of the resolution +as read say aye. Contrary no. Motion carried.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Chairman <span class="smcap">Coburn</span>—Our program for the afternoon is now concluded +and a motion to adjourn until 8 o’clock this evening is in order.</p> + +<p>Upon motion to adjourn, duly seconded, being put, was unanimously +carried, and Congress adjourned until 8 o’clock p. m.</p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CLOSING_SESSION"><i>CLOSING SESSION.</i></h2> + +</div> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Ladies and Gentlemen of the third National Conservation +Congress will now come to order. I will introduce as the first +speaker Prof. William Hoynes, Professor of Law at Notre Dame University.</p> + +<p class="mt2">Professor <span class="smcap">Hoynes</span>—Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the +limited time at my disposal, aware as I am that Senator Owen and Mr. +Bryan are to follow, I recognize the need of brevity, and though I shall +contend that the conservation movement is but the fulfillment of a natural +impulse or instinctive privilege as old as the human race, yet I shall do +so in as few words as practicable. In short, what I have to say may +be viewed in a threefold aspect, as conservation in respect to soil fertility, +conservation in respect to waste and extravagance in the affairs of +daily life and the utility of education as a means of furthering the efficacy +of conservation and common sense in these matters.</p> + +<p>As viewed by many the principle of conservation is of recent origin. +But this is a mistake. It is as old as mankind. In reality it amounts +simply to the natural protest of reason and experience against waste +and extravagance. It originated simultaneously with the consciousness +of the need of food, raiment and shelter for the protection and preservation +of life.</p> + +<p>As men struggled in the primitive ages to procure food for sustenance, +the pelts of animals to cover their bodies and the shelter of +caves or rudely constructed huts to protect them from the rigors of the +elements and the incursions of prowling beasts and venomous reptiles, +they at the same time realized the indispensableness of these things and +the necessity and wisdom of conserving them.</p> + +<p>As in the case of our own Indians, the struggle they made to obtain +the necessaries of life taught them to be saving of what they procured +in that line and to be vigilant in providing for the future. They took +no more fish from the waters of lake or river than seemed necessary +for actual use, they did not destroy wantonly the wild creatures of the +forest, and the denizens of the air were free from trap and arrow beyond +the range of hunger and necessity. Thus they conserved carefully the +sources of their food supply, and the pathetic story of a Hiawatha had +rarely to be told.</p> + +<p>It was only on the coming of the white man, who did not specially +rely upon such means of livelihood, that the wild creatures of the air, +forest, prairie, plain, lake and river were heedlessly slaughtered, or wantonly +destroyed in sport, or driven to hiding places in swamp or mountain.</p> + +<p>It may thus be seen that when things are deemed essential to the +maintenance of life the lesson of care in using and conservation in protecting +and preserving them is brought home to the comprehension and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>firmly fixed in mind and habit. But when, on the other hand, things appear +to be measurably superfluous or easy of acquisition, the sense of +their value becomes abated and the spur of conservation blunted.</p> + +<p>And so with the land, which to civilized man is the source of life’s +sustenance and the basis of progress and prosperity. Heretofore in +abundance and easily procured at moderate cost or for the mere taking +of it under the homestead law, but little attention was bestowed upon +the preservation of its fertility. When there came manifest and pressing +occasion for keeping it up by the restoration of its exhausted elements +the owners sold it for whatever it would bring and migrated to +the easily procurable new lands of the great West. But now this movement +has met with a decided check, for there is hardly any more arable +free or cheap land to be had. The most desirable government land has +been taken by settlers under the homestead law, and that which has been +reclaimed under the irrigation system is held at comparatively startling +prices. Thus exists a condition which is measurably responsible for the +overflow of nearly a million of our people into the British possessions +on the North, actuated by the lure of virgin soil and cheap lands. And +even this door is now less ajar through the taking by first corners of +the choicest holdings and the failure of our reciprocity negotiations.</p> + +<p>The comparatively impoverished lands sold by those who sought +new homes in the West were usually purchased by persons who knew +little about farming, or took them as an experiment or for speculative +purposes, and placed tenants on them—tenants whose chief aim was, not +to restore the fertility of the soil, but to make it yield all the profit possible +with the least possible outlay of money and labor.</p> + +<p>But a halt has been called in this state of things, and mainly so, +as it seems to us, through the instrumentality of the many agricultural +boards, alliances and societies, not to mention the Grange and Department +of Agriculture, that appear to have united or coöperated in the +organization of this great conservation movement. There is a marked +tendency, as observers must admit, to look backward to the neglected +lands and abandoned farms. These are being sought again by the returning +pioneers of the West or their descendants, and so probably to +a greater extent relatively in the South than in the East. This counter-movement +is unmistakable and has led to a notable and increasing advance +in the prices of these lands during the past decade. The cause +lies not alone in the acquisition by settlers of all the desirable free and +cheap lands of the West, but also in the expected restoration of soil fertility +in the South and East.</p> + +<p>To this end the deliberations of the present Conservation Congress +have in large measure justly and wisely tended. Much has been said, +and well said, touching the study and utilization of scientific means to +restore soil fertility in the case of impoverished lands throughout the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span>country. It is a subject of paramount importance. It points to the possibility +of increasing at least twofold the productiveness of our present +acreage.</p> + +<p>It will not be considered as digressing if I refer in this connection +to the Agricultural Department at Washington and the state agricultural +colleges, boards and societies as having conferred incalculable +benefit through work in this line on the people and the country. Well +would it be, too, if the suggestion of President Taft, made in the course +of his address in this hall last Monday evening, could be realized and +the Agricultural Department represented among the people by an intelligent +and practical farmer in each county of the several states. It +would bring directly to the notice of farming communities the most approved +means of cultivating the soil and lead to wholesome emulation +in restoring its fertility and insuring abundant crops.</p> + +<p>I am strongly optimistic in regard to the natural resources of the +country and would not venture to set bounds to the possibilities of our +soil and climate. We know historically that for thousands of years +untold millions of people have lived on the same land in China, Japan, +Egypt and Europe. They have treated it as a living thing, feeding it +with the elements requisite for its productiveness. So judiciously and +systematically has this been done that in some quarters it yields twice +as much to the acre as the average of our own land. I venture to predict, +however, that the present movement toward soil enrichment will +not fall short of attaining to a like standard of productiveness.</p> + +<p>While the restoration of soil fertility has fittingly been the dominant +theme of these proceedings, I am pleased to observe that they have +taken a much wider range. Thus are vastly broadened the activities +and usefulness of this body, and correspondingly is strengthened its +claim upon the confidence, approval and coöperation of the public.</p> + +<p>So much has been said in relation to the conservation of health, +morality, religion, municipal government, deep waterways and the public +welfare that it would be superfluous, even if time permitted, to touch +again upon these subjects.</p> + +<p>I may be pardoned, however, for referring somewhat specifically +to education in the light of its saving and helpful influence. It inquires +into, searchingly examines and intelligently determines what to do in +the practical phases of conservation. It penetrates proposed plans and +theories and warns against mistakes, waste and extravagance.</p> + +<p>With the diversification and expansion of labor in the industrial +domain its products became marvelously varied in form and utility. +With the machinery which labor invented and introduced one man could +accomplish tenfold as much in a given time as could previously be done +by hand. The things produced by labor were thus enormously multiplied +and cheapened, and this very fact, as in the case of land superabundance, +led to deplorable waste and senseless extravagance.</p> + +<p>Ignorance may appropriately be called the mother of these evils. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span>Education is the antithesis of ignorance and may be depended upon to +curb them. Ignorance is imitative rather than original, and the wastefulness +attendant upon it grows with the expansion of luxury. The +wage or income of unfortunates upon whom it has set its mark usually +passes through their hands as freely as water through a conduit, often +going for the purchase of things unnecessary and tawdry, if not actually +harmful.</p> + +<p>But they are not alone in this regard. It happens that no matter +what may be the income of some men it goes promptly forth again on +its merry round, and they are as poor at the end of the month or year +as they were at its beginning. The cause ordinarily lies in absurd vanity +or inexcusable wastefulness and argues lack of self-control and +common sense.</p> + +<p>Edison is credited with having recently stated as the result of his +observations abroad that a French family could live comfortably on +what an American family throws away. Other travelers have spoken +to like effect, but with remarks applicable to Europe generally. It must +be admitted, however, that the French rank first in this respect or in +the practical application of domestic science and economy. They have +evidently learned to apply the principle of conservation in the management +of kitchen, dining room, household and purchases in the market. +Were we to use like foresight, discrimination and economy the cost of +living might be reduced from one-third to one-half. Would not this +be an easily achievable and reasonably satisfactory solution of the harassing +problem of high prices?</p> + +<p>The knowledge that creditably adorns the mind and makes for +independence should show the wisdom of such economy and not be +humiliated by betrayal into imitation of the reckless extravagance +characterizing the vulgar rich in pomp, dress and prandial excesses. Intelligently +and sagaciously inculcated along these lines, such knowledge +would revolt at the conditions indicated. To this end education of +wider scope and a more practical turn is needed. It should be of a +nature capable of grappling successfully with such problems and conditions.</p> + +<p>Education, genuine and practical, is the most precious of possessions, +surpassing in value to honorable and useful manhood all the +vulgar hoards of selfish and pleasure-seeking wealth. True education +teaches independence and self-respect and scorns temptation to compete +with showy vulgarism in dress, dining and deportment. It is the +key that unlocks the arcana of knowledge and surpasses all the dross +of mine or mountain in bringing man into soulful communion with +God. It makes clearer and more acceptable the duties we owe to country +and to one another. It teaches courage in adversity and fortitude +in affliction. It is a light that penetrates the gloom of doubt and makes +plain the path of honor and usefulness. It illuminates in all directions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">[218]</span>the activities of this great movement and I congratulate you upon having +recognized the fact and so generously acclaimed it in the proceedings +of this Congress. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—I now take pleasure in introducing to the audience +United States Senator Robert L. Owen of Oklahoma. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Senator <span class="smcap">Owen</span>—Ladies and gentlemen, and delegates of the Conservation +Congress, when called on to pay my respects to this great +meeting for the purpose of bringing about a public sentiment which +should sustain the conservation movement, I felt in duty bound to +respond, and for that reason I delayed my departure from this city +to spend a few moments to present my respects, my sympathies, and +my support to this movement. (Applause) I believe in the conservation +of our national resources, and I believe that no government +should go beyond the sentiment of the people, of the Republic, in the +direction of conservation, or of any other important progressive policy. +(Applause) This audience, therefore, and this Congress, have a duty +to perform, and that duty is to sustain public opinion upon these important +matters, and give it a concrete form, that will make its impress +upon the legislative and administrative branches of this government. +I believe in the conservation of our forests; in the conservation +of our land; the reclamation of arid lands; the reclamation of swamp +lands; making accessible the lands that we have, by good roads and +by the improvement of waterways. I believe in the conservation of +our water powers, that they shall not pass into private hands for speculative +purposes, but I believe above and beyond all in every form of +conservation that may be well discussed. I believe in the conservation, +above all other things, of human life and human efficiency. (Applause) +It was for that reason that I took occasion to draft a bill, providing +for a department of health with a secretary in the cabinet at the head +of it. (Applause) And I was actuated to do that by the pitiful history +which we had recorded in the last great war, the war with Spain. I +remember so well that over 900 of our chosen young men, those who +had offered their lives upon the altar of patriotism, those who were +willing to fight the battles of the Republic, instead of being able to +die in the service of their country upon the battle field, facing a hostile +foe, were laid in their graves by a malignant disease, at Chickamauga. +We lost nearly a thousand of our best men at Chickamauga. And why? +Because of the gross, unspeakable ignorance of those who were charged +with the preservation of the lives of those young men. (Applause) +It is a noted fact that the flies came from the cesspools where the +offal and waste of the camp was thrown, came from those cesspools, +with the slime on their feet, with typhoid germs on their feet to poison +the chosen youth of our land by thousands. That is not only a national +tragedy, it is a national humiliation, and it is a disgrace to this Nation. +Therefore I desire, together with thousands of other men, to put an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">[219]</span>end to that sort of thing by a department of health. I remember Herman +Biggs’ map of lower New York where in a single house twenty-three +cases of tuberculosis were recorded, and in the house next to it +eighteen cases. So that those houses where the poor workmen go, +without notice, were in fact nothing but charnal houses where they +went to their death. We ought not, in a civilized nation, to permit that +to continue. And I glory in the man who has been trying to preserve +the health of this Nation. I glory in our magnificent Dr. Wiley. (Applause) +And I feel a sense of personal happiness that the millions of +microbes that move and have their being in impure food and drinks, +did not get Wiley’s goat. (Applause)</p> + +<p>I am reminded in this connection of one of the stories of the champion +of health, Mr. Lutz, of Indiana. It is called the story of the +“Little Mother and the Fat Hog.” There was a little mother in Indiana. +She was only twenty-three years old. She had three children. She +began to notice that she was feeling ill, that the children, in whom she +had had great happiness, were commencing to worry her, and become +a care. She knew that she must be sick, and she went to the doctor. +He looked at her and said, “You are all run down.” He gave a prescription +in Latin. It was a little ginger, and a little alcohol, and a little +water and some other things. She paid a dollar for it at the drug store, +and she took it, but did not get well. She checked her strength out in +a little while, and then one day she felt a sharp pain in her breast, a +coughing spell came on and putting her handkerchief to her mouth, +it became covered with blood. She had a hemorrhage. She sat down +and wrote a letter to the secretary of health of Indiana: “My dear sir:—I +am a little mother of Indiana. I have three children, I would like +to raise to be good citizens of Indiana. I have just had a hemorrhage. +Can you tell me what to do or where to go, so that I may get well? I +do not want to die now.” He wrote her back an official letter right +away in typewriting, and said something like this: “My dear madam, +the state of Indiana does not make any provision for a case like you +have described, but in case you die the state of Indiana will take care +of your three children until some good people can be found who will +take them from the asylum. Yours respectfully, Secretary.” (Applause)</p> + +<p>A fat hog squealed in the back yard of a man, and the hired man +looked at him and he said, “He has got the cholera.” The man said, +“Telegraph to Uncle Jimmy Wilson right away.” And he did. And a +man came with a little black satchel marked D. V. S., with a bunch of +serum in one hand and a syringe in the other, and he shot a load into +the hog and the hog got well. MORAL: Be a hog and worth saving. +(Applause)</p> + +<p>Now, last year as a United States Senator from Oklahoma, I had +the opportunity and I sent out 25,000 bulletins on how to take care +of the hog. And I didn’t have a single bulletin on how to take care of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">[220]</span>babies. I believe that the babies and the youth of this land ought to +be given the preference, if necessary, over the swine family. (Applause) +In New Zealand they have a death rate of 9.5 per thousand. In this +Republic, where we have the fancy that we know more than other +people do, and where it is largely a matter of fancy and not one of +reality, we have a death rate of 16.5 to the thousand. In other words +we lose by death from preventable causes seven persons to the thousand +that we might save. That makes a vast army of 630,000 human +beings who march to their graves every year from preventable causes. +And we have on an average nearly three millions of people who are +sick on an average throughout the United States from preventable +causes. A careful calculation on a money basis, putting each individual +as worth $1,700 apiece, and I do not think that is a high estimate for +an American—it would make a loss of four thousand million to this +Republic every year. And I think that is worth conserving. (Applause) +Therefore in the few moments which I have at my disposal I call the +attention of this great audience to its duty as American citizens, and +I call the attention of this great Conservation Congress to its duty to +this Republic to put on record a declaration in favor of a department +of health. I thank you for your attention. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">President <span class="smcap">White</span>—Ladies and gentlemen, I now take pleasure in +presenting to you an American citizen who in all this broad land requires +no introduction. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">Mr. <span class="smcap">Bryan</span>—Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I am sure that +whatever you may think of my speech you will agree with me that I +was justified in asking you to listen to these other speakers. (Applause) +I believe in the Conservation Congress. The good that it +does is difficult to calculate. How many of the thousands who are +assembled tonight have given to the subject of conservation the thought +or study that it deserves. The arguments that are presented at such +a meeting as this help make up the public opinion that controls our +governments, state and national. A large number of subjects are brought +before a Congress for its attention. The speeches made present the +subject from different points of view, and each one turns upon the +subject the light of his intelligence, and the warmth of his heart. When +we go from such a meeting, we go enlightened, and with our views +enlarged. We go prepared to communicate to others something of the +information that we have received, and to impart to them something +of the zeal that we feel. A number of subjects have been presented +here, and I am sure that this meeting will be worth all that it has cost +those who have brought it about or participated in it.</p> + +<p>Take the thought, for instance, that has been presented by Senator +Owen. I am so glad that I insisted upon his speaking, for his ability +and public spirit are only equaled by his modesty, and if I had not +insisted, I am afraid you would have lost the benefit of the speech that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">[221]</span>he has delivered. (Applause) And yet what one of us will forget the +splendid illustration that he has given us in the story told of the difference +we make between the human being with a priceless soul and the +animal that can be converted into dollars and cents on demand. (Applause) +We need to have this matter brought to our attention, and I +venture the assertion that there is not one present in this audience that +will not go from this meeting tonight with the conviction that our Nation +could afford to subtract a little from its appropriations intended to +prepare us to kill people, and spend the money in the preservation of +human life. (Applause) Is it not strange how much more interest +we can feel in the battleship and in the new gun than we feel in the +preservation of the life and health of those about us? We need a +speech like this to wake our consciences to our own neglect, and to +give us a better idea of proportion when we look at things about us.</p> + +<p>You heard last night a speech upon public health from one who +has done so much to arouse the Nation to the unspeakable iniquity of +the adulteration of food. Who will estimate the benefit of such a speech +as that delivered to an audience with such intelligence as this audience +represents?</p> + +<p class="center">AGRICULTURAL EXPERTS.</p> + +<p>The President presented, as I understand it, a thought that has been +emphasized today. The idea that there should be in every agricultural +county of the Nation a representative of the Government, an expert +on agriculture, to assist the people of that community to a better and +more intelligent production of the crops to which the soil and climate +are adapted. An idea like that needs only to be presented in order to +be accepted and approved. The fact is that what we need is instruction. +In Leeds, England, a year ago, I was speaking at a dinner in the mayor’s +office. I was emphasizing the fact that our difficulties and controversies +are largely due to misunderstandings and that misunderstandings are +largely due to a lack of acquaintance with each other, and there flashed +into my mind that quotation from Holy Writ, the last prayer of our +Savior: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And +I was impressed, as I had never been before, with the fact that ignorance +is a large cause of sin. It is ignorance that we have to combat; when +the people are once enlightened and understand a subject, you can +trust their patriotism, their good intent, and their sense of justice. (Applause) +These meetings help by instructing, and we go from them not +only with larger information, but with a stronger determination to +do our part in the correction of evils that need a remedy. As I sat +tonight and listened to those who spoke before me, a thought came +into my mind, and I venture to impart it to you. It is a proverb of +Solomon’s; I do not know of a better motto for the conservation movement. +It was suggested by the gentleman from Indiana that necessity +compels us to conserve the Nation’s resources when we become aware +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>that they are being impoverished, and I thought of this proverb of +Solomon’s: “The wise man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but +the foolish pass on and are punished.” What is conservation except +looking ahead, the making of provision against coming dangers that +may be prevented? Wisdom manifests itself in foresight. If we had +had more foresight we would not have need of as much energy as is +required today to protect that which is being wasted. I suggest, therefore, +as a proper motto for the conservationists this wise saying of Solomon, +“The wise man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself, but the +foolish pass on and are punished.” (Applause)</p> + +<p>Let me gather up some of the scattered threads of the discussion +to which the delegates have listened. I am not an expert in any part +of this conservation work. I confess that I am one who has been +blind, during a part of my life, to the needs that are now so clearly +recognized. I have had work that has engrossed my attention; I have +been busy, but not with matters of conservation such as have been discussed. +Possibly I represent some in the audience who have not had +their attention turned to these subjects. I am grateful to those who +have brought me into contact with this information, and I shall endeavor +to make up for lost time by larger effort along these lines. (Applause)</p> + +<p>The subject has grown upon me as I have examined it, and have +listened to those who have spoken upon different branches of it. The +first thing that claimed my attention was the preservation of the forest. +I found that we were exhausting our timber supply. I found that it +was a matter merely of calculation, a simple matter of mathematics; +that we could take the number of acres of timber land remaining, +subtract the yearly cut, and calculate how long it would be before it +was practically destroyed, and then, when on the other side, we examined +the amount of land planted in trees and compare that with the yearly +destruction, it was easy to see we were approaching a time when our +timber supply would be exhausted. I became interested at once, as +you must be interested, in legislation that has for its object not only +the protection of that timber which remains, but the replanting of such +ground as can be reforested. I am interested, as you are, in protecting +this country from exhaustion of its timber supply.</p> + +<p class="center">THE NATION’S WATER SUPPLY.</p> + +<p>Then, my attention was next called to another reason why our +timber should not be destroyed, and I am a little ashamed to admit to +you, that it is not very many years ago since I first began to think +of the protection of our water sheds. I wonder how many in this +audience have felt, until tonight, as indifferent as I felt until a few +years ago. I wonder how many tonight realize how serious a question +it is? Two years ago last June I crossed the crest of the Rockies, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>and as I went over the ridge, I saw patches of timber, and then areas +of naked land. I found that wherever there was timber there was +snow; and when I came near to these patches of timber, I found little +streams running down to make the brooks and rivers. But wherever +the timber was gone there was no snow; it was perfectly dry, and then +I realized, as I had not before, how God in His infinite wisdom had +established these great reservoirs that never need repair, while man in +his folly has been destroying them, and then endeavoring to replace them +by building great dams, and forming great lakes that will in time fill +up and have to be abandoned. What supreme folly it is to allow the +water sheds to be denuded and these natural reservoirs destroyed, only +to spend money after a while to replace them with inferior substitutes. +What does it mean to have a Nation’s water supply imperiled? Have +you ever been in a city that was threatened with a water famine? Have +you ever been where they discovered the necessity of a larger water supply? +What would it mean to the people living upon the slopes of the +Rockies if these water sheds were destroyed, and the rain of the winter +ran off, and left us with no reservoirs to supply our surface streams and +the veins from which we draw through wells? When people tell me that +the water shed question can safely be left to the states in which these +water sheds are, I tell them that while I am glad to give every reasonable +presumption to the state, I insist that the people of this Nation have, on +the fundamental doctrine of self-preservation, the right, when necessary, +to protect their water supply in the mountains, and I may add, I have no +fear that this will cause a conflict between state and nation. (Applause)</p> + +<p>My observation is that you very seldom have a conflict between +states and nation unless some private interest is attempting to ignore +the rights of both state and nation. Back of this controversy which +we sometimes hear suggested between the state and the Nation, you +will find the interest of the predatory corporation that is as much an +enemy to the people of the state as it is the enemy of the people of +the Nation; whenever we reach the point where the people recognize +that they are greater than any corporation which they create, the settlement +of state and national questions will become an easy matter, for +patriots can then agree. (Applause)</p> + +<p>After one has acquainted himself with the necessity of preserving +the forests on the water sheds, he naturally comes to the control of +the water that comes tumbling down the mountain side. It is a little +more than two years since my attention was called to this subject; the +facts were given me by one who is in a position to know, and since +that time I have had a fixed opinion that has been freely expressed in +regard to the control of these mountain torrents, the commercialization +of these mountain streams.</p> + +<p class="center">THE LANDLORD SYSTEM.</p> + +<p>One who has not visited the Old World cannot understand the landlord +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span>system there. If you ask me what I regard as the greatest burden +of the people of Europe I reply “Landlordism.” (Applause) In some +of those countries the people are so situated that those who till the +soil transmit from generation to generation the right to pay rent, with +no possibility of ownership; while a few families transmit from child +to child the right to collect rent, with no disposition to till the soil. I +regard that as the greatest burden of Europe, and one of the blessings +that we enjoy in this country is freedom from such landlordism as +they have in the Old World. I know of nothing that nearer approaches +the system of landlordism in Europe than the proposed giving away +of these mountain streams in perpetuity to great syndicates that through +the years and generations to come could exact their toll from a toiling +people. Therefore, when we consider the use of these mountain streams, +the first thing we must decide is that there shall be no perpetual grant +to a water power. Who can tell what that right will be worth a hundred +years from now? Look back twenty-five years. Who could have +estimated then the value of a water power today? Within the last +quarter of a century we have had a development of electricity that makes +it possible to carry, for hundreds of miles, power generated by falling +water. If you visit Canada you will find in the Province of Ontario +great towers carrying to the various cities the power generated at Niagara +Falls. We are now in the very beginning of the use of electricity. No +human being can measure the value of one of these water falls. What +criminal folly, then, for this generation to barter away the sacred rights +of posterity to syndicates and corporations. (Applause) So, it seems +to me, that one of the important questions to be decided in the conservation +of our natural resources is that the principle of monopoly shall +not be permitted in this country under any guise or in any form. (Applause)</p> + +<p>Let us insist that wherever and whenever a franchise is granted it +shall be granted for a term of years, and that that term shall not be so +long, but that we can reasonably estimate today the value of it at the +end of the term. No other principle is tenable in the discussion of this +subject.</p> + +<p>But one cannot visit the mountains; one cannot consider these +streams that we are trying to protect without thinking of the reclamation +of the arid lands. And here I think we have a subject too that is +only beginning to be understood. Go along a road and see on one side +a desert and on the other side a garden, and understand that the only +difference is that one is not watered and the other is, and then irrigation +becomes a subject of thrilling interest. Investigate and find how large a +per cent of the people of the world live upon lands cultivated by irrigation. +Learn how ancient and honorable an industry it is. Visit the +communities, where, by the use of the water under systems of irrigation, +a man can make a living for his family on twenty, thirty or forty acres, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>or even less. See how the people are brought together; how every +advantage of the city is brought to the farm, and then you will understand +why the country has at last yielded to the demand that has come +from the West, that some money should be spent in the reclamation of +these lands.</p> + +<p>We have next the impounding of water, the building of storage +reservoirs. It is in its infancy. It ought to be continued until not one +drop of waste water is allowed to run down and flood the valleys in the +spring. All of this water should be conserved. It ought to be spread +out on the lands which need it, and then we can invite people from the +crowded cities to avail themselves of the light and liberty and larger +life of the country. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="center">SOIL WASTE.</p> + +<p>But one subject leads on to another. You begin to reclaim arid +lands, and then you ask yourself, Why should we attempt to bring land +under cultivation at large expense while we waste the land that we have? +And that brings us to the very interesting subject that is presented at +all of these congresses, the conservation of the fertility of the soil. A +farmer this afternoon spoke of some people as robbers, who robbed the +soil of its fertility; I suppose I am one of the guilty ones, although I +have done most of my robbing of the soil through agents rather than +directly myself. (Applause) And yet, I had my apprenticeship upon +the farm, and when I was farming it never occurred to me that I was +wasting the soil. I was one who could claim pardon under the plea, +“Forgive them for they know not what they do.” (Applause) And +yet, we cannot be guiltless hereafter now that we understand of what +we have been guilty.</p> + +<p>Here is a subject that must interest every man who owns an acre +of ground. What right has one to impoverish the soil? As was suggested +today, we are not owners, we are merely tenants. The life of +the individual is short. He lives, he works, he passes away. What right +has the tenant of today to impoverish the estate upon which generations +to come must live? Is it not worth while to have these experts tell us? +Is it not worth while to have this fact impressed upon our minds and +our consciences? And when we come to the conservation of the soil +on the farms, we then understand the importance of the agricultural +college. I rejoice that the agricultural college has shown such wonderful +growth and development during the last twenty-five years. The +interest which has been manifested in these schools is wonderful, and +what does it mean? Not merely that our farms are to be better tended; +not merely that our crops will be increased in quality and in value; that +is not all. To my mind two important influences will grow out of this +agricultural school in addition to the material advantages. I expect to +see more inventions; I expect to see a quickened interest in improved +machinery; that these men who go out from college to till the soil will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span>add more and more of brain to the muscle when they till the soil; that +the character of the work is to be dignified and elevated just as in the +factories we have found the character of the work constantly lifted up +as larger and larger intelligence is brought into play in our industries. +I expect to see this on the farm. But more than that, I expect to see +the farmer a larger political factor in his government with the rising +intelligence of the farmer boy. (Applause)</p> + +<p>The farmer has suffered; if you ask me why it is that we have +the young men drifting into the city, why we have seen so many farms +abandoned, or regarded as less desirable, I say that one of the reasons +is that our consideration has been given to the things of the city, and +not to the things of the country. Our laws have been made for the factory +and not for the farm. (Applause) The men who represent industry +in the city have been more numerously represented in the halls of +legislation than the men who represent industry upon the farm, and one +of the results of this higher education of our farmer boys will be, in +my opinion, an increasing influence of the agricultural classes in all matters +of legislation. I mention these as some of the subjects that are +brought to our attention as we consider the various phases of this work +of conservation. I am a believer in doing everything that can be done +to make the farm an attractive place. It is the nursery of our great +men and great women. It is the place where we train men in industry, +in self-reliance, and in character. The man who comes nearest to nature +has a tremendous advantage in the years of his youth. He deals with +the works of the Almighty, while the boy in the town deals with the +work of man. Is it strange that from the country and from the country +life come the strength, the purity, the character that help to make our +city strong, without which our cities would not be what they are today? +(Applause)</p> + +<p class="center">TO MAKE FARMS ATTRACTIVE.</p> + +<p>The man who lives upon the farm sees the miracle wrought about +him constantly. The man in the city puts his eyes upon a man-made +machine; the man upon the farm comes daily in contact with those irresistible +forces that lie back of all the products of the farm and the +orchard. It is a splendid training; we cannot allow it to be destroyed. +Tributes for the farm have come from the poets of every land:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> + <div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“Princes and Lords may flourish or may fade,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">A breath can make them, as a breath has made;</div> + <div class="verse indent0">But a bold peasant, a nation’s pride,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">When once destroyed, can never be supplied.”</div> + </div> + </div> +</div> + +<p>Take from any nation its bold peasantry, and you have impoverished +it to an extent that figures cease to be valuable.</p> + +<p>What will make our farms more attractive? It seems to me that +just now there are a number of things that conspire to add to the attractiveness +of the farm. Invention has already added largely to the comforts +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>and the conveniences of the farmer. I live nearly four miles from +the city. The telephone enables me to send and receive telegrams; it +enables me to call the physician in a moment. I know of no one thing +that hung more heavily on the mother than the fact when sickness came, +or accident, it took so long to secure a physician. Today, with the telephone, +we cut half in two, at least, the time between the accident and +the relief. We find improvements that can be carried to the farm. Water +in the house, light as good in the country as in the city. The light that +I use in the country is as good as I ever had in the city, and it can now +be furnished in small quantities, so that even the smallest house may +be supplied. We find the rural free delivery grown until now in almost +every section of our land the country is supplied as well as in the city. +The good roads movement is a growing movement, and will grow because +the farmers (applause) will not long be content to have a “mud embargo” +upon their liberty, so large a part of the year. It is not a matter of +economy merely. I believe the good roads movement is a social need as +well as an economic requirement. With the good road you can have the +union school, the community library; you can have a place for the farmers +and their wives to meet other farmers and their wives; where you can +have entertainment brought to them; where more light can be put into +the life, and larger opportunity for social communion be had. Electric +lines are bringing the country and city nearer together. All these things +are possible. All these things are coming, and with their coming I hope +to see the tide turn and the farm population increase rather than decrease +in proportion to the urban population.</p> + +<p>But, my friends, I have saved for the last the suggestion that I +regard as most important. I have mentioned some of these things that +have contributed to the desertion of the farm, some of the things which +I hope will accelerate the return to the farm. I am interested in everything +that has been said by those of whose speeches I have only heard, +and by others to whose speeches I have listened. I believe in all of these +things, but I believe there is one thing that we cannot neglect. I am +not sure but it is the most important factor in this whole discussion, the +great need of the human race, less in this country than in any other, but +a need here as well, is a proper conception of the dignity of labor. (Loud +applause) The struggle of mankind has been to avoid work. It has been +to put the drudgery of life on somebody else, and Tolstoi has well said that, +as soon as we can make somebody else do the unpleasant work we do +not want to do, we then look down upon them and regard them as of a +different class. Lack of sympathy is the chief cause of human injustice +and human misery. I repeat that what the world needs, and we as well +as the rest of the world, though not so much, for we have made more +progress here than anywhere else in the world, is a proper conception +of the dignity of labor. (Applause) Our education is at fault if it +separates the idea of intellectual progress from the idea of moral advancement. +Sometimes our children are taught that they should get an +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span>education in order that they may escape from work that seems unpleasant. +Education will not be a blessing to the world, but instead a curse, +if it lifts man above the willingness to toil. (Applause)</p> + +<p class="center">THE NECESSITY OF TOIL.</p> + +<p>The most important thought that can be put into the mind of any +child is that his education is to enlarge his capacity for work, not to +relieve him from the necessity of toiling. (Applause) We find in the +cities young men earning small wages in a store where they can wear +good clothes, keep their hands clean and do a work that is considered +more respectable, when they might earn larger wages if they were willing +to bear a larger share of the manual labor of the world. (Applause) +Not only do they escape from manual labor, but they miss the physical +development that that toil brings. We find young men upon the farms +taught that, if they manifest a little brightness, if they are a little +more ambitious than those about them, they should look to the law, to +medicine, to journalism, to the ministry or to politics—that they must +get away from the farm. I hope our conservation congresses will not +overlook the fact that we shall make little progress towards making farm +homes more inviting until we teach men that the farm with all its toil +and drudgery gives them a position where they can be independent, and +give their children an environment that contributes to stature and character. +(Applause) I believe that we shall only be doing our duty to +ourselves, to our fellow man, to our country and to posterity when we +emphasize the fact that it is the idler, and not the man who toils, who +is a disgrace to society.</p> + +<p>Here is a place where all of us can work; here is a public opinion +which we can all join in cultivating. The mother who has a daughter +approaching womanhood’s estate can help when she teaches that daughter +that she ought to be more willing to link her fortunes with the fortunes +of a poor young man, with high aspirations, education, ambition, good +health and character, than to seek an alliance with an idle degenerate who +spends the money somebody else has earned. (Applause) The father +can do his duty, and can help, when he teaches the son that he is more +proud of him when he sees him at work, trying to become a useful factor +in society, than when he is simply waiting for some money to be left +him that he may squander it, and be the worse for having had it. +(Applause) Every member of society everywhere can serve in this +great war upon the largest enemy we have to meet. The teacher in the +college has his work to do; the preacher in the pulpit—oh, what an +opportunity he has to present to his congregation, Sunday after Sunday, +the idea that Christ Himself made a living reality, that greatness is to +be measured by the service rendered, and that happiness, as well as greatness, +depends on the contribution one makes to the world. (Applause) +Here is a work that is large enough for us all. Here is something that +invites us, an opportunity as large as we can crave.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span></p> + +<p class="center">MAN AND SOCIETY.</p> + +<p>I present, therefore, as the most important thing that the conservation +movement can consider, the raising up of an ideal of life that will +give a man a proper conception of his relation to society. Where better +than on the farm can a man learn God’s law? What is the Divine law +of reward? God wrote it upon the face of the earth; He proclaimed it +from the clouds; He burns it into us through the rays of the sun, namely, +that God has given us the material and that in proportion as man shows +industry and intelligence in converting natural resources into usable +wealth he can rightfully draw from the common store of the world. +That is God’s law of rewards. If a man lack intelligence, God punishes +him by failure. If he lack industry, God whips him into poverty by +laws that are inexorable. That is the Divine plan, but we have allowed +the speculative craze to take its place, and man, instead of earning his +bread in the sweat of his brow, rushes into the city to get some short +cut to riches, and society has given respectability to the man who goes +on the Board of Trade at 10 o’clock and by betting on what the farmers +raise makes more than he can make raising it, while it looks down upon +the people who feed us and clothe us. (Applause)</p> + +<p>But, my friends, I have already talked longer than I intended to +when I came. (Cries of Go on! Go on!)</p> + +<p>I am here because I am interested. I am here because I am a +debtor to society. Who in all this land has been placed under greater +obligations than I? Who is more bound in duty to contribute as best +he can to any improvement that is possible? This is one of the great +avenues of effort; one of the great reform movements. It enlarges as +you consider it. I am here to testify to my interest; I am here to listen +to those who speak that I may gather from their matured thought ideas +that I can put into use. My part is an humble part; it is not to discuss +any question at length; it is not to speak as an expert upon any branch +of conservation; it is rather to come and emphasize, so far as I can, +the work that others have done—to show you how large it is, to increase +your interest in it, to quicken your zeal, and to have you go from here +determined, as I go determined, to contribute more largely than in the +past, not only to this, but to every movement that has for its object the +elevation of the human race and the advancement of the civilization of +the world.</p> + +<p>I thank you. (Continued applause)</p> + +<p class="mt2">On motion of Professor Condra, duly seconded, the Congress adjourned +subject to the call of the executive committee.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="SUPPLEMENTARY_PROCEEDINGS">SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS</h2> + +</div> + +<h3>LIVE STOCK FARMING AND SOIL FERTILITY.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By F. B. Mumford</span>,<br> +<i>Of the University of Missouri</i></p> + +<p>The agricultural industry has been and will continue to be the greatest and most +fundamental industry in the economic life of the American nation. Not only does +agriculture supply the means of livelihood to a larger number of people than any +other calling, but because of its intimate relation to many other arts, it occupies a +most important place among American industries. From reliable statistics, the +materials of manufacture drawn from agriculture constitute 42 per cent of all the +materials used in the manufacturing industries. Any conditions tending to decrease +these necessary materials of manufacture will react unfavorably on this industry +and result in hardship to great number of laborers engaged in this occupation.</p> + +<p>The dominant place of agriculture in the commercial and economic life of the +Nation is indicated by the enormous aggregate wealth invested in agricultural enterprises. +In 1910, there was invested in lands, buildings and equipment used in agricultural +pursuits $36,703,418,000. The value of agricultural products for the one +year of 1910, according to the Secretary of Agriculture, was $8,926,000,000. A sum +so large that the human mind is unable to grasp its real significance.</p> + +<p>All this enormous wealth comes directly from the soil. Any factors which +tend to diminish the productiveness of this fundamental resource are of national +concern.</p> + +<p>The fertility of the soil is not inexhaustible, it is not self-perpetuating. Soil +fertility can be mined out of the soil as coal can be mined out of the earth. When +the fertility of soils has decreased beyond a certain point, then the cost of cultivation +becomes too great, and farming becomes unprofitable and we may have +abandoned farms. This fact has been repeatedly demonstrated in the history of +ancient and modern agriculture.</p> + +<p>But it is also true that soil fertility can be so utilized that the continuous production +of crops on the same land can be indefinitely and successfully accomplished. +It is also a fact that the conditions of fertility are of such a nature that the natural +productiveness of the average soil can be greatly improved and the total production +of food crops largely increased. Improved systems of farming based on perfectly +definite scientific principles are now being practiced, which are not only +more profitable, but likewise maintain successfully the productiveness of the soil.</p> + +<p>A permanent agriculture can only be established through a rational system of +soil conservation. The most important factor in all agriculture is the productiveness +of the acre of land. No system of farming can endure which is not profitable. +Any scheme of conservation which aims to benefit succeeding generations but fails +to provide for the necessities of the people now living on earth will surely fail.</p> + +<p>Systems of farming which are recommended should then fulfill two conditions; +they must maintain or improve the fertility of the land, and they must be profitable. +The failures in agriculture in the past have resulted from the failure to recognize +one or the other or a combination of these two causes. Either the productiveness +of the soil has been exhausted by unintelligent system or the agriculture has been +unprofitable. In fact, the exhaustion of soil is rather to be regarded as an +economic term which means that the operations of agriculture are no longer carried +on at a profit rather than that the elements of fertility have been entirely removed +from a one-time fertile soil.</p> + +<p>In considering live stock farming, then, it is only necessary to determine first +whether it is and has been successful in maintaining soil fertility.</p> + +<p>What is needed to maintain and improve the fertility of the soils? The investigations +on this matter are clear. There are four things needed under existing +conditions to supply directly or indirectly to agricultural lands: vegetable +matter or humus, phosphorus, nitrogen and potash. Does live stock farming, +as a system, provide these materials in sufficient quantity to conserve the fertility +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span>of the soil? Without going too much into detail, it is correct for us to say that +in any well planned system of stock farming, the humus supply can easily be sustained; +the nitrogen can be rapidly increased and the phosphorus and potash +supplied either through the application of fertilizers directly or by the purchase +of foods to be first fed to animals and the manure later applied to the land.</p> + +<p>In attempting to determine whether or not live stock farming is to be considered +as a system calculated to conserve soil fertility, one cannot be greatly +impressed with the unanimity of opinion in favor of animal husbandry as a means +of soil improvement. When soils have become exhausted and unprofitable from +continuous grain growing, the almost universal advice is to change the system of +farming to stock husbandry and feed out all crops on the land. Nor is this advice +to be regarded as emanating from theorists whose conclusions have been +drawn alone from the test tube of the chemist, but more often such advice comes +from men who are trained in farm management, and have themselves demonstrated +that a rational system of animal husbandry will not only maintain but improve +the fertility of the average farm located in the corn belt. Live stock farming +carried on for the purpose of soil improvement is not an untried experiment. Not +only individual farms but whole communities have been brought up from a condition +of exhaustion and unprofitableness to a condition of productiveness by animal +husbandry.</p> + +<p>Exclusive grain farming as practiced from New England westward to the +Dakotas has left behind a trail of depleted soils and where carried on for too +long a time ruined farms and abandoned homes have marked the way.</p> + +<p>These same soils are today being reclaimed and profitably tilled as the result +of changing from grain farming to dairy and stock farming. This change +has taken place in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and is now occurring in Minnesota. +The result of profitable system of live stock farming on even the poorest of soils +is to be seen in Holland. On thin, sandy lands reclaimed from the sea, dairy +farming has increased the value of the farming lands until now they are valued at +$500 to $1,000 per acre. Holland today supports a population twelve times as dense +as Illinois, and yet has an annual surplus of cheese and butter for export amounting +to more than four dollars per acre.</p> + +<p>Fifty years ago Denmark was a wheat producing country. Its soils were +gradually being depleted of fertility and agricultural ruin was imminent. The +system of farming was at that time radically changed to a system of live stock +production, with the result that after forty years of dairy farming the agriculture +of Denmark is regarded as a model of farm management, both from the standpoint +of the conservation of soil fertility and profits per acre.</p> + +<p>Farmyard manure is now and always has been the greatest resource for maintaining +soil fertility on the typical Middle West farms. Dr. C. G. Hopkins says +that “Farm manure always has been, and without doubt always will be, the principal +material used in maintaining the fertility of the soil.”</p> + +<p>Director Thorne of Ohio has pointed out that the increased fertility of English +farms as measured in increasing wheat yields has, in his opinion, been due to +the fact that the cattle, sheep, hogs and horses have increased rapidly per cultivated +acre since 1865. In that year Great Britain was maintaining the equivalent +of one cattle beast for each acre cultivated, while in 1900 the live stock population +had increased until there was maintained on British farms the equivalent of +one cattle beast for each cultivated acre.</p> + +<p>When Great Britain maintained one cattle beast for each two acres of land +cultivated in grain, the average wheat yield was twenty-eight bushels per acre. +When she had increased her live stock population to the equivalent of one cattle +beast to one acre of land cultivated in grain, the yield of wheat had risen to thirty-two +bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>The limits of this paper will not permit me to quote the opinions of all the +leading agricultural and soil experts who have publicly expressed themselves on +the important relations of animal husbandry to soil fertility. But such national +authorities as Henry Wallace, President Waters, Dean Davenport, Dean Curtis, +Governor Hoard and a host of others have publicly placed themselves on record +as favoring live stock husbandry for conserving soil fertility on the American +farm.</p> + +<p>The production of farmyard manure in this country now represents a value +greater than the total value of the corn crop. The estimated annual value of farm +manure produced in America is two and one-third billion dollars. All authorities +agree that more than one-third of this material is absolutely wasted by the farmers. +Here is a source of fertility ten times as great as all the commercial fertilizers +annually sold in the whole United States. If this manure now wasted could be +intelligently applied to the corn lands of America, there would be added $800,000,000 +annually to the agricultural wealth of this country.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span></p> + +<p>In planning systems of live stock farming for permanent agriculture, it is +necessary to apply the amount of phosphorus removed in the annual products +sold, either as commercial fertilizer or by the purchase of supplementary foods. +This amount will be comparatively small, and if added by the purchase of supplementary +foods may be supplied at little or no additional cost, as the profits from +feeding will pay for the phosphorus used.</p> + +<p>No scheme of soil conservation can be successful unless it is profitable. If +live stock farming conserves fertility, but is unprofitable, then it need not be further +considered. But live stock farming is profitable, and is more profitable than +any other system of permanent agriculture which has been devised.</p> + +<p>The latest census figures show conclusively that the net income per acre is +greater from stock and dairy farms than from hay and grain farms.</p> + +<p>The average annual net income from stock and dairy farms in the United +States for the ten-year period ending with the year 1899 was $11.42, while the +income from hay and grain farms was only $7.72 per acre.</p> + +<p>Not only was the average income in the United States as a whole greater from +stock farms, but in some of the more strictly grain growing states the same +increased profit from stock farms is shown. In Illinois the income from grain +farms was $10.60 per acre; from stock farms, $12.55. In Missouri, the income +from grain farms was $7.69, and from stock farms, $9.55. In Iowa the income +from grain farms was $8.88, and the income from stock farms, $13.17 per acre. +In other words the profits from stock farming in Illinois were 18 per cent, in +Missouri 24 per cent, and in Iowa 48 per cent greater than from grain farms.</p> + +<p>In any ten-year period of the agricultural history of this country, the net +income per acre from live stock farms has been greater than from grain crops.</p> + +<p>I think all fair minded students of farm management problems in the Middle +West will agree that the most prosperous and best managed farms throughout the +corn belt today are the farms where live stock is a large, if not the chief, factor of +production.</p> + +<p>The argument that live stock farming can be profitable only on cheap land +is fallacious. The highest priced farming lands in the world are utilized for stock +and dairy farms.</p> + +<p>In all systems of exclusive grain farming which have been planned for the +maintenance of soil fertility, it is recommended that considerable quantities of +clover be plowed under and that all of the straw and stover likewise be added +directly to the soil for keeping up the humus supply. While this practice unquestionably +will accomplish the results intended it is true that from an economic +point of view such materials are too valuable for the nutrition of animals to be +thus employed. When we remember that at a very conservative estimate, the +stover or stalks, leaves and stems of the corn plant contain not less than 25 per +cent of the total feeding value of the entire plant, and that under systems of +exclusive grain farming, all this material is so utilized that only its humus value +is secured, we must conclude that if there is another method whereby this valuable +feedstuff may be first converted into animal products, such a method is certainly +to be recommended in a convention assembled to discuss the broad problem of +conservation.</p> + +<p>Plowing under green clover likewise is to be regarded as a practice of doubtful +economic value. At the Missouri Experiment Station, for a series of two years, +the average income from such clover pastured off with hogs amounted to $34.11 +per acre. This was estimating the pork product at only six cents per pound. As +a matter of fact during the years in which this investigation was conducted, the +pork was actually worth seven cents per pound, and the actual income from the +clover alone amounted to $40.00 per acre.</p> + +<p>I submit that when an acre of clover can be so utilized through animals as +to return to the farmer the equivalent of $40.00 in cash, that it is doubtful economy +to use this material solely for its humus value by plowing under.</p> + +<p>In accomplishing the above result, it was necessary to feed an average of 3,000 +pounds of grain per acre with the clover. This grain at prevailing market prices +was charged to the hogs at sixty cents per bushel, the market price, and the $40.00 +per acre is therefore net income. The large amount of grain fed to the hogs on +the clover undoubtedly returned to the soil as much phosphorus as was removed +in the body of the animals, and the ultimate result of this experiment was therefore +not only to secure a greater profit from the land by this method of utilization, +but also to provide generously for the plant food losses incurred by the storing +up of such materials in the bodies of the hogs.</p> + +<p>On the average Middle West farm, there are now and will continue to be great +quantities of stover, hay, straw, grass and other materials which are too valuable +to be used solely for manurial purposes and are yet too bulky to be profitably +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>placed on the market. All such materials can be profitably marketed through animals, +and by so doing at least 50 per cent of the humus value of the materials can +be retained and a considerable profit secured from feeding to animals.</p> + +<p>The development of animal husbandry in modern farm practice is fundamentally +important. Exclusive grain farming has never yet been satisfactory or permanently +successful. History and present practice have clearly demonstrated the important +relation of soil fertility to the keeping of animals. The productiveness of the acre +of land is the most important factor in profitable agriculture. If it is true that +the productiveness of the acre of land is maintained and often increased by the +large use of domestic animals, this is a sufficient reason for large attention to +live stock farming.</p> + +<p>Animal husbandry is more profitable than grain farming. In any ten-year period +of American agriculture, skillful live stock farming has been more profitable than +exclusive grain farming. It is no argument to say that the average stock farmer +would have secured larger temporary gains by selling his grain instead of feeding +to animals. Statistics have shown a larger net income per acre from live stock +farms throughout the United States than grain farms.</p> + +<p>The highest type of farming is found in those localities where skillful stock +farming is the rule. In Denmark, Holland, Great Britain, France, Canada and +the United States, it is undoubtedly true that greater intelligence, skill and efficiency +are required for the successful management of a live stock farm than a +grain farm.</p> + +<p>The yield of wheat in England has increased in direct proportion to the increase +of the number of animals per cultivated acre.</p> + +<p>The Middle West farmer will always produce large areas of grass, of corn +stover, cheap hay and other products having little cash value. The profitable utilization +of these materials involves the feeding and keeping of animals. The permanent +prosperity of the Middle West farmers, and the conservation of our soil +resources both require increased attention to successful methods of stock husbandry.</p> + +<h3>THE CONSERVATION OF THE FARM</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Ex-Governor W. D. Hoard</span>,<br> +<i>Of Wisconsin</i></p> + +<p>In the limited remarks I shall have to make on this subject, I wish to preface +by saying that it seems to me that one of the crying needs of conservation today +is to conserve conservation. There is an immense waste of talk and time and +crude unconstructive thought on this subject. Too many men are crying, “Lo! +salvation lies in this direction, or that.” Too many are talking with an ulterior +purpose of personal gain in notoriety or politics. Forests, mines and water powers +claim the principal part of the thought and attention, when they are not the paramount +subjects of conservation we consider. It is too easy to generalize or denounce +or set up impractical standards of action by men who have not a constructive, +practical thought to offer whereby the desired things we might wish for +may be obtained. But here stands a great necessity, a glaring mistake, the result +of gross ignorance on the part of the farmers of the American nation for many +generations. They have wasted their heritage; they are continually wasting it.</p> + +<p>Eighty-three millions of people are depending today for food on the wisdom, +the skill, the conserving good sense of seven millions of farmers. By another +decade a hundred million will face the same dependence. The cry goes up from +this vast army of consumers against the high cost of living. The contingencies +of the seasons, serious as they are oftentimes, are enough for producer and consumer +to face. But we are confronted with the most serious danger of all in the +wasting of fertility, the steady decline in the productive power of our arable lands. +Here stands the question: An increasing demand and necessity for food and a +steady decline in our lands of the power to produce food. How long shall that +reproach to our intelligence continue?</p> + +<p>Before that great and overwhelming necessity all other questions of conservation +pale into insignificance. Study the situation as it exists today: From the +Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains the American farmer has blazed a pathway of +destruction to fertility and forests. His is the hand that hath wrought this great +destruction until today vast stretches of territory are hardly able to produce enough +in an ordinary season to pay the cost of production.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p> + +<p>The Commissioner of Agriculture of the State of New York asserts that that +state alone has lost a hundred and sixty-eight millions of dollars in thirty years +in the decline of farm values. In my native county of Madison in that state I +can buy farms today for $20 to $30 an acre that once sold for $100 an acre. The +same is true of the famous old Western Reserve in Ohio, of many sections in +Indiana and proportionately so in the southern portion of Illinois. Who hath +wrought this fearful destruction of the original productive power of the state and +Nation? The farmer. Why? Because of his ignorance of the principles of fertility +and of the methods that belong to intelligent agriculture.</p> + +<p>Until very recently the forces of education, all under the control of the states, +have done nothing to educate the farmer to a better understanding of his duty +to himself, his calling as a farmer, and the millions who must depend upon him +for food. The people have gone mad, so to speak, in the pursuit and worship of +so-called higher education, and neglected the basic subsidiary schools where the +main body of farmers must be trained, if trained at all, into an understanding of +what they are about. You know, as every man knows, that the country district +school is the only school where 90 per cent of all of the farmers of the land have +received or will receive for many years to come the schooling they will get. The +teachers of the state and the political forces of the state are solely responsible for +the character of the country school. There has been but little vital pushing +force among the teachers for the uplift of the country schools. The politicians +have given it the go-by because as yet there are no votes in it as an issue. The +farmers do not believe in it as a vital energizing principle in their midst for their +own enlightenment and that of their children concerning the things that make +for the betterment of agriculture.</p> + +<p>Do you for a moment suppose that all of this appalling waste of fertility that +exists and consequent destruction of farm values would have taken place if the +country district school had been organized to teach the farm children the elements +of fertility as science and common sense knew them to exist? We must +then charge upon the past and present system of education the responsibility for +this ignorance that has wasted the productive power of the Nation. And the +processes of ignorance and indifference are going on today with but little, if any, +check. Our schools of agriculture reach but a thousandth part of the farm children +with their corrective knowledge. The agricultural press is doing what it can, +but not more than 50 per cent of the farmers are readers and students of this vital +question.</p> + +<p>We flatter ourselves that we of the Middle West are to be saved from this +tide of destruction because God has given us a soil of such marvelous fertility. +But our farmers are just as great spendthrifts of this God-given heritage as were +the Eastern farmers. The trouble lies in our lack of knowledge, real helpful +knowledge. Think of the millions of acres of corn stalks in the great corn producing +states of Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska and Iowa that will stand +next winter unharvested, and in mute reproach of the lack of a little conserving +intelligence sufficient to store them in silos where the contents might be fed to +cattle and sheep and so produce an abundance of meat cheaply for the people. An +average acre of that corn in an average season, if placed in a silo, will yield ten +tons of the finest meat and milk producing fodder known on earth. Thirty pounds +a day with ten pounds of alfalfa hay is sufficient to fatten a fifteen-month-old +steer to the pink of condition in a year. Each acre, then, and an acre of alfalfa, +would suffice to feed two steers for the year. What a tremendous feeding power +at low cost is here disclosed, and yet it is annually wasted and not a country district +school or school teacher is telling the farmer and his children any better. Think +of the thousands upon thousands of poor cows that are kept by the farmers of the +dairy states because they do not know better. Think of the wasted labor to raise +the feed to support those cows, the wasted time and effort to milk and care for +them, when, by exhaustive research it can be shown that not half of those cows +are producing enough to pay for their keeping. You ask: Don’t the farmers +know better than to keep such cows? Can you believe they would continue to +breed and keep such cows if they did know better? Everywhere is seen the appalling +waste of our farming—in fertility, in poor live stock, in lack of breeding knowledge, +in lack of sanitary understanding, in a lack of intelligent methods of farm +management. The discontent of the farmer is great. Let us be thankful for that, +for we are told that “discontent is the vice of noble minds.” But, likewise, everywhere +is he misled by contending politicians to believe that his salvation lies in +politics, in the tariff up, or the tariff down, in fighting the corporations and the +trusts, in order that certain leaders may have place and power. And all the time +this mighty demon of waste is getting in his work. When will the farmer see that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span>he must educate himself and his children back in the country district school to know +good from evil, to understand the conservation of the soil and the great economic +laws that underlie his very existence?</p> + +<p>He cannot escape the demand of the millions who wait upon his hand for +bread and meat. He is responsible to his own good citizenship not to waste the +productive energies of the state. He owes it to himself and the hoped for profit +of the labor of his hands that he make of this question of the conservation of +the farm the foremost question of the age, as it truly is.</p> + +<p>Dairy farming, if rightly understood and conducted, has the power to “knit +up this raveled sleeve,” to re-endow all of these wasted farms with their original +fertility and productiveness. For, understand, the true dairy farmer must be a +wise manipulator of the soil, of plant life as well as animal life. No man in the +domain of agriculture is confronted with a greater necessity of “knowing good +from evil,” at every turn and in more ways, than is the dairy farmer. Ignorance +is at work here to destroy fertility and profit as well as in all other branches of +agriculture. But there are certain natural advantages that govern here more than +in other lines of farming.</p> + +<p>(1) The dairyman must so handle his farm as to support sufficient animal +life to give him a living profit for his time and labor.</p> + +<p>(2) That animal life is a constant contributor to the fertility of the soil +through the abundant manure that is made.</p> + +<p>(3) As a rule the dairy farmer is a buyer as well as grower of feed, particularly +of nitrogenous feeds. This gives added fertilizing value to the manure.</p> + +<p>(4) He builds silos and so consumes the coarser roughage of the farm, +enabling him thereby to carry a much larger stock of cattle, hogs and sheep than +he otherwise could.</p> + +<p>(5) He is obliged to build barns and sheds, whereby the forage of the farm +shall be stored with the least possible loss of its nutritive powers, and consequently +this saves waste very greatly.</p> + +<p>(6) He is compelled to become a large producer of legumes, like clover, +alfalfa, vetch, etc., whereby by natural means, nitrogen is more largely restored to +the soil.</p> + +<p>All these are the natural and inevitable things that belong to his vocation if +he is a man big enough to comprehend them. But there are some things he must do +of an extra character if he handles his farm so as to constantly increase its fertility. +He must be a liberal feeder of the land as well as his animals. He must comprehend +that nothing can be grown on the farm without an expenditure of nitrogen, +phosphorus and potash. The nitrogen, to a large extent, the legumes will evolve +and deposit in the soil. But the phosphorus and the potash must be purchased. He +must know something about these important elements, and he must accept it as +one of his fixed expenses of the farm that these elements, as well as lime, must +be yearly supplies.</p> + +<p>Certain forms of dairying, like milk shipping, cheese making and condensing, +are wasteful of fertility, unless the farmer guards against such loss, by artificially +supplying the lime, and phosphate potash. It is largely through this taking of the +whole milk from the farm without adequate making up of the loss, that so many +farms in the eastern states became depleted of their fertility. Whenever butter +dairying was carried on, and consequently the skim milk was used to grow calves +and pigs, the live stock complement of the farm was kept up and the manure supply +greatly enhanced. Such sections like Delaware county, New York, have suffered +much less in the depletion of the soil in the past fifty years, than did Herkimer, +St. Lawrence, Madison, Oneida and other of the cheese making counties of +that state. The same a depleting process has been going on in New England, New +Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and farther west. The wonderful growth of villages +and cities calls for an enormous consumption of dairy products. This means +taking the whole milk from the farm in a large degree and thereby greatly reduces +the growing of live stock. We well remember sixty years ago how that central New +York produced great crops of clover and a large supply of cattle, hogs and sheep. +The tops of the hills were kept covered with the splendid forests that characterized +that state. The springs and small streams were by that means maintained and we +fished for trout in brooks that have not known a trout for the past thirty years, +and which are dry most of the year. All this has been changed and sadly so for the +worse. Had the farmers kept the tops of the hills covered with trees it would have +conserved the water supply and helped maintain the side hill pastures.</p> + +<p>Fifty years ago Horace Greeley, through his Tribune, warned the farmers of +New York against the destructive effect of stripping the forests from the hill tops. +Dairying in all its branches of butter production, milk shipping, cheese making and +condensing, must, of course, be kept up for the necessities of the great army of consumers +who demand it.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span></p> + +<p>But the demand is just as imperative that the dairy farmer know what he is +about and conduct his farm with an eye single to the preservation of its fertility. +He must know more of the scientific side of his calling. He must be more willing +to use some of his revenue in the purchase of fertilizers to produce against the +natural waste that is constantly going on. He must adopt the principle that it is to +his ultimate greater profit as well as the well-being of the state that he farm towards +an increase rather than a decrease of the fertility of his land.</p> + +<p>These are some of the paramount problems of the day and hour that confront the +dairy farmer. The trouble is that here as well as elsewhere in this broad field of agriculture, +ignorance has held sway. “We all, like sheep, have gone astray.” The wise +live teachers of agriculture are becoming more obsessed every day with the thought +that if the future millions of this country are fed, the American farmer must wake +up, and that right soon, to the fearful mistakes he has been making through his +ignorance and indifference in destroying the productive capacity of his land.</p> + +<p>Every man, woman and child in the Nation is vitally interested in the promotion +of conserving intelligence among the farmers of this country.</p> + +<h3>BACK TO THE FARM</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Henry Ide Willey.</span></p> + +<p>This is the slogan of our clan; too long has the farm been deemed the dumping +ground for those whom poverty or mediocre ability has kept out of the professions, +arts and sciences.</p> + +<p>“Anyone can farm” was the ancient idea. Not so the modern maxim. It is “back +to the farm,” with education, intellect and experience that more than double the +production of our soil and elevate the farmer to the same high plane occupied by +others of equal ability and intellect in other callings.</p> + +<p>Back to the farm is the maxim of our chief executive as he tours our country +in the interest of progress.</p> + +<p>It is not the aim of this article to enter into a scientific dissertation upon the +chemical properties of all fertilizers, or to cover the entire ground with reference +to the art of fertilization, it would prove too scopey a work to attempt any such a +thing within the time and space that could be prudently allotted upon an occasion +like this.</p> + +<p>All that I shall attempt to do will be to touch upon some salient features of the +art, and deal briefly with the most important details to be kept in view by the progressive +farmer, who seeks to get the maximum results from a minimum area and +amount of labor. Also I want to warn you of the danger of being victimized by unscrupulous +dealers in fertilizers, and suggest some basic precautions to be observed, +and finally to convince you that there is no dearth of fertilizing material in the United +States that should be available at a reasonable price, to all who may require it. A +just and beneficent Deity seems to have wisely provided abundantly all of the factors +required to enable us to equalize the productions of our country, only demanding that +we perform a certain amount of prefatory labor and wisely use the brains He has +endowed us with.</p> + +<p>Generally speaking we are required to do a dollar’s worth of work to obtain +a dollar’s reward in all vocations. One dollar’s value in any of the precious metals +requires a dollar’s worth of work or outlay; the same is true with a dollar’s worth +of wheat, oats, beans, or anything else.</p> + +<p>Where rains are not abundant and opportune, there are adjacent mountains with +their precipitating possibilities and lakes, or reservoir sites in which to store water +to irrigate about all of the lands capable of being profitably watered. Just so within +our area are vast deposits of calcium, phosphates and other fertilizing factors, only +requiring a certain amount of labor, to enable us to place them where they will do +the most good.</p> + +<p>Florida probably produces the greatest volume and best quality of calcium phosphates. +Tennessee next. Then the Carolinas, Utah and Idaho, the former only needing +railways to provide transportation facilities to provide abundant and cheap supply +throughout the west.</p> + +<p>In 1889, Albert Richter, Esq., discovered these last named deposits which are +gigantic reserves for the future.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span></p> + +<p>When tillage begins, other arts follow. Daniel Webster says: “The farmers +therefore are the founders of human civilization.”</p> + +<p>Farming is as much a business as any other vocation, and primarily, the farmer +should be a good business man to be successful. In the main he follows his calling +for the money he can make thereby, like other prudent men, seeking the largest +possible return from his outlay.</p> + +<p>It is not enough to raise a crop, a profit must be realized upon the labor and +capital invested.</p> + +<p>He must understand his business, must observe needed economics, yet must +be ever ready to spend a dollar when he can see a fair interest to be derivable +therefrom.</p> + +<p>Farming is not only a business, but equally an art—the art of producing animal +and plant life needful and useful to mankind.</p> + +<p>A true knowledge of agriculture and kindred occupations necessitates a complete +grasp of the principles upon which the art is based. In this enlightened age +such knowledge is indispensable. When our country was new and only the most +fertile soil was tilled, “anyone could be a farmer.” To sow and reap were all that +was required, so lavish was Dame Nature in giving of the fertility stored up for +centuries. But this soon sapped the vitality of the soil, its tillage ceased to be +profitable, and in many instances abandonment of the farms ere long would follow.</p> + +<p>This unfortunate result is greatly to be lamented, because, by intelligent precautions +the calamity could have been averted. The farming of the future must be +carried on by intelligent, educated men of liberal training.</p> + +<p>Geology, botany, zoology, chemistry and physics have already done much toward +the conservation of the fertility of the soil, but not generally, as should be +the case.</p> + +<p>Importance of water, as a source of plant food and a conveyor thereof, is one +of the most important factors developed by chemical analysis. The enormous proportion +of water entering into the composition of the plant and its incalculable +value as a conveyor of plant food to the roots. Nearly 900 of 1,000 parts of the +matured corn plant are water, exclusive of exhalations, which are considerable, or +1,000 pounds of corn during its growing period use about thirty tons of water. As +this amount of corn can be raised on one-thirtieth of an acre, 900 tons, or an eighth +inch depth layer, would be required for an acre, and about the same amount being +lost by percolation and drainage gains as 1,800 tons of water per acre, thus proving +the need for the conservation of the moisture of the soil. In fact 300 to 500 +times more water in pounds is required, than dry matter.</p> + +<p>First, as it composes 80 per cent of the mature crop, it is the most essential +plant food. It also furnishes the hydrogen and oxygen found in dry matter equal to +10 per cent more, making 90 per cent in all derived directly from water.</p> + +<p>Water also dissolves the plant food, facilitating its distribution. It stiffens, or +prevents the wilting of plants to replace losses by evaporation, probably controls +the temperature of the plants, and water is indispensable for the movement of food +within the plant, constituting this the most vital single factor in determining the +fertility of land, hence the great importance of irrigation where moisture is not +abundant.</p> + +<p>Within the time and space allotted, it would be impossible to deal with every +factor relating to question of fertilization such as carbon, nitrogen, etc. I will +therefore proceed to treat of the most potent and effective fertilizing compound. +Phosphoric acid, tricalcite phosphate of lime or calcium phosphate. This is present +in normal soil, in much smaller quantities than potash, and experience demonstrates, +is more likely to become exhausted. In fact in some regions no other fertilizer is +used.</p> + +<p>The phosphates may be subdivided into two general classes, natural and the +manufactured phosphates: The natural phosphates have two general sources—the +bones of dead animals, and certain phosphates containing minerals which will be +designated. Raw bone meal is made by the grinding of raw bones to a powder, and +the finer it is, the more valuable the product. This contains about 22 per cent of +phosphoric acid and 4 per cent of nitrogen. Raw bones contain a small quantity +of fat also, and as this promotes rapid decay of the bone, the phosphoric acid and +nitrogen are quite slowly disseminated to the crop.</p> + +<p>Most of the bone meal of commerce is made from bones previously steamed to +remove the fat, and a portion of the nitrogen compounds. Bone so treated contains +about 28 per cent to 30 per cent of phosphoric acid and 1½ per cent of nitrogen. +As these can be ground finer and decay more rapidly, they are more valuable and +effective than the raw bones.</p> + +<p>Tankage is an important source of phosphoric acid in so-called animal politogess. +When the product contains a very large proportion of bone, it is sometimes designated +as bone tankage, and may contain 7 to 18 per cent of phosphoric acid.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p> + +<p>Bone black or animal charcoal is made by heating bone in air-tight vessels, until +the volatile matter is drawn off, and is used in the refineries to purify sugar.</p> + +<p>After it has become spent or used by refineries, it is sold for fertilizing purposes. +Bone black contains from 32 to 36 per cent of phosphoric acid. In a number +of places rock deposits are found that contain varying percentages of phosphate +of lime. These phosphates are usually named after the place where they are +obtained, as “Carolina,” “Florida,” “Tennessee” phosphates.</p> + +<p>These rocks contain from 18 to 32 per cent of phosphoric acid, and differ from +the bone products in that they contain no organic matter, and are purely mineral +substances. Ground to a fine powder, they are sometimes sold under the name of +“floats,” but the rock phosphates are used only to a limited extent in the crude condition.</p> + +<p>The phosphoric acid in all the natural phosphates described is combined with +lime, in a form that is extremely insoluble in water. In order to render the phosphate +soluble it is sometimes treated with sulphuric acid which unites with part of +the lime, leaving a phosphate which contains only a third as much lime as the +natural phosphate and is soluble in water.</p> + +<p>The lime and sulphuric acid make a compound which is the same as found in +gypsum or landplaster. This combination of soluble phosphate and gypsum made +by treating the natural phosphates with acid is called by various names of superphosphate—soluble +phosphate, acid phosphate, acidulated rock, etc. For its manufacture +the rock phosphates are generally employed, both because they are cheaper, +and because the organic matter in the bones interferes with the use of sufficient +acid to make all of the phosphate soluble. A good sample of phosphate contains +about 16 per cent of phosphoric acid in a form that is soluble in water.</p> + +<p>Sometimes when insufficient acid has been used a part of the soluble phosphate +will change into a form intermediate in solubility, between the natural phosphate +and the acid phosphate, and this is said to have undergone “reversion.” The new +compound being called “reverted phosphates.” The latter product is supposed to be +more available to the plant than the insoluble or natural phosphate, hence, the soluble +and reverted phosphoric acid taken together are known as the “available phosphoric +acid.”</p> + +<p>Sometimes, bone meal is treated with a limited amount of sulphuric acid and +the product is called “acidulated bone.” This contains a much smaller proportion +of its phosphoric acid in soluble form, than does the rock superphosphate. When +soluble phosphates are added to the soil, they combine soon with the mineral matter +and are converted, first into the reverted phosphate, and finally into the insoluble +form, such as is found naturally in the soil. In this way the phosphoric +acid is fixed and there is no danger of its being lost by leaching.</p> + +<p>The soluble phosphate present in acidulated goods is generally considered the +most favorable form of phosphoric acid for use as a fertilizer.</p> + +<p>At first sight it seems useless to go to the expense of making the phosphate +soluble when it is again rendered insoluble by the soil, before the plant can make +use of it. The true object in making it soluble is to aid in its distribution to the +soil and thence to the plant.</p> + +<p>When an insoluble phosphate is applied it remains where it falls, except for +the slight distribution it receives by cultivating. In the case of the soluble phosphate, +on the other hand, the phosphate dissolves in the soil water, and is widely distributed +before it becomes fixed by the soil. In the former, also, the roots must go to the +phosphate, while in the latter, the phosphate is carried to the roots.</p> + +<p>It will therefore be observed that after the soluble phosphate is distributed +throughout the soil, the individual particles must be very much smaller than is the +case with the insoluble phosphate. The importance of fineness of division can not be +too strongly emphasized.</p> + +<p>Too much stress cannot be laid upon the need of intelligent use of fertilizers. +A little expense and effort in carefully analyzing the soil to be treated, proving its +component parts and proportions, then leaving what should be added to result in the +largest production of the crops desired. No guessing nor conjecture should be +indulged in, it can only lead to disaster, whereas a little scientific investigation and +analysis will render success certain.</p> + +<p>Analysis alone will not suffice. Actual testing of the various classes of soil, +dividing same into small blocks and using different proportions of fertilizers on +some, none on others, will insure the best results.</p> + +<p>Farmers are furnished with a great variety of so-called fertilizers of greater +or less merit, and a vast variety of mixtures almost too numerous to classify, many +of which I regret to state are not at all what they are represented to be, and often +are worth less than one-third the price charged therefor. No one should under any +circumstances be induced to purchase anything claimed to be a fertilizer, without +first having had an analysis made of the same by some chemist of unimpeachable +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span>integrity. A failure or refusal to observe this precaution will be certain to defeat +the purpose in view and result in loss, instead of the gain desired. There can be +no good excuse given for the unfair adulteration of fertilizers, because the supply +of basic material is abundant, cheap, and can be reasonably transported, leaving a +good profit for all dealers, when an absolutely pure article. As the product is +now sold it ranges from 1 to 3 per cent ammonia, 6 to 12 per cent phosphoric acid, +4 to 10 per cent potash.</p> + +<p>The unit basis of purchase is a fair one to both vendor and vendee. A unit +means 1 per cent on the basis of a ton, or twenty pounds.</p> + +<p>For example, a unit of available phosphoric acid would be twenty pounds, and +if the quotation was $1.00 a unit, the phosphoric acid would cost five cents a pound. +The system is applied to the sale of nitrate of soda, the potash salt, blood, meat, +tankage, superphosphate, etc., and in nitrogenous goods the price is usually stated +as so much a unit of ammonia.</p> + +<p>The number of units in the material is determined by chemical analysis. This +system could be applied as well to mixed as unmixed goods. But home mixing +would prove by far the wisest policy, as none of the frauds common to commercial +fertilizers could then be perpetrated.</p> + +<p>It is little less than idiocy to buy any mixed fertilizer for any specific tract of land, +because you may be paying for an excess of many elements, when the addition of +some one single acid, such as sulphuric, for instance, would double its production. +Lime, marl, muck, wood or coal ashes only would at times produce better results +than the most perfect and elaborate mixed fertilizer.</p> + +<p>Apropos of this subject, permit me to call attention to a little work of great +value to every farmer. None should be without it. <i>Viz.</i>, A treatise on “American +Manures, and Farmers’ and Planters’ Guide,” by Wm. H. Buckner, Analytical Consulting +Chemist, and J. B. Chynoweth, Eng., published in Philadelphia.</p> + +<p>The great lawyer, Theodore Cuylor, and others, give this work unqualified approval, +and any farmer, after its perusal, is amply advised as to the many frauds +perpetrated in the name of fertilization, and can guard against being victimized +thereby.</p> + +<p>To attempt to deal with the fertilization question without giving ample scope +to the question of water supply, would be a waste of effort, as water is the most +important of all elements to be considered.</p> + +<p>Not all land is to be benefited by irrigation, but vastly more is improved than is +generally supposed. There are few sections where the natural supply is precipitated +at the right time, and in proper proportion, and wherever this is the case irrigation +can be profitably resorted to always, providing the supply can be economically obtained +and distributed.</p> + +<p>For example, take the rich Willamette valley in Oregon, where the rainfall +is excessive during the entire spring, but little or none falls during the summer +months, and it has been proven that larger or more frequent crops can be raised +there with irrigation, even in this “Web-foot state.”</p> + +<p>Perfect production is only attainable when control of all the elements is possible, +and this can be accomplished only in a hot house or conservatory. But +the nearest approach thereto in the open, is in an almost rainless country, where +the sunshine is constant by day, the soil fertile, and irrigation possible.</p> + +<p>Where these conditions prevail, as in Sinaloa, Mexico, as many as three crops +a year can be produced upon the same area, and it is safe to state that there are +few regions where the irrigation of the land will not prove beneficial. In most +instances the providing of irrigation carries with it the necessity for a drainage +system as well. It is not the placing of water on the land which causes the benefit, +but the passage of the water through the soil, carrying the fertility or plant food to +the roots, hence flow must be kept up, and often this can only be insured by providing +a drainage system.</p> + +<p>Our country is so new, and our soil was so fertile originally, that abundant crops +were produced thereon for many years, but this constant cropping of the same product, +year after year, has exhausted vast areas and their life must be renewed.</p> + +<p>Fertilizers are abundant and accessible in the United States and can be laid +down on any farm near to lines to transportation, and if of genuine character and +properly applied, crops can be doubled or better each season.</p> + +<p>Professor Hopkins of the Illinois university more than doubled the production +of wheat on a certain tract of land under this supervision. The natural yield was +about twenty-four bushels; fertilized, fifty-six bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>Although the phosphate deposits now known to exist are of vast area, it was +not until 1889 that the Florida deposits were accepted as valuable and extensive.</p> + +<p>Pebble deposits of Florida are supposed to underlie an area of about 2,000 +square miles, and are on lands about 160 feet above sea level.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p> + +<p>Over-burden:</p> + +<ul> +<li>1. Soil and subsoil, few inches to six feet.</li> +<li>2. A light colored sand, few inches to ten feet.</li> +<li>3. Stiff clay vari-colored at times, capping of sandstone color brown to +pure white.</li> +</ul> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Matrix 212°.</span></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Organic matter</td> + <td class="tdr">2.40</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Phosphoric acid</td> + <td class="tdr">15.29</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carbonic acid</td> + <td class="tdr">6.70</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lime</td> + <td class="tdr">20.00</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Iron and aluminum</td> + <td class="tdr">13.06</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fluoride and magnesia</td> + <td class="tdr">.60</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Insoluble silica and sand</td> + <td class="tdr">41.95</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr bt">100.00</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Equivalent to tribasic phosphate of lime</td> + <td class="tdr">32.33</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Equivalent to carbonate of lime</td> + <td class="tdr">15.20</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Land pebbles average from 65 to 70 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime.</p> + +<p>River pebbles are of the same origin, but slightly less value, 60 per cent to 63 +per cent phosphate of lime. The whole Peninsula of Florida is underlaid with +white limestone of the Vicsburg age (Lower Eocene), according to Professor +Lyall, upper middle Eocene, according to American geologists, which is the oldest +rock in Florida. Florida was submerged until the end of the Eocene period, after +which its elevation occurred. Then came the Miocene submergence followed by a +second elevation, next the Champlain period and submergence, when it was covered +with a mantle of sand and clay, before it arose to its present elevation.</p> + +<p>The phosphate pebbles were formed before this last submergence, and hence +washed into the depressions of limestone and over same.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Analysis Gravel Rock.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Many Samples.</i></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Phosphoric acid</td> + <td class="tdr">36.08</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carbonate of lime</td> + <td class="tdr">2.17</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oxide of iron and aluminum</td> + <td class="tdr">1.94</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Silica</td> + <td class="tdr">4.50</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moisture</td> + <td class="tdr">2.50</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>European Analysis of some organic matter—water.</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <th></th> + <th>Voelker</th> + <th>Gilbert</th> + <th>Marat</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Phosphoric acid</td> + <td class="tdr">36.56</td> + <td class="tdr">36.33</td> + <td class="tdr">36.84</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lime</td> + <td class="tdr">52.08</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oxide of iron</td> + <td class="tdr">1.36</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Aluminum</td> + <td class="tdr">1.39</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Magnesia carb. phos</td> + <td class="tdr">7.17</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Insoluble</td> + <td class="tdr">0.85</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="bt"> 100.</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tribasic phosphate of lime</td> + <td class="tdr">79.81</td> + <td class="tdr">79.31</td> + <td class="tdr">80.43</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Early in this century the marl beds of New Jersey were worked and used for +fertilization. This led to the discovery of similar deposits in South Carolina. One +Lardue Venaxen, who made the first geological survey in 1826, discovered same, +but no work was done until 1842, when Edward Ruffin of Virginia confirmed the +reports of previous explorers.</p> + +<p>First carbonate of lime only was evolved; 20 per cent up to 90 per cent, but +later from 2 per cent to 9 per cent of phosphate of lime was found by Dr. C. W. +Sheppard and J. Lawrence Smith, Esq.</p> + +<p>During the war, nodules and strata of rock phosphate were found by Dr. N. A. +Pratt near Ashley River.</p> + +<p>It was not until April 14, 1868, that any systematic production of phosphate +was accomplished in South Carolina, when the first cargo was shipped from Charleston +and the arrival of same created a veritable epidemic of phosphate fever in New +York, Boston, Philadelphia and other cities.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span></p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Analysis.</span></p> + +<p class="center"><i>Mean of many hundreds of samples.</i></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td><a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>⁠Phosphoric acid</td> + <td>from 25.0 per cent to 28.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a>⁠Carbon acid</td> + <td>from 2.50 per cent to 5.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sulphuric acid</td> + <td>from 0.50 per cent to 2.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lime</td> + <td>from 35.00 per cent to 42. per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Magnesia</td> + <td>traces</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Aluminum</td> + <td>traces</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sesqui oxide of iron</td> + <td>1.00 to 4.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fluoride</td> + <td>1.00 to 2.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sand and silica</td> + <td>4.00 to 12.00 per cent</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Organic matter and water.</td> + <td></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> Equivalent to 55 to 61 per cent tribasic phosphate of lime.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Equivalent to 5 to 11 per cent carbonate of lime.</p></div> + +<p>In 8 per cent there was shipped from</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Florida</td> + <td class="tdr">250,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>North Carolina</td> + <td class="tdr">150,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>South Carolina</td> + <td class="tdr">200,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Alabama</td> + <td class="tdr">125,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Virginia</td> + <td class="tdr">150,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mississippi</td> + <td class="tdr">50,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Louisiana</td> + <td class="tdr">25,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tennessee</td> + <td class="tdr">25,000 tons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr bt">975,000 tons</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>In Ontario there exists one area of from seventy-five to one hundred square +miles, and another from fifteen to twenty-five miles wide, and 100 miles long of +commercial phosphate.</p> + +<p>It is found in many other places, but not proven.</p> + +<p>Here it occurs in flint and has been worked by farmers in a desultory way, +costing much and yielding little profit to the operators.</p> + +<p>On the Lievre River, two and one-half miles from Highfall and twenty miles +from Bushman, there was the famous Watt mine, where, from a cone-shaped +mountain, a vast amount of pure apatite was mined, once called “Emerald.” Quite +a number of deposits have been worked in Canada, but not any with great profit.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Analysis.</span></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Phosphoric acid</td> + <td class="tdr">40.868</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fluoride</td> + <td class="tdr">3.731</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chloride</td> + <td class="tdr">0.428</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carbonic acid</td> + <td class="tdr">0.105</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lime</td> + <td class="tdr">48.475</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Calcium</td> + <td class="tdr">4.168</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Magnesia</td> + <td class="tdr">0.158</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Alumina</td> + <td class="tdr">0.835</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sesqui oxide</td> + <td class="tdr">0.005</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Insoluble</td> + <td class="tdr">1.150</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr bt">100.823</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="tdc">Tribasic = 89.219</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>About the year 1880 a stratum of calcium phosphate was discovered near Mount +Fairview, Tennessee. At first it was not believed to be of great extent, or good +quality, but ere long both were abundantly proven, and a large quantity of high +grade phosphates was mined.</p> + +<p>But owing to the rush of producers in every direction, without any system or +unity of action, the crazy competitors soon glutted the market, forcing the price +down below cost of production.</p> + +<p>Of recent years, a few big operators have gathered in most of the choice areas, +and by introducing up-to-date methods, etc., have gradually brought the production +down to a normal basis, and the price up to a profitable figure.</p> + +<p>The volume of deposit in this region is very great, extending from about ten +miles south of Mount Pleasant to the line of the Tennessee Central Railway and +beyond, and a width of over fifty miles.</p> + +<p>In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit lies under a very thin over-burden, +often only the surface soil of ten feet thickness or width, a layer of from two to eight +feet of white sandstone beneath this, the substratum of limestone being near the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span>surface, and of vast thickness. Also somewhat uneven or undulating, making depressions +of twenty-five feet at times, which are in turn filled with the phosphate +deposit.</p> + +<p>As the topography becomes uneven the plains cease and foothills occur, the +character of the over-burden changes and that of the phosphate likewise.</p> + +<p>As an elevation of 600 feet above sea level is reached, and exceeded, the over-burden +becomes of greater thickness, and chert or flint and some limestone and conglomerate +overlie the phosphate.</p> + +<p>In and about Mount Pleasant the deposit is mixed with sand and is soft and +easily excavated from the surface, whereas in the higher altitude, the same becomes +hard as stone and has to be excavated by tunneling under the chert, as drift +mining is done.</p> + +<p>The protection of this latter deposit from atmospheric action and percolating +waters, both, or with the compression, renders the phosphate of higher class. Although +the stratum is not so thick as out in the valley, it ranges from two to six +feet. Two is a fair mean. Quite an extensive area of this deposit has been bought +or leased by a Cincinnati company, which plans to develop same upon an intelligent +modern plan and gradually upon a large scale.</p> + +<p>At Mount Pleasant, Mr. John Ruhm, Jr., a college-bred man of rare intellect +and great capacity, has devoted many years to a study and operation of his phosphate +deposits, in the most scientific manner possible. He has kept in close touch with the +most advanced men of the age, such as Prof. Hopkins of the State University of +Illinois, who has given more time to the study and practice of fertilization than any +man in the United States. Prof. Hopkins finds it necessary to reduce the phosphates +to a 100-mesh fineness to enable him to obtain the best results, and Mr. +Ruhm has for years been experimenting with the grinding machinery to discover +the best and cheapest for this purpose. Only this year, in July, did he discover that +the “Hardinge” tube-mill is, in all respects, the best machine tested. He got 90 +per cent duty from over 200 tons a day at 100-mesh, and some of this over 200-mesh +fineness; 100-mesh is possible, grinding the same either wet or dry.</p> + +<p>I had the good fortune to witness these July tests and can confirm Mr. Ruhm’s +claims for his process, which he does not selfishly try to keep, but generously gives to +all who ask information.</p> + +<p>The Tennessee phosphates of commerce are not quite as high grade, and do +not command as high a price as others, but this is entirely due to the careless preparation +of same for market. So soon as Mr. Ruhm’s plan is followed, the grade +will be raised, and price follow to topmost.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Analysis.</span></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Phosphoric acid</td> + <td class="tdr">36.33</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lime</td> + <td class="tdr">52.08</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oxide of iron</td> + <td class="tdr">1.36</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Aluminum</td> + <td class="tdr">1.39</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Magnesia and carbonic acid</td> + <td class="tdr">7.17</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Insoluble</td> + <td class="tdr">0.85</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr bt">99.19</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The above represents a mean of about thirty analyses of samples taken from +over a 10,000 acre area, principally from exposed outcrop, hence a test of protected +product would give larger percentages.</p> + +<p>As the United States Geological Survey has not been extended over the area +embracing a large part of these phosphate lands, one can only conjecture concerning +their scope although it is safe to assume it to be very great.</p> + +<p>I believe this crude treatment of this question will suffice to suggest two +important facts:</p> + +<p>First. That we have available in this country an abundant supply of phosphates +to enable us to replenish the fertility of our soils at a reasonable cost.</p> + +<p>Second. That this feature should be carefully studied by every farmer in the +country, and the maximum result obtained from every acre tilled and every day’s +labor performed.</p> + +<p>In addition to the deposits of phosphate in Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, which +only need equal transportation facilities to introduce their product, we must have +others, as yet undiscovered, because few laymen, and not all engineers, recognize +the deposit when found, and it is not always discoverable without excavation +where it does exist.</p> + +<p>“A little farm well tilled” can be made to produce more abundantly, more +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span>profitably, than one larger and less effectively handled, hence no matter how +rich and fertile nature may have made your farm, it is hardly possible that it may +not be improved and reward you abundantly for it.</p> + +<p>During the summer of 1911, I had the good fortune to be employed to examine +an area of phosphate deposit some fifty miles above Mount Pleasant in Tennessee, +and, in order to better understand the subject, first visited Mount Pleasant +and vicinity to note conditions, progress, etc., hence my data relative to this section +is fresh and new.</p> + +<p>I know I am justified in asserting that there is a vast field for the exploitation +of this valuable deposit in this region, with ample assurance of the development +of a vast area that can be profitably worked.</p> + +<p>One thing is certain, nowhere can the deposit be more fully determined, and +nowhere be more economically worked, hence this region should become the most +productive of any ere long.</p> + +<p>Over an extensive area there is spread out a layer or blanket of this phosphate +rock, lying under a huge mass of chert or flint rock and resting on a bed +of shale or slate, which in turn rests upon a vast bed of limestone several hundred +feet deep.</p> + +<p>The phosphate seam is from six inches to four feet in thickness and lies about +600 feet above sea level and about 150 feet above the valleys that cut through +it, so that tunnels can readily be run in under the seam at any desired place, and +the phosphate be stoped out <i>ad libitum</i>.</p> + +<p>Only a very small portion of the country has been surveyed by the United +States Geological Survey, hence but little is known of its contents and characteristics.</p> + +<p>But my investigations prove that a very large area contains this deposit, +extending for many miles east and west and north and south from Boma on the +Tennessee Central as a center.</p> + +<p>It is therefore quite certain that there is no dearth of this commodity, and +there is not likely to be for many years to come, as other deposits are likely to +be discovered as the known ones are exhausted.</p> + +<p>Now! the moral of the foregoing: We have available at reasonable cost the +elements to reënrich our soil. Hence, our farmers should first cultivate their +minds, that they may be able to discover in what elements their soil is defective, +or what is wanting, to enable them to get best results. A very liberal education +should be obtained, if possible, for in no walk of life is a greater scope of knowledge +required and profitable to a farmer. Then, the farmers should unite all +over the country to endeavor to elevate and ennoble labor and the laborers, which +can be done only by example, by acts and deeds, not by preaching.</p> + +<p>Every honor, reward and benefit of every character should be open to and be +given the farmer and artisan laborer, and, in the degree that each deserves credit +for work well done, the reward should follow.</p> + +<p>Why not offer prizes for workers? Why not fill all of our executive and +administrative government bodies with the best farmers, business men, carpenters, +etc., instead of lawyers? Just think of it. Everyone knows lawyers are proverbially +poor business men. Yet our Nation, states, counties and cities all are governed +principally by men who privately are considered as inferior business men.</p> + +<p>By compelling the lawyers by some labor, some successful work, to first prove +their business ability and capacity, and making labor—work—the honest, real basis for +the elevation of men and women to places of trust and profit, and by this course +only can labor be exalted and every child in the land be led to look with pride and +pleasure upon the laborers, who are the true bone and sinew of the world.</p> + +<p>Preaching that “labor is ennobling,” then bestowing honor and benefits upon +those who never have cheerfully done a day’s hard work will not exalt the laborer.</p> + +<p>Let us get back to the farm and honor the farmer, that our days may be long +in the land that the Lord has given us, and let the laborer be truly ennobled.</p> + +<p>If farmers “were the founders of civilization,” as Mr. Webster states, then +are they also the main pillars supporting the same, and should be looked up to, +be honored and rewarded as such. And far above any lawyer, merchant or millionaire, +we can trust our workingmen and women. Let us try it at once, one +and all of us.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span></p> + +<h3>ADDRESS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By E. G. Griggs</span>,<br> +<i>President of the National Lumbermen’s Manufacturing Association</i></p> + +<p>It was my pleasure to attend the Second Annual Conservation Congress a +year ago in St. Paul. That I am here today representing a lumber producing delegation +would intimate that my interest in these proceedings is at least perennial. +I deplored the introduction of politics and regretted the delay in publication of +the excellent reports submitted with leave to print at the Congress. Just recently +I have read the many excellent technical reports, the discussion of which I +deemed of more importance to the upbuilding of the conservation movement than +the political outbursts that rankle in our breasts and tend to array class against +class. Conservation is education, and we all have something to learn. The experience +of the older and great states of this Union should profit the younger +and perhaps greater.</p> + +<p>As a lumberman, conservation to me is not a theory. It is the proper utilization +of a great heritage and the elimination of waste in the process of manufacturing +and logging. What theory is more vital commercially to the lumberman +than that? The establishment of values will determine to what extent conservation +will be practiced and reforestation followed. When men devoted to the general +welfare of these United States are giving liberally of their time and money and +energy to protect the vast resources of this country from wasteful extravagance, +I feel it is little enough to expect those who are actively engaged in commercial +enterprises to second their efforts.</p> + +<p>The importance of sane laws and wise legislation must be apparent to all of +us. Unless the business interests of the country heed the call and guide the effort, +an outraged public will some day awaken to its lost opportunities.</p> + +<p>As an official of the National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, I feel that +we, as lumbermen, are vitally interested in the proceedings of this Congress. I +come to you from a state that stands in the front rank as a lumber producer—a +citizenship interested from its lowliest to its highest in the proper utilization of +its wonderful forest growth. It is true that there is a divergence of opinion +among some of our Washington state officials as to state and federal control—but +to me, the important issue seems a national one. The value of our timber +resources is determined altogether by the demand existing outside our own states. +If conservation depends on values, then I say the price you in the Middle West +must pay for lumber has a great deal to do with reforestation and utilization of +our raw product. It is therefore entirely a national issue, and the question of +supply and demand, that inexorable commercial law, concerns us all.</p> + +<p>I am a strong believer in the knowledge of conditions and in the benefits of +coöperation. The final outcome of the reciprocity pact, conceived, as it was, in +secret, emphasizes the fact that our Canadian brethren intend to adopt a conservative +policy of their own. As a lumberman, I have never agreed with our honored +President in the belief that the trade was a good one for us. To a man not concerned +in politics, it seemed that our Canadian traders out-traded the Yankee. +Why the argument for a permanent tariff commission, non-partisan and thoroughly +competent, should apply on wool, cotton, steel and not on lumber, hardly +appeals to me. Now that we know where we stand, is it not high time the tariff +issues be studied as in foreign countries, particularly Germany, by a body of +experts permanently engaged, that Congress hear and discuss officially its report +and that facts be placed before the people? I am democratic enough to still +believe in the great American people.</p> + +<p>No industry not unduly protected need fear the light or a business upheaval. +Today a presidential year causes stagnation in business, either assumed or real. +Our country never will settle the tariff issue right until business integrity governs. +The revelation in accumulated wealth and control of millions can only be justified +if our country prospers. Neither should the people be taxed to accumulate +swollen fortunes. The prices at which the same commodities are sold to the +people of different nations ought to determine the tariff issue. America is for +Americans; let us develop our latent resources, not squander our heritage with +prodigality. Golden opportunities or luxurious surroundings do not warrant idleness, +but rather a higher sense of individual and national responsibilities. To +get the best out of that which we have should concern us all.</p> + +<p>Our taxation problems, the methods which have prevailed so long, do not +encourage timber holding. Lumbermen have one crop and yearly taxes, while +the farmer has yearly taxes and annual crops. A timber investment of $5,000, say +at $1.50 per thousand, with taxes and interest compounded, in twenty years will +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span>equal $7.50 per thousand, allowing no profit at all, nor considering the fire risk. +In President Taft’s address a year ago, he says that “States must legislate to protect +their individual holdings from waste and private greed.” Had the Reciprocity +Agreement become a law, the Nation would have been responsible for an increased +competition and uncalled for development of timber resources in no way +beneficial to the United States, except those speculators who have invested in +British Columbia timber. The development of Canadian timber holdings will not +save our trees as long as growing trees are taxed, capital invested and timber is +sold on time contracts. The more competition, the more will be left in the woods, +as only in the higher grades will there be profit. Lumber is constantly rising in +value because of its increasing inaccessibility and the distance it has to travel to +market.</p> + +<p>Why deprive our great lumber producing states of the great purchasing +power resulting from the manufacture of this resource? Over three-quarters of +the cost at the mill of one thousand feet of lumber represents pay roll, and to the +Western states this means outside capital. Of the money received for 1,000 feet +of 2×4’s delivered on a fifty-cent rate of freight today, the railroad takes $13.00 +freight money, leaving $7.00 to pay for logging, manufacturing, selling and stumpage. +What your retailers charge I do not know. As manufacturers, we have no +trust controlled product and do not control the price to the consumer. Suffice it +to say that there is little or no margin in the price of common lumber today to +the manufacturer. A comparison of the selling prices at home and abroad, with +due regard for grades furnished, should determine the existence of a lumber +trust, and the same reasoning applies conversely to steel and other industries. +Harassed as the industry has been by government proceedings and investigation +of alleged trust and monopoly, we feel that a great injustice is being done that +should be righted. If the marketing through retailers is not legal, I predict a +commercial upheaval is due in all lines of industry.</p> + +<p>Reforestation will come when it is profitable—when the land is more suitable +to grow trees on than to sow annual crops or build cities. The methods followed +in the East will not apply to the South and West. The character of the timber +must be studied to determine how it can be profitably handled. Its proximity to +market, and the rail and water haul are to be considered. This was emphasized +in the Congress last year and is more apparent today, as the completion of the +Panama Canal approaches. It was stated that adequate and economical transportation +facilities are viewed among the means of conservation, and realizing +that the growth of the country has exceeded its transportation facilities, I trust a +comprehensive resolution will be adopted by this Congress regarding the Panama +Canal tolls. With our coastwise shipping laws and regulations governing shipments +from one American port to another, the benefits of this canal will be seriously +menaced unless Congress acts intelligently in the matter, and with due regard +to the development of our country. If we are to have tariff revision or free +trade, let us at least be consistent and give to our own manufacturers access to +ships on a competitive basis.</p> + +<p>In my judgment, it will not do to merely resolute and spread high sounding, +well-meaning platitudes on the records; we should organize to actively acquaint +our citizenship throughout the states with the prevailing conditions and the benefits +to be derived through experience of others and knowledge of conditions. Educate +the people, and a great public sentiment will demand improved conditions. +The efforts of conservationists are often misjudged because considered impractical. +I say eliminate the visionary and theoretical, get down to the practical and +immediate remedies. We will have a movement so widespread and effective that +the Nation will rejoice and problems undreamed of now will be solved by an +enlightened, unprejudiced public.</p> + +<p>We should encourage men and money in the development of our resources, +but by wise supervision control their operations. This government is bigger than +any of its component parts, and not only have railroads and corporations felt its +guiding hand to their betterment, but the court of final resort must always and +forever be the people of this, our native land.</p> + +<p>Let us strive for the highest type of citizenship which demands the best that +is in us, and we will play our part in the ascendency of the star of the greatest +of empires—the American Republic.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span></p> + +<h3>INCREASING THE YIELD BY PROPER CULTIVATION OF THE SOIL</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By A. M. Ten Eyck</span>,<br> +<i>Professor of Farm Management Kansas State Agricultural College and Superintendent +Fort Hays Branch Experiment Station.</i></p> + +<p>How to increase the acre yield of staple crops is the important problem which +the American farmer must solve in order that the world may not go hungry, and +also that his own prosperity may continue. The average crop yields in this country +are too low. It is possible to double our acre-yields of staple crops by adopting +better farming methods.</p> + +<p>There are three principal factors which have to do with increasing crop yields: +(1) increasing the productive power of the land by fertilizing the soil; (2) planting +seed of high-bred and better producing varieties; (3) practicing proper and +more thorough cultivation of the soil.</p> + +<p>The work in testing varieties and breeding crops at the Kansas Experiment +Station has shown that it is possible to increase the average yield of the standard +crops in this state twenty-five per cent by the single factor of introducing and +planting pure seed of well-bred and high producing varieties. To illustrate,⁠<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> +one of the improved varieties of winter wheat grown on the Kansas Agricultural +College farm actually produced twelve and one-half bushels more grain per acre +each year, or a net profit of nearly $7.00 per acre per annum, as an average for +three years, above that produced by common scrub wheat of the same type. +Farmers all over the state who have planted this improved wheat have reported +similar results, the increase in yield from the well-bred wheat being often much +larger than the differences secured at the station. It is hard to believe that one +variety of wheat, improved by breeding and selection, will outyield another strain +of the same variety, which has not been improved, as much as fifty per cent; but +a large number of reports from reliable Kansas farmers indicate that this has +occurred, when the two strains of wheat were grown in the same field side by +side.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> See Kansas Experiment Station Bulletin 144.</p></div> + +<p>Corn is more susceptible to soil and climatic changes than wheat, so that the +well-bred seed does not always give the best results from the first year’s planting; +but breeding will tell in the corn crop, as shown by experiments at the Kansas +Station,⁠<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> in which the high-yielding row, seed has produced from ten to twenty +per cent larger yields per acre, and twenty-five to thirty-five per cent more good +seed ears than the average corn from which the improved strain was originated.</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> See Bulletin 147.</p></div> + +<p>The possibilities along this line of increasing the yield of corn by the planting +of better seed are shown by the reports which have been received from +Kansas farmers, reporting sixty and eighty-bushel yields where the average for +the county was twenty or thirty bushels.</p> + +<p>The soil of our western states is abundantly fertile; but mismanagement and +continuous cropping with corn and wheat have reduced its productive power. It +is possible by the proper use of barnyard manure to double the yield of corn and +increase the yield of wheat thirty-three per cent, as shown by the results of the +experiments at the Station. A single experiment in manuring wheat land +previous to planting to alfalfa increased the wheat yield thirty-three per cent, and +doubled the crops of alfalfa for the first two years after seeding, making a total +increase in the returns per acre of nearly $45.00 for the three years, or $15.00 +net increase per annum.⁠<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>⁠</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a> See Kansas Experiment Bulletin 155.</p></div> + +<p>It is possible by a proper rotation of crops, including alfalfa, clover and +grasses, to double the productive capacity of thousands of acres of our western +corn and wheat lands. This is shown by the experiments at the Kansas Station +and by the reports of farmers. In 1906, a careful investigation of the corn yields +of Jewell County, Kansas, made by Hon. J. W. Berry, formerly a member of the +board of regents of the Kansas State Agricultural College, showed that the average +yield from land previously in alfalfa was over eighty bushels per acre, while +similar land on the same farm and adjoining farms, which had not been in +alfalfa, yielded less than sixty bushels per acre on the average, and the average +yield of corn in Jewell County for that year was less than thirty bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>It has been shown by the experiments carried on for the last six years at the +Station that it is possible to increase the yield of corn ten per cent simply +by practicing better methods of preparing the seed-bed. When corn has been +planted with the lister, winter or early spring plowing or listing of the ground +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span>previous to the planting has given an increase in crop as an average for six years, +amounting to six bushels of corn per acre each year, as compared with ground which +received no cultivation previous to planting.</p> + +<p>Different methods of cultivation of corn, deep or shallow, etc., have not +affected the yield so much as different methods of preparing the seed-bed, except +where the cultivation of the corn was neglected. The lack of sufficient cultivation +means greatly reduced yields or crop failure.</p> + +<p>It is possible to increase the wheat yield of Kansas fifty per cent by practicing +better methods of seed-bed preparation. As an average for two years’ trials, 1908 +and 1909, at the Station the yield of wheat due to preparation of seed-bed alone +varied from 21.6 to 37.4 bushels per acre, an increase of seventy-three per cent in +yield due to the better preparation of the seed-bed.⁠<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>⁠</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a> See Kansas Experiment Station Circular, 2.</p></div> + +<p>In 1911, one of the driest years which Kansas has ever experienced, this experiment +was repeated with remarkable results. The most poorly prepared seed-bed +(ground disked, not plowed) yielded a little over four bushels of wheat per +acre, while the largest yield was thirty-eight bushels per acre from early deep +plowing, which received frequent cultivation after plowing until seeding time. +Ordinary loose ground, plowed late, yielded fourteen bushels per acre, while +ground cultivated early with the lister plow and leveled with the disk harrow +gave thirty-five bushels per acre. The better methods of seed-bed preparation +employed in these experiments are such as may be successfully practiced throughout +the Western winter wheat belt.</p> + +<p>Of the three factors concerned with increasing the acre-yields, the last named, +“Practicing Proper and More Thorough Cultivation of the Soil,” is the simplest +and most readily applied. Probably more low yields and crop failures are due +to insufficient or improper cultivation than to any other single factor over which +the farmer has control in the production of any particular crop. With a soil of +average fertility, the preparation of the seed-bed by the proper tillage and cultivation +methods very largely determines the yield of the crop.</p> + +<p>There are four important objects to be accomplished by cultivating the soil: +1. To secure a proper physical condition of the soil favorable to sprouting seed +and promoting plant growth. 2. To kill weeds. 3. To conserve soil moisture. +4. To develop or prepare plant food.</p> + +<p>The texture of the soil is nearly always more important than mere richness. +Many “worn” lands have simply been robbed of their organic matter, often still +containing an abundant supply of the mineral elements of plant food. Others +have been injured in texture and hence in productiveness by careless or faulty +management.</p> + +<p>The maintenance and improvement of soil texture are more dependent upon +plowing than upon any other operation of tillage. A finely divided, mellow soil +is more productive than a hard lumpy one of the same chemical composition, +because it affords greater feeding ground and more favorable environment for +the plant roots; absorbs and retains more moisture, has better aeration, and +less variable extremes of temperature. Also, because it promotes nitrification +and the development of available plant food by giving favorable conditions for +the development of soil bacteria, and for the decomposition and solution of the +soil minerals. In all these ways and others, “mellowness” renders plant food +more available and affords a more congenial, comfortable place in which the +plants may grow.</p> + +<p>Plowing, especially in the spring, tends to ventilate, warm and dry the seed-bed, +and if properly done, lessens evaporation from the deeper soil by the development +of a soil mulch above it.</p> + +<p>Deep plowing brings up new stores of inert plant food, enlarges the moisture +reservoir, deepens the seed-bed, gives more root room and more material +for the soil bacteria to work over into available plant food. Deep plowing or +subsoiling also serves to break up the plant food, to break up the “furrow-sole” +or “hard-pan,” thus loosening up compact, impervious, clayey subsoils.</p> + +<p>Plowing is an efficient means of destroying weeds and many kinds of injurious +insects which prey on farm crops. Hard, clayey or “gumbo” soils are +mellowed by late fall or winter plowing, and further, proper and timely plowing +is the most efficient and practical means of preparing a suitable seed-bed for +nearly all farm crops. Too many farmers who have allowed their land to become +deficient in fertility seek to restore its productivity by application of expensive +commercial fertilizers, without first putting it in good tilth. This is a great +mistake. The way to treat such land is to “plow” it well, and work up a physical +condition suitable for the best growth of crops. After all this is done, the +application of concentrated commercial fertilizers may give profitable returns.</p> + +<p>In order to secure the ideal condition for seed germination and plant growth, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>a seed-bed for planting small seeds should not be too deep and loose; rather +the soil should be mellow, but well pulverized only about as deep as the seed +is planted. Below the depth at which the seed is planted it should be firm +and well settled, making a good connection with the subsoil, so that the water +stored therein may be drawn up into the surface.</p> + +<p>The firm soil below the seed, well connected with the subsoil, supplies the +moisture to the seed, while the mellow soil above it allows sufficient circulation +of air to supply oxygen and favors warming by gathering the heat of the sunshine +during the day and acting as a blanket to conserve the soil heat, maintaining a more +uniform temperature during the night.</p> + +<p>The mellow soil above the seed conserves the moisture, acting as a mulch +to keep the water from reaching the surface, where it would be rapidly lost by +evaporation. The same condition favors the upward growth of the young shoots +into the air and sunshine.</p> + +<p>The loose, deep seed-bed is almost wholly dependent upon rains for sufficient +moisture to germinate the seed and start the young plant. If the crop +starts, it is very apt to be injured by short periods of dry weather, because of +the rapid drying out of the loose surface soil. In such a seed-bed the crop +is more apt to “burn out” in the summer, or “freeze out” in winter, than a crop +grown in the “ideal” seed-bed described above.</p> + +<p>It should not be inferred from this description of the “ideal” seed-bed that +the soil should not be plowed deeply; rather, deep plowing should be encouraged, +but timely, so that the soil may settle and fill with moisture, and such cultivation +should be given after plowing, so as to secure a favorable physical condition of the +seed-bed.</p> + +<p>So far as cultivation is concerned there are three principal steps in the conservation +of soil moisture:</p> + +<p>1. The soil must be loosened to a considerable depth in order to prepare +a reservoir to receive the rain and carry the water downward. This may be accomplished +by deep plowing, by listing, or by disking unplowed lands.</p> + +<p>2. The water which is carried down into the subsoil must be brought back +again into the surface where the seed is germinating and the young roots +are growing, and to accomplish this a good connection must be made between +the furrow-slice and the subsoil, and this is the purpose in the use of the subsurface +packer immediately after plowing.</p> + +<p>3. Finally, in order that the water which is drawn up again towards the +surface may not reach the air and be wasted by evaporation, the upper two or +three inches of the soil must be kept mellow in the form of a soil mulch, and +this is accomplished in the growing of crops, by frequent cultivation, which is +not so practicable with wheat, and other small grains, as with corn and other +intertilled crops.</p> + +<p>The most important step in soil moisture conservation is to get the water +into the soil. When this has been accomplished, the keeping it there and returning +it gradually to the growing crop is a relatively simple matter. Many farmers +have yet failed to learn this most important fact of dry farming, that the storing +of the moisture is the first and great principle of soil moisture conservation. The +firming and pulverizing to prepare the seed-bed, and the surface cultivation to maintain +the mulch, are each without avail unless there has been stored in the deeper +soil a sufficient amount of moisture to support the growing crop in time of drouth.</p> + +<p>Now the moisture should be stored at all times during the season, but especially +during the interval between harvest and planting. This requires early plowing +so that the soil may be in condition to catch the rain and absorb it.</p> + +<p>In order that there may be room to receive and store a heavy rain, deep +plowing is desirable. If plowing can not be done early, the cultivation of the +unplowed land with a disk harrow will keep the soil in good condition longer and +favors the absorption of rain.</p> + +<p>A good rule, but it cannot always be followed, is to plow when the soil is +in such condition that it will drop from the mold-board in a mellow, friable +condition.</p> + +<p>Loosening the soil by deep plowing favors the absorption of moisture, but +if rains do not come in time such land will suffer from drought more quickly +than though it had been plowed shallow.</p> + +<p>The loose soil dries out and capillarity is broken, preventing the furrow-slice +from receiving moisture from the subsoil rapidly enough to sustain the +growing crop. The depth and frequency of plowing should vary according to +the nature of the soil. A light or sandy soil requires less depth of plowing and +less frequent plowing than a heavy, or compact clayey or “gumbo” soil.</p> + +<p>As a general proposition, plowing should be shallow when it precedes planting +only a short time.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span></p> + +<p>Plow deep in the fall, and plow deep for summer fallow.</p> + +<p>A long interval between plowing and seeding allows the soil to settle sufficiently, +while freezing and thawing mellow the raw, hard subsoil which has been +brought to the surface.</p> + +<p>The relative depths of plowing may be stated as follows:</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Shallow plowing</td> + <td>3 to 4 inches.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Medium plowing</td> + <td>5 to 6 inches.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Deep plowing</td> + <td>7 to 8 inches.</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>Plowing deeper than eight inches with the common plow is not usually practicable, +but the soil may be stirred twelve to eighteen inches deep with a tillage +plow or subsoil plow, and in heavy soil with hard, compact subsoil, such deep +stirring may occasionally be desirable.</p> + +<p>When land is allowed to lie for a considerable period after plowing before +the crop is planted, the settling of the soil, together with the surface cultivation +to preserve the mulch and the cementing due to rain, usually causes it to repack +and firm up to a sufficient extent to make a good seed-bed.</p> + +<p>The use of the packer is most essential on late spring plowing, when the +purpose is to plant at once. It is not so necessary to use the subsurface packer +on fall plowing which is not intended to be planted until the following spring, +but for sowing fall wheat, if the plowing precedes the sowing by a very short +interval, the subsurface packer may be used very advantageously.</p> + +<p>The principle involved in the use of the subsurface packer is correct, and +the lighter the soil and the greater its tendency to remain loose and mellow the +more necessary becomes the use of the subsurface packer or similar implement, +in order to prepare a proper seed-bed.</p> + +<p>In plowing under trash or manure, subsurface packing, by pulverizing the +bottom of the furrow-slice, sifts the soil through the coarse trash and causes a +better union with the subsoil below, so that the capillary water may be drawn +up into the surface, whereas, if a heavy coat of stubble or manure plowed +under in this way is left without packing or pulverizing, the furrow-slice is apt +to dry out and the crop that is growing on the land may be injured by a short +interval of dry weather.</p> + +<p>By setting the disks rather straight and weighting the harrow, a disc-harrow +may be used as a substitute for the subsurface packer, resulting in a pulverizing +and firming effect at the bottom of the furrow-slice. Very often, however, early +plowing, with the proper use of the common harrow, may largely accomplish the +results required in preparing a proper seed-bed. It is usually advisable to weight +or ride the common straight-tooth harrow in order to cause it to stir and pulverize +the soil deeper and prevent the “slicking” effect which is apt to result from light +harrowing.</p> + +<p>The cultivation necessary, after early plowing, to destroy weeds, in the experience +of the writer, has usually been sufficient to settle and pulverize the seed-bed. +For the early cultivation after a good rain and after the weeds have started, +there is no implement superior to the disk harrow. The double disk which gives +two cultivations and leaves the ground level, being preferred. For late cultivation +the common harrow or the Acme harrow should be used with the purpose of not +loosening the ground too deeply just previous to planting or seeding.</p> + +<p>It is very essential that sufficient and proper cultivation be given to destroy +weeds. This is more important than to maintain a soil mulch, since weeds exhaust +both the soil moisture and the available plant food. If a proper mulch is +maintained, however, the weeds will be kept in subjection. In the ideal system +of culture the purpose is to keep a mellow soil mulch on the surface of the land +all of the time, not only during the growing of the crop, but also in the interval +between harvest and seeding time. Thus, after the corn is planted the land is +cultivated with the weeder or harrow in order to break the surface crust and +prevent the loss of moisture, and following out the same principle the harrowing +or work with the weeder is continued after the grain or corn is up, and during +the growing period frequent cultivation is required for intertilled crops.</p> + +<p>Again, after the crop is harvested, the cultivation is continued; the land is +plowed at once or listed, or the surface of the soil is loosened with the disk +harrow, and thus the land is kept continually in a condition to not only prevent +the loss of water already stored in the soil, but also this same condition and +mellow surface favors the absorption of rain and largely prevents the loss of water +by surface drainage.</p> + +<p>The smooth, finely-pulverized surface left by continuous light harrowing +really defeats the purpose of the cultivation, since soil in such condition will +shed heavy rains, causing a waste of water which should have been stored, and the +surface often becomes too fine and compact, preventing the proper aeration, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span>producing an unfavorable seed-bed condition. Thus during the interval between +crops, it is often advisable to use the Acme harrow or the disk, or spring-tooth +harrow, in order to keep the surface of the soil open and mellow.</p> + +<p>A new method for preparing the seed-bed is now coming into general practice +in Western Kansas. In preparing land for wheat, the plan is to list the ground +with the ordinary corn lister as soon after harvest as possible. The lister furrows +are run about three to three and a half feet apart, very much the same as when +the lister is used for planting corn. Later, when the weeds have started, the +soil is worked back into the lister furrows by means of a harrow or disk cultivator.</p> + +<p>Several cultivations are usually required by the harrow, and disk harrow, in +order to level the field and bring it into good seed-bed condition. Once over +with the disk cultivator is usually considered sufficient, the further work necessary +to prepare the seed-bed being given with the common harrow or other cultivating +implement.</p> + +<p>In a dry climate this method of preparing the seed-bed has several advantages, +as follows:</p> + +<p>The cultivation of the land soon after harvest tends to conserve the moisture +already stored in the soil. The furrowed land is in good condition to catch and +store the rain and the later cultivation clears the land of weeds and volunteer +wheat and leaves a mellow soil mulch to conserve the moisture which has been +stored in the subsoil. The early and continued cultivation of the soil favors the +action of the bacteria and the development of available plant food.</p> + +<p>By practicing this method the farmer may cultivate a larger area early in +the season when the soil is in good condition, when if it had been necessary +to plow the whole area, some of the land might become too dry to plow +well. Likewise the later plowing leaves the soil too loose and not in good seed-bed +condition. In preparing land for corn, the listing may be done late in the +fall or during the winter, or early spring. The usual plan being to split the +ridges with the lister later in the spring when the corn is planted. It is advisable +to harrow the listed field once or twice before planting to destroy weeds, or prevent +soil drifting and to preserve a mellow soil mulch to conserve the water which +has been stored in the subsoil. In preparing land for corn, the early listing has +proved equal to early plowing and superior to early disking, as shown by the +experiments at the Kansas Station.</p> + +<p>In the drier portions of the great plains area and throughout the mountain +states, where dry farming is practiced, the annual rainfall is not sufficient to +produce a crop every year, and it becomes necessary to practice a system of +summer fallowing every third or fourth season, or in alternate years in localities +of least rainfall, in order to store moisture and develop plant food and thus insure +the production of a profitable crop each year.</p> + +<p>Deep plowing either in the fall or spring, and frequent surface cultivation as +described above is the method of summer fallowing which has given the best +results at the Montana, Western Nebraska, and Western Kansas Experiment +Stations.</p> + +<p>The weeder is better adapted for harrowing wheat and other small grains +than the common harrow, but the harrow may be used when the ground is firm. +I question whether it is necessary or advisable as a rule to harrow wheat if due +precautions have been taken in preparing the seed-bed.</p> + +<p>Under certain conditions, where heavy rains firm and puddle the soil, it may +be advisable to harrow, but very young grain may be injured by harrowing, and +after the wheat covers the ground, harrowing is unnecessary. The harrowing +of wheat at regular intervals at the Kansas, Nebraska and Montana Experiment +Stations has not resulted favorably. Without question, the proper preparation +of seed-bed is a much more important factor in the growing of small grains, +than the cultivation after seeding.</p> + +<p>While it is a disputed point among authorities whether it pays to harrow +wheat and other sowed crops, there is no difference of opinion regarding the +necessity or value of frequent cultivation of corn and of all other crops usually +planted in rows. Regarding the depth and frequency of cultivation desirable, I +favor rather deep cultivation in our drier, hotter climate, and after every hard +rain, if possible, or at least sufficient to keep the weeds in check.</p> + +<p>It is not necessary or practicable to attempt to cultivate after every rain +and there is no virtue in the admonition “Keep the Cultivator going in a dry +time.” If the soil has been well stirred and the mulch is of sufficient depth, to +cultivate again would be loss of time and might do actual harm by drying out +the deeper portions of the soil mulch and also causing a too fine and dusty condition +of the surface soil, unfavorable to the absorption of moisture when the rain +comes.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span></p> + +<p>It is not necessary to have extra machinery in order to successfully practice +the system of culture outlined above. The only implements required or recommended +which are not in general use on every well equipped farm, are the subsurface +packer and the weeder.</p> + +<p>The principles stated above have been known and practiced more or less +for a long time and are mostly included in the “Campbell” system of culture. +H. W. Campbell was among the early apostles of dry farming in the West, and +has perhaps done more to call the attention of western farmers to the necessity +and advantages of thorough cultivation of the soil than any other investigator.</p> + +<p>Scientific farming pays, everywhere. I believe in the practicability of thorough +tillage and good cultivation on every farm, and the increase in crops by such +farming will more than pay for the extra labor. But the great problem in Western +agriculture today is not how to get larger crops out of the soil for a few years, +but rather how to produce paying crops every year and at the same time maintain +the fertility and productiveness of the land.</p> + +<p>Simple tillage will not maintain soil fertility. It becomes necessary finally +to replace the plant food, exhausted by the continuous growing of crops, with +the application of manure, or chemical fertilizers, and by green manuring and +the rotation of crops, in which the legume crops, such as alfalfa and clover are +introduced in order to restore again the nitrogen and organic matter, the supply +of which has only become more rapidly reduced because of intensive cultivation.</p> + +<p>There is little question regarding the value and even the necessity of the +summer fallow in the drier areas of the West. The tests at a number of Western +stations and the general experience of farmers prove this; yet there are serious +objections to the continued practice of bare summer fallowing.</p> + +<p>First, there is the tendency for the soil to waste by drifting in strong winds +and by washing away in heavy rains.</p> + +<p>Second, summer fallowing with frequent cultivation hastens nitrification and +decay, thus more rapidly exhausting the organic matter in the soil.</p> + +<p>It is possible for the soil to become more rapidly exhausted in fertility by +alternate bare summer fallowing and cropping than by continuous cropping. At +least the bare summer fallow does not add any fertility to the soil. In order +to maintain the productivity of our Western lands, it will become necessary to +add fertility to the soil preferably during the year of fallowing.</p> + +<p>I am beginning the practice of a method of green manuring and partial summer +fallowing, which I believe to be superior to bare summer fallowing and which +will largely overcome the objections to summer fallowing.</p> + +<p>The plan is to plant some fall crop or early spring crop and plow it under +late in May or early in June, practicing a summer fallow with surface cultivation +for the rest of the season, until seeding time.</p> + +<p>Certain crops adapted to the West are being tested for this purpose with +some degree of success. The more promising are sweet clover and sand vetch +for fall seeding and field peas for early spring seeding. These crops are hardy, +rapid growers, and somewhat drouth resistant and may be used also in part for +pasture, thus giving some return other than their fertilizing value. Some experiments +have already been made at the Hays Station in Western Kansas and the +yields of wheat secured from the green-manuring summer fallow compare favorably +with the yields from the bare summer fallow. And in my judgment, this +method of fallowing will soon be generally adopted and will solve the problem +for a long time at least, of increasing the organic matter and maintaining the +productiveness of our western lands.</p> + +<p>This method of green manuring and rotation of crops will largely prevent +soil drifting, the control of which is a very serious problem in western agriculture. +Our experience at the Station at Hays has demonstrated also that large areas in +wheat may be protected and largely prevented from being injured by the drifting of +soil within the field itself. The spreading of straw or coarse manure and packing +the straw into the soil with the subsurface packer was the most effective means +employed for protecting the fields from injury by winds last spring (1911). The +subsurface packing alone helped to prevent the starting of the drifting soil within +the field, but was not very effective in preventing the soil from adjacent fields from +sweeping over the wheat field, but the straw covered area actually stopped the +drifting soil, causing it to lodge, and thus protected the field beyond the straw +barrier.</p> + +<p>It is quite as necessary, however, to prevent the drifting of adjacent fields, +as to protect the wheat field itself. This may be done by early listing or disking +of the fall plowed fields and corn or kaffir stubble fields which are almost sure +to drift in a violent wind, when the soil is very dry at the surface. Disking or +other surface cultivation will prevent drifting of soil for a time, until the looser +portion dries out, then the soil can only be held by deeper cultivation as by listing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>or plowing. For putting the surface in the best condition to resist wind force a +long time, I prefer to break the ground with a lister, forming deeper furrows +and higher ridges than may be prepared with the disk or cultivator.</p> + +<p>During the season of 1911, which has been extremely dry and hot, the wheat +on summer fallow at the Station at Hays made a larger growth and a much better +showing in the early part of the season than other wheat, but before the crop +matured the conditions of drouth and heat became so severe that the wheat was +greatly injured, and the summer fallow produced a little larger yield but a poorer +quality of grain than was secured from other land not summer fallowed.</p> + +<p>The yields compare approximately as follows: Summer fallowed, five bushels +per acre. Not summer fallowed, two bushels per acre. In other localities in +Western Kansas where the rain was greater and the condition less severe, the +summer fallow made a better showing.</p> + +<p>It was also true last season, at the Western Kansas Station, that the extra +cultivation in preparing the seed-bed was without beneficial effect, in producing +a larger yield of wheat. However, in ordinary seasons the reverse has usually +been true; summer fallow has given much larger yields than continuous cropping, +and early plowing and extra cultivation have usually given a marked increase +in yield in the comparative tests which have been carried on at the Experiment +Stations, both at Manhattan in Eastern Kansas and also at Hays in the +western third of the state. At the Manhattan Station the careful preparation of +the seed-bed was very effective in increasing the yield of wheat in 1911, even +doubling and trebling the crop. The results of much of this work are summarized +in the succeeding pages.</p> + +<p>Three general methods of tillage for preparing the land for winter wheat +are practiced in this state, namely: plowing, listing and disking. There may be +variations of these three methods; as early plowing, shallow plowing, deep plowing, +single listing, double listing, disking without plowing, disking before plowing, +little cultivation after plowing, frequent cultivation after plowing, etc., and local +conditions may determine which method is the best. That certain methods are +superior to others may be readily shown by comparative trials which have been +carried on at the Kansas Station during the past two years. These experiments +include the several general methods of tillage named above with variations as +described in Table I, which gives the yield of wheat per acre and other data +determined by those experiments. This work was done at the State Experiment +Station at Manhattan, located in the middle eastern part of the state.</p> + +<p class="center">TABLE I.—METHODS OF PREPARING SEED-BED FOR WHEAT.⁠<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a>⁠</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th rowspan="2">Methods of Preparation.</th> + <th colspan="4">Yield per Acre, Bushels.</th> + <th colspan="3">Data for 1919-11 Crop Only.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th>1907-1908.</th> + <th>1908-1909.</th> + <th>1910-1911.</th> + <th>Average for Three Years.</th> + <th>Cost per Acre for Preparation.</th> + <th>Value of Crop at $0.80 per bu.</th> + <th>Value of Crop Less Cost of Preparation.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">34.74</td> + <td class="tdr">40.12</td> + <td class="tdr">27.74</td> + <td class="tdr">34.20</td> + <td class="tdr">$3.90</td> + <td class="tdr">$22.19</td> + <td class="tdr">$18.29</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed July 15, 7 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">28.84</td> + <td class="tdr">35.02</td> + <td class="tdr">38.36</td> + <td class="tdr">34.07</td> + <td class="tdr">4.95</td> + <td class="tdr">30.69</td> + <td class="tdr">25.74</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep; not worked until Sept. 15</td> + <td class="tdr">30.53</td> + <td class="tdr">38.12</td> + <td class="tdr">23.62</td> + <td class="tdr">30.76</td> + <td class="tdr">3.55</td> + <td class="tdr">18.89</td> + <td class="tdr">15.34</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; ridges split Aug. 15</td> + <td class="tdr">28.67</td> + <td class="tdr">31.33</td> + <td class="tdr">34.35</td> + <td class="tdr">29.78</td> + <td class="tdr">3.75</td> + <td class="tdr">27.48</td> + <td class="tdr">23.73</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Listed July 15, 7 inches deep; ridges harrowed</td> + <td class="tdr">20.02</td> + <td class="tdr">32.17</td> + <td class="tdr">35.07</td> + <td class="tdr">29.09</td> + <td class="tdr">3.70</td> + <td class="tdr">28.05</td> + <td class="tdr">24.35</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed July 15, 3 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">33.45</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">4.45</td> + <td class="tdr">26.77</td> + <td class="tdr">22.32</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Disked July 15, plowed Aug. 15, 7 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">32.68</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">4.70</td> + <td class="tdr">26.14</td> + <td class="tdr">21.44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Disked July 15, plowed Sept. 15, 7 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">20.11</td> + <td class="tdr">30.56</td> + <td class="tdr">23.57</td> + <td class="tdr">24.75</td> + <td class="tdr">4.35</td> + <td class="tdr">18.85</td> + <td class="tdr">14.50</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed Sept. 15, 3 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">21.19</td> + <td class="tdr">30.76</td> + <td class="tdr">14.46</td> + <td class="tdr">22.14</td> + <td class="tdr">3.05</td> + <td class="tdr">11.57</td> + <td class="tdr">8.52</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed Sept. 15, 7 inches deep</td> + <td class="tdr">19.59</td> + <td class="tdr">27.98</td> + <td class="tdr">15.79</td> + <td class="tdr">21.12</td> + <td class="tdr">3.55</td> + <td class="tdr">12.63</td> + <td class="tdr">9.08</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Disked at intervals until seeding; not plowed</td> + <td class="tdr">14.95</td> + <td class="tdr">28.24</td> + <td class="tdr">4.29⁠<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>⁠</td> + <td class="tdr">15.83</td> + <td class="tdr">1.95</td> + <td class="tdr">3.42</td> + <td class="tdr">1.47</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a> See Kansas Experiment Station Circular No. 2 and Bulletin No. 176.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a> Disked only once just previous to sowing wheat.</p></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span></p> + +<p>Much of it was done by myself or under my direction during eight years +of service as agronomist at that station.</p> + +<p>Observe that the largest yields have been secured, as an average for the +three years from July and August plowing seven inches deep. The July listing +has ranked next to early plowing, but yielding on the average nearly five bushels +less wheat per acre than early plowing, or a decrease in yield of 14 per cent. +The decrease in yield from listing was less in the dry year of 1910-11.</p> + +<p>All of the higher yielding plots were cultivated at intervals after plowing or +listing with the harrow, disk or Acme. Thus the weeds were destroyed, the soil +was well pulverized and well settled and put into excellent seed-bed condition +by the first of October, when the wheat was planted.</p> + +<p>One or two cultivations after August plowing, at an extra cost of thirty-five +cents to fifty cents per acre, has given an average increase in the yield of wheat +of three and a half bushels per acre. Land disked before plowing, July 15, and +plowed August 15, 1910, gave an increase in yield of five bushels per acre in 1911.</p> + +<p>Deep plowing in July, 1910, gave nearly five bushels more wheat per acre +in 1911 than shallow plowing. As an average for the several seasons, the September +shallow plowing has given a little larger yield than the deeper plowing.</p> + +<p>The beneficial effect of early plowing and of frequent cultivation after plowing +in preparing the seed-bed for fall wheat was most marked in the dry season of +1910-11, when plowing a month later each time decreased the yield at the rate of +ten and one-half to twelve bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>The preparation with the lister has proved to be a little less effective than +early plowing, but has given better results than early disking followed by plowing +a month later. Filling the furrows by harrowing, versus splitting the lister ridges +and leveling with the harrow have given about equal results. The second listing +is not necessary and makes the preparation somewhat more expensive. Preparing +the seed-bed by listing and harrowing is cheaper than early plowing and frequent +cultivation. The largest yield and largest net income, however, has been secured +from early plowing followed by sufficient cultivation to kill weeds and maintain +a mellow soil mulch.</p> + +<p>Preparing the seed-bed by disking has given the lowest yields and least income. +The disked land has produced on the average each year eighteen bushels less +wheat per acre than early plowing. That is, the well prepared seed-bed has given +114 per cent the greater yield, or more than double the yield of the poorly prepared +seed-bed, and at very little greater cost of preparation.</p> + +<p>The next lowest yield was produced by late plowing, a week or two before +the wheat was planted. The average decrease in yield from September plowing +compared with July plowing was over twelve bushels per acre per annum, or +early plowing increased the yield fifty-four per cent. In the drier seasons of +1910-11 the difference was greater, the early plowing producing more than double +the yield received from the late plowing.</p> + +<p>“Disking in” wheat in the dry season resulted in an almost complete crop +failure, giving a small yield of only four bushels per acre; compared with thirty-eight +bushels per acre produced by deep early plowing. This is certainly a marked +example of the value of “proper” cultivation in preparing the seed-bed for wheat.</p> + +<p>The seed-bed for corn should be deeper and more mellow than the seed-bed +for wheat, and the early cultivation of the corn land previous to planting may +cause a marked increase in yield, as shown by experiments which have been recently +completed at the Kansas Station. These experiments relate to different methods +of tillage which may be practiced during the winter or early spring in preparing +the seed-bed for corn, and include deep and shallow plowing, double disking, and +listing, namely, plowing land into ridges with a double mold-board plow or lister.</p> + +<p>In these experiments corn has usually been planted in listed furrows, except +that the surface and lister methods of planting have been compared each year +on the plowed plots. Table II gives the yield of shelled corn per acre secured +by the continued practice of the methods described, for a period of six years. The +average yield for three years (1906-08) and for six years (1903-08) is also given.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span></p> + +<p class="center">TABLE II.—PREPARATION OF SEED-BED FOR CORN.</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th rowspan="2">Early Treatment.</th> + <th rowspan="2">Method of Planting.</th> + <th colspan="6">Yield Per Acre in Bushels.</th> + <th class="bl" rowspan="2">Average 3 Years 1906-1908</th> + <th rowspan="2">Average 6 Years 1903-1908</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th>1903</th> + <th>1904</th> + <th>1905</th> + <th>1906</th> + <th>1907</th> + <th class="br">1908</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Disked twice</td> + <td>Listed</td> + <td class="tdr">68.61</td> + <td class="tdr">55.12</td> + <td class="tdr">34.74</td> + <td class="tdr">70.29</td> + <td class="tdr">41.30</td> + <td class="tdr">73.60</td> + <td class="tdr">61.73</td> + <td class="tdr">57.28</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Disked twice, harrowed</td> + <td>Listed</td> + <td class="tdr">65.18</td> + <td class="tdr">50.27</td> + <td class="tdr">41.48</td> + <td class="tdr">75.34</td> + <td class="tdr">44.38</td> + <td class="tdr">78.80</td> + <td class="tdr">66.17</td> + <td class="tdr">59.24</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Listed</td> + <td>Listed in old furrows</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">44.00</td> + <td class="tdr">80.10</td> + <td class="tdr">49.81</td> + <td class="tdr">70.40</td> + <td class="tdr">66.77</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Listed</td> + <td>Listed breaking ridges</td> + <td class="tdr">74.28</td> + <td class="tdr">52.37</td> + <td class="tdr">40.40</td> + <td class="tdr">82.29</td> + <td class="tdr">45.31</td> + <td class="tdr">74.00</td> + <td class="tdr">67.20</td> + <td class="tdr">61.44</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Untreated</td> + <td>Listed</td> + <td class="tdr">64.14</td> + <td class="tdr">58.35</td> + <td class="tdr">38.17</td> + <td class="tdr">68.61</td> + <td class="tdr">40.87</td> + <td class="tdr">72.40</td> + <td class="tdr">60.63</td> + <td class="tdr">57.09</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed shallow</td> + <td>Listed</td> + <td class="tdr">64.26</td> + <td class="tdr">54.96</td> + <td class="tdr">40.82</td> + <td class="tdr">84.23</td> + <td class="tdr">55.48</td> + <td class="tdr">76.90</td> + <td class="tdr">72.20</td> + <td class="tdr">62.28</td> + </tr> + <tr class="bt"> + <td>Average of listed</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr">66.69</td> + <td class="tdr">54.21</td> + <td class="tdr">39.94</td> + <td class="tdr">76.81</td> + <td class="tdr">46.19</td> + <td class="tdr">74.35</td> + <td class="tdr">65.78</td> + <td class="tdr">59.47</td> + </tr> + <tr class="bt"> + <td>Plowed shallow</td> + <td class="nw">Surface planted</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">42.40</td> + <td class="tdr">71.90</td> + <td class="tdr">46.87</td> + <td class="tdr">68.40</td> + <td class="tdr">62.39</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plowed deep</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr">73.74</td> + <td class="tdr">70.95</td> + <td class="tdr">41.66</td> + <td class="tdr">81.89</td> + <td class="tdr">51.28</td> + <td class="tdr">75.40</td> + <td class="tdr">69.46</td> + <td class="tdr">65.79</td> + </tr> + <tr class="bt"> + <td>Av. of surface planted</td> + <td></td> + <td class="tdr">73.74</td> + <td class="tdr">70.95</td> + <td class="tdr">42.03</td> + <td class="tdr">76.80</td> + <td class="tdr">49.08</td> + <td class="tdr">71.90</td> + <td class="tdr">65.93</td> + <td class="tdr">65.79</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>While the relative yields vary somewhat from year to year, it is very clear +that the early plowing and early listing have given increased yields of corn, ranging +from six to twelve bushels per acre for the three years, and four to five bushels +per acre as an average for six years.</p> + +<p>As an average for three years the double disking and harrowing early in the +spring has given an increased yield of five and one-half bushels of corn per acre. +It will be observed that in the above comparison all of the corn was planted in +listed furrows.</p> + +<p>Comparing the two methods of planting it appears that the highest yield for +three years was produced by listing in the early shallow plowed land: The average +yield for six years, however, was 3.3 bushels per acre in favor of the surface +method of planting.</p> + +<p>The results may be explained by the fact that the seasons of 1904 and 1905 +were very wet, hence there was less necessity of conserving soil moisture, and +the early cultivation gave little benefit, while the lister method of planting was +placed at a disadvantage. The method of planting corn in listed furrows is +adapted to dry climate and warm soil. Corn planted in the bottom of a furrow +four to six inches deep develops a deeper root system than surface planted corn; +hence listed corn is not readily injured by drouth. The effect on the root system +is shown by the study of corn roots made at the Station.⁠<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a>⁠</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a> See Bulletins 127 and 147.</p></div> + +<p>It is quite evident that the best method of preparing the seed-bed for corn +and the best method of planting corn will vary for different climatic and soil +conditions. Yet it is very important that the farmer test these methods and +determine which is the better for his particular conditions, since the method of +seed-bed preparation and the method of planting may be very important factors +in securing large yields.</p> + +<p>In the cultivation experiments carried on at the Station during the past six +years the practice has been to “lay the corn by” with a final cultivation about the +first of July. In these experiments the plan has been to cultivate duplicate plots +by four different methods, as follows: shallow; deep; deep early and shallow +late; shallow early and deep late. The shallow cultivation has been performed +with the knife or gopher type of cultivator, while for the deep cultivation, the +six-shovel cultivator has been used.</p> + +<p>The plan has been not to cultivate excessively deep but only medium deep, +three to four inches. The depth of the surface cultivation has averaged one and +one-half to two inches. The corn has usually been cultivated four times each +season, and the practice has been to cultivate by the same method twice in succession +those plots in which the method of cultivation was changed during the season, +that is, certain plots were cultivated shallow at the first two cultivations and deep +at the last two cultivations, and vice versa. The yield of shelled corn each year +and the average yield for seven years, by the different methods of cultivation, are +given in Table III.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span></p> + +<p class="center">TABLE III.—CULTIVATION EXPERIMENTS WITH CORN, 1903-1909.</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th rowspan="2">Method of Cultivating.</th> + <th colspan="7">Yield of Corn Per Acre, Bushels.</th> + <th class="bl" rowspan="2">Average 3 years, 1907-1909</th> + <th rowspan="2">Average 7 years, 1903-1909</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <th>1903</th> + <th>1904</th> + <th>1905</th> + <th>1906</th> + <th>1907</th> + <th>1908</th> + <th class="br">1909</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shallow, 1 to 2 inches</td> + <td class="tdr">51.65</td> + <td class="tdr">57.51</td> + <td class="tdr">45.64</td> + <td class="tdr">56.19</td> + <td class="tdr">41.21</td> + <td class="tdr">75.72</td> + <td class="tdr">35.1</td> + <td class="tdr">50.69</td> + <td class="tdr">51.86</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Shallow, early; deep, late</td> + <td class="tdr">52.96</td> + <td class="tdr">57.25</td> + <td class="tdr">49.68</td> + <td class="tdr">51.67</td> + <td class="tdr">42.17</td> + <td class="tdr">87.12</td> + <td class="tdr">34.7</td> + <td class="tdr">54.66</td> + <td class="tdr">53.56</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Deep, 3 to 4 inches</td> + <td class="tdr">50.87</td> + <td class="tdr">53.98</td> + <td class="tdr">50.86</td> + <td class="tdr">50.55</td> + <td class="tdr">38.73</td> + <td class="tdr">78.81</td> + <td class="tdr">33.7</td> + <td class="tdr">56.41</td> + <td class="tdr">51.07</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Deep, early; shallow, late</td> + <td class="tdr">53.66</td> + <td class="tdr">49.62</td> + <td class="tdr">49.39</td> + <td class="tdr">50.09</td> + <td class="tdr">43.11</td> + <td class="tdr">76.93</td> + <td class="tdr">31.3</td> + <td class="tdr">50.45</td> + <td class="tdr">50.30</td> + </tr> + <tr class="bt"> + <td>Wrong time</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">79.7</td> + <td class="tdr">44.1</td> + <td class="tdr">61.9</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Right time</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">—</td> + <td class="tdr">82.9</td> + <td class="tdr">51.2</td> + <td class="tdr">67.0</td> + <td class="tdr"></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The average yield for the seven years favors the shallow-early-deep-late cultivation +by a little over three bushels per acre per year, when compared with the +deep-early-shallow-late cultivation, which gave the lowest average yield.</p> + +<p>The variation in yield by the different methods of cultivation from year to +year and the nearly uniform average yields for the long period of seven years, +indicate that the method of cultivation practiced, whether shallow or deep, may +not make much difference in the yield of the crop, provided the cultivation is +done well and at the right time.</p> + +<p>The factors heretofore described, which have to do with seed germination +and plant growth, are largely controlled by cultivation. There are, perhaps, no +exact rules or methods for cultivating corn, but a farmer observing the crop +and soil conditions, and understanding the principles of soil cultivation, may vary +the manner and practice of cultivation somewhat to suit the conditions and accomplish +the objects desired.</p> + +<p>It is very important to cultivate corn at the “right” time. An experiment +which has been carried on for two years in cultivating corn at the “right” time and +the “wrong” time, has resulted as follows:</p> + +<p>Average yield for “wrong” time cultivation, 61.9 bushels per acre. Average +yield for “right” time cultivation, sixty-seven bushels per acre, or six and one-tenth +bushels per acre in favor of cultivating the corn at the “right” time. The +“right” time means soon after the rain, when the weeds have started and the +soil is just dry enough to cultivate well; the wrong time is a week or ten days +later, when the weeds have become larger and the soil is hard and dry and turns +over in clods and lumps. It costs more to cultivate corn at the “wrong” time +than at the “right” time, because of the slower and more difficult work and greater +draft of the cultivator due to unfavorable soil conditions—and yet the “right” +time cultivation increased the yield 10 per cent.</p> + +<p>It is important also to use the best implements, but doing the work well +and at the right time is even more important than the type of cultivator used. +No one type of cultivator can be recommended as superior to others, but different +kinds of cultivators are useful for different work and for different conditions. +The corn grower should have more than one kind of corn cultivator. I prefer +at least two types, one for shallow and one for deep cultivation. The knife +and shovel cultivators serve their purpose well, but the disk cultivator may be +used in place of shovels, and is especially recommended for use during the early +cultivation of listed corn.</p> + +<p>It is possible, as shown by the work at the Station, for the wheat farmer who +will practice the best culture methods, to increase his yield of winter wheat 50 to +100 per cent by careful and proper preparation of the seed-bed, with practically no +greater cost for cultivation (See Table I.).</p> + +<p>The skillful corn grower may readily increase his corn yields five bushels per +acre by a little extra cultivation of the corn land early in the spring before planting. +He may add another five bushels to the crop by practicing the correct method +of planting, which experience has proved to be the most suitable to his soil and +climate. And finally, by the simple factor of sufficient cultivation of corn at the +right time and in the right way he may still further increase the yield at the rate +of ten bushels per acre.</p> + +<p>Thus it is possible for the farmer who is not now doing these things to add +40 per cent to the average corn yield of his farm by practicing improved culture +methods. The yield of other crops may be likewise increased, but the farmer should +bear in mind this fact: that the increase in yield by better culture may be secured +only by maintaining the fertility of the land and planting well-bred seed adapted +to the soil and climate.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span></p> + +<h3>THE CHURCH IN THE OPEN COUNTRY.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Warren H. Wilson</span>,<br> +<i>Superintendent of the Department of Church and Country Life of the Board of +Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church of the United States</i>.</p> + +<p>It is my purpose to answer the question, “What is the use of the church in +the open country?” We have some people who call themselves “spiritual,” who do +not believe there is any permanent use of a church. Their religion consists of +an insurance against fire; and as soon as they get a policy from an evangelist, +they have no more use of a church, certainly not of a strong church. I want +to speak to you of the church as an efficient institution, the builder of rural +civilization.</p> + +<p>We have other folk who are without land and without ownership of productive +tools; they are under economic pressure; they are our American poor. +They think they cannot afford anything that is not a necessity. I am here to +argue that the church in the open country is a necessity, especially to the poor.</p> + +<p>We have also some theorists, who believe that all rural institutions should +be assembled in towns and villages, and that ultimately the farmers should reside +there, going out every morning to their fields. I hope the time will never come +when American farmers will so live. And I wish to speak to you of the church +in the open country as the conserver of the soil, of the social life, the family +and the school in the country.</p> + +<p>The first reason for the existence of the church in the open country is the +fact that “the soil is holy.” Already we are faced with a depleted soil in some +of our richest agricultural states. But when the soil produces less, the poor will +have to pay more for food and for wearing apparel. We have been warned that +the time will come when the workingman cannot any longer wear wool or eat +white bread. I have observed in the last two years that the clothes which I buy +from a tailor who has supplied me for seventeen years do not any longer attract +the moths. The moth turns up his nose at cotton, and cries for wool. The business +of the farmer and of the sheep raiser is a religious business, because it is +in the interest of the whole people. Whatever makes for the prosperity of the +farmer will enrich and dignify all the people. The church is an institution essential +to good farming, and it should be maintained where the farmer lives, out in the +open fields.</p> + +<p>Religion is a valuation of life. It values some things high, and some low, +but it is, in the opinion of a recent scholar of repute, a system of values. Its +highest word is “holy.” The land in which the Hebrews were settled was called +“the Holy Land,” and nowadays the teachers of modern farming are declaring +to the young, “The land is holy.” At a recent summer school for country ministers +a professor lectured upon “the Holy Land,” meaning Palestine; and a great agriculturist +came also to lecture upon the soil of the state in which the school was +held, announcing his theme as “The Holy Earth.” We are entering a new era +in religion, in which the values of life will be estimated by their services to the +poor. In this consecration of the soil to the interest of the whole people the +church of the open country will have a great place.</p> + +<p>I know a minister in Maryland, where the soil has been exhausted by generations +of peach-culture, and the farmers are turning to other crops in order to +make a living. There the minister has found that his business is to preach scientific +agriculture, and his most impressive service has been to raise a great crop +of potatoes, with a dust mulch, the greatest ever raised at that time in that region. +He became the leader of those farmers in the actual struggle for a livelihood. He +helped them set their business on a firm footing. He preached as he worked, and +his people responded accordingly.</p> + +<p>The second reason for the maintaining of the church in the open country +is the fact that it is the best school by which to teach the farmers to give of +their prosperity to the community and to the common good. Farming is an austere +occupation. The best farmers are always economically austere, which is defined +by an economist as “the condition in which men produce much and consume little.” +The very definition shows that of all occupations farming must be the most austere. +But the practice of this austerity makes the farmer close and often mean. He +stints himself and he stints everybody else. He refuses to support good roads, +and he declines to pay for better schools because he is not a spender but a producer.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span></p> + +<p>The church, of all institutions, makes the closest and most intimate appeal +to the farmer. It is his school of giving. It has an agent living in the community, +needing to be supported. The salary of the minister, and the supplying +of his needs, are a constant education in the building of community utilities. The +schools will be better maintained, the roads will be sooner reconstructed, even +at greater cost, and the poor will be better cared for, where the church exists in +the open country; to fertilize, with its appeals, the sour soil of the farmers’ austerity, +with the needed ingredients for benevolence.</p> + +<p>The third reason for the church in the open country is the fact that the church +is a family builder. The rural household, which for three generations was the +spring of American idealism, has been dissolved, in the past twenty years, by +speculation. The exploitation of farm lands has made so many families nomads, +and has retired so many farmers to the towns, that there is need of a new era of +home building in the country.</p> + +<p>The best fitted of all institutions for this service is the church. Her work, +as she well knows, is with the young. Her membership is always made up largely +of women, and with them lies the future of the American home in the country. +The moving force in the exodus from the farm is too often the woman. The +church will do more to make life worth while for her on the farm than all other +institutions.</p> + +<p>The fourth use of the church in the open country is as a center of the concern +for the farmer’s income. The church in the country which does not sanctify the +livelihood of the farmer will not survive. “The most successful farmers in +America,” says an economist, “are the Mormons, the Scotch Presbyterians and the +Pennsylvania Dutch.” All these are religious farmers, and their churches are +their coöperative associations for farming. They all idealize country life. They +are organized for agriculture. But, mark this, in all these country churches—and +their churches are out in the open—the church has concern for the prosperity of +its farmers as farmers. The income is the man’s job, and when the church would +get the men it will care for the income. The Lord Almighty cares more for the +feeding of the whole people than for any other thing. First of all God is the +Father of men, and He cares most for their satisfaction in material things than +for their having books, or for their having any of the higher refinements. If the +people have not abundance of food and warm clothing, all moral and religious +values will suffer. Therefore the farmer is the Lord’s hired man; and the church’s +first business in the open country is “to produce the spirit in which the knowledge +will be used, which will enable the farmer to succeed.”</p> + +<p>The transition in economic affairs, through which we are passing, is working +its effects upon the country churches. For the church is the best of all thermometers +of the social economy. Many churches in the country are being closed. +In the South alone, according to the Southern Baptist organ, sixteen hundred +Baptist and Methodist country churches are closed every Sunday of the year. In +the state of Illinois, our sociological surveys have shown that about seventeen +hundred country churches have been closed and abandoned. It is the elimination +of the unfit. It is the realignment of the religious people for greater efficiency, +at new centers. There is no sign that country people are less religious than they +were. But there is every indication that the churches are being sifted on the +principle of efficiency.</p> + +<p>The churches are suffering at the farmers’ hands another process, which I +would like to describe as dehorning. It is like the removal of the horns from +the heads of dairy cows; and it has the same purpose. Doctrinal subjects which +divide are being tabooed, and the churches are no longer to hook and horn one +another, but to live together in peace and produce the most of the milk of human +kindness, with the greatest economy in the fodder of doctrine.</p> + +<p>This transition is showing also in the inventing of a new type of church. It +is appearing all over the land at the same time. I find it in all denominations, +and it bears the marks of the same spirit everywhere. My friend, McNutt, at +Plainfield, Illinois, has become the most eminent exponent of this new ideal of +the pastorate, but he is far from being the only man who is so succeeding. He +has a unique power of telling of his work; but many others, who cannot tell of +it, can do as well. His church has the heart of the community; and there all +the people, especially the young, gather for musical culture, for recreation, as well +as for worship.</p> + +<p>The modern church for the open country will be a community center. It +will bring all the people together, by serving the needs which are common to all. +For the community has taken the place once held by the farm household, as the +circle of the life of country people. Tradition once ruled farming, but its place +has been taken by science. The farmer can no longer teach his son to farm the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>land, therefore the household cannot dominate the country, as once it did. The +new ideals of country life are community ideals. And the churches which are +succeeding in the country are community churches.</p> + +<p>The community center church cares for the young, for the growing boys +and girls of the community, and for the farm hands. It is a center for the recreative +life of the people. Music has its home in that church. Plays are presented +under its auspices. The holidays of the year are celebrated at its instigation. +Every needful enterprise that the country community requires for its development +is fostered by the community church. I have known side paths to be made +on country roads, in this manner, the whole countryside coming together for a +“frolic” for the purpose of laying out these walks. I have known a country bank +to be started in this way. There is no limit to the good that can be done in the +country, in making country life worth while, by a church which has the community +spirit.</p> + +<p>My friends, worship is the symbol of the community. The church spire out +in the fields is the center around which the whole locality revolves. The common +assembly, on Sunday, does more, all over the open spaces of this great land, to +organize people in neighborhoods, and to cultivate a country life ideal, and to +make country life worth while, than all other institutions combined.</p> + +<p>For there is nothing in the high price of farm land to keep the boy and girl +on the farm. The only way for the conservation of the highest value of country +life is to secure pastors who will live in the country, and churches through which +they may build men into communities of farmers, contented, devoted to the work +of a Divine Providence, and crowning the productive labor of the week with +worship on the Lord’s Day, in the place where the community meets most fitly, +in the church of the open country.</p> + +<h3>THE EXTENSION OF THE POSTAL SAVINGS SYSTEM TO OUR SCHOOLS AND ITS VALUE +TO THE PRESENT AND COMING GENERATION.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By F. A. Filson</span>,<br> +<i>President of the Missouri Association of Assistant Postmasters</i>.</p> + +<p>Of the three great forward movements which have marked the history of the +postal service during the past dozen years the inauguration and extension of the +postal savings system is, we believe, destined to be the greatest and most far-reaching +in its effects on the general welfare of the great mass of our people. +Rural delivery, the first of the three great forward movements, it is true, has +been not only a phenomenal success but has been of untold value to all classes +of our people and is sure to grow in popularity and efficiency as the years go by. +And the parcels post, the third great movement which we believe is sure to be +inaugurated will in a measure revolutionize many branches of business, but in +the end be of untold blessing and value to the masses; and whatever in our country +is of great and lasting benefit to the masses is sure to be accomplished notwithstanding +the opposition of wealthy corporations and selfish personal interests.</p> + +<p>The postal savings system, like all other great forward movements, in its infancy +met with violent opposition from many classes of our citizens, who for selfish +reasons or lack of information violently opposed the enactment of the necessary +legislation for its installation. Many of the same arguments which have been worn +threadbare in the discussion of rural free delivery, parcels post and other progressive +measures, were again brought into use and vociferously enunciated through +the press and from the public platform and on the floors of Congress; but after +mature deliberation and thorough discussion the right prevailed, as it generally +does, and the necessary bill was enacted by Congress and a committee appointed +who immediately got busy and laid plans for the inauguration of the system and +adopted rules and regulations for the conduct of the business. Be it said to the +everlasting honor and credit of this committee and its co-workers that the system +evolved is, in the judgment of your humble servant, one of the very best, most +comprehensive and practical of any system of its kind in use throughout the world. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>In fact, it is the product of the experience of all other nations plus the practical +common sense American ideas of our illustrious chief and his co-workers on the +committees. While our system is yet in its infancy, the phenomenal record it is +making and the ease and celerity with which the machinery of the same is moving +quietly along proves conclusively that while it may not be perfect it is founded +upon correct principles and with a few alterations will become famous throughout +the world as the American system of postal savings. It is with considerable pride +that its advocates and promoters can point to the fact that every one of the +predictions which they made before its inauguration and during the long campaign +for the enactment of the necessary legislation has already been fully and conclusively +demonstrated and proven beyond the possibility of a reasonable doubt. In +fact, many of the bankers and those who so violently opposed the inauguration +of the system have become fully convinced of the fact that it will be no detriment +to the banking business of the country, but, on the other hand, will be of inestimable +value in bringing from its hiding place the idle currency of the country and placing +it in the banks and putting it into circulation. Not only has it demonstrated +that it does and will do this, but it has, in the localities where depositories have +been opened, originated and is continuing a sentiment favorable to creating and +maintaining savings funds among many classes of people who have never before given +the matter as much as a serious thought. The experience of our postal savings +depository at Cameron is, I presume, about the same as that in other localities, +namely, that over sixty per cent of our 300 or more depositors are men, women +and children who never before had a bank account of any kind.</p> + +<p>From our standpoint we believe that the fact that the system thus induces such +thrift and frugality will be of untold blessing to the present as well as coming generations, +and that as a result our nation will become richer and greater in the +coming years and its people more prosperous, contented and happy. While the +system inaugurated by the committee in charge is complete and comprehensive, +yet in the very beginning of our experience at Cameron we saw the need of a +little further extension of the same, and after giving the matter much thought +and serious consideration we laid plans and have inaugurated in all the schools of +our city penny savings banks, to be operated in each room of the schools, under the +direction and charge of the superintendent and teachers. This system of penny +savings banks in the schools works in connection, and is really a part of, our postal +savings depository at the post office; and while it is an idea of my own, yet I have +submitted it to the postmaster general and the postal savings system committee, +and hope in the near future to see it adopted and extended to all the schools +throughout the country. It is very simple and easily instituted and operated, and +we believe will be heartily and enthusiastically received by the teachers of a majority +of the schools throughout the country.</p> + +<p>A brief explanation of the system, as we have it in Cameron, I believe would +be of interest to all postal officials that have to do with the postal savings system, +and I therefore take pleasure in presenting at this time a brief outline of the same, +and would be pleased at any time to explain the workings more in detail or answer +any questions that may be propounded.</p> + +<p>The extension of the postal savings system to our schools and the establishment +of the penny savings banks therein is based upon the facts that many of our children +do not receive as much as ten cents at one time for their labor or for their +spending money, and that they, like many of their elders, find it very difficult and +at times almost impossible to keep money in their pockets for any given length +of time. In fact, in many cases it immediately begins to “burn their pocket,” and +must be spent at once. Hence their pennies and nickels are spent before they +accumulate the necessary ten cents with which to purchase a saving card at the +Post Office. Then again, the tendency of our time for years has been for the youth +of the land to spend all they have or get, be it much or little, with great rapidity +and absolutely without any idea of its value. In the inauguration of penny savings +banks in our schools we endeavored to impress two valuable admonitions on the +minds of every pupil: First, that every boy and girl should, as soon as he enters +school, make it a point to earn a small amount of money each week; and, second, +that they should make it an invariable rule to save at least one-half of all the +money earned and given them and place it in a savings fund. In giving these two +admonitions we made the assertion that if those in the primary department would +follow these rules and deposit their money in the postal savings banks and invest it +in government bonds, compounding their interest by withdrawing and depositing +same, that at the age of twenty-five years the larger majority of them would have +amassed sufficient capital to enter into any retail business in our city.</p> + +<p>In introducing this extension I first laid the matter fully before our superintendent +and received his unqualified endorsement of the same, and then arranged +for a meeting with all the teachers of our schools and to them presented the postal +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>savings system and our extension system for the schools, and after a full explanation +they, with the superintendent, voted unanimously to place the same in our +schools. Immediately after the opening of the schools I visited each one separately +and presented the matter to the pupils and opened a penny savings bank, which was +placed in charge of the teacher. I closed this feature of the work on Friday, September +15, and the results to date have been eminently satisfactory and very gratifying. +I have arranged with the teachers to have them submit a weekly report +during the two remaining weeks of this month showing, first the total number of +depositors, second the total amount deposited, and third the average age of depositors. +After the close of this month these reports will be made monthly instead of +weekly.</p> + +<h3>ADDRESS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">F. C. Schwedtman</span>,<br> +<i>Chairman of the Delegation of the National Association of Manufacturers +of U. S. A.</i></p> + +<p>Permit me to extend to you, in the name of the great organization which I +have the honor to represent, the good will, coöperation and support of thousands of +progressive manufacturers from almost every state and city of the Union in every +sane endeavor to preserve the natural resources of our nation.</p> + +<p>I have listened with keen interest to yesterday’s and today’s arguments for the +conservation of coal and timber, soil and water. It seemed to me particularly significant +to have a lumberman in the person of the honorable chairman of your +executive committee urge the preservation of our forests, and it was equally fitting +to hear our great farmer Governor of Missouri make a plea for the soil. Of course, +both of these gentlemen spoke upon subjects nearest to their hearts. Unfortunately +I am not a farmer, but their action gives me courage to devote a few minutes to +a few phases of the conservation problem nearest my heart.</p> + +<p>Allow me, an employer of industrial labor, to plead for higher efficiency in the +industries and especially for better opportunities for the millions of toilers, in the +shops as well as upon the farm. The greatest nation of the future will be the nation +that best understands how to economize and preserve human energy and happiness +at home, and how to build up trade abroad.</p> + +<p>President Taft told us last night how, by mixing science and proper education, +our crops per acre can be doubled and trebled. In the same way can the output +of our mines and factories be increased tenfold in value by industrial education. +Instead of selling steel billets to the nations of the world, we want to sell them +sewing machines, dynamos and watch springs; and instead of exporting raw cotton +we want to export high grade cotton goods. This requires government support for +industrial education, and I urge you, in return for our aid to secure agricultural +schools and experimental stations, you give us yours to secure scientific industrial +training. The National Association of Manufacturers is persistently and systematically +working to that end. And there is another phase of preservation even +more important. Among the measures pointed out in your handbook to which the +association will give its vigorous support, both legislative and administrative, I find +this: “Means wisely designed to diminish sickness, prevent accidents, and increase +the welfare and comfort of American life, believing that human efficiency, health +and happiness are natural resources quite as important as forests, water, land and +minerals.” Now, I do know something of this feature of the preservation movement, +and after the vigorous campaigning which the National Association of Manufacturers +has carried on in the last two years for “human preservation” under my supervision, +I feel that it is not only of equal importance to soil preservation, but more so.</p> + +<p>Authorities tell us that in comparison of the vital and physical assets of a +nation, as measured by earning power, the former are from three to five times as +valuable as the latter. These authorities assert that there is as great room for +improvement of our vital resources as in our lands, waters, minerals and forests, +and that this improvement is possible in respect to both the length of life and to +freedom from disease and accidental injury during life.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span></p> + +<p>Prof. Irving Fisher estimates (in Bulletin Number 30 of the committee of +one hundred on national health) that $250,000,000,000 is a minimum estimate of the +vital assets of the United States in 1907 and that of the estimated annual loss of +three billions of dollars due to sickness, accident and death, one-half, or one and +one-half billion dollars, is preventable.</p> + +<p>According to Dr. Tolman, the total number of work casualties suffered by our +army of wage-workers is sufficient to carry on perpetually two such wars at the +same time as the Russo-Japanese and our Civil war. According to the same +authority, our railroads, during the year of 1906, killed and wounded more persons +than were killed and wounded in the six bloodiest battles of the Civil War.</p> + +<p>In all these directions our losses are from five to ten times greater proportionately +than those of the most progressive European nations, and what are we +doing about it?</p> + +<p>The National Association of Manufacturers has carefully compiled facts and +figures and has everlastingly spread the gospel of preventing these losses and compensating +equitably the sufferers from unpreventable losses.</p> + +<p>Do not think for one moment that this is a subject that does not concern the +farmer. I can prove by facts and figures that the percentage of injuries among +farmers is greater than in the industries, and easier prevented. If you want to +convince yourself go to the nearest insurance office. You will find the accident insurance +rates for the farmer higher than for the carpenter or machinist.</p> + +<p>Some European countries have evolved compensation schemes by which $78 +of every $100 paid for accident insurance is paid to the injured wage worker. Under +our liability laws, only about $30 out of every $100 reaches the injured worker. +What would you think of your neighbor if he were trying to run a machine with +30 per cent efficiency in competition with yours of 78 per cent efficiency? He would +not last very long.</p> + +<p>We ask your help in establishing sound, safe and efficient schemes in all the +states of the Union. The first part of the problem will have to be solved by legislation, +the second by coöperation, and it can be done only by a combination of all +the progressive elements of society. It must be done as quickly as possible, bearing +in mind all the time that he who starts out well prepared for a race is in better +shape to win than he who hurries on without due preparation. We must have +facts and figures before us and we must select the best men in the various states +to act as investigation commissioners.</p> + +<p>So-called reformers do not always appreciate this. A short time ago I addressed +the governor and the legislature of one of our Middle Western states. +The governor, a man of many fine qualities, asked me during the progress of my +arguments why I had gathered such a mass of facts and figures from European +sources. I asked him in return how he would settle it without statistics, and he +replied, “We need no facts and figures, all we need is the right kind of a gizzard.” +Of course there is no sense in arguing with such a man. He misunderstands the +issue. Americans do not need, and do not want charity; they want justice.</p> + +<p>We in the United States will eventually have the best system for preserving +the best resources of our country, the health and well-being of our people, the +self-respect and earning capacity of our wage-workers, the lives and limbs of our +toilers, but it will take the combined energy and wisdom of all of us to bring this +about.</p> + +<h3>REPORT OF THE AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Wm. O. Stillman</span>,<br> +<i>President</i>.</p> + +<p>The American Humane Association, during the past year, has been actively +engaged in promoting the development of humanitarian work in the United States, +and has also been useful in promoting a similar work in many foreign lands. During +October, 1910, there was held under the auspices of this association, in the city +of Washington, D. C., and under the Honorary Presidency of William H. Taft, the +President of our country, the first American International Humane Conference. +There were present representatives from thirty foreign countries. The addresses, +papers and topics which were heard were of great value. There was also held, in +connection with the International Conference, the first international exhibit of objects +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span>of humane interest. This was shown in the New United States National +Museum building, where the conference was also held. The exhibition, which +lasted a week, proved phenomenal in extent and interest.</p> + +<p>As a direct and acknowledged result of the Washington conference, there is to +be held, during June, 1912, in London, England, a similar international congress, +which it is believed will greatly assist the spread of work which we represent.</p> + +<p>The result of international meetings of this description is to promote the spread +of humanitarian doctrines everywhere. Representatives were present at Washington +from Japan, China, India, Persia, Turkey, Russia, Australia, and almost every +section of the globe. We believe that the choicest asset which any nation possesses +is its childhood. Our anti-cruelty societies are seeking all over the world to protect +childhood from influences which are prejudicial to health or morals. This means +a better standard and average in childhood, and the elimination of great masses of +the youth which, under present conditions, inevitably become recruits of the armies +of vagrancy and crime.</p> + +<p>The other great field of humane endeavor is to promote the conservation and +protection of animal life. The livestock of a country constitutes one of the most +valuable assets, in an intrinsic sense, which a country like ours can possess. As +pointed out in our report last year, efforts which may readily be made would +result in the saving of hundreds of thousands of horses and cattle for longer and +more useful service.</p> + +<p>The American Humane Association intends to ask Congress for relief of +transportation conditions which are responsible for great injury and loss of livestock, +by requesting that a minimum speed bill be enacted. This proposition has +been heartily endorsed by the Department of Agriculture in Washington and by +humanitarians generally. Various other reforms are contemplated and will be +pushed to a conclusion in the near future.</p> + +<p>We feel that our work is a thoroughly practical one, and that in its largest +sense it stands for better citizenship and the promotion of the moral interests of +the commonwealth as well as its commercial ones. We trust that the Third National +Conservation Congress will approve of the work in which we are engaged, which +represents a membership of much over one hundred thousand persons and an +expenditure of more than a million and a half dollars annually.</p> + +<h3>CONSERVATION OF BIRD LIFE.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Dr. George W. Field</span>,<br> +<i>Representing the National Audubon Society</i>.</p> + +<p>I want to call your attention to one phase which has hardly been touched upon—importance +of the conservation of our bird life. When you realize that the insect +places a tax upon every one of us twice as great as we are called upon to pay to our +towns, cities and states, a tax of at least five per cent on every agriculturist and +consumer of food in this nation, we realize the work of the National Audubon +Society, which is organized for the purpose of protecting the wild insectivorous birds. +The resources of this association last year were about $35,000. Over against that was +this damage to our agricultural interests of over one million dollars. So you can see +therefore that we have been able to do but very little relatively. When we compare +the condition in this country with that of Germany, where they have one hundred +times as many birds to the square mile as we have in this country, we realize the +importance of the work which this association is carrying on. We ask your support, +every one, in every way, to assist the activities of this National Audubon Society. +(Applause)</p> + +<p>I also represent the National Shell Fish Association. Now, the purpose of this +association is to issue, so to speak, a sanitary insurance to every person who consumes +oysters, clams, lobsters and that type of sea food. In other words, we want +to make it possible that when you in Kansas, Missouri, and in the interior of the +country, eat from your table, or in your hotels, oysters brought from the seacoast +of both sides of this nation, to be certain that there is no chance of infection, of +typhoid fever, or other disease. To do that we are asking every state in the Nation +to realize the enormous waste of material in the form of sewage and manufacturing +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span>waste which is pouring into our streams and into our coastal waters. To take one +concrete illustration, the city of Boston, in Massachusetts, spent five or six millions +of dollars for the purpose of putting the sewage into the ocean. It did that, but +when it did it destroyed annually the potential capacity of that water to develop +shell fish food. In other words, it was precisely the same as if so many thousands +of acres in your farming country were utterly destroyed forever for all farming +purposes. It was reduced merely to a desert, whereas, if that material had been +placed on the land, where it belonged, there would have been enormous benefits +arising to the farm, and it would have been possible to cultivate that land under +water for raising food. Now, we are demonstrating, acre for acre, that the land +under water can raise more food—nitrogenous food, the most expensive type of +food for man—at a less expense in time, in capital, and in labor, than the very best +acres in your boasted river bottoms, a type of food material which can be raised +nowhere else than on the coasts of our country, on both the Atlantic and Pacific and +the Gulf.</p> + +<h3>ADDRESS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By W. J. Rushton</span>,<br> +<i>President American Association of Refrigeration</i>.</p> + +<p>I desire to thank the Congress in the name of the members of the American +Association of Refrigeration for the invitation to be represented here by official +delegates.</p> + +<p>We consider it especially fitting that our association should participate in the +deliberations of this Congress, because it stands for the conservation of the perishable +foods of the people in the broadest sense.</p> + +<p>In order that those who are not already familiar with the objects of our Association +and with the methods it employs in carrying these into effect, and to illustrate +how well our work meshes with the purposes of this National Congress, I will +call your attention to several statements taken from the statutes by which our +organization is governed. Among our objects are:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“To institute investigations, experiments and tests for the purpose of demonstrating, +correct solutions of scientific, technical and industrial problems +pertaining to the art of refrigeration.</p> + +<p>“To inspire confidence in the public mind, and appreciation of the beneficial +effects of refrigeration upon perishable food products, both in transit and +when stored for the purpose of conservation, by collecting and disseminating +authentic information on the subject.</p> + +<p>“To encourage the expansion of American trade, commerce and transportation +of perishable agricultural products, and to assist the commercial and +industrial interests affected by mechanical refrigeration, both at home and +abroad.</p> + +<p>“To further its purposes and extend its influence by publications, meetings, +conferences and courses of lectures, and by encouraging the introduction in +educational institutions of regular courses in refrigeration.</p> + +<p>“To coöperate with the International Association of Refrigeration in +the organization of international commissions for the discussion of questions of +international import, and in the determination of correct basic data pertaining +to the art of refrigeration.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The conservation of the natural resources of the country is now recognized by +all thinking persons as a vital factor in our national life, both as an obligation to +posterity and because of its immediate influence on the material welfare and the +health of the people.</p> + +<p>The influence of this Congress, as it is felt more generally over the country, +must result in strongly stimulating thrift and economy as well as respect for law +among the people. The exercise of these qualities is essential to the conservation +of the waters, the forests, the lands and the minerals, as well as all of the vital +resources of the country.</p> + +<p>Our people—in fact, the people of all the civilized countries of the world—are +now confronted with serious problems due to the high prices of the necessaries of +life, principally their food supplies.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span></p> + +<p>It is believed that these conditions largely grow out of neglect to properly +conserve and market perishable foods and to lack of adequate means for promptly +collecting and transporting them in sound condition from regions capable of ample +production to the thickly populated centers; also to insufficient means for preserving +such supplies from seasons of overproduction to periods of scarcity.</p> + +<p>It is certainly a very necessary and laudable mission, to concentrate the intelligence +and energy of a body of men such as compose this Congress for the conservation +of the forests, lands, waters, minerals and vital resources of the country. +Our association is very much interested in all of this, because lumber, minerals and +water are very necessary to the refrigerating industry, while the conservation of +the soil is of paramount importance as the source of the fuel of the great human +engine through the operation of which all of the other resources are harnessed to +the world’s work.</p> + +<p>We are, therefore, here particularly to emphasize the necessity of conserving +the perishable foods of the people by refrigeration, that much misunderstood and +often misrepresented natural mode of preservation.</p> + +<p>However productive the soil may be made, and however ample the supply of +highly nutritious food may be, unless such food is made available for use when and +where it is needed, and where it must be supplied at prices the people can afford to +pay, the conservation of the soil will have failed of extending the fullest measure +of its possible benefits to the people.</p> + +<p>Our organization has made an especial study of the subject of the production, +the transportation and the conservation of perishable foods, and of the laws and +proposed laws applying to the subject. The hearings before the Senate committees +on manufactures of the Sixty-first and Sixty-second Congresses, the reports of +which are published by the National Government, abound in evidences of the +activity of our committees and individual members.</p> + +<p>Therefore, if it is in order and otherwise agreeable, I would like to propose +that, in furtherance of the purposes of this Congress, and in order that its opportunities +for doing good may be realized in the fullest measure, a standing committee +on food be added to the present standing committees. Such committee to be composed +of persons best qualified to render the most efficient service in the study of +the questions involved in the production, collection, transportation, preservation and +marketing of perishable foods, and to report to the Fourth Congress. Such report +to be made the basis of measures to conserve the perishable foods of the people, +to improve their quality, increase their production, and to promote such relations +between the producer and consumer as will bring about lower and more nearly +uniform prices throughout each year.</p> + +<h3>WILD LIFE PROTECTION.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">William Edward Coffin</span>,<br> +<i>Vice-President Camp Fire Club of America, Chairman Committee on Game Protective +Legislation and Preserves.</i></p> + +<p>The Camp Fire Club of America was founded as an organization of big game +hunters, with the protection of wild life and forests as its great objects. Dan +Beard once characterized the club as a “Society of Criminals for the Suppression +of Crime.” Big game hunters have always been active in game protection, indeed +in all conservation measures, and that because their touch with the woods keeps +the problem alive.</p> + +<p>To the sportsmen of America are due nearly all the existing game protective +laws.</p> + +<p>Among the Camp Fire Club’s members are Dr. W. T. Hornaday, whom all +honor as the Washington of wild life protection; Ernest Thompson Seton and Dan +Beard, who by their work with the boys are doing more for the future of conservation +than any men living with but two exceptions: Irving Bacheller, A. W. +Dimock, Dillon Wallace, Gifford Pinchot—God bless him—and many others, who +with pen, time and money are laboring ceaselessly for the great cause of conservation +which is so near your hearts and mine.</p> + +<p>The club may fairly claim for less than two years’ work: Yeoman service +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span>in the defeat of the bill permitting the sale of wild bird plumage in New York; +the defeat of a bill authorizing spring shooting of ducks on Long Island; in securing +the $20,000 appropriation for the starving elk in Wyoming; in enlarging the Waterton +lake, park and game preserve now being formed in Southwestern Alberta.</p> + +<p>To the Camp Fire Club belongs the sole credit, outside of Congress, for defeating +the proposed twenty-year renewal of the Fur Seal Killing lease on the +Pribilof Islands. Much of the credit for that public opinion which forced the +treaty stopping pelagic sealing. When the fur herd is, through complete protection, +restored to something like its old numbers, the country will have the Camp +Fire Club to thank for fairly snatching that herd from the jaws of complete +annihilation.</p> + +<p>To Dr. Hornaday, our great leader, is due the famous Bayne-Blauvelt +bill—the greatest single piece of game protective legislation ever enacted by any +state or country. Think of it; that bill absolutely prohibits the sale of all wild +game in the State of New York. The lion’s share of the campaign work incident +to its passage was done by members of the Camp Fire Club. How well it was +done you will realize when I state that the bill passed with only one dissenting +vote in the whole legislature; and how it was done when I say that upwards of +30,000 letters were written asking senators and assemblymen to support the bill. +The passage of that bill was the turning point of the war between the army of +destruction and the army of preservation in New York state.</p> + +<p>I must not leave this subject without a tribute to Governor Dix of New York, +without whose hearty coöperation and steadfast support we would have been +helpless.</p> + +<p>In spite of great pressure by selfish interests he stood like a rock and has +fully redeemed the ante-election pledges of himself and of his party. Let his +name be written in the Conservation Temple of Fame.</p> + +<p>So much for the past. For the future: 1st. We propose to keep everything +we have gained. 2d. We have arranged for Gifford Pinchot and Overton Price +to visit the Adirondack Mountains, study the situation and make a report which +will make possible sound, seasonable legislation for “Scientific Fire Protection,” +“Scientific Reforestation,” “Scientific Care of Existing Forests.” Legislation +which combines sane utilization with sound conservation.</p> + +<p>I wish you all could have seen the cheerfulness with which Pinchot and +Price responded to the request of the club that they undertake this work.</p> + +<p>The club is, at the request of the New York State Conservation Commissioners, +to coöperate in a complete codification of the state game laws.</p> + +<p>This we hope will result in a series of stringent but reasonable laws; simple, +plain, readily enforced. Laws which the National Conservation Congress will be +proud of and can safely recommend as a model for other states.</p> + +<p>This is largely work in one state only, but it is wise to clear your own door +yard before preaching sanitation to your neighbors, and with the beam removed +from our own eye, we can the better see how to remove the mote from our +brother’s.</p> + +<p>Outside of New York we propose: 1st. To push Bayne-Blauvelt bills in the +North Atlantic states for stopping the sale of game. Thus striking at the root +of game slaughter is far more effective than attempting to police the army of +market hunters or any other method of trimming the branches. 2d. We shall +agitate ceaselessly for the complete protection of the fur seal. 3d. We shall +do what we can to put life into the Migratory Bird Bill, which has been in congressional +cold storage for so many years, and to promote a migratory fish bill. +4th. We propose to urge upon states—even upon counties—the formation of bird, +game and fish refuges, one of the most effective methods of game protection. +5th. We shall hold ourselves in readiness to further any and every sound proposition +for the conservation of this country’s natural resources, whether animal, +vegetable or mineral.</p> + +<p>And now having finished my report, permit me a few words of indictment +and a few words of appeal.</p> + +<p>The National Conservation Congress and Association heretofore have practically +ignored wild life. Infinite and detailed attention has been given to lands, +minerals, water and forests, and the Camp Fire Club is with you in all these, +but are your halls so narrow, your boundaries so confined, that you have no +room for the great cause of wild life protection?</p> + +<p>Do you realize that in New York state alone there are nearly 150,000 active +gunners; in Pennsylvania over 100,000, and that even a two shot gun does not +satisfy them?</p> + +<p>The laws in all states are so liberal to the killers and so hard on the game +that wild life is swiftly vanishing.</p> + +<p>The commercial interests of gun-making, game selling and feather working +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span>are terribly destructive influences. No wild species can stand exploitation for +commercial purposes. In every case it spells extermination. Look backward at +the millions of bison, fur seal, passenger pigeon, pinnated grouse and Florida +egrets. Where are they all? Exterminated to fill the cash boxes of greedy men.</p> + +<p>How much longer is Christian civilization, how much longer are you going +to stand for such things? In birds alone six species are absolutely extinct, thirteen +more nearly so. Our states are spending millions to fight insect pests whose +increase is due chiefly to the decrease of bird life. How can it be stopped? By +your efforts, those of the Camp Fire Club and other organizations. There must +be a pull, a long pull and a pull all together. The majority of the American people +are conscientious, humane, just and merciful toward all creatures; once arouse +that majority and it will right any wrong.</p> + +<p>The protection of wild life requires a campaign of education and publicity; +given these, legislation will follow as light follows the sun. Congressmen and +legislators will do the right thing if they are asked to do it often enough and +hard enough by the people they represent. We do not appeal to this Congress +as sportsmen or in the interest of sportsmen; but for the millions of men, women +and children who love the outdoor life and who do not shoot at all.</p> + +<p>We therefore ask for two things: 1st. A broad definite recognition in your +platform organization and proceedings of this great branch of the conservation +movement. We ask a standing committee on wild life protection. 2d. Your +coöperation, collectively and individually. Bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, +blood brothers, the Camp Fire Club, true of heart, clear of hand, eager in support of +all you stand for, calls to you.</p> + +<p>Come over into Macedonia and help us.</p> + +<h3>PREVENTABLE FIRE WASTE: CONSERVATION EFFORTS FOR ITS REDUCTION.</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>By a Committee of the National Board of Fire Underwriters.</i></p> + +<p>In each of the previous national assemblages of this character the National +Board of Fire Underwriters has been represented and has earnestly endeavored +to portray the enormity of the preventable fire waste of our country and its retarding +effect on our national growth and prosperity.</p> + +<p>With each annual meeting of our organization, statistical information has +been prepared and furnished to the public and press, setting forth the tremendous +money value in property which was being annually destroyed by fire throughout +our country. As an aid toward convincing our people that a vast amount of real +wealth was being wiped out of existence annually by preventable fires, our committee +on statistics and origin of fires, by the aid of the Federal Government, +secured figures of the fire loss in European cities and countries, which were compared +with the fire loss of the cities of the United States and the United States +as a whole and reduced to a comparison of the loss per capita. These figures were +published by the National Board of Fire Underwriters in 1906. The comparison +was so startling as to attract very wide attention and gave activity to the fire +conservation movement.</p> + +<p>The Geological Survey, through its technologic branch, investigated the fire +loss and the cost of fire protection in the United States in 1907, and published +Bulletin 418, known as “The Fire Tax and Waste of Structural Materials in the +United States”—a pamphlet most impressive in the facts presented and irrefutable +in its arguments. We quote a section:</p> + +<p>“The investigation disclosed the fact that the total cost of fires in the United +States in 1907 amounted to almost one-half the cost of new buildings constructed +in the country for the year. The total cost of the fires, excluding that of forest +fires and marine losses, but including excess cost of fire protection due to bad +construction, and excess premiums over insurance paid, amounted to over $456,485,000, +a tax on the people exceeding the total value of the gold, silver, copper, +and petroleum produced in the United States in that year. The cost of building +construction in forty-nine leading cities of the United States reporting a total +population of less than 18,000,000 amounted, in 1907, to $661,076,286, and the cost +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>of building construction for the entire country in the same year is conservatively +estimated at $1,000,000,000. Thus it will be seen that nearly one-half the value of +all the new buildings constructed within one year is destroyed by fire. The total +fire cost in this country is five times as much per capita as in any country of +Europe. This fire cost was greater than the value of the real property and improvements +in any one of the following states: Maine, West Virginia, North +Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Alabama, Louisiana, Montana.</p> + +<p>“The actual fire losses due to the destruction of buildings and their contents +amounted to $215,084,709, a per capita loss for the United States of $2.51. The +per capita losses in the cities of the six leading European countries amounted to +but 33 cents, or about one-eighth of the per capita loss sustained in the United +States. In addition to this waste of wealth and natural resources, 1,449 persons +were killed and 5,654 were injured in fires.</p> + +<p>“The total loss on buildings in the United States was $109,156,894 and on +contents $105,927,815. There were fires in 36,140 brick, iron, and stone buildings, +with a loss of $31,092,687 on the buildings and $37,332,580 on the contents, and in +129,117 frame buildings, with a loss of $78,064,207 on the buildings and $68,595,235 +on the contents. In cities and villages with a population of 1,000 or more +there were 6,324 fires that extended beyond the building of origin, with a total +exposure loss of $13,913,694. The loss on fires that were confined to the building +of origin in the cities and villages amounted to $93,179,589.”</p> + +<p>The records of this board herewith subjoined show to what extent our fire +loss has increased almost yearly since 1875.</p> + +<table class="borders"> + <tr> + <th>Year.</th> + <th>Aggregate<br>Property Loss.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1875</td> + <td class="tdr">$78,102,285</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1876</td> + <td class="tdr">54,630,600</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1877</td> + <td class="tdr">68,265,800</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1878</td> + <td class="tdr">64,315,900</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1879</td> + <td class="tdr">77,703,700</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1880</td> + <td class="tdr">74,643,400</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1881</td> + <td class="tdr">81,280,900</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1882</td> + <td class="tdr">84,505,024</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1883</td> + <td class="tdr">100,149,228</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1884</td> + <td class="tdr">110,008,611</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1885</td> + <td class="tdr">102,818,796</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1886</td> + <td class="tdr">104,924,750</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1887</td> + <td class="tdr">120,283,055</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1888</td> + <td class="tdr">110,885,665</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1889</td> + <td class="tdr">123,046,833</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1890</td> + <td class="tdr">108,993,792</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1891</td> + <td class="tdr">143,764,967</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1892</td> + <td class="tdr">151,516,058</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1893</td> + <td class="tdr">167,544,370</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1894</td> + <td class="tdr">140,006,484</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1895</td> + <td class="tdr">142,110,233</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1896</td> + <td class="tdr">118,737,420</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1897</td> + <td class="tdr">116,354,575</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1898</td> + <td class="tdr">130,593,905</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1899</td> + <td class="tdr">153,597,830</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1900</td> + <td class="tdr">160,929,805</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1901</td> + <td class="tdr">165,817,810</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1902</td> + <td class="tdr">161,078,040</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1903</td> + <td class="tdr">145,302,155</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1904</td> + <td class="tdr">229,198,050</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1905</td> + <td class="tdr">165,221,650</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1906</td> + <td class="tdr">518,611,800</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1907</td> + <td class="tdr">215,084,709</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1908</td> + <td class="tdr">217,885,850</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1909</td> + <td class="tdr">188,705,150</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>1910</td> + <td class="tdr">214,003,300</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>The fire insurance interests have carried on an aggressive campaign for the +reduction of our discreditable fire losses and have been foremost in suggesting +practical and reasonable remedial measures.</p> + +<p>At the First Conservation Congress a paper on “The Fire Waste in the United +States” was presented by this board and upwards of 12,000 copies were distributed +to state and municipal authorities and to the press. We quote the causes then +set forth as operating to make the large fire waste in the United States.</p> + +<p>“First: The difference in the point of view and the responsibility of the +inhabitants of Europe and those of the United States.</p> + +<p>“Second: The difference in the construction of buildings.</p> + +<p>“Third: The difference in the regulations governing hazards and hazardous +materials and conditions, and in the enforcement of such regulations.”</p> + +<p>And suggested as essential means toward its reduction:</p> + +<p>“First: That the public should be brought to understand that property destroyed +by fire is gone forever and is not replaced by the distribution of insurance +which is a tax collected for the purpose.</p> + +<p>“Second: That the states severally adopt and enforce a building code which +shall require a high type of safe construction, essentially following the code of +the National Board of Fire Underwriters.</p> + +<p>“Third: That municipalities adopt ordinances governing the use and keeping +of explosives, especially inflammable commodities and other special hazards, such +as electric wiring, the storing of refuse, waste, packing material, etc., in buildings, +yards or areaways, and see to the enforcement of such ordinances.</p> + +<p>“Fourth. That the states severally establish and support the office of fire +marshal and confer on the fire marshal by law the right to examine under oath +and enter premises and to make arrests, making it the duty of such officer to +examine into the cause and origin of all fires and when crime has been committed +requiring the facts to be submitted to the grand jury or proper indicting body.</p> + +<p>“Fifth: That in all cities there be a paid, well-disciplined, non-political fire +department adequately equipped with modern apparatus.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span></p> + +<p>“Sixth: That an adequate water system with proper distribution and pressure +be installed and maintained. In the larger cities a separate high pressure water +system for fire extinguishment is an absolute necessity, to diminish the extreme +imminence of general conflagrations.”</p> + +<p>At the Second Conservation Congress a paper on the “Conservation of Utilized +Resources from Destruction by Fire” was presented by us and about 13,000 copies +were widely distributed. We quote a section:</p> + +<p>“If the office of State Fire Marshal were created by every commonwealth, +and that official and his deputies given power to enforce good fire prevention laws, +investigate, and, if necessary, prosecute cases of arson or criminal carelessness in +the starting or spreading of fires, ascertain the cause of every fire, and by the +distribution of literature educate the citizen to the need of care and forethought +in the protection of his property, a distinct conserving of the utilized resources +in that state would follow.</p> + +<p>“If our municipalities will enact and enforce improved and safe methods of +building construction and cause the removal or reconstruction of existing structures +which constitute, because of their construction, a menace to adjoining properties, +our cities will be freer from the imminent conflagration which now threatens them. +Eliminate defective chimney flues, unprotected external and internal openings, +excessive areas, weak walls, and combustible roofs; prohibit the storage of rubbish +and demand the safe use and handling of dangerous inflammable liquids and +oils; regulate the use of explosives; and the destruction of our values, created +from the natural resources but enriched many fold by human toil, industry and +skill, will be materially diminished.</p> + +<p>“If the citizens of a community, as members of their local civic bodies and +boards of trade, will create in such organizations a Committee on Fire Prevention, +whose duty it shall be to study the subject and awaken among their associates +a realization of individual and communal responsibility, and if our boards of education +will emulate the action of the State of Ohio in prescribing primal education +of the school children as to the chemistry of fire, the causes of fires in our homes +and how to guard against them, and how to extinguish incipient fires or hold +them in check while awaiting the response of the fire department, a preparation +will be made in that community which will check the constantly increasing fire +waste.”</p> + +<p>This organization has not been alone in its efforts in this direction, neither +has there been an entire absence of activity on the part of state and municipal +authorities.</p> + +<p>The National Fire Protection Association, of which the National Board of +Fire Underwriters is an active member, has through some of its members, but +principally through its secretary, delivered forty-two addresses on the fire waste +in thirty-one different cities. At the annual meeting of the association held in +New York in May last, it adopted the following resolutions, urging upon the +public the vital importance of better construction and protection, and of a greater +care in the maintenance of property:</p> + +<p>“The National Fire Protection Association, with all the force at its command +and with the absolutely united and unanimous support of its entire membership, +wishes to place before the public in the strongest possible terms that the +situation in connection with the fire waste is becoming so acute that there is +necessity for action.</p> + +<p>“Action by all cities and towns in adopting proper building codes, which +will call for improved conditions and the use of fire resisting construction in +congested districts.</p> + +<p>“Action by the state and municipal authorities covering the regulation of the +transportation and storage of inflammable oils and explosives.</p> + +<p>“Action by those in authority to the end that all buildings where people congregate, +such as schools, theaters, factories, and hotels, shall be so constructed +and equipped that the lives of the people within them may be safe-guarded.</p> + +<p>“Action by the proper authorities requiring the introduction of automatic fire +extinguishing apparatus in all commercial establishments and city blocks.</p> + +<p>“Action by the proper authorities prohibiting the manufacture and sale and +use of the snap match and requiring the universal adoption and use of the safety +match.</p> + +<p>“Action by the public in bringing about a safe and intelligent celebration of +Independence Day, and, above all,</p> + +<p>“Action by every citizen of the land in using his individual effort in the cause +of educating the public in regard to the dangers from fire, not only in so far +as it applies to the personal and immediate consideration, but also from the broader +standpoint, namely: that of the welfare of our land.”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span></p> + +<p>At the same meeting the Association was honored in being addressed on +“The Fire Waste” by the Hon. Walter L. Fisher, Secretary of the Interior, from +whose remarks we quote:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Indeed, I do not doubt that the average intelligent citizen of the United +States is aware of the fact that fires in America are comparatively frequent. He +undoubtedly appreciates in a general way that a large percentage of our fires are +from preventable causes, and that the sacrifice of life and property through loss +by fire is, much of it, needless. What he does not fully realize is his own duty, +and the duty of city, state and nation in the premises. He understands as yet +but vaguely the significance of that change of public sentiment which has made +of the movement for the conservation of our natural resources. He glimpses +but dimly how great an obstacle to human progress and to human happiness is +needless waste, whether it be in the use we make of the products and the forces +of nature, or the productions and the energies of men. If the justification of +private property is that it tends to promote the common good through increased +energy and increased efficiency, which is the antithesis of waste, then the broadest +application of the principles of conservation should extend to our created as well +as our natural resources, for in the last analysis the loss by fire of a city building +owned by an individual will be just as important to the people of the United +States as the loss by fire of timber in the public domain. Both the building and +the timber are assets of the Nation. If they are destroyed these assets are wiped +out. No system of taxation will serve to bring them back, whether this tax be +collected by the constituted authorities under the law, or collected by private +interests as premiums on policies of insurance. In either event, the taxation is +paid by the owners of property and it is ultimately borne by the community as a +whole. Reforestation costs money which must be levied through taxation in +some form. Rebuilding a dwelling house, or a business block, or the business +district of a city, costs money, a large proportion of which under insurance methods +is assessed against property which has not burned. It is the people who pay, +whether they own land or buildings or other things of value. It follows thus that +the question of fire waste is of direct pecuniary interest to every citizen. Beyond +the individual pecuniary interests, there is also the obligation of each citizen to +his fellows to so protect his property and conduct his affairs as not to endanger +the lives and property of his neighbors.</p> + +<p>“It is the duty of organized society to protect its members in life and property. +But organized society, it is clearly shown, has been remiss in its duty. The obligations +of municipal, state and national government have not been met.</p> + +<p>“It takes the force of public opinion to accomplish any reform, and your association +should receive hearty aid and encouragement, for through it much of the +educational work which is a prerequisite to any successful agitation may be +accomplished. There is a real and vital necessity for teaching each citizen of the +United States the significance of the national fire waste. The truth in regard to +our national ash heap should be brought home to each person having a family +to protect and property to preserve.</p> + +<p>“It seems ridiculous that a people so apt and so eager to seek out and destroy +the mysterious and hidden enemies of mankind should be so slow and sluggish +in fighting a foe so plainly in sight and so readily vanquished. We have led +the world in seeking out the causes of pestilence and removing them. We are +in the very vanguard of the battle against tuberculosis, typhoid and yellow fever, +and still we stand apart and let the older nations lead the fight against an enemy +much more easily conquered.</p> + +<p>“To arouse the people against the fire foe is our task. If there were any +dispute as to the facts, if anyone opposed a movement to check the fire loss, the +American people might more readily become partisans of this movement which +you are leading. But there is no difference of opinion regarding the essentials. +The average American citizen would admit that our fire waste is in the nature +of a national disgrace. The task is to make him do something to remedy conditions. +You must popularize your movement and create a general demand for +adequate laws and thorough enforcement. To relieve the people of the unnecessary +burden which they are now carrying, you must teach them the importance +and the significance of that burden. You must show them the necessity for a +defence against this common enemy. Organized methods must be adopted for +bringing the significance of the fire waste before every person who will read the +written word or listen to the spoken one. Let the people once realize the exact +facts of their own negligence, and they will be swift to provide the remedy.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The Western Union, an organization of insurance companies operating in the +Middle and Central West, has carried on, by public speeches of some of its members +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>and through its committee on publicity, a most commendable campaign to +impress the public with the significance of our fire waste. Numerous circulars +have been distributed and printed in whole or in part in the newspapers.</p> + +<p>Many commercial bodies and boards of trade of our cities have taken up the +subject of the fire waste, appointed local committees on fire prevention and advocated +and secured improvements tending to afford better fire protection, and lessen +the great financial drain which the fire loss was causing in their communities.</p> + +<p>The National Association of Credit Men, which has perhaps devoted more +time to the study of insurance and the fire waste of the country than any other +commercial body, has been very active in acquainting business men with the +importance of the subject and in encouraging the adoption by municipality and +state of such remedial measures as will tend to diminish the steadily and rapidly +increasing fire losses.</p> + +<p>The states of Ohio, Montana, Nebraska and Iowa are instructing their school +children as to the importance of observing greater care in the handling and use +of the ordinary fire hazards. The Fire Insurance Commissioners in annual convention +in August last adopted the following resolutions:</p> + +<p>“The appalling annual loss of life and property in the United States by fires, +due to criminal carelessness, ignorance or dishonesty, commands the serious attention +of the American people. From present indications over $300,000,000 in property +values will be utterly wiped out during the current year—a sum so vast that +it must have a serious economic effect on the prosperity of the country. The +causes for this enormous drain on the savings of the Nation are well known and +to a large extent preventable.</p> + +<p>“The destruction of property by fire is ten times as great per capita in the +United States as it is in Germany, France, England, and other countries abroad; +and in addition to this needless waste of property there are also thousands of +men, women and children burned to death or crippled in the various local fires +and conflagrations that constantly occur. The chief factor responsible for this +situation is general carelessness and the utter lack of personal responsibility for +the removal of causes productive of fires.</p> + +<p>“We recommend a campaign of education through the governors, insurance +commissioners and fire marshals of the various states, for the purpose of bringing +directly to the attention of the people the causes responsible for the national ash +heap, and the adoption of legislation which will safeguard the lives and property +of the people by holding every individual responsible for carelessness resulting +in fires.</p> + +<p>“We commend the suggestion unanimously adopted by the Association of +Fire Marshals of North America, urging that the governors of the various states +set aside one day each year to be known as ‘fire prevention day.’ By proclamation +the governor can call the attention of the citizens to the enormous preventable +fire waste of the country, and urge the taking of such precautions, individual, +municipal and state, as will tend to reduce it. Appropriate exercises can be held +in the public schools, instruction on the common fire hazards can be given the +children, and the day can be made the occasion of the ‘clean-up’ day, which is +doing so much to remove hazardous conditions.</p> + +<p>“<i>Resolved.</i> That the individual members of the convention will use their +influence to secure such action by the governors of their respective states, as an +important, practical and educational assistance in the work of fire prevention.”</p> + +<p>The governors of a number of our commonwealths have already acted favorably +on part of the foregoing suggestions and by proclamation have set aside a +day to be known as “fire prevention day,” when the citizens will be called upon +to clean up their several premises and provide better fire protection, as a part of a +nation-wide study of fire waste, and the individual responsibility of property owners +and householders.</p> + +<p>The State Fire Marshals in annual session adopted somewhat similar resolutions. +The awakening of our people on this subject affords encouragement, but +as yet it is only partial, incomplete, and not in keeping with the national importance +of the subject.</p> + +<p>A number of our states enacted fire marshal laws during their last legislative +sessions, some of which were commendable in their provisions, but many of them +embodied the false theory that such laws are more beneficial to the fire insurance +companies than to the public, and impose on the former an additional tax +for its support and enforcement. In contrast to this policy, the Legislature of +New York State, recognizing that the state was collecting through its insurance +department vastly more than the expenses of the department, enacted what may +be taken as a model fire marshal law, the provisions of which are to be carried +out and enforced by the state at its own expense.</p> + +<p>Probably two-thirds of our fire loss is from preventable causes. Based on +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>this estimate, nearly two hundred million dollars of property values are unnecessarily +destroyed annually, reducing the wealth of the Nation in like measure, since +insurance does not restore but merely indemnifies out of remaining wealth. It has +truly been said that this preventable fire waste is a national disgrace, and we have +the humiliation of knowing that the United States is by far the leader in this +discreditable condition.</p> + +<p>Publicity has been mentioned recently as a cure, or partial cure, for other +evils. Likewise publicity will have an advantageous effect in preventing fires. A +special lesson to be preached and reiterated is that those who cause, or have, +avoidable fires, injure their neighbors, their municipalities, their states and their +country. They have created a part of the two hundred million yearly “national +scandal.” They have destroyed wealth and increased taxes. They have been bad +citizens.</p> + +<p>If the distinguished persons who are in attendance here will interest themselves +in their respective communities and states and advocate the cause of conservation +of the fire waste and the elimination of preventable fires, they will +help, and give an impetus to, the movement for lessened fire losses and the saving +of lives from fire. While the members of the National Board of Fire Underwriters +have an advantage of contact and outlook as to the fire situation, they have no +more and no different interest in the subject than have other citizens. Good +citizenship demands that all, individually and collectively, should do their full +part in inculcating principles and bringing about practices which will stop the +ravages of the tremendous fire waste that is scandalous because obviously preventable.</p> + +<ul> + <li><span class="smcap">Geo. W. Babb</span>, New York.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">W. N. Kremer</span>, New York.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">E. W. West</span>, Glens Falls, N. Y.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">E. G. Richards</span>, New York.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">R. M. Bissell</span>, Hartford, Conn.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">R. Dale Benson</span>, Philadelphia.</li> + <li><span class="smcap">C. G. Smith</span>, New York.</li> +</ul> + +<h3>REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AUDUBON SOCIETIES.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By William P. Wharton.</span></p> + +<p>To cultivate in the public mind a more lively appreciation of the value of +preserving the wild bird and animal life of America, is the object of the National +Association of Audubon Societies for the protection of wild birds and animals. +Backed by thirty-eight state Audubon societies, the National Association is directing +its endeavors along certain definite lines of activity.</p> + +<p>Coöperating with state forest, fish and game commissions and with local +clubs, organized for game protection, the association is an important factor in +aiding to secure legislation looking to the protection at all times of the valuable +non-game birds, and the preservation from undue killing of the various game birds +and game animals with which the country is blessed. In forty states the Audubon +law for the protection of non-game birds has been enacted, and in many other +states Audubon bills for the establishment of state game warden forces, the shortening +of seasons for killing game, the creation of game protective funds by +requiring hunter’s licenses, limits on the number of game birds which may be +killed in a day and other restrictive measures have been enacted.</p> + +<p>The association has always been active in advocating the passage of various +federal laws looking to the conservation of our native wild life. Through its +officers, agents and members large numbers of violators of the game laws are +annually reported to the state authorities and in many instances prosecutions are +begun and pushed by its representatives.</p> + +<p>Its continuous fight against the millinery traffic in the feathers of native birds +is a well-known subject in contemporaneous history. To safeguard American +water birds, the association has purchased, leased and in other ways secured +control of numbers of islands, lakes and swamps where birds of this class are +accustomed to congregate in great numbers for the purposes of laying their eggs +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span>and rearing their young. Today virtually all of the important breeding colonies +of birds on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, as well as many +of those along the Pacific coast, are guarded in the summer by wardens employed +by the association. Through its efforts, the United States Government +has been interested in establishing fifty-three bird sanctuaries by making islands +and lakes frequented by breeding birds in summer federal reservations. The +association coöperates with the Government in paying for the services of wardens +who guard these birds from the inroads of hunters who may desire to kill them +for food or to secure their plumage for the feather markets.</p> + +<p>The association conducts a wide educational campaign by means of lecturers +and the annual distribution of hundreds of thousands of pages of literature and +pictures of native birds. It is pushing the organization of bird study classes in +the schools, and as an example during the past year, over ten thousand Southern +school children received systematic instructions in bird study.</p> + +<p>The association in its various fields of endeavor coöperates with the officials +of the United States Department of Education, with the United States Commissioner +of Education and numerous scientific societies. Its growth during the past +few years has been almost phenomenal and the results achieved in rehabilitating +the bird life of many sections of the country is a source of great encouragement.</p> + +<h3>A LETTER.</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>From J. L. Van Ornum, Representing the Society for the +Promotion of Engineering Education and the Society for Testing Materials.</i></p> + +<p>Had there been time for me to extend the greetings of the Society for the +Promotion of Engineering Education to the Third Conservation Congress, I should +have stated that:</p> + +<p>At our annual convention of fifteen years ago a paper was presented on +the subject of “The Conservation of Government Energy Through Education and +Research,” in which the statement is made with reference to our natural resources, +“the Government must be possessed of large resources and a settled +policy. Resources are not so easily commanded now as formerly. All sources +must be guarded and everything realized must be successfully husbanded.”</p> + +<p>In the work of the engineering colleges, which distinctively consists in educating +young men in those fundamental principles which particularly concern the +direction of the great resources of materials and power in nature to the use and +convenience of mankind, the student is trained to regard wastefulness as serious +a fault as he does otherwise defective design.</p> + +<p>With this idea of the essential economy of their plans and works thus impressed, +engineers have been filling their place in the development of the material +resources of the Republic for more than half a century, until there exists a body +of trained men to whom conservation is an ingrained trait.</p> + +<p>Having this common ground of interest, it would seem that each organization +may be of service to the other; that which I represent gaining an enlarged +interest in those social, economic and moral questions which so vitally affect human +welfare, and you, perhaps, utilizing the trained experience available to most fully +disclose the true conditions upon which conclusions must depend, so that the +principles advocated may always be based upon ascertained facts.</p> + +<p>As I listened to the reading of the resolutions on the last afternoon, it seemed +to me that if the situation referred to in my last paragraph had been utilized, +the statement with regard to the purity of rivers would have been materially modified. +I think that civil (sanitary) engineers are rapidly realizing that there is +a practicable limit set by conditions of civilization to the absolute purity of rivers, +in some cases, which has been theoretically deemed desirable. However, I wish +to say in general, that it seems to me the resolutions passed by the Congress are +excellent.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p> + +<h3>ADDRESS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By J. C. Baumgartner</span> <i>of California</i>.</p> + +<p>I regret exceedingly that a gentleman from our state with whom many of +you are well acquainted, a former governor, George C. Pardee, who is the chairman +of our State Conservation commission, is not here. I feel wholly incompetent +to represent California upon this occasion, but have been asked to say just +a few words.</p> + +<p>When the governor of California asked me a few days ago to take a place +upon the state Conservation commission I was very proud and glad to do so. I +happened to be a newspaper man by profession, and quite a number of papers +throughout the state had little items about my appointment, and the heading in +many instances read something like this: “Baumgartner gets a fat plum,” “An +editor recognized,” and so on down the line. I made a little reply to that in +this way: I said that I was very glad indeed to be recognized as a man who +was willing and perhaps in some little measure competent to have a part in the +great work of conservation, without money and without price, as you all know, +and as was expressed from this platform this morning, this work is a work in +which no individual has any selfish interest. It is a public-spirited work. And it +is certainly one of the biggest and best things that is going on in this country +today. Nothing has been done in California by the state government by way of +recognition of this work until within the past few months. So that we who are +here from that state are here to learn, and not to attempt to instruct. If we can +learn our A B Cs here, we shall feel that our time and money have been well +spent in coming here.</p> + +<p>About five or six months ago—I haven’t a recollection of the exact date—the +Conservation commission of California was appointed and began its work. +I have had the pleasure and the privilege of attending only one meeting which +was held a week ago last Friday, and at that meeting I was prevailed upon to +come to this Congress, because other members, more competent to represent the +state, could not leave home. Accompanying me are other gentlemen from that +state. The secretary of our state commission, and representatives of other phases +of conservation are here. We have a great deal of rich agricultural land in California, +and we are a little shy of water in some places. We have ideal conditions +in many respects for manufacturing, but we are also a little shy on coal. So that we +turn our attention naturally to water and power first. We have entered into coöperative +agreements with federal employes, representatives of the various federal bureau +departments, who are working in our state, especially the geological survey people, +and the representatives of the department of agriculture, and we have men of our +own in the field gathering data on those important phases of conservation in California—water +resources and power resources. The work has only just begun, +but we feel that we were fortunate in securing this coöperation of the National +Government. It is barely possible that this may be a suggestion to some other +state. We entered into agreements with these people to gather the data that we +need in order to give us the information necessary for intelligent recommendation +to the legislature as to the necessary legislation in our state. This work +has just begun, and we feel that we have saved a great deal of time in not having +to organize a complete force of our own, and also a great deal of money has been +saved in eliminating overhead charges. These gentlemen are gathering for us complete +data as to the amount and character of lands that can be irrigated, and complete +data as to the water that is available for irrigating those lands. We also in our +last legislature, in addition to providing for this commission, provided for a board +of control of water power, and under that law the state has absolute control and +regulation of water power. In California there is sufficient water power to turn +every wheel that is now turned in the United States. It is estimated by federal +government experts that we have in California in use and operation 250,000 horsepower, +and that we might easily develop five million. It is also estimated that this +five million horsepower on the basis of the price of coal in California is a billion +dollars a year. So you can see how important that phase of the work is to us. +We are accompanied here by the secretary of our commission, Mr. Louis R. Glavis, +and during the course of the convention if there is anything that any one wishes to +ask about our work or plans, Mr. Glavis can no doubt answer the questions +intelligently. Very likely I could not if the questions were put to me.</p> + +<p>We wish to say in this same connection that we would indeed be glad to +have the representatives and the conservation commissions in other states and +all conservation bodies and organizations, send us any information they have that +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span>may be of benefit to us, and we shall be glad, indeed, to reciprocate that courtesy. +I do not think there is anything else that I can say, ladies and gentlemen. We +merely wanted you to know that we were awake, or just beginning to get awake +in California on this important subject, and that we shall give it our best efforts, +and invite your hearty coöperation. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<h3>REPORT FROM IDAHO.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Mrs. Holland C. Day.</span></p> + +<p>While I am not a native of Idaho, I must say that I claim allegiance to the +state of Missouri, and Governor Hadley is my governor. (Applause) But, as I +spent many months in Idaho, I was appointed by the newspapers to speak a +word for Idaho in case there was no one else here to represent her. Therefore +that is my excuse for appearing before you.</p> + +<p>Through the Carey act Idaho has had more opportunity to be settled than +through the general homestead act, as there is not so much time required to stay +on the land before beginning to cultivate. Of course, you all know that is a sage +brush country, and there is lots of grubbing to be done there. A few years ago +I helped to plant an orchard of 167 acres. Eight thousand fruit trees were planted +there. It is called Pasadena valley. From my little hut we counted sixteen +settlements of school teachers and their wives, and young people settling in that +valley, making a new start in life. That valley blossoms, I was going to say, +like a rose, but I mean like an apple tree. For two years now these apple trees +have been growing and putting out fine new shoots and they have been obliged +to cut these twigs away in order to have the best kind of apples two years from +now. Dr. Morrison’s orchard is situated in Pasadena valley: he has 167 acres +there. He is a man well known in the State of Washington, and he took up this +land for the sake of inducing others to come. Now, as far as the irrigation +problem is concerned, you all know about it. I am confined to five minutes, but +I want to say that the sooner the people of the United States, especially of the +East, will not think so much about the productiveness of the soil as they will +of the locality, and they think more of the locality I would say, than the productiveness, +then the whole western country will be a Mecca for some of the hide-bound +people of the East. (Applause)</p> + +<p>Now, I am a New Yorker myself originally. I was a New York girl up to +thirty years ago, and now I am a Missourian, and once a Missourian always a +Missourian. And when I went out West they did not have to show me, either. +(Applause) But I see the people of the East do not understand the conservation +theory as well as they might. I have talked with many, and you take up +the New York papers, and you will find that they are very provincial. There +is nothing outside of New York. You have to come West and get the western +papers to find out what is going on all over the world, and conservation is the +touch-word nowadays. I want to say that Idaho is heart and soul in this movement. +I represent a paper that goes all over Idaho and is looking forward to some +report from this Congress with a great deal of interest, and I shall be pleased to +report it as well and effectively as only a woman can. I thank you very much, +and if you want to plant any orchards and have them grow and make money, +and send your apples to Europe and all over the world, come to Idaho, to King’s +Hill or Glenn’s Ferry. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<h3>REPORT FROM ILLINOIS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Colonel Isham Randolph.</span></p> + +<p><span class="smcap">Col. Randolph</span>—I bring you God speed and the good will of our Governor +who cannot be here himself. He is lying upon a bed of pain with a broken leg, +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span>but that is the only thing that is lame about him. He is as determined in spirit, +and as earnest in his efforts for the good of his own people and for the good of +the whole Nation as though he was sound in every bone in his body.</p> + +<p>Illinois, the sister state to Missouri, is not a novice in the conservation movement. +She began it a long time ago. She has had her conservation work going +on for many years, and she has learned that in union there is strength. +In Illinois we have had for a number of years, the Internal Improvement +commission, which joined hands with the State Geological Survey, with the United +States Government Survey, with the water survey, with the fish commission, and +hand in hand they have worked for the development of the state and the conservation +of our resources. Something has been said about the failure of the land +in the East. It was my good fortune to be a delegate to the first Conservation Congress +in the White House. The president of our Illinois University, in the course +of his remarks said, that so much was said about the misfortunes, of the impoverishment +of the land of New England, of the lands of New York, of the lands +of Virginia and other eastern states, but, he said, “My friends, I do not so regard +it. The impoverishment of these lands has sent the sons of those states to build +up the West. They have carried with them their energy, their brains, their character, +and they are making the great West what it is today.” I repeated that to a +distinguished educator in agricultural lines who is now in this audience, and +what do you think his remark was? He said, “Did he also go on to say that +wherever the English-speaking people had set foot they had robbed the soil, and +given it nothing back?” Now, our universities are teaching our English-speaking +people, and our people of all languages, how to give back to the soil that which has +been taken from it. Our University of Illinois, with its experiment stations, its work +on behalf of agriculture, has so educated its people that each year the results of +that education is to give back to the state more than all the money that Illinois +has ever put into this great institution. It has been said of a great eastern college +that it is a kindergarten for hell. Not so of our great institutions. That is a +kindergarten from which we are educating men to upbuild our state, to make it +agriculturally and in every other way, what that great state should be. We have +in Illinois a number of things to be conserved. We have our coal resources. These +problems have been taken up by the Geological Survey, and are being handled in a +way which still result in great good for the state. We have no arid lands in +Illinois, but we have flooded lands, overflowed lands. We have hundreds of +thousands of acres which we are now starting in to reclaim. It is the business of a +commission which was appointed by the State of Illinois to study its streams, to +look out for the interests of the state, to recover from all unlawful owners, unlawful +seizure of lands which rightfully belonged to the state. It is the business +of that commission to conserve the water power of the state. There is a great +asset for which our Governor is making an excellent fight. The question is, shall +Illinois own the water power of the Illinois river, and conserve it for all use, or +shall private capital own that, and all the people use it by paying for it? It has +been said that we have been defeated in this thing. Why, gentlemen, as a great +leader—I believe he was a commander of a vessel—when called upon to surrender +said, “We have just begun to fight.” We are going to conserve that water power +for the people of the state and we are going to give the state and the Nation a +water way. This is a congress to consider the conservation of the land, the soil +development of the land, but, gentlemen, you must bear in mind that this country +is growing by leaps and bounds, and that the railroads of our country cannot keep +pace with the transportation demands. We must look to the future. It is said +that our water ways are of no use today. Ah, but they will be of use. The time +is coming when these water ways, when every water way that can float a boat +will be required to take the produce of our farms to market. The time is not +long past when our railroads were so glutted with produce that the farmers were +losing their hard earnings because they could not put their grain into market. This +occurred at a time when the population of the states which may be considered tributary +to the Mississippi river were only 31.4 per square mile. The same census gave +Great Britain a population of 312.5 to the square mile, and these states are so rich +in soil that they will support a population equal to that of any other area on the +face of the earth, and that population is coming—you cannot begin to get ready +for it too soon. In 1913 at the present rate of progress the Panama Canal will +be opened to the nations of the earth for business. Will the Mississippi valley be +able and ready to float its produce down to avail that great opening, or must +it go on forever shipping its produce by rail to some Pacific or Atlantic port, to +be there loaded into the vessels, and go through this canal in vessels that ought +to be loaded at your own doors, in your own city? I make this appeal for the +water ways, and I make it brief, because my time is up, and I thank you for your +attention. (Applause.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span></p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR INDIANA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Harry Everest Barnard.</span></p> + +<p>I represent the Indiana branch of the National conservation association. The +state which is the center of population, the center of industrial activity, the center +of literary activity. We believe that Indiana is the state most progressive in the +way of constructive, conservative legislation of any of the states of our great +country. During the last few years our legislature has been doing active constructive +work. We have this last year placed upon our statute books the first +cold storage bill passed in the United States which is really constructive legislation. +We believe, in Indiana, that conservation means utilization, economic utilization, +and that the manufacturers who know how to make a better brick out of Indiana +clay; the health officer who shows us how to conserve and improve the health of +our school children, or teaches us how to build a better school house; the man +who can produce a new product out of Indiana oil, is a true conservationist. The +state boards of health of Indiana have been devoting most of their time in the +last few years to a study of stream pollution. We have been studying the pollution +of the southern end of Lake Michigan, by the industrial activities at the northern +end of our state. We have shown the citizens in that northern part of Indiana +how they are pouring their sewage into Lake Michigan through one pipe and +drawing water from Lake Michigan through another. At the present time we are +studying the pollution of the Ohio river by the sewage of the cities of Indiana, +and we have now demonstrated by a survey which is still in operation, but which +has covered over 300 miles of the Ohio river, that wonderful stream of water is +nothing but a stream of sewage its entire length, wholly unfit for drinking purposes.</p> + +<p>Indiana is regulating the propagation of the unfit, by effective legislation. +Indiana is taking a stand in the front of all health organization work. It has this +last year introduced compulsory medical inspection of school children. Within +the last two years Indiana, although not at the present time a forest state, has +become aroused to the necessity of work along the lines of intelligent forest conservation, +not only because we need the lumber, and the timber and wood, but +because we need to preserve the life of our streams. Indiana has found that within +the last twenty years the ground water level throughout the state has been lowered +some twenty feet, and is now realizing that without proper forest conservation it +cannot expect to find sufficient water for its needs in the not distant future. +(Applause.)</p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR IOWA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Thomas H. MacBride.</span></p> + +<p>I shall say nothing about the resources of Iowa. This is an intelligent audience +(applause) and I take it there is not a man or woman in any state in the United +States who does not know all about the fact that Iowa is the most magnificent +garden on the face of the earth. I shall, therefore, say nothing about Iowa. I do +say, however, that my notion of this whole conservation movement is simply the +devotion to an idea. And that idea is the right use of this world. Our problem, +therefore, is the right use of the state of Iowa. Now, then, we have magnificent +soil; we have streams that run riot in spring and winter and are so dry in summer +that all the large catfish have to move away. We have lakes, the most beautiful +perhaps of all the lakes, the small lakes, on the northern plains. We have some +forests, and Nature put the forests in the right place; she put it to protect the +streams. Four years ago the legislature of Iowa made provision for a commission +which should report upon the proper conservation of our soils, our lakes, our +streams and our woods. That commission did make a report. That report is +available for the members of this Congress; it can be had. That report was presented +to our last legislature, our latest legislature was called to the momentous +task of choosing a senator for the senate of the United States, and in devotion to +that tremendous problem the report of the commission was entirely overlooked. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span>That report was a good one; I say so because I was a member of that +commission, and I therefore make this apology for the legislature of my state, in +view of the fact that I think the legislature overlooked the most magnificent piece +of work. But in all seriousness, Iowa is at work. The people of Iowa are alive +to these problems. We have there many agencies that are at work. Our whole +subject is before our state colleges of agriculture, than which it is admitted there +are none better. There are many men in all parts of the state who are devoted to +this idea, and one of them has been so prominent that he stands above us all +today as the president of this Congress (applause). It is therefore less necessary +that I should say anything about Iowa. Mr. President, do you believe that hundreds +of men and women would leave their homes at their own cost, and at the +cost and sacrifice of their own business, for anything less than an idea? And, Mr. +President, the time has come when that idea shall win. It must win, if we are +going to use this world rightly, because no problem is solved until it is solved +rightly. Then, when that time comes, you will see in Iowa, and in all these border +states, not only the freest people on the face of the earth, but the happiest. (Applause.)</p> + +<h3>REPORT FROM KANSAS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Dean H. J. Waters</span>,<br> +<i>Of the State Agricultural College</i>.</p> + +<p>I understand that this is a report of progress in the great movement of conservation. +I regret that Kansas, unlike Iowa, has no beautiful lakes. They have +all long since gone dry, as has Kansas in other particulars, and where these lakes +once were are now growing crops, great and bountiful crops of alfalfa, and in the +places where Kansas went dry in other particulars there is now growing a great +crop of temperate and stalwart men and women. (Applause.) It was said by your +distinguished chairman this morning that Kansas was the experiment station of +this Nation, and she pleads guilty to the charge, and is proud of it. They have the +courage to try any experiment in government, in business, in farming that promises +to be successful, and that promises real progress.</p> + +<p>You ask what Kansas is doing to conserve its resources? She is conserving +her resources of men and women by having less intemperance than any other state +in the union; by having less illiteracy than any other state in the union; by +having empty jails and almshouses, and having full school houses with seven +months of school in every district in Kansas each year; with a teacher the minimum +salary of which is $50 a month. (Applause.) And, with a larger proportion +of our sons and daughters in colleges, in proportion to our population, than +any other state in the Union. (Applause.) But, speaking more specifically concerning +the questions immediately before this Congress, what is Kansas doing towards +the conservation of her so-called material resources? Our last legislature +made provision for a state commission of conservation, and I regret exceedingly +that the chairman of that committee happened to be absent at this particular moment, +so that I might have been spared the embarrassment of speaking for the state on +this occasion. That commission is actively at work, and is considering the matter +of soil fertility, of the education of the people in the country and in the city, +and considering all matters that would naturally be considered in connection with +this subject.</p> + +<p>And then, what has the agricultural college been doing along this line, and +these agricultural colleges have been the pioneers in this field of conservation? +Last year the Kansas state agricultural college spoke to 150,000 people in Kansas +concerning the question of conservation, and at every farmers’ institute held in +that state for the last six years the question of soil fertility has been discussed, +and has been the topic of discussion at meetings, and the details of soil fertility +has come to be a household word.</p> + +<p>There are today in the state of Kansas 340 farmers’ institutes or farmers’ +clubs, that meet once every month, with a membership of 14,000 heads of families, +the membership representing sixty or seventy thousand persons. They discuss +once a month the details of prosperous, progressive and successful farming, +including soil fertility. In the great corn belt, on an average fully 25 per cent +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span>of our great corn crop—and the greatest crop we produce—is wasted for the want +of a silo in which to preserve it. In Kansas four years ago there were 62 silos. +The agricultural college has made a special campaign through its extension department +along this line, and today there are 2,000 silos in Kansas, and all of them +full. That is the only thing I know of in Kansas that is full. Within the last +six years the area of alfalfa has been doubled; and this is in the line of conservation, +for here is a crop that enriches the father but does not impoverish the +son, and that is but a part of what Kansas is doing. I say these things not boastfully, +for Kansas is not doing a quarter of what she ought to do in these lines, +and not a quarter of what she will do in the very near future through the stimulus +of great Congresses like this. (Applause.)</p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR LOUISIANA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Fred L. Grace.</span></p> + +<p>Just a few words about conservation from our state, Louisiana. Our very +emblems are symbolic of conservation. Our state emblem is a pelican, the only +bird of flight that will pull the flesh from its own breast to feed it to its young. +Our state flower is the magnolia, whose stately trees by the same name grow all +over our state, and whose wood is very valuable for furniture.</p> + +<p>At the last session of the general assembly of Louisiana, under the progressive +administration of Governor J. Y. Sanders, there were enacted and made into laws +twenty-nine measures relating to conservation of our natural resources and the +preservation of the gifts so bountifully provided us by an all-wise Providence.</p> + +<p>Louisiana leads in the production of lumber, as well as sulphur, and salt, much +mineral oil and gas. In fact, Louisiana leads in having the greatest store of natural +resources.</p> + +<p>She has in pine lands, as near as I have been able to figure, about 4,269,928 acres.</p> + +<p>In hardwoods, such as oak, gum, willow, persimmon, hickory, magnolia, beech, +elm, sycamore and poplar, 3,338,486 acres.</p> + +<p>In cypress approximately 900,000 acres.</p> + +<p>We have, in Louisiana, two mills which alone cut daily nearly one and three-quarter +million feet of lumber. Of these the mill of the great Southern lumber +company of Bogalusa, La., and Fullerton, La., is the largest in the world.</p> + +<p>This company is putting in an alcohol plant so that utilization can be made of +waste products and they be manufactured into alcohol. The number of employees +at this plant and their logging operation are about 1,600 to 1,800. Their motto +is, “Utilization as well as Conservation.” They now make charcoal of the limbs, +and paper and alcohol of the refuse wood and sawdust. In a short time they will +begin to work the stumps, and in connection with this I will add that there is +more turpentine in a stump than in any part of the tree. Utilization of the stumps +will clear the lands for farming purposes and these soon will bloom with growing +crops.</p> + +<p>Louisiana has many bayous and creeks and all of these are lined with mills +and lumber companies which are steadily cutting on the vast supply at hand. Our +forests are teeming with woods of all kinds and Louisiana has more kinds of woods +than any state in the Union.</p> + +<p>The long leaf pine of Louisiana obtains preëminence over those of other states +for its superior qualities of strength and elasticity, combined with comparatively +light weight and ease of working, making it adaptable to many classes of work.</p> + +<p>Our cypress, which grows principally in the southern part of the state and +also to some extent in the lower and swampy portions of the middle and northern +portions, is of extremely slow growth, but is the most lasting of all our woods, +and under water is practically indestructible. We ship more cross-ties of oak and +cypress than any other state, a great many of these being creosoted and exported to +foreign countries where they are in great demand.</p> + +<p>Another tree that is springing into prominence is the pecan. East Baton +Rouge has a pecan orchard of 700 acres and the Parish of Iberville has a number of +varieties of several hundred acres each. In some of the parishes bordering on +Bayou Teche, inhabitants are going into the culture of this tree on a large scale. +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span>The profits in this business are large, each tree producing, when having attained a +growth, one or more barrels of the pecans of which the average price is from 15 +to 25 cents per pound.</p> + +<p>We are now drafting laws for the protection of timber from devastation by +fire and from indiscriminate logging.</p> + +<p>Over in the southwestern part of Louisiana is located the plant of the Union +Sulphur Company, engaged in the mining of sulphur by a novel process.</p> + +<p>The product is mined by being melted by superheated steam pumped down +through the deposits and it is then pumped up in a molten state and allowed to +cool and solidify in vats where it is broken up and shipped to market.</p> + +<p>This mine is one of the largest in the world, if not the largest, and its output +is close to one thousand tons per day. This, I think, shoves Sicily hard for first +place in the production of this mineral.</p> + +<p>Borings made by the company to ascertain the amount of sulphur in that +vicinity show fully 40,000,000 tons underlying their holdings.</p> + +<p>The discovery of the famous Beaumont oil field in 1901 was the signal for oil +exploration, both in Texas and Louisiana.</p> + +<p>Since that time Louisiana has proven to have within her borders oil deposits +second only to the famous Pennsylvania fields. And the deposits of the Caddo +field are generally conceded to be the greatest single field in the world.</p> + +<p>The depths at which oil is found varies from 500 to 2,200 feet in the different +fields.</p> + +<p>The Welsh and Jennings fields have produced oil at from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. +And while these fields in their beginning produced gushers, they are now all pumpers +and are producing in the neighborhood of 10,000 barrels per day.</p> + +<p>Along with oil in the Caddo field have also been found large supplies of +natural gas and this is now being utilized in many ways and will continue to be, as +the supply is seemingly inexhaustible.</p> + +<p>A great waste of these valuable mineral deposits was made before pipe lines +were built and receptacles constructed. Now the matter is being taken in hand +and soon, under the conservation measures adopted at the last general assembly, +control of the situation will be complete. There is still some work along this line +to accomplish, and at the next session of the General Assembly these will be written +in our statutes.</p> + +<p>The conservation of game and fish, as well as the other natural resources, is +most momentous to the people of our state. Louisiana has adopted good and sound +measures for the protection of her game and fish and has created a commission with +a system of wardens and provides that hunters shall contribute to the support of +the commission for protection by the payment of a nominal license for the privilege +of hunting.</p> + +<p>Of course, changes will have to be made, but the ground work has been done.</p> + +<p>Louisiana has in her many streams and water courses, as well as in her bays +and lakes, a vast supply of fish and shrimp. The shrimp and salt water fisheries +furnish employment to a great number of persons. These are dependent on the +supply of this valuable resource and are directly interested in the protection of it.</p> + +<p>The oyster industry during the past year has enjoyed a healthy and expansive +growth, and while the general business depression has affected the canner, still +a great many acres of water bottoms were leased for oyster culture and other improvements +were made.</p> + +<p>There are now under lease and cultivation over 14,391.24 acres of water bottoms +at $1.00 per acre per annum, and yielding on an average of two hundred barrels +of oysters per acre.</p> + +<p>There are more than 2,700 boats engaged in the oyster industry and 2,400,000 +bags were caught last season with a market value of something over $2,000,000.</p> + +<p>The shores of Louisiana are largely indented with lakes, bayous and bays, +where the tides ebb and flow daily, mixing the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico +with the fresh waters of the Mississippi river and the bayous and small rivers +leading therefrom. The area of this water surface, susceptible to oyster culture, is +calculated to be 4,720,502 acres.</p> + +<p>There are now under cultivation slightly over 15,000 acres, producing about +200 barrels of oysters per acre each year, and something like 62,740 acres, estimated, +of natural reefs where oysters grow wild and unaided.</p> + +<p>Deducting the leased bottoms and the natural oyster reefs from the total area +mentioned would leave about 4,660,000 acres of barren bottoms at present unproductive, +but which, with the expenditure of labor and a small amount of money, +could be made to yield enormous revenues and be a great source of food supply.</p> + +<p>The oyster industry of Louisiana offers to the people of this country one of +the greatest fields of exploitation and development.</p> + +<p>Salt has been known to exist in Louisiana for many years, and has been mined +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span>commercially in one deposit, that of the Avery salt works, since 1852. This deposit +is one of pure salt rock and at the present time nearly a thousand tons a day are +being produced. This is only one of the several similar mines in Louisiana and I +have no doubt that there are many very valuable deposits of salt yet undiscovered +and undeveloped.</p> + +<h3>REPORT FROM MASSACHUSETTS.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Prof. Frank William Rane</span>,<br> +<i>State Forester</i>.</p> + +<p>Complying with the request of the officials of this association in reporting +herewith for the state of Massachusetts, I wish to say at the outset that I feel certainly +incompetent to undertake the task and to point out the numerous activities +that the good old Bay State is fostering. Being a Massachusetts citizen by adoption +only, I feel privileged to express myself more frankly as otherwise my report might +seem prejudiced.</p> + +<p>We have in Massachusetts, in the first place, a conservation of the old-time +ancestry which is not only renowned for its brilliant deeds in the Nation’s early +history, but is still firm and abiding even after these many years. What state has +a fairer reputation in its dissemination of its natural resources and still lives to +enter more heartily into the conservation and restoration of those remaining.</p> + +<p>The historic setting and general environment of Massachusetts in the early days +of the Nation are natural resources that constitute an ever-bubbling fountain. Yearly +the pilgrimage to the old Bay State of thousands upon thousands from throughout +the Nation to visit Boston, Concord, Lexington, Arlington, Cambridge, Salem, Plymouth +and a score of other cities and towns goes to show what the conservation of +high ideals and true patriotism mean.</p> + +<p>The state has always been liberal, progressive and a natural leader in all that +stands for education, advancement and enlightenment.</p> + +<p>Many wonder at the splendid showing that Massachusetts always makes and +seem confounded at her successful progress. The explanation is that as a state +we do not confine our interests to state bounds, but our people are equally interested +in promoting and developing copper and other mines or sheep ranches and other +industries in the South or West, as much as they are at home. Succeeding elsewhere +means also better opportunities for home development. In this way mutual +associations and enterprises of a stalwart and permanent nature are established.</p> + +<p>The old biblical saying that it is more blessed to give than receive is literally +true of the old Bay State. While she has been generous in the Nation’s life, yet +there are few states that for their size have greater natural advantages and hold out +better prospects for success in the future.</p> + +<p>Contrary to the minds of many, Massachusetts has advantages that are hard to +surpass. I wonder how many have read the article entitled “Golden New England,” +by Sylvester Baxter, which appeared in the Outlook in 1910. If not, you may be +interested in doing so. The author therein portrays various rural industries and +very entertainingly points out their success. One of our enterprising business houses, +N. W. Harris & Co., bankers, Boston, very kindly has sent out excerpts to those +desiring the same.</p> + +<p>Massachusetts is a state with many manufacturing centers and, therefore, a +great consumer of all kinds of resources, particularly in the raw material. This +material is put through our factories and goes out as the manufactured article.</p> + +<p>Our high standard of education in literature, science and art has evolved men of +usefulness. In the modern or applied sciences we point with pride to our technical, +agricultural and trade schools which are already accomplishing results toward conservation, +restoration and economic utilization of natural resources.</p> + +<p>Massachusetts people began to see the handwriting on the wall many years ago +and even before this Congress was born they were agitating and accomplishing actual +results. Our cities and towns are already well forearmed with generous water +supplies. The great metropolitan water system of Boston and its suburbs, already +a reality, is one of the greatest engineering feats yet accomplished in its line. Our +metropolitan and municipal park systems are a credit to our people. The state +highway system of Massachusetts needs no introduction to an intelligent audience +like this, as its reputation has attracted road engineers from all over the world and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span>many states have come to the Massachusetts highway commission and induced our +men away. Dr. Field of the fish and game commission is here at the convention; +hence, he will inform you of this field of our activity. Simply let me say that our +marine natural resources are far greater than most people realize. Massachusetts +has a large and important coastal boundary and were I able to tell you of the great +possible future we have in mind even for the old historic Cape Cod Country, I know +it would interest you. While the great fishing industries of Old Gloucester, Nantucket +and New Bedford are not as thriving as in earlier times, nevertheless with +the guidance of modern science to water farming, we have great promise of the +restoration of these industries that will go far toward feeding the Nation in the +future.</p> + +<p>Speaking of fishing and game, forestry, natural history and Appalachian clubs, +I am frank to say that I believe there are no people on earth who are more in love +with Nature herself, heart and soul, than our Massachusetts people. We have organizations +galore and they are not only organized but bubbling full of real activity +and accomplishing things. Were you the state forester of Massachusetts, I can +guarantee that you could spend your whole time simply lecturing on conservation or +forestry, as the demands are so great and the work so popular.</p> + +<p>In the development of a new nation it invariably follows that conditions are +constantly changing, and as intercourse with other nations through trade and business +relations progresses, the evils and blessings are shared. While we are greatly +indebted to the various countries of the world for many an introduction, nevertheless +now and then we unfortunately get an insect or fungus development that proves +extremely disastrous.</p> + +<p>It would not be fair to Massachusetts in reporting on her conservation policies +did I not mention the great fight that the state has waged for years against the +gypsy and brown-tail moths. These two insects are indigenous to Europe and while +they have their natural enemies and are under subjection there, upon reaching this +country they find an open field and with no enemies become a veritable pest.</p> + +<p>Both species are destroyers of trees. The brown-tail moth devours the leaves +of the deciduous, or hardwood trees only, while the gypsy is no respector of vegetation +and will defoliate evergreens as well, if food is scarce, although it, too, prefers +the deciduous. The brown-tail moths besides being tree destroyers, give off hairs +from the larvae and moth, which, when brought in contact with the skin of human +beings produce a rash that is extremely irritating. Of the two insects the gypsy +moth is generally considered the worse. The fact that when the white pine, or our +evergreens, are once stripped they die outright; and that the pine in particular is +one of our most valuable species, both from the economic and aesthetic standpoint, +make their protection from the gypsy moth important.</p> + +<p>I will not take time to give you the life histories of these insects, for should +anyone be interested this information can be had by applying to the State Forester, +Boston, Mass. We have illustrated matter in natural colors showing these insects.</p> + +<p>Practically all of our trees in the residential sections of the cities and towns, in +the eastern part of the state, are sprayed annually. Our main travelled roadsides are +sprayed each year. Individuals, municipalities and the state all coöperate in this +work. The annual appropriation of the state is $315,000 a year. The total expenditure +from all sources, within the state, up to the present time in this work is estimated +at $6,000,000. Besides this the United States Government has spent in +Massachusetts probably $700,000. We have had as high as 2,700 men at work at +one time in the busiest season of the year. The renewed North Shore, our fashionable +summer resort, spends practically $100,000 a year to protect the trees in +this section alone.</p> + +<p>The state forester’s spraying apparatus is composed of an aggregation of 300 +spraying outfits. We use in a single season over 400 tons of arsenate of lead, the +state’s contract alone being for 250 tons a year.</p> + +<p>During the past two years the state forester’s department has made great improvements +in power spraying equipment, the cost of spraying woodlands having been +reduced from $30.00, or more, per acre, down to as low as $6.00 in some instances. +Instead of its being necessary to climb trees as heretofore, the modern power sprayer +enables us to spray directly over the tops of tall trees from the ground. The whole +spraying problem has been revolutionized. It is certainly to be hoped that these +insects may not secure a foothold elsewhere. Surely Massachusetts is doing her +part, and I cannot urge too strongly the necessity of other states and the Nation +realizing the importance of this work. We have introduced parasites from all over +the world, and they are showing great promise. The work with disease also seems +very effective, and I feel optimistic. It is clear that the practice of modern forestry +methods, and the employment of highly developed mechanical devices, are doing +much, and we trust ere long the parasites and diseases will bring about the desired +balance.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span></p> + +<p>Massachusetts is enthusiastically interested in forestry and the state forester +this past season was given an appropriation of $10,000 for forest fire work. We +have appointed a state forest fire warden, who is organizing and perfecting a workable +system. He is also establishing lookout stations, and patrol systems in different +sections of the state.</p> + +<p>Our forest management, reforestation and general forestry, educational and +demonstration work are all well established and progressing. We have 3,000,000 +trees in the state nursery for use another season. The state is planting 1,000 acres +each year, and our lumbermen and people generally are showing interest, and doing +more each season. Our appropriation, including that for forest fires this past year, +was $40,000.</p> + +<p>In Massachusetts the work of restoration is even of more importance than conservation +when applied to forestry. The annual cut of our forest products at +present amounts to only five per cent of that used each year throughout the commonwealth +for manufacturing, building and other purposes. Surely we can and +ought to supply a larger amount of our own home grown woods. Although the +state has been well cut over, even now our wood harvests play an important factor +in the industries of many of our rural sections. While we believe thoroughly in +conservation where it will apply, still the more potent force begins farther back. +We need to teach the A B C of restoration in forestry. When our work of reforestation +shall have begun to demonstrate its value, it will be an object lesson, +which will mean much toward perfecting a better state forest policy.</p> + +<p>Practical forest restoration, therefore, is what Massachusetts needs most. If +we will reconvert our hilly, rocky, mountainous, moist sandy and waste non-agricultural +lands generally into productive forests the future financial success from +rural sections of the commonwealth is assured. This is no idle dream; it can be accomplished. +Massachusetts is a natural forest country and all that is needed is +simply to assist nature, stop forest fires and formulate constructive policies. Then +we can grow as fine forests as can be found anywhere. Germany and many of the +countries of the old world have already demonstrated what can be done. Are we +to be less thrifty and far-sighted? Americans do things, when they are once aroused, +and it is believed that reforestation and the adopting of modern forestry management +must be given its due consideration in this state from now on.</p> + +<p>I have been delighted to follow the interest that has been aroused and the +great tendency for all our people to not only welcome and appreciate the new idea +of “conservation,” but to even credit the term or phrase, as covering every phase +of new endeavor.</p> + +<p>It is not my purpose to lessen the glory one whit or bedim a single gem in +the crown of the national phrase, “Conservation of Natural Resources,” nor could +I were it to be tried, for the heralded motto has already stamped itself firmly +upon the Nation.</p> + +<p>As time goes on, however, it will be found that our popular phrase will not +carry with it the whole panacea for overcoming our wasteful and depleting conditions, +and that new and equally applicable terms, though perhaps never so popular, +will come to express more aptly our real needs.</p> + +<p>To my mind the phrase, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” vies with that +of “Conservation of Natural Resources,” and expresses a force to be aroused in the +Nation for good that in many ways surpasses the present popular one.</p> + +<p>We have our forest reserves and minerals, what are left, and now to conserve +them economically is a worthy undertaking, but in the older sections of the Nation +to conserve what we have in depleted and worn-out lands and forests is to pick +the bones of the withered and shrunken carcass.</p> + +<p>Let conservation apply where it may, but the force that is needed in Massachusetts +and all of New England, yea the South, extending even well into the +middle of the Nation, following the great depleting agricultural cereal and cotton +crops on the one hand, and the lumberman’s axe and forest fires on the other, is +greater than this term can begin to express.</p> + +<p>The term, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” I claim, meets our present +needs far better and breathes greater hope and definite accomplishments for our +children’s children in the future.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span></p> + +<h3>REPORT FROM MINNESOTA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By D. M. Neill.</span></p> + +<p>To undertake to tell you of the resources of the state of Minnesota would be to +recapitulate nearly the resources of all the states of the union. But I don’t understand +that is what we are here for. When the governor of Minnesota asked me to +come down here, I asked him what I was to say to the people who might be here +at this time. He said, “You have been on the state conservation commission for two +years, and you ought to know what to say,” and in addition to that he said, “Go +down and tell them what we are trying to do in Minnesota.” That is what I will +try to tell you about. In the first place, the men who settled Minnesota looked +far into the future. The state had an immense amount of what was called swamp +lands donated by the government for educational purposes. These men of the early +days, looking to the future, passed a law whereby these lands could not be disposed +of except at a minimum price of what then seemed to be a ridiculous sum entirely +beyond what these lands would probably then be worth. But these lands are found +to be among the most valuable assets of the state of Minnesota, and have sold at +double, triple, ten times, and some of them for more than a thousand times the +minimum price. So that today the state of Minnesota is next to the state of Texas, +has the largest school fund in the United States—something over $25,000,000—and +with the resources on hand belonging to the fund, it probably, in the course of time, +will amount to over $250,000,000. That looks like conservation of our school resources.</p> + +<p>In our farm work, our agricultural college has been doing of late years a splendid +work throughout the state. In connection with the commercial clubs it has +established a considerable number of experimental farms in different localities, to +give somewhat of a practical education to the farmers already tilling the soil. The +leaders in this movement have felt that the ordinary processes of sending the children +to school, giving them an agricultural education, trying to get them back to the farm +again—to spread that education was too slow. It seemed necessary to do something +with the parents that they may see the necessity for the children having an +agricultural education, and for that reason the state agricultural college has been conducting +this set of experiments through the experimental farm. The results are +already beginning to show.</p> + +<p>The state of Minnesota has succeeded in the last few years in raising the +number of bushels of wheat alone 3½ bushels to the acre. That is some of the +practical conservation of the soil. Minnesota used to have the reputation of having +the worst roads in the United States, and I think she fully lived up to her reputation. +That condition is very rapidly being changed. The state wide campaign +for good roads is being constantly conducted by the good roads commission. The +last legislature, in fact the legislature of four years ago, took the matter in hand +and levied a small tax for the betterment of the state roads. These roads were required +to be built under the supervision of state engineers. If the roads were so +built the state contributed one-third of their cost up to a certain maximum amount +which to any one county did not exceed $2,000. That was the starting of the state +movement. The last legislature provided for a tax that will raise something like +$2,000,000 to be divided among the eighty counties of the state to aid in the work +of good roads. A project is now on foot to build a state highway from the southern +boundary to the northern boundary, and one across the state from the city of Duluth +to the city of East Grand Forks. These to be great state highways, and all other +highways radiating out from them. These experimental roads are built on scientific +lines furnished by the state, and are conditioned according to the quality of the +soil through which the road runs. The effort is first to get a system of good dirt +roads. The state is not yet developed sufficiently to warrant us going in to macadamized +roads at this time, except in the large cities.</p> + +<p>In the matter of our mineral wealth the state long ago provided that the people +at large shall receive the benefit of it. No state land is now sold except where the +mineral rights are retained and the mines already opened and in operation +pay very large taxes toward the maintenance of the state government, thus contributing +to the welfare of the whole people. These are some of the things that +the state of Minnesota is trying to do and is doing. I do not feel that I can take +the time to go into detail of many other things that we are just starting, the prevention +of disease—already one or two tuberculosis institutions have been started +in the pine woods of Minnesota—and a general campaign against the great white +plague is constantly in progress. My time is up. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span></p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR NEBRASKA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By George Coupland.</span></p> + +<p>I have been very strongly reminded today in these remarks that I have heard +made that the state that I represent is purely an agricultural state. That is about all +the industries that we have. I thought perhaps of one manufacturing interest that we +were trying to develop, that of furnishing presidential timber, but we had to give +that up, and the factory is in the hands of the repairers today. (Applause.) I think +that perhaps there is no more important factor in the development of a sentiment +that means what it says, than such a gathering as this. I notice in the paper that +I just picked up it is, “Back to the Land”—yes, I am glad that that is the story—for +it is out of the land that this country has to maintain its position as a nation.</p> + +<p>The state that I represent, I am glad to say, recognizes the importance of perhaps +its only industry, and how much its future was tied up in its development. It +has had in motion for quite a number of years agencies that are looking forward +to the betterment of life upon the land and the development of the natural resources, +the only natural resources perhaps that we have. And I am glad to say that this +movement had its inception in the hearts and minds of the men who lived upon +the land in Nebraska. I am also glad to say that the men who lived in the cities, +the business men, have responded in splendid manner to this idea. My mind runs +back to that fine pioneer of my state, J. Sterling Morton, and the idea that he had +in mind, and I want, Mr. President, to impress the thought that you so beautifully +expressed today, that it is not the giving of more expert ability to exploit the soil, +but it is the building up within the heart of the man and the boy and the woman +and the girl who live upon the land a love for the place where they live; to love +the tree that father planted; to love the home that father built, to love the farm +that father homesteaded. That is what we want to cultivate. If along with these +other agencies that we have in motion, we will see to it that this is emphasized in +our educational system, then we will have a better conception of what real country +life means. I like to think of my ancestral home, the generations that were born +and died on the land. I was born on the land and I hope to die on the land. My +children were born there, and I hope that they will have the same sentiment, +and be willing and glad to die upon the land. Our state has in motion today—I +will hurriedly tell you—I do not want to take any more of your time than necessary—I +will tell you the agencies that we have at work. We have a farmers’ congress; +we have a conservation congress; we have a rural life commission that was +authorized by our last legislature, which I consider one of the most potent agencies +for the betterment of rural conditions in the state of Nebraska; an affiliated agricultural +society which takes in all the agricultural organizations. Every year our +state university is their host, and nearly every year we have two thousand representative +farmers of Nebraska gathered in our capital city to discuss questions pertaining +to agriculture. Then we also have a conservation soil survey which is +doing splendid work.</p> + +<p>There is one feature to which I want to draw your attention, that I think is +very important, and that is the question of sanitation upon the farm, sanitation in +the small town. And this has been taken up by our conservation congress. We have +different divisions of this congress, and we have splendid men at the head of these +divisions, who during the year take pains with the particular work that has been +assigned them, and then each year we meet and hear their reports. We have a lot +of splendid things that are going forward in our state, and I am sure what we have +heard today is inspirational, and that we will go home vowed to do better things. +I do not want to boast, but I just thought as I listened to what every man who has +spoken for his state had to say, I must tell you this story.</p> + +<p>I live on a little farm in eastern Nebraska, which is typical of a large area of +our state. If I had to go to the commercial fertilizer man and buy the fertilizing +matter, the lime, the phosphorus, the potash, and nitrogen that are wrapped up in +the first four feet of the soil that I till it would cost me $7,000 per acre. If I had +to buy the same kind of fertilizing matter that is wrapped up in the first ten feet +of the soil that I till, and which my alfalfa fields, when they are planted, supplied, it +would cost me $28,000 per acre. I feel that we own pretty good land in Nebraska, +and for that reason we are anxious to take good care of it. (Applause.)</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span></p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR NEW YORK.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By John D. Moore</span>,<br> +<i>Member State Conservation Commission</i>.</p> + +<p>On my arrival in Kansas City this morning a man at the hotel asked me where +I came from, and I said I came from New York. And he said, “What have you +fellows got in New York you want to get conserved?” And I said, “We have the +greatest conservation problem in New York of all the states in the Union.” In the +first place, we have nine million people, over one-tenth of the population of the United +States. It is one of our jobs to provide these nine million people with pure water +to drink. I told him about the great reservoir on which the city of New York alone +has spent upwards of two millions of dollars in order to bring into New York drinking +water at the rate of five hundred millions of gallons per day. I told him furthermore +that in the state of New York there were 32,000,000 acres of land, and of that +more than one-third wild forest land. I told him, too, that in the public parks of +New York we had a conservation problem of our own which did not begin three +years ago, or five or ten years ago, but began forty years ago when Governor Seymour +appointed a commission in 1872 to investigate the matter of public parks and +public forests.</p> + +<p>Since that time the state of New York has accumulated more than 1,600,000 +acres of the greatest parks in this Union, and of that 1,300,000 acres are in the +Adirondacks, and in these parks any citizen of New York, or any other state can +come and hunt and camp as freely as he will. Furthermore, of the timber land of +that park, which is of priceless value, and a value which has been protected by a +constitutional amendment adopted in 1894, and not yesterday, or the day before, but +sixteen or seventeen years ago. This law says that these lands shall neither be +leased or sold or exchanged nor taken by any person, or by any corporation, and +the timber thereon shall not be removed, or cut or destroyed. That has placed a +perpetual safeguard, the like of which exists in no other state in the union. (Applause.)</p> + +<p>In the reforestation we have six state nurseries. In these nurseries there are +at the present time 15,000,000 trees. A man this morning said he did not believe it. +I told him they were there and he could go and count them. (Laughter.)</p> + +<p>Last year we sold to the railroad companies, and to the lumber companies of +the state of New York approximately two million seedlings, and obtained for the +state of New York something upward of ten thousand dollars. The state law says +we must sell those seedlings at cost. We are able to furnish to the lumbermen and +the railroad interests of New York seedling trees at the rate of less than one-half +cent apiece. Furthermore, the state has reforested, as an example to her citizens, +more than 6,000 acres of its own land. Those trees are there, and constitute an object +lesson to every visitor to the Adirondacks. This afternoon I heard some of +our friends say what their state was doing for good roads. The state of New +York has expended within the last five years upwards of $100,000,000 for its state +roads. (Applause) Of that we have built 10,000 miles of road—not dirt road, or +earth road, but the finest kind of macadam roads, running from sixteen to twenty-four +feet in width. We are gridironing New York with a system of highways the +like of which is not found under the Stars and Stripes. More than that, we are not +devoting our attention entirely to the development of our land locomotion. We are +equally strong with water ways.</p> + +<p>The Birch canal of the State of New York will be completed within three +or four years. The state has appropriated money, sold bonds, and got the money +in the treasury for $101,000,000 of Birch canal improvements in order that you +Western gentlemen can bring your wheat on boats to the seaboard at the lowest +possible cost of transportation. (Applause) Furthermore, we have a system of fish +and game laws which is extremely rigorous and has had a marvelous tendency to +improve the condition of the wild life of the state. I hold in the State of New +York, ladies and gentlemen, that we must not look after only our water power and +our forests; we must look after the wild things that live in the water and forest—the +fish and the game. (Applause) The deer have been so thoroughly protected +by our laws that they have increased so that last year in the Adirondacks there +were killed 16,000 deer. Trappers tell our woodsmen today that never in the history +of the Adirondacks have so many deer been seen.</p> + +<p>This may appear to you strange. It is strange, except when we consider +that in primitive times before the settlers came with firearms wolves were abundant +in the Adirondacks and preyed upon the deer. Now there is not, within the +confines of the State of New York, a single wolf—not one. The present legislature +has passed a game law which has been in effect since the first of September, and +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>we take a fair view of the protection of wild life. We are not confined to the +protection of game in New York State. We have extended it to every state in +the Union. The game law says in effect this: That you cannot bring into the +State of New York and sell in the State of New York a bird or animal which has +been killed under the American flag. In other words, we have closed to the pot +hunter and the market hunter, to the slaughterer of game, the richest and the most +plentiful market which they have enjoyed in the past. We have turned it to good +account. The law states that they may bring in from foreign countries outside of +the United States the unplucked carcasses of birds and venison. Incidentally we +expect to import this year 100 tons of venison, and we have already imported 200,000 +birds, and upon the leg of each the state has fastened a tag, and exacted for the +tag one nickel. So out of the 2,000,000 birds which the dealers tell us they will +import this year the State of New York is going to exact the magnificent sum of +$100,000 and maybe more. This game law should be a lesson to every state in the +Union. It is not fair for a state to protect its own game and fish and let the state +be a market for the game of its neighbors.</p> + +<p>The State of New York, gentlemen, is more prolific and a more bountiful +spender in water power and more bountifully supplied with this power than almost +any other state of the Union. I won’t dispute the figures of our friend from +California who says there are 5,000,000 horsepower running loose there, but I do +know that whereas his state has developed 250,000 horsepower, the State of New +York, outside of the St. Lawrence river and Niagara Falls, which are really international +waters, and do not come under consideration, my commission has upwards +of 650,000 horsepower and we know from actual survey which costs hundreds of +thousands of dollars and has been in progress some eight years, that a million +horsepower is still going to waste, but that million is to be harnessed and put to +use, so that the State of New York can get some of the profits which have heretofore +gone into private coffers.</p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR OKLAHOMA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Milton Brown.</span></p> + +<p>As yet Oklahoma is not conserved in presidents like Ohio. We have conserved +a lot of fads and vagaries and isms down there, but nevertheless notwithstanding +all that, Oklahoma for the past two years has got down to a practical standpoint in +this matter of the conservation of our material resources and a few of the items +I want to mention in my five minutes are these. First, good roads. We are now +constructing a road, beginning at the north line of Oklahoma and running almost +through to the south, across the whole state, to be entirely of macadam. Of course, +the Automobile Association started the matter in one sense, but yet all the farmers’ +institutes joined in, and the two are now working together. Not only have we +state aid in that matter, but we have aid in the counties. That is one item of the +good roads that will make some of these older states ashamed of themselves when +they come down to Oklahoma and see it. (Applause)</p> + +<p>Another proposition is that we have gone into the development of our water +supply down there for our own consumption, not only for the farmers but for the +cities, and that, too, without any Federal aid. Some of the older states have been +aided by donations from the Federal Government, and although millions of dollars +have been taken from Oklahoma by the sales of lands to the settlers of that state, +not one penny has been returned to Oklahoma in the way of any particular aid +in the matter of the conservation of these resources. Yet at the last session of our +legislature we appropriated $45,000 for the purpose of sinking deep wells in the +extreme northwestern part of Oklahoma to get down to the underflow water, so +that we can irrigate the lands out there in the extreme Northwest. They are going +ahead and now have several of those wells in operation.</p> + +<p>Another proposition is that these underground waters in the northwestern part +of the state are just like the underground water in Nebraska, in Kansas and Colorado; +they flow along with the country, with the fall of the country from the +mountain ranges. We enacted a law at the last legislature to encourage any person, +any firm, any corporation that will come in and put down wells, drains, dams or +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span>anything of that kind, and encourage them by exempting them from taxation for +a period of five years. That is having its effect already. Some parties are there +now engaged in the North Canadian and in the lower Canadian making surveys and +putting in plants to raise this underground water by a process of gravity underflow +and bring it out on the surface to spread it over our broad acres.</p> + +<p>Also we have a pure water supply for the city, keeping the sewage separate +and apart. We have laws upon that subject and they are being enforced.</p> + +<p>We finally had to go into the Federal Court to have one proposition settled +down there, so that our swamp lands could be drained under the law passed by +our state legislature. We had a state drainage law by which they undertook to +drain some of the lands southeast of Guthrie and Oklahoma City. That entrenched +upon the railroads, and they set up the howl that the act was unconstitutional, that +we could not change the bed of the river, that we could not change the flow of +the water so as to bring our ditches in and drain the swamp lands. But Judge Cotterill +of the United States Court held that law constitutional, and that big +drainage ditch has been constructed and the swamp lands there have been reclaimed +within the last year.</p> + +<p>You remember the Arkansas river; if you have ridden along on the Santa Fe +railroad out in Kansas you have seen it at times when you could walk across it +dry shod and would not get your feet wet, for the bed was as dry as a bone. And +yet from Arkansas City south there is more water. Congress passed an act, and +today they are working on a survey, making the preliminaries up as far as Muskogee, +and they propose to go on up to Arkansas City, so as to make the bed of +that river broader and run boats. They have run boats up as far as Arkansas City +in times past, and they have run to Muskogee in more recent years. Now, they +are going ahead on that proposition to make the Arkansas navigable as far as +Arkansas City.</p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR OREGON.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Joseph N. Teal</span>,<br> +<i>Chairman Oregon State Conservation Committee</i>.</p> + +<p>On behalf of the Oregon State Conservation Commission and in response to +your request, I herewith submit brief report of its work and activities.</p> + +<p>The first conservation commission in Oregon was appointed by Honorable +George E. Chamberlain, Governor of the state, on May 23, 1908. It was a semi-official +organization and consisted of fifteen members. All funds were secured +through voluntary subscription.</p> + +<p>As the most pressing subject demanding legislation then was the use and +conservation of water resources, a water code was prepared and submitted to the +legislature for its consideration and action. The bill was adopted substantially +as prepared. The act is elastic and practicable. It provides: (1) A simple, inexpensive +method of determining and fixing rights initiated under earlier statutes; +(2) a precise and definite procedure for initiating and perfecting new rights, beneficial +use always being the basis thereof; (3) an elastic administrative board, to +insure the enforcement of water right decrees and its own decisions.</p> + +<p>The cost of administration is borne by those benefited. Water power franchises +are limited to forty years with a preference right of renewal.</p> + +<p>While it was not expected the fees provided for would produce excess revenue, +the operation of the law has been very satisfactory and more than self-sustaining +under the intelligent and careful administration of the State Engineer, John H. +Lewis. The beneficial results following its enactment are conceded and are set +forth in the official reports of the State Engineer. Since its enactment some minor +changes have been made respecting practice and procedure, but none as to principle.</p> + +<p>We are now engaged in a careful study of its workings in order to recommend +such further changes as experience may show wise or necessary. That changes will +be necessary is not to be doubted, but I feel I am safe in saying we have the foundation +and framework of a water code based on right principles.</p> + +<p>The legislature of 1909 also passed an act creating a state conservation commission +of seven members, to be appointed by the Governor, carrying an appropriation +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span>of $1,000. Upon the enactment of this measure the original commission discontinued +its work and Hon. F. W. Benson, then Governor, appointed another commission, +the membership of which was selected from the original commission.</p> + +<p>During the year 1909 the commission offered money prizes to students in the +various educational institutions of the state covering the following topics: The +Forests in Oregon; Irrigation Institutions in Oregon; Soils; Dry Land Farming +in Oregon; Roads in Oregon; Fish in Oregon.</p> + +<p>The prizes were awarded and paid according to announcement. The money +for this purpose, as well as for other uses by the commission, was secured through +voluntary contributions, no public money being used for this purpose.</p> + +<p>In 1909 Mr. C. B. Watson, one of the members of the commission, called the +attention of the commission to the beauty and grandeur of the Josephine County +caves and asked that steps be taken to preserve and keep them in their original +beauty as a national monument. The commission took up the matter with Mr. +Gifford Pinchot, then Forester of the United States, and on July 12, 1909, the caves +were, by proclamation of President Taft, duly set apart as a national monument by +an act approved June 8, 1906, under the name “Oregon Caves.” These caves are +under the immediate care of the Forest Service, being in a national forest. They +are of great beauty and will be preserved as a public monument forever.</p> + +<p>During the year 1910 the work of educating the public to the necessity of +action in the protection of our forests from fire and other destructive agencies was +carried on. In coöperation with other organizations a law was framed to submit +to the legislature for action. The legislature of 1911 adopted this measure, and it +was passed with but few amendments, and in connection with the bill an appropriation +of $60,000 was made.</p> + +<p>We submitted to the same legislature a bill for coöperation between the state +and federal agencies engaged in gathering physical data of the state’s resources +and in disseminating the information so gathered. This bill carried with it an +appropriation of $20,000 in addition to the $5,000 provided by the Act of 1905, conditioned +upon the Federal Government appropriating an equal amount. The legislature +passed this measure with substantial unanimity.</p> + +<p>The commission has prepared and circulated annual reports for the years 1908, +1909 and 1910; also a special report during the years 1908 and 1910 on the rivers +and harbors in Oregon, setting forth their needs and requirements for improvement +and justification therefor. In conjunction with the Forest Service and other associations, +the commission also aided in the preparation of a pamphlet for general +distribution on the use of Oregon woods.</p> + +<p>The only appropriation the commission has received from the state was the +one made in 1909 of $1,000.</p> + +<p>To insure prosperity to the agriculturist, the tiller of the soil, the producer, +should be our constant aim. His well-being is the measure of the well-being of +the country. The commission has therefore undertaken to aid and further better +agricultural methods throughout the farming sections of the state, particularly in +the semi-arid regions of eastern Oregon. It is its desire to encourage improved +methods, wise selection of products, diversity of crops and increased animal productions. +It is operating in close and sympathetic affiliation with the State Agricultural +College, the railroads and others taking an active interest in this work. It +is proposed to offer prizes, employ an expert farmer to live in the particular section +in question during the coming harvest year, to encourage the holding of +district fairs, and in every way possible awaken an active interest in better farming +methods. It seems to us that a more fruitful field for the principles of conservation +cannot be found. It is practical and shows that conservation is a real vital +force with a definite object and aim.</p> + +<p>It is hoped something can be accomplished toward encouraging the development +of this industry in the state. One of the members of the commission is +especially qualified for this task, and he has it in hand.</p> + +<p>While Oregon is a great agricultural state, it also has large mineral resources. +The state, however, has not given the encouragement to this industry that it +deserves.</p> + +<p>The laws for the protection of game birds and other fowl and food fish are constantly +being improved. A very excellent game commission has been appointed +with a game warden of national reputation who has the keenest sympathy with +animal and bird life, who does not believe in extermination, and who will, we +believe, enforce the law.</p> + +<p>It has been suggested that the national resources in the various states, and +heretofore undisposed of, be turned over to the respective states by the National +Government. Personally, I do not think this would be the wise course to pursue. +Those of us—and there are many—who were born and raised in the West understand +how little regard has been paid in the past to the public interest in the disposition +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span>of public resources by both state and Nation. We know that it is not +necessary for the rapid development of the West that every valuable right and +resource now belonging to the public should irrevocably pass from the public to be +monopolized by the few. It is my conviction that in every state on the Pacific +Coast the great mass of the people is in favor of the conservation of the +public resources in the interest of the people as a whole. I do not believe the +methods of the past appeal to them. Their face is toward the rising sun. The +conservation in which they believe is that which secures the greatest, widest and +wisest use. They believe in equal opportunities now, and, what is of more importance, +opportunity for their children hereafter. They are not alarmed at national +conservation where necessary or proper. They realize that many of the public +resources are the property of the Nation and not that of the state. That there +must be a wise and sympathetic coördination of purpose and effort. The Nation +has its duties and functions; the state has its duties and functions; and the individual +has his. They must all unite in a common cause, under a common banner, +for the common good. No matter by what name conservation may be called, +conservation has come to stay. No more will the great resources of this country, +either public or private, be treated or allowed to be treated as they have been in +the past. An enlightened public opinion and a growing one will in itself prevent it. +A much higher standard in viewing this matter now prevails than formerly. Money +and material prosperity are not everything. Patriotism and good citizenship are +much more important. We look at things now from a different point of view than +we did formerly. Those who are primarily responsible for this great movement +builded more wisely than they knew and their work will endure forever. No one +need feel in the least discouraged—the old ways are gone forever. All that is +needed from now on is a wise, prudent, conservative policy, meeting the problems +as they arise and allowing for the greatest possible use, without unnecessary waste, +of every resource. The principles are understood. It is in their wise application +that wholesome results will be secured.</p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR PENNSYLVANIA AND PHILADELPHIA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Emil Gunther.</span></p> + +<p>As a concrete example of what conservation has done, I desire to cite the +County of Lancaster, which, according to its area, occupies the distinction of being +the leading county in agricultural wealth in this country. I am also informed that +the children in the public schools are taught the importance of each planting at +least two trees each year.</p> + +<p>The campaigns inaugurated throughout the states for the conservation of the +national resources of our country have secured the attention of the whole Nation. +To some it may seem that the East has looked supinely upon the movement which +has received the most practical endorsement of the western half of our continent. +The City of Philadelphia, however, which I have the honor to represent, may +justly claim to have been a pioneer in questions of conservation, nor is there any +state more alive to the importance of this matter than the Commonwealth of +Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>Philadelphia’s place in the history of this movement may not be known to +all, but it is interesting to note that as early as 1868 there was organized in our +city a national board of trade largely under the initiative of our local board of +trade of the Executive Council, of which I have the honor to be a member. That +this board has taken an early interest in such matters permit me to quote from an +address lately delivered by Mr. George H. Maxwell at the annual meeting of the +National Board of Trade.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I should like to say for Philadelphia that its local board of trade was +among the first to recognize by official utterance its deep interest in the question +of national irrigation. It expressed in its petitions and memorials the view +that the national control of this important subject was of the deepest interest +to the whole Nation, independent of locality. It has likewise strongly urged +upon the National Government the improvement of all navigable rivers and +harbors, believing that such improvements must inure greatly to the prosperity +of our whole country and to place our manufacturers and producers in a +position successfully to compete with foreign trade.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span></p> + +<p>It is hardly necessary for me to call to your attention the place which Philadelphia +holds in the manufacturing world due to its position upon the banks of +the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Nor have these waterways alone been put to +commercial use; they have also afforded to the inhabitants of Philadelphia opportunities +of real recreative value.</p> + +<p>Philadelphia has recognized that true conservation is to put to proper and +immediate use those resources which are peculiarly its own. From the days of the +proprietors large areas have been set aside and improved for the enjoyment of the +people; under the Fairmount Park Commission has been developed the largest—and +it would seem to many of us the most beautiful—park of its kind in the world. +Thirty-five hundred acres abounding in streams and woodlands, with formal gardens +and wild ravines, are always open to the use of our citizens. There have been +organized, not only under municipal control but also through the instrumentality of +private citizens, many associations to conserve those resources which are our +heritage.</p> + +<p>Therefore, it is with pleasure that on behalf of the city of Philadelphia I +bring to this Congress a word of greeting and assure you that our interest in all +that pertains to conservation is both practical and sincere.</p> + +<h3>ORGANIZATION OF THE CONSERVATION MOVEMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By A. B. Farquhar</span>,<br> +<i>President of the State Branch of the N. C. A. of Pennsylvania</i>.</p> + +<p>Our movement is nowhere a thing of yesterday and least of all in Pennsylvania, +where work of the highest value for conservation in certain particular directions +has for a number of years been conducted. Only within three months, however, +has the cause of conservation in general progressed so far as to have an organization +especially devoted to it, and it was on the 23d of last June that the Pennsylvania +state branch of the National Conservation Association was formed in Harrisburg. +It is of and for that branch that I speak.</p> + +<p>The aims and purposes of the branch which I shall first set before you are in +ten sections, designated by Bishop Darlington, one of the conferees, as “<i>The Ten +Commandments of Conservation</i>.”</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“1. <i>A Purified Water Supply.</i> Since the physical, mental and moral health +of our people is the most important of all national resources, and since stream +pollution by sewage and by factory wastes is a menace to the health as well as +to the comfort of all citizens, the state should continue and extend its systematic +investigation of the extent, sources and effects of stream pollution to +the extreme headwaters of every stream in the commonwealth, where danger +is often the greatest because least suspected, in order to discover the facts and +to propose adequate remedial measures. Any further legislation required should +be promptly enacted into law, under conditions which would continue, +strengthen and fully enforce the present admirable work of the Department +of Health, under Dr. Dixon and his assistants.</p> + +<p>“2. <i>Forest Fire Protection.</i> The state authorities should have power in +dry and dangerous seasons to establish, in such localities as need protection, +efficient patrols for the prevention of forest fires. The expense of such fire-patrol +service should be assessed upon the forest lands protected thereby. +Lumbermen should be required, under adequate inspection, to burn or otherwise +dispose of all inflammable debris, at times and under conditions to be +prescribed by the State Forestry Reservation Commission. The use of fire +in or near woodlands in dry and dangerous seasons should be prohibited, +except under stringent regulation and upon written permit from a responsible +officer of the forest service or fire patrol; and the governor should have power +to designate, upon suggestion to that effect from the Commissioner of Forestry, +periods of peculiar danger within which the carrying of firearms, the carrying +and use of matches, and the setting of fires for any purpose in public or private +woodlands, should be forbidden by law.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span></p> + +<p>“3. <i>Just Taxation of Forest Lands.</i> To encourage reforestation and the +growth of timber on land chiefly valuable for that purpose, timber land which +the owners are willing to treat upon modern reproductive forest methods should +be classified separately from other real property, with the levy of a nominal +annual tax until the trees are cut at the proper stage, under regulation or +with knowledge of the State Forestry Commissioner, when a higher rate of +tax should be imposed either per acre or per thousand feet.</p> + +<p>“4. <i>Watercourses as a Public Resource.</i> The waters of the state are +one of its most important assets. They should be systematically mapped and +considered, and eventually developed and utilized for the equal benefit of all +citizens. In such development every stream should be considered as a unit, +from its source to its mouth. Domestic and municipal water-supply should be +recognized as the highest use, and consideration of the value of the stream +as a potential source of attracting revenue by reason of its scenic beauty +and for its educational worth should rank as equal in importance with its +potential value in respect to navigation and the production of power; and +preference rights should be recognized and granted in order of the above +uses in all cases where projects for two or more of these uses conflict. There +should be every endeavor to combine these various uses in so far as such +combination may be found practicable. For these ends the coöperation of +the Federal Government may require to be sought. Existing private rights +in waters and riparian lands should not be enlarged, except upon conditions +adequate to insure full public control.</p> + +<p>“5. <i>Supervision of Use of Water by Corporations.</i> Private projects for +water-power development seeking state aid in the form of a corporate franchise +carrying the right to condemn property, to use land or water rights +belonging to the public, to obstruct navigable rivers, or otherwise, should be +subjected to careful consideration and to strict regulation, in order to secure +prompt, complete and orderly development; efficient service at fair prices and +on equal terms to all consumers in like conditions; full public information as +to costs and profits; honest capitalization on the basis of cost; and fair rentals +for public property used within the franchises granted. No water-power +franchises or privileges should be granted for a longer period than from +thirty to fifty years, with a provision for a readjustment of the compensation +or terms at least each ten years, and any assignment of the right or privilege +should require the approval of the proper state authorities to be legal.</p> + +<p>“6. <i>Wild Life in the Forest and Stream.</i> A prompt recognition of the +remaining wild life in the forest and in the stream as a valuable natural resource +is desirable, through uniform game laws for its effective protection, +and the present game laws of Pennsylvania should be revised and extended +as required to properly protect such wild life for its beneficient value to the +state.</p> + +<p>“7. <i>Economy of Mineral Resources.</i> Mining is the most important industry +of Pennsylvania. It is now accompanied by a culpable waste of human life +and of minerals, especially coal. There should be promptly applied preventive +measures reducing materially the loss of life through mine accidents, and +requiring careful economy in the exploitation of our remaining mineral wealth. +The state should take the position that, in respect to these unreplaceable natural +resources, the temporary owner of the land has no right so to treat his property +as to work injury to all.</p> + +<p>“8. <i>Agricultural Resources.</i> Since cultivated land is the foundation of the +Nation’s prosperity, the proper use and continued improvement of the +soil should everywhere receive especial care; and in order that agricultural +and horticultural products may reach the best markets with the least loss of +time and at the least expense, we most heartily favor the present policy of +Pennsylvania in the development of improved highways, and urge their rapid +and efficient extension, with due economy and under capable and expert +engineering supervision.</p> + +<p>“9. <i>The Value of Natural Scenery.</i> We hold that the beauty of the land +is one of the main sources of that love of country which is at the very basis +of patriotism, and that natural scenery is an economic asset of great value +yet unconsidered and undeveloped. With the rapid disappearance of the great +primeval forest which once covered two-thirds of the area of the state; with +the mutilation of wide areas in the careless abstraction of mineral wealth; +with the pollution and restriction of streams for private benefit, and the laying +waste of areas of arable lands through preventable floods, this great and +potentially valuable resource is being constantly and ruthlessly destroyed. We +insist that it should be considered as of great economic importance, and we +point, in support of this attitude, to the scenic travel income of many millions +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span>of dollars contributed each year to Europe by Americans, who leave at home, +unnoted and in process of destruction, many natural scenic advantages of at +least equal merit.</p> + +<p>“We further assert that it is not only in the interest of the state to foster +and encourage the provision of adequate breathing places and playgrounds +for the relief of our congested population, but that it is equally important that +the state shall open and adequately maintain in suitable forest reserves public +camping-grounds, available especially to those of our population who cannot +otherwise obtain access to the restorative and uplifting influences of an intimate +association with Nature. We insist that it is the part of wisdom for the +state to intelligently promote public parks in all their forms—municipal, county +and state—in order that every citizen may have easy opportunity to receive +the material and definite benefits attendant upon their proper use.</p> + +<p>“10. <i>Education in Conservation.</i> In order that the rising generation may +know of the actual basis of the prosperity of the state which makes life here +possible, and of its rapid and serious depletion through senseless and unconsidered +waste, we urge that an accurate statement of the remaining natural +resources of the state be prepared in such form as to make it available for +public school instruction. We favor all proper methods of inculcating in the +youth of the state that care for its prosperity which alone can prevent the +state from becoming a barren waste, resembling like areas in foreign lands +in which selfishness, neglect and ignorance have accomplished their destructive +work.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It is not claimed that our “ten commandments” cover the whole of the moral +law, on our subject, although the endeavor was to include in them the points that +most urgently needed attention in the campaign for conservation in Pennsylvania. +The principles as stated in the development of a “commandment” are often of +a wider generality than as set forth in the heading; in the opening sentence, for +example, to which attention will be called further on, and in the third paragraph +also, where the principle of encouraging the care of forests appears in the text, +while the heading alludes only to forest taxation. Care for the forests is itself +but a special application of the still broader principle of saving where we are +now wasting, of which this national association is the great exponent.</p> + +<p>The civilized man, as President Roosevelt reminded us, looks beyond present +needs and provides for those to come. He seeks to leave his children, who will +be in a few years all that is left to represent him, as good a patrimony as he +received from his forefathers. He would provide for the greatest good to the +greatest number for the longest time. He therefore necessarily interests himself +in the conservation of natural resources. For conservation does not mean, as has +been too hastily inferred, locking up something valuable so that it will be of no +service to anybody; it means using and safeguarding the resources of ourselves and +posterity in the way that will best serve both. It means use without waste.</p> + +<p>That there has been waste, and shameful waste, of natural resources no +rational man will deny. It is an abuse of many centuries standing, as witness +Persia, The Euphrates valley, Syria, and much of Asia Minor, and the once fertile +valleys of China, where the sites of a teeming population are now deserts. When +the forests disappear, the water no longer remains in the soil; there is alternation +of dry stream-bed, and flood-torrent carrying away the soil itself. Vegetation, +requiring a steady water supply, can no longer exist; and man cannot outlive vegetation. +This may be the history of the destroyed woodlands of Pennsylvania. +The disappearance of trout streams has been but a symptom; the real evil is the +sacrifice of our woodland, of which all belonging to our state were until a generation +ago sold without discrimination at twenty-seven cents an acre. The same +land, denuded of timber, the state is now buying back, though at a much higher +price, and endeavoring to reforest it. A million acres have already been so purchased, +and it is hoped that the replanting will proceed rapidly and uninterruptedly +so that our children’s heritage may yet be saved for them.</p> + +<p>The preservation of our woodlands, it has already been admitted, is only +one way of stopping waste. There is the waste of war, of recovery from war +as counted in our annual pension roll, and of preparation for war for which +we are now paying, in these years of profound peace, more than three hundred +millions annually. The most terrible of all wastes, doubtless, is that of disease, +especially when we include with it the Nation’s drink bill, of which the first cost +of the liquor, huge though that is the country over, is the smaller part; the +greater, all a dead waste, being the impairment of physical, mental and moral vigor +and of productive capacity to which that baleful appetite leads, and the cost of +the crimes of which it is the constant cause. We should no less include the costs +in money and in deterioration of body, mind and soul, that are incurred by disregard +or defiance of sex-hygiene. To these two points, particularly the last, the +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>tenth of our Pennsylvania Conservation Commandments, on “Education in Conservation,” +particularly applies. On nothing, not even “the remaining natural resources” +of our commonwealth, is it more vitally necessary that education should +lay stress than the conditions of bodily and moral health. Conservation of human +life is the most important element in the conservation problem, for without man +everything else would be valueless.</p> + +<p>The public health is most evidently a public concern, and its furtherance has +now become, by general consent, a recognized part of the duties of government. +For a generation and more, a board of health has been one of the most important +branches of our city government; county health boards are now found to be +requisite for similar reasons; the services of state boards, bureaus or departments +of health, are coming more and more in demand; and there is by this time an +imperative call for a national bureau or department with similar functions and +wider authority. That is a call that cannot long be resisted. The several agencies +now under federal control, among which its care for health has heretofore been +scattered—those pertaining to the army, the navy, the revenue marine service, +and the “pure food” office of the Agricultural Department—have severally done +some very good work, despite their limited separate responsibility; and their work +could not but be more effective for good if brought all under one direction, and +granted appropriations correspondingly ample. There would be the same increase +in efficiency through combination, that has so often been noted in consolidations +of railways, combinations of industries, forming a federal army out of promiscuous +state militias, and welding a bunch of geological “surveys” into a well-disciplined, +compact bureau. It is a reform demanded by the interests of sound government, +and by the people’s needs: and it must come.</p> + +<p>Testimony to the good work that can be done in a few years by the Health +Department of our state, I am enabled to give by the favor of a highly capable +member of that department in Harrisburg, Chief Medical Inspector Royer, as +follows:</p> + +<p>In the creation of the Department of Health of this commonwealth and in +the very liberal provision of funds for its organization and maintenance, Pennsylvania +took her first great step forward in the conservation of human life.</p> + +<p>The bill which when enacted created the Department of Health of Pennsylvania +was drawn by Dr. Charles B. Penrose of the University of Pennsylvania, +and carried with it an appropriation of $400,000 for its organization and maintenance +and $50,000 for emergency work. The governor was slow to make his +selection of the commissioner, Dr. Dixon, who was appointed in June, 1904, during +an epidemic of smallpox. The emergency work was carried on with the organization +which was completed January 1, 1906, when the work assumed its great +systematic battle against disease. This police department had to be handled with +exceeding care, as the people in our representative form of government had not +been used to the observation of health laws.</p> + +<p>So rapidly did the work grow that the 1907 legislature appropriated $1,000,000 +for general health work and $1,000,000 for the purpose of organizing a campaign +against tuberculosis, $600,000 of which was specifically set aside for state +sanatoria and $400,000 for dispensaries and additional work.</p> + +<p>The commissioner was permitted to take over the small tuberculosis camp +already organized by the Forestry Department, and he almost immediately enlarged +it by the addition of tents to accommodate more than one hundred additional +patients and at once planned a great sanatorium to be built on the site +near Mont Alto.</p> + +<p>The legislature of 1909 repeated the appropriation of $1,000,000 for general +health work, including sanitary engineering, and gave the unprecedented sum of +$2,000,000 for extending the tuberculosis campaign, both by increased facilities +offered through the dispensaries already organized and by further extension of +state sanatoria.</p> + +<p>The legislature of 1911 still further increased the appropriations for the +department so that a total of $3,701,360 was provided for furthering public health +work, including $2,653,248 for fighting tuberculosis.</p> + +<p>In the first organization of the Department of Health a broad and liberal +educational campaign was started, on a comprehensive plan through seven important +executive divisions and two auxiliary divisions, whose chiefs reported directly +to the central authority, the Commissioner of Health. In a very short time the +vital statistics of this commonwealth were so thoroughly gathered that the census +office included the state in the “registration area.”</p> + +<p>The division of medical inspection, in a comprehensive way, covered all the +quarantinable diseases in the second-class townships of the commonwealth, the +reports being gathered from the health officers in the 720 sanitary districts under +the general supervision of sixty-six county medical inspectors. By these officers +quarantining and disinfecting is performed.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span></p> + +<p>The division of sanitary engineering, through seven subdivisions, undertook +the important work of protecting the stream from pollution and the supervision +of the plans for water works and sewerage works.</p> + +<p>The sanatorium division took charge of operating the hospitals.</p> + +<p>A dispensary division with 115 dispensaries, one in each large center of population, +rendered great assistance to the indigent poor afflicted with tuberculosis, +and supervised the work done by a corps of 110 nurses.</p> + +<p>The division of distribution of biological products had the disposition of +diphtheria antitoxin from 650 distributing stations and of tetanus antitoxin from +sixty-seven.</p> + +<p>The auxiliary division of accounting, auditing and purchasing looked out for +important business and office details.</p> + +<p>A division of supplies arranged for prompt distribution of everything needed +for record work and field work and through each of these important divisions +forwarded daily, weekly and monthly reports to the commissioner’s office, a record +of its work and accomplishment. All of which was transmitted to the public by +means of monthly bulletins, weekly newspaper talks, and oral addresses. Educational +leaflets showing the methods of prevention of all of the different diseases +were distributed in large numbers throughout the commonwealth, and a scheme +of education was organized, giving to the public through some 900 newspapers +all of the facts gleaned by careful study.</p> + +<p>A traveling tuberculosis and sanitary exhibit is sent to all the large centers +of population throughout the state, papers are prepared and read before scientific +societies, charitable organizations, boards of trade, civic clubs, teachers’ institutes +and the various bodies interested in saving human life. Lantern slides are furnished +ministers and educators to promote the public health interest, and not only +does the state do this important educational work, but through its dispensaries +a very important sociological work is carried on, which not only protects those +in their homes against tuberculosis and secures much needed charitable aid, but +assists in protecting against every disease due to unsanitary conditions.</p> + +<p>The department is preparing to comply with the new school code and make +medical inspection of all school children in districts of the fourth class. This one +agency must have a far-reaching influence in conserving health.</p> + +<p>Quoting from a recent published report of the department, a few of the +things that have been accomplished may thus be referred to:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>From June 1, 1907, to August 1, 1911, 5,819 patients have been admitted +to the State Sanatorium for Tuberculosis at Mont Alto. Many of these patients +have been discharged with the disease arrested; hundreds have been benefited +and have gone back to their homes disciples of fresh air and right methods +of living; many more whose cases were too far advanced to hope for much +aid have been made comfortable and happy and provided with a good home +where they would not be a source of danger to others.</p> + +<p>From July 22, 1907, when the first dispensary was opened, to June 30, +1911, 41,792 poor tuberculosis sufferers received skilled medical aid and the +attention of trained nurses which the department’s 115 dispensaries provide.</p> + +<p>The death rate from tuberculosis in Pennsylvania had fallen from 134 +to 119.6 per one hundred thousand of population in five years, this meaning +a saving of one thousand lives annually.</p> + +<p>From October, 1905, when the state began its free distribution of diphtheria +antitoxin among the poor, to the end of December, 1910, 27,318 cases +of diphtheria, mostly little children, were treated for cure, with diphtheria +antitoxin. We know by statistics that without antitoxin forty-two out of every +100 of these children, or 11,476 in all, would probably have died; but with +the aid of antitoxin furnished by the department, only 2,324 died, and the +death rate among these little sufferers was reduced to eight and five-tenths +per cent. Diphtheria antitoxin was given for immunizing purposes to 20,294 +cases. The computed saving of child life resulting from the free distribution of +antitoxin since 1905 is 9,152.</p> + +<p>Throughout Pennsylvania the streams are slowly becoming freed of pollution: +not so slowly either, when records show that up to August 1, 1911, 34,481 +private sources of stream pollution have been abated upon notice from the +department, not to speak of the thousands more that have been stopped through +the moral influence of this work. Eighty-nine modern sewage disposal plants +either have been built or are in process of construction as approved by the +department. Two hundred and eighty-four municipalities and private sewerage +corporations are building comprehensive sewerage systems in accordance +with plans for such work, details of which must be approved by the department. +Already eighty-six modern filtration plants have been approved and +begun accordingly.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span></p> + +<p>And what of typhoid fever in view of all this work for pure water? In +1906, 56.5 out of every 100,000 people died from this disease; in 1907, 50.3; +in 1908, 34.4; in 1909, 23.4, and in 1910, 25.7. That is, there are now living +2,448 inhabitants of Pennsylvania who, had the death rate of 1906 prevailed +in 1910, would have died from typhoid fever.</p> + +<p>In 1906 the death rate from all causes, per 1000 population, was 16.5; in +1908, it had dropped to 15.7; and in 1910 to 15.6. At first glance this saving +of life may not seem a remarkable diminution, but with Pennsylvania’s 7,655,000 +population, is a great gain. This appears when one figures precisely +what this slight numerical drop means in the actual saving of lives. Had +the rate of 1906 prevailed in 1908, some 6,000 more people would have died +than actually succumbed. Had this same rate applied in 1910 instead of the +decreased rate recorded by the Department of Health, just 6,889 men, women +and children now living and presumably in average health and spirits would +have died. In other words, these matter-or-fact statistics, when interpreted +in their real relation to the welfare and happiness of the state, mean the saving +to the state of 20,000 lives in three years.</p> + +<p>And the fight is only fairly well begun.</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In the semi-official summary I have just read, the subject of “a purified water +supply” was treated in a single paragraph, as a subordinate part of the general +work of the State Health Department for the conservation of human life. If +an apology is due for what appears a straying from my main topic, the declaration +of purposes of the Pennsylvania state branch, I am ready to make the apology; +but I cannot believe any excuse is needed for giving to conservation of life and +health an importance far ahead of all other conservation.</p> + +<p>The curse of forest fires still hangs over us, and prohibits the planting of +vast areas which should be growing timber. It is comforting that these fires are +less destructive than formerly, but it is nevertheless a disgrace to our civilization, +or lack of civilization, that they must occur at all. Education of our people and +condign punishment of those whose carelessness or malice causes them will eventually +make these annual holocausts a thing of the past. To this end liberal appropriations +should be made by the state, rewards or prizes being offered to those +who prove most efficient in checking fires.</p> + +<p>Nothing is more vital to forestry than the total suppression of these fires. No +attempt need be made to replant vast treeless areas, or no expense incurred in +protecting the young growth upon them until the fires are prevented. In the +year 1908 the cash value of timber destroyed by forest fires in New York was +estimated at $780,164. For the same period in Pennsylvania the estimate was +$688,980. The loss of humus and general forest litter was even more serious +than the loss of timber because of wasted fertility and increase of surface wash +during heavy rains. Each successive fire leaves the ground more exposed and +less productive, the end of which is a desert condition. It is safe to say that +at this hour our state has thousands of square miles which are unproductive because +of forest fires. A radical change of policy in this matter is needed. Attention +should be given to prevention rather than to suppression of the forest fires, and +sufficient force and funds provided to accomplish this end, which is essential to +the continued prosperity of the state.</p> + +<p>Taxation of forest lands under our present system leads the state to impoverish +itself, by premature destruction of its timber resources, and the industries +depending upon them, and by increasing the areas of stripped lands, which, because +of their unprotected condition, become year by year less and less fit for agriculture +when an increasing population requires their occupation for home and farm sites. +The law wisely requires that our engineers, physicians and lawyers shall have +received proper training before entering upon duties intimately associated with the +welfare and safety of others. It is to be regretted that prospective legislators +and commissioners cannot be required to show some fitness for the work expected +from them, before coming before the people as candidates.</p> + +<p>It is notorious that the taxes imposed lead to the destruction of growing +trees which are each year earning their right to stand by the benefit they confer +upon the public. The only exclusive privilege which the owner enjoys from them +is that of paying taxes for a seldom-accorded protection against fire, and depredation.</p> + +<p>Timber should be taxed only when cut and then at a rate per thousand feet +proportionate to the income received from it, but sufficient to make good, in a +measure, the loss of tax during the growing period. This conclusion seems to +have been reached by every disinterested person who has fairly considered the +problem in all of its aspects. Bills leading to such a system of taxation have been +defeated in the last three sessions of our legislature, but that is not the last of +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>them, for the ultimate adoption of a proper system of forest taxation is beyond +question. Pennsylvania has done and is doing too much in behalf of forest-growing, +to hesitate at an expedient so necessary and so simple.</p> + +<p>The state has practically a million of acres, distributed over twenty-six counties, +in its forest reserve system. There are two admirable schools of forestry, one of +which is intended solely to prepare men for the forest service of the state.</p> + +<p>Three extensive nurseries produce seedling forest trees for planting on the +state’s land and for distribution to our citizens at nominal cost, on assurance +that they will be properly planted and cared for. In 1909 there were set out in +permanent position 750,318 young trees, mostly on abandoned farms which had +come, by purchase, into the possession of the commonwealth. We are rapidly +increasing the output of these nurseries and expect at an early date to plant at +least ten to twenty million trees annually. We are fortunate in having no laws +which prevent scientific forestry. A tree, or a forest, may be cut when it is in +the interest of the state to do so.</p> + +<p>Water courses as a source of power are considered apart from water supply +for domestic purposes, the latter being, in Pennsylvania, mainly controlled by the +Department of Health.</p> + +<p>Many water powers were purchased or seized, by those who anticipated their +value, under our earlier lax laws, before their importance was generally recognized. +They have thus passed too far out of state control to be available under +existing laws as a source of public revenue. But in constituting the Water Power +Commission it was provided that future letters patent “will not be issued to any +water, or water-power company, nor will any such company be allowed to merge +and consolidate, or to purchase the property and franchise of any other such +company until the application for the charter, or the agreement of merger and +consolidation, or the purchase and sale has been first submitted to and received +the approval of a majority of the commission. Nor will any person, corporation +or municipality be allowed to construct, erect or build any dam or other obstruction +in any river or stream without the approval of the commission.” No franchise +whatever in the interest of any individual or corporation, should be granted +without adequate compensation to the state, nor should any obstruction be allowed +place in any navigable stream unless locks of liberal size are provided for passing +it. In the near future every important river in the state will probably be converted +into a lake system capable of dead water navigation up to head waters, as an +accompaniment of the dams erected for power purposes.</p> + +<p>Better protection of wild life in forest and stream can readily be provided +by taxing, as is the usage in most of the states, those who enjoy the privilege +of hunting and fishing. A license fee of one dollar a year from each sportsman +would pay for a much more efficient system of forest and stream protection than +we have ever had. This would exempt those who have no interest in the sport +and place the slight burden where it belongs, upon those who hunt and fish.</p> + +<p>Conservation means use without waste, and is sound doctrine whether our +mineral resources are to last for fifty, or for five thousand years. That there has +been waste, not all unavoidable, is attested by the constant endeavor of our best +mining engineers to discover more economical methods.</p> + +<p>It is gratifying to be assured that their investigations have borne fruit, and +that the loss of good coal in anthracite mining has within recent years been reduced +so that “at present the recovery will average about sixty per cent and loss +about forty per cent.” Not long ago these proportions were exactly reversed.</p> + +<p>The numbers annually killed and crippled by serious injuries among the coal +miners of this state are still appalling. The annual report of the department of +Mines in Pennsylvania for 1909 says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In producing the output for the year 567 persons were killed in the +anthracite region and 1034 were injured. In the bituminous region 506 were +killed and 1126 were injured.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>From the same report we learn that these casualties, though exceeding the +dead and wounded in many famous battles, are yet slightly less per million tons +mined than were suffered the same year in the deep collieries of England; but the +difference is hardly enough to bring us much comfort.</p> + +<p>In mining, as in every other industry, we may look to education as a most +hopeful factor in reducing the number of accidents. Christian sympathy is another +factor; to that we owe it that children under fourteen years of age are by law +excluded as laborers from our mines. We must love our brother even when +begrimed with coal dust.</p> + +<p>The ease with which land could at first be obtained in Pennsylvania led to +neglect of conservative principles in agriculture. It was cheaper, for a time, to +abandon a worn-out farm than to restore it to a productive condition. The result +<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>is seen in thousands of acres of barren, neglected hillsides. The average production +per acre in Pennsylvania was, twenty years ago, so much below the possibilities +as to be discreditable to the commonwealth.</p> + +<p>This negligence is fast giving way to more modern methods, and the yield +of our acres is on a rapid ascent. The struggle for existence has no doubt contributed +somewhat to this, though education through the agency of improved +schools, of the Grange, farmers’ clubs and institutes, and more easy access to +markets have been more potent. The former isolation of the farmer was against +him. His land hunger kept him from seeing that there was more money in fifty +acres of well-tilled land than in one hundred acres of starved soil. Experience is +bringing wisdom to him, and to the rest of us. We must have better roads, more +improved machinery, more social intercourse and more fertilization of the soil, to +keep the lad on the farm and to bring our yield per acre up to that of England +and Belgium.</p> + +<p>The Water Gap of the Delaware River, the Horse Shoe Curve in the Alleghanies, +the Blue Ridge near the Mason and Dixon line, the environs of Mauch +Chunk, are admired every year by thousands, a very large proportion of whom +live outside the limits of our state. Pennsylvania values these scenic attractions +as sources of revenue to railroads and resort keepers. It is a pity, but it is true, +that our people have not yet awakened to the educational and uplifting influences +of the beauties of our river and mountain scenery. We lack the inborn love for +the landscape that characterizes the dweller on the heaths of Scotland, or under +the shadow of the Alps, and in so far we fail to attach their just value to some +of the noblest and most precious possessions of our state. These possessions +should be zealously protected before they are hopelessly ruined, or given over to +less important uses.</p> + +<p>The gospel of fresh air, for the physical salvation of the people is sweeping +the land. “It is cheaper, wiser, and more humane to prevent disease than to cure it.” +Within recent years, largely by the efforts of the secretary of our state conservation +branch, it has become possible for a municipality to own and care for parks, +which may become not only beauty-spots, but outing-grounds, and lumber-producers +as well. It is hard to limit the possibilities of such a law, for good, and it is in +the direction of public desires.</p> + +<p>Education in conservation means education in citizenship. Every child not +only should know, but is entitled to know, what our national resources are and +how they may be preserved. He is a partner in ownership of this stock in trade, +out of which his living is to come. He should have full access to the inventory, +and should know how long it will last, where it may be distributed to best advantage, +and where the next supply is to come from. This is even more important +to him and to the country than all involved in allegiance to any particular political +party. It would be well for every family to have a copy of “The Land We Live +In,” a new book by Overton W. Price, vice-president of the National Conservation +Association, published by Small, Maynard & Co., of Boston. It was written especially +for boys, but contains a vast fund of valuable information compiled in an +attractive form which would interest everyone. The natural laws upon which our +continued productive capacity depends should be taught in every school and to +every pupil; for violation of those laws brings punishment which is as certain as +it is bitter.</p> + +<p>This commentary on the Pennsylvania statement of purposes, or “ten commandments,” +has called for some condensation, for the amount that might be said, +and well said, on each of these points could be indefinitely extended. It is largely +the work of Dr. Rothrock, one of my colleagues, a veteran in the conservation +cause. I think it may be an encouragement to this Congress to have a clear and +full statement of the work in furtherance of its aims, now done or undertaken in +our state; and, without making or suggesting a comparison with the achievements +of any other state, I may add that Pennsylvania is not ashamed of the beginning +it has made.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p> + +<h3>REPORT FOR SOUTH CAROLINA.</h3> + +<p class="center"><span class="smcap">By Dr. M. W. Twitchell.</span></p> + +<p>I shall carry out the advice given to the speaker of experience who has told +us to say our best things first and then stop. I have only a few +things to say. I represent a state quite a little distance from the state of Missouri. +I came as the representative of the Governor of South Carolina, as a member of +the conservation commission, and just want to say one or two of the things which +South Carolina is doing to help on the cause of conservation. First, in regard to +the conservation of human life, and the prevention of disease. There is one thing +just being done down there which is new in this respect; that we have a pure food +commission which is doing something, in that it is inspecting the food products +which are coming into the State of South Carolina, particularly the corn products. +We are confiscating diseased corn, taking possession of it, and insisting upon that +the corn products which are brought into South Carolina shall be pure and healthful.</p> + +<p>Another thing which we are doing is in regard to the drainage of our swamp +lands. Today we heard of the importance of this movement with regard to the +swamp lands of the Mississippi valley. We have swamp lands, as you know, +along the Atlantic coast, thousands of acres of them, and we want them made +available for cultivation. They will then be amongst the richest lands of our +country, and we are actually going at it. We find that we cannot afford to wait +for national aid of a direct type, so we are organizing drainage districts under a +state law, which permits organization of districts, coöperating with the +government, and actually draining certain portions of the swamp lands. So +far we have had three drainage districts organized, and over two thousand acres +of land in one district, and about three thousand acres in another have already +been drained by this new method under a swamp land drainage law. We are going +ahead along that line, and in the future you will hear of many thousands of acres +of this swamp land that will be made garden spots, truck lands, similar to those +that we already have in the vicinity of Charleston. Just a word in regard to the +conservation of the soil. We have no law, there is no special state move +in this respect, but the State of South Carolina produced last year 1,200,000 tons +of commercial fertilizer, and the largest part of that immense product was used +within the state of South Carolina itself. Now, that is conserving the soil. That +is doing the thing that many of the people of the West will have to come to in +view of the lost fertility by rotation of crops upon the same land year after year.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span></p> + +<p>Just a final word in regard to the work in the improvement of rural life conditions. +The State of South Carolina is a leader in that we have appointed a state +inspector of rural schools. He is an educational engineer and travels all over +the state. He visits rural school after rural school. He studies the conditions +there, and he makes reports to the state board of education, and conditions are +improved, and the state has made appropriations for the aid of these rural schools +as the educational engineer reports along these lines. We are interested in the +conservation movement. We think it is a grand movement for the benefit not only +of the present day, but of the generations to come. I thank you. (Applause)</p> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="NATIONAL_ORGANIZATIONS">NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS<br> +REPRESENTED AT THE<br> +THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.</h2> + +</div> + +<ul> + <li>National Conservation Association.</li> + <li>National Business League.</li> + <li>National Dairy Union.</li> + <li>National Implement and Vehicle Association.</li> + <li>National Association of American Chemical Societies.</li> + <li>National Rivers and Harbors Congress.</li> + <li>American Society of Engineering Draftsmen.</li> + <li>American Sunday School Association.</li> + <li>General Federation of Women’s Clubs.</li> + <li>American Economic Association.</li> + <li>National Rivers and Lakes Commission.</li> + <li>American Chemical Society.</li> + <li>National Fire Protective Association.</li> + <li>American Association State Geological Department.</li> + <li>National Farmers’ Institute.</li> + <li>Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo.</li> + <li>National Council of Women.</li> + <li>American Poultry Association.</li> + <li>National Association Audubon Societies.</li> + <li>American Bison Society.</li> + <li>American Society Civil Engineers.</li> + <li>American Society II. and V. Engineers.</li> + <li>League of American Sportsmen.</li> + <li>American Shorthorn Association.</li> + <li>Women’s National Rivers and Harbors Congress.</li> + <li>National Nut Growers’ Association.</li> + <li>Farmers’ National Congress.</li> + <li>Society for Promoting Engineering Education.</li> + <li>American Pomological Society.</li> + <li>Collegiate Alumni Association.</li> + <li>American Railway Engineers’ Association.</li> + <li>American Society of Mechanical Engineers.</li> + <li>National Columbian Wyandotte Club.</li> + <li>American Association of Refrigeration.</li> + <li>National Irrigation Congress.</li> + <li>National Educational Association.</li> + <li>National Association Daughters American Revolution.</li> + <li><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span>National Brotherhood Locomotive Firemen and Engineers.</li> + <li>North American Fish and Game Association.</li> + <li>American Mining Congress.</li> + <li>International Dry Farming Congress.</li> + <li>National Mothers’ Congress.</li> + <li>American Medical Association.</li> + <li>United States Department of Agriculture.</li> + <li>United States Weather Bureau.</li> + <li>United States Forestry Service.</li> + <li>American Association for the Advancement of Science.</li> + <li>National Fertilizer Association.</li> + <li>National Soil Fertility League.</li> + <li>National Irrigation Congress.</li> + <li>American Civic Association.</li> + <li>National Municipal League.</li> + <li>National Humane Society.</li> + <li>Society of American Florists.</li> + <li>American Carnation Society.</li> + <li>American Institute of Electrical Engineering.</li> + <li>Cattle Raisers’ Association.</li> + <li>United Daughters of the Confederacy.</li> + <li>American Academy of Political and Social Science.</li> + <li>National Association of Manufacturers.</li> + <li>American Society for Testing Materials.</li> + <li>National Partridge and Wyandotte Club.</li> + <li>National Board of Fire Underwriters.</li> + <li>American Society of Refining Engineers.</li> + <li>American Electrochemical Society.</li> + <li>American Waterworks Association.</li> + <li>American Hereford Cattle Breeders’ Association.</li> + <li>German-American Alliance.</li> + <li>Russian Government Agricultural Commission.</li> + <li>National Wholesale Lumber Dealers’ Association.</li> + <li>National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association.</li> + <li>Lakes-to-the-Gulf Deep Waterways Association.</li> + <li>National Shell Fish Association.</li> + <li>National Garment Manufacturers’ Association.</li> + <li>National Dealers’ Association.</li> + <li>National Fertilizers’ Association.</li> +</ul> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_REGISTERED_DELEGATES">LIST OF REGISTERED DELEGATES<br> +TO<br> +THIRD NATIONAL CONSERVATION CONGRESS.</h2> + +</div> + +<table> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Alabama.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>LeFevre, E. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Gadsden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miller, J. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cordova</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rushton, W. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Birmingham</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Arizona.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Foote, Geo. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Safford</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fowler, B. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Phoenix</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Arkansas.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brusee, Geo.</td> + <td class="tdr">Decatur</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cook, Geo. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Little Rock</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dotson, J. Alfred</td> + <td class="tdr">Rogers</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Higinbotham, Mrs. H. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pine Bluff</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lewis, F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mena</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Morris, Mrs. C. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rogers</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plank, E. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Decatur</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Spaulding, H. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fort Smith</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stroud, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rogers</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Toland, H. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ashdown</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>California.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baumgartner, J. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Santa Ana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Beard, W. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sacramento</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Glavis, Louis R.</td> + <td class="tdr">San Francisco</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Simons, D. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Los Gatos</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Turner, J. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Santa Ana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Canada.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Armstrong, L. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Montreal</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Colorado.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bruce, Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Delta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Callbreath, J. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Denver</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dunning, W. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Colorado Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Eddy, H. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Denver</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gregg. J. S. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Golden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hickman, R. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Delta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Meservey, Albert B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Colorado Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lindsey, Ben B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Denver</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilder, Chas. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Colorado Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Work, Dr. Hubert</td> + <td class="tdr">Pueblo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Connecticut.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Towney, Jas. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Hartford</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>District of Columbia.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chilcott, E. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cameron, Frank L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cobb, M. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Frankenfield, H. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Graves, H. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McGee, W J</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Marbut, Curtis F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shipp, Thomas R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Spillman, W. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wiley, H. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Florida.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Campbell, T. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">West Palm Beach</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cromer, J. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">West Palm Beach</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Georgia.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Worsham, E. Lee</td> + <td class="tdr">Atlanta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Worsham, Mrs. E. Lee</td> + <td class="tdr">Atlanta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Idaho.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shepperd, John W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Caldwell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Witson, Wm.</td> + <td class="tdr">Driggs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woods, M. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Arco</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Yancey, Cyrus</td> + <td class="tdr">Blackfoot</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Illinois.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Abbott, A. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Morrison</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Aull, J. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Belleville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bartow, Edw.</td> + <td class="tdr">Urbana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bell, Henry Y.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bligh, L. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Block, Mrs. Fred’k</td> + <td class="tdr">West Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bradish, A. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ottawa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Braiden, Mrs. Clara V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rochelle</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brooks, Morgan</td> + <td class="tdr">Urbana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burgett, Scott</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burgett, Thomas P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burroughs, E. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Edwardsville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Campbell, Murdock</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Charles, A. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Carrni</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Christine, W. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Clapp, F. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mazon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>DeWolf, Frank W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Urbana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Duncan, J. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tuscola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span>Dunn, Ballard</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Eisenhart, Henry</td> + <td class="tdr">Waterloo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Elliott, J. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Armington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Evans, W. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Franklin, G. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Nenault</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Giffhorn, Henry</td> + <td class="tdr">Columbia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gossett, M. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gross, Howard H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grout, A. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Winchester</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hays, Dudley Grant</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hill, A. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ottawa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hooker, Arthur</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hopkins, Cyril G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Urbana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Jewell, H. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Monmouth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Johnson, B. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Jones, Loyd Z.</td> + <td class="tdr">Galva</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Marlin, D. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Norris City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mueller, Sr., Peter</td> + <td class="tdr">Valmeyer</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Myers, O. V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Myers, M. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nickerson, J. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Noyes, La Verne</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Noyes, Mrs. La Verne</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Osborn, F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Quincy</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pur Khizer, Edw. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Randolph, Isham</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rutherford, Cyrus</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sconce, H. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sidell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shoffer, John C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stufflebeam, O. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rossville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Syster, Mrs. J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Oregon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tatgl, Gustavus</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Taylor, Thomas A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Catlin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Thompson, Mrs. C. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Vrooman, Mrs. Carl</td> + <td class="tdr">Bloomington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Vrooman, Carl S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Bloomington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wallbaum, F. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ashland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walker, J. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Chicago</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wolcott, H. K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Batavia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodbury, A. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Danville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Young, W. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Indiana.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barnard, H. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barrett, Edward</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Blatchley, W. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Breeze, Fred J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lafayette</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Breeze, Geo. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Delphi</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dinwiddie, Oscar</td> + <td class="tdr">Lowell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ford, Charles</td> + <td class="tdr">New Harmony</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hamilton, John C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hoynes, Prof. William</td> + <td class="tdr">Notre Dame</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Knapp, Mrs. Edwin A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Winona Lake</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Neizer, Maurice C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ft. Wayne</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Reisenberg, Henry</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Whitehead, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">New Harmony</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woods, Sam B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Crown Point</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Iowa.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Allred, W. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Corydon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ashby, Mrs. Harriett W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ball, F. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Creston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bishop, E. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ames</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bliss, J. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Diagonal</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bogie, S. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brown, Nelson C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ames</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chandler, W. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Blacktan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cleveland, O. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Webster City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Corrie, S. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ida Grove</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Curtiss, Chas. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ames</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Davis, F. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Corning</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Donald, G. B. Mac</td> + <td class="tdr">Ames</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Doran, Justin R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Beaver</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Doty, James J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Shenandoah</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dunn, E. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mason City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Durrell, Geo. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pilot Mound</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Elk, M. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Galva</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Elder, Orville</td> + <td class="tdr">Washington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fry, Joseph</td> + <td class="tdr">Weyer</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hathaway, B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kingsley</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Haynes, E. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Centerville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hazard, T. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holden, P. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ames</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holman, R. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rockwell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hunt, C. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Logan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hunter, Edward H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hutchins, C. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Algona</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hutchinson, S. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lake City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ives, A. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Irvington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kamrar, J. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Webster City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kelmartin, A. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Malvern</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kaufman, Chas. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wilton Junction</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Keating, C. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mt. Ayr</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kirkham, G. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Diagonal</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kissack, John</td> + <td class="tdr">Farmer City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Knight, O. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salem</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Latta, W. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Logan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Leas, J. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Galva</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Leffler, Geo. V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Stockport</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lockwood, B. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Macbride, Thomas H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Iowa City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCulloch, Fred</td> + <td class="tdr">Belle Plains</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McWhorter, Ellis</td> + <td class="tdr">Burt Kossuth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Menton, J. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Boone</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miller, A. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miller, C. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miller, O. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Milner, E. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Red Oak</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nichols, Warren</td> + <td class="tdr">Minerva</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nichols, Mrs. Warren</td> + <td class="tdr">Minerva</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Noble, Mrs. Lucy Seward</td> + <td class="tdr">Waterloo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Parrott, H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span>Parrott, Mrs. Jane</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Packels, Theo.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Plummer, A. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Altoona</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rubel, H. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waverly</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Russell, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Adel</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ranels, S. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Des Moines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schenk, Myron</td> + <td class="tdr">Algona</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shimek, B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Iowa City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, Ed. 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L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Topeka</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holman, E. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Leavenworth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holman, L. Carl</td> + <td class="tdr">Leavenworth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holmes, G. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Golden City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holsinger, Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rosedale</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holsinger, G. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Rosedale</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Holton, Edwin L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Manhattan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hopkins, J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tonganoxie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hopkins, J. C., Mrs.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tonganoxie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hopper, C. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pratt</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hoskinson, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Liberal</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Honsh, F. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Oskaloosa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Houston, J. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wichita</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hougland, D. 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P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Seneca</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Koff, Wm.</td> + <td class="tdr">Carbondale</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kohler, J. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">La Harpe</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kraus, E. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Paul</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kufahl, H. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wheaton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kyle, J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Manko</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ladtler, W. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Atchison</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lanver, D. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Paola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lease, R. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Redfield</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Le Van, E. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Topeka</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lidikay, N. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wellsville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Livermore, H. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Olathe</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Longnecker, D. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Paola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Loomis, Elmer</td> + <td class="tdr">Girard</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lowry, Dr. A. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Valley Falls</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Luman, E. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lansing</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McAuliffe, M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salina</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCain, F. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wellsville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCarty, C. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Iola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCarthy, F. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Edgerton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McClellan, M. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wichita</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McComb, S. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Stafford</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McDonald, S. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Peabody</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McKaig, A. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Olathe</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McKee, Mrs. Milo D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McLachlin, A. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Paola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McLean, B. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wichita</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McLeod, H. 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F.</td> + <td class="tdr">McPherson</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moffet, A. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Larned</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moore, H. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moore, Mrs. Ida Wilson</td> + <td class="tdr">Abilene</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moore, C. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Michigan Valley</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moses, E. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Great Bend</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Morgan, P. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mosse, Arthur</td> + <td class="tdr">Leavenworth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Munzenmayer, W. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Junction City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Myter, E. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Iola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Needham, H. V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tonganoxie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nichols, Mrs. C. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Leavenworth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nicholsen, F. 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W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Olathe</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Paxton, Sam</td> + <td class="tdr">Oswego</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Paulen, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fredonia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pearson, M. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Peet, John C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tecumseh</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Peiker, F. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Paola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pendleton, E. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ottawa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Perkins, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Edgerton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pierce, F. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Topeka</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Philip, Alex</td> + <td class="tdr">Hays</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Platts, G. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Winfield</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Pomeroy, Frank</td> + <td class="tdr">Holton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Potter, Thos. 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E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lenexa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weekes, E. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Parsons</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Welch, W. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wells, Abijah</td> + <td class="tdr">Seneca</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wells, Carl D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sabetha</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Whiting, O. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">North Topeka</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wiggam, John H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Emporia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilcox, Mrs. F. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Abilene</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilfong, J. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Concordia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, M. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">McAlister</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, J. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Windbigler, J. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Oswego</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Winkler, William</td> + <td class="tdr">Seneca</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Witwer, W. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ft. Scott</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wood, Frank</td> + <td class="tdr">Iola</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodford, A. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Burlington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wright, J. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wright, L. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Hoxie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wulfekubler, Louis H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Leavenworth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Zumwalt, Imri</td> + <td class="tdr">Bonner Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Kentucky.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barnes, Mrs. C. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Louisville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Crump, Malcolm H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Bowling Green</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grider, W. U.</td> + <td class="tdr">Bowling Green</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Louisiana.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dowling, Dr. Oscar</td> + <td class="tdr">Shreveport</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gipe, James C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Clarks</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grace, Fred J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Baton Rouge</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gerrans, A. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Houma</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hamilton, Alexander</td> + <td class="tdr">Clarks</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Maine.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harriman, D. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">West Lebanon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Maryland.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baker, Bernard N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Baltimore</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barnard, H. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Indianapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Massachusetts.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Field, Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Boston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moon, F. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Amherst</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rane, F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Boston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wharton, Wm. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Groton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Michigan.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lord, Henry Nelson</td> + <td class="tdr">Au Sable</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Haskel, Fred</td> + <td class="tdr">Detroit</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sharp, Mrs. John C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jackson</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, Gardner S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ann Arbor</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Yoke, A. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Adrain</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Minnesota.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bennett, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Paul</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Eliason, G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Montevideo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Erney, Mrs. C. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Minneapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">[309]</span>Neill, D. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Red Wing</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Northrop, Cyrus</td> + <td class="tdr">Minneapolis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rhodes, J. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Paul</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Steenerson, Elias</td> + <td class="tdr">Crookston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wallace, Dan A.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Paul</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Mississippi.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lowe, E. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jackson</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Travis, S. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Hattiesburg</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Whitfield, H. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Columbus</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Missouri.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Adams, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Adams, T. Lee</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Addison, Mrs. G. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Adems, A. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Smithville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Alexander, Rees</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Allen, Ford A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Anderson, J. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Anderson, J. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Andrews, Mrs. L. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ashworth, G. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Neosho</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Axtell, F. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Amsterdam</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bailey, Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Brookfield</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bailey, Mrs. Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Brookfield</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baird, W. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kirksville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baird, Mrs. Leslie</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baird, Henry L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Louisiana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bannister, F. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baldridge, Lenny</td> + <td class="tdr">Milan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barber, H. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Windsor</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barham, G. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Braymer</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barnes, Clarence A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mexico</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barnett, Mrs. Fred P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barns, H. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Joplin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barns, W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Barton, Dante</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bates, R. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Excelsior Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bell, M. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bender, Louis</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bovard, John H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bertrand, P. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jefferson City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Black, Wm. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Black, Wm. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marshall</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Blanchard, Mrs. Ben</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Blevins, John N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Linden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Boisseau, O. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bolen, James A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Borland, Cong. Wm. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bowin, S. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lee’s Summit</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brockway, James H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Briggs, Russell T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Joplin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brigham, Mrs. E. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Broadhurst, J. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Gashland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brodnax, T. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brown, F. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bryant, W. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Buchanan, Mrs. Andrew</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Buffum, F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Louisiana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burnet, P. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burnham, C. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burns, Clinton S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burton, Mrs. Chester L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bushnell, L. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cooke, Chas. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carlisle, Chas. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carter, C. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chandler, Mrs. Asa</td> + <td class="tdr">Randolph</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chatten, Wm. K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Adrain</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Chipman, L. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Church, Mrs. Willard Q.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Claggett, Mrs. William S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cleveland, H. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cobb, B. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cochran, James</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Coe, Willard L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Coffman, Mrs. Chas.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cole, James D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Colpitts, Walter W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Connor, P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Conover, John A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cook, Miss Ellen</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cook, F. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cook, H. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Butler</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Corbett, Wm.</td> + <td class="tdr">Turner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cornell, Dr. H. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Hannibal</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cox, D. K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Weston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Crabbs, Mrs. Franklin D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Crews, Mrs. Swepson</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Craig, A. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tarkio</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Croft, Miss Jennie H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Crause, H. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Culver, Paul M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Edgerton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Curry, Dr. E. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dallmeyer, R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jefferson City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Davidson, Dr. S. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Grant City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Davis, Bert C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Davis, Dr. Geo. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dean, H. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Parkville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Deaver, M. Clyde</td> + <td class="tdr">Harrisonville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dille, A. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dodson, Bruce</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Douglass, A. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Doty, D. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Anderson</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Droll, G. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Duncan, H. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Osborn</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dungan, F. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Oregon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Durrill, Milton</td> + <td class="tdr">Sedalia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dutcher, C. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Warrensburg</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dutton, H. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Eckel, Rev. Edward H.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Joseph</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Edwards, Mrs. John A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>Ellis, Mrs. E. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ellison, Mrs. Garrett</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ettlinger, Mrs. Victor P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Evans, S. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Evans, Wm. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jefferson City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Everard, I. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marshall</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Faeth, Mrs. Maud</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fair, Eugene</td> + <td class="tdr">Kirksville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Faxon, H. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ferguson, W. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fetter, F. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Filson, F. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Findlay, M. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Parkville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fisher, Miss Jennie M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Flaugh, C. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fleming, I. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fleming, W. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fillmore</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Florance, F. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Flournoy, W. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marionville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Forbis, J. B., Jr.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fordyce, Mrs. W. Grant</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Forseman, J. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Forsee, Geo. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fox, S. Waters</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Frank, Harry A.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fratt, F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Freeman, Elmer E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Frerichs, Dr. F. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fuller, James</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fulton, Mrs. J. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gantz, A. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Garden, John S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Garetson, James S.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gash, Theo. K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Palmyra</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gatchell, Miss Rosamond</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gees, R. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gentry, Miss Elizabeth B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gentry, H. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sedalia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>George, Harry L.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Joseph</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>George, Mrs. Todd M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lee’s Summit</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gilday, Miss Anna C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gill, Mrs. Turner A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gillespie, John</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gilman, F. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Glass, W. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gorsuch, Harry A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goodman, Chas. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goodman, L. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goodman, Miss Marie L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goodwin, Dr. E. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goodrich, N. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grant, E. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Green, J. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Liberty</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Green, Mrs. J. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Greene, Miss Mabel E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Clarendon</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Greenwood, Prof. James M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gutridge, A. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Griffith, Elmer C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Liberty</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Griffith, Thos. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hadley, Pirse</td> + <td class="tdr">Easton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hale, James</td> + <td class="tdr">Lexington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hall, Dr. C. Lester</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hall, Mrs. Geo. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hamilton, Mrs. G. Harley</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hanna, John V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hanley, Mrs. P. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hardenburg, C. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hare, S. Herbert</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harrington, John Lyle</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harris, E. 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L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Roeder, Geo. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kirkwood</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Roever, Wm. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rolfes, Henry G.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Root, W. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rose, Mrs. C. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ross, Mrs. John A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rudder, J. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Russell, J. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Russell, Joe J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Charleston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sachs, Chas.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sanders, S. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Grant City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sankey, S. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schauffler, E. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schrenck, Herman von</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schwedtman, Ferd C.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Seeley, Mrs. H. J. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Seibel, Louis L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Semans, Miss Gertrude</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Selber, Mitchell L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shannon, E. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sharp, Judge C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Weston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sharp, W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Liberty</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shelby, O. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Joplin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shelton, Mrs. Theo</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Simpson, C. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Slater, J. Harvey</td> + <td class="tdr">Richmond</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smart, Fletcher</td> + <td class="tdr">Harrisonville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, Frederick M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, John T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, M. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, W. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sneed, W. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sedalia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stauber, R. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Joseph</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Steele, Wm.</td> + <td class="tdr">Holden</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sterling, Robt. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stewart, R. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Storey, J. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Storms, Roy L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Laredo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stowe, Mrs. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sullivan, Michael L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pleasant Hill</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sumner, Chas. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sweeney, E. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sweet, Mrs. C. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sweetman, M. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Taylor, Rev. Carl R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Taylor, Isaac</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Teasdale, F. X.</td> + <td class="tdr">Louisiana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Temple, Chris</td> + <td class="tdr">Higginsville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tharp, Mrs. F. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Thayer, Mrs. W. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tibbe, A. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tippin, Geo. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Nichols</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Todd, Mrs. Gertrude T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Todhunter, Mrs. Ryland</td> + <td class="tdr">Lexington</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tucker, R. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Excelsior Springs</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Turner, F. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Turpin, Rees</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Twichell, Jerome</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Van Brunt, John</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Van Brunt, Mrs. John</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Van Ornum, J. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wagoner, J. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Odessa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wagner, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walker, Mrs. John R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walker, T. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Harrisonville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wall, E. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Calhoun</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walmsley, Harry R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walton, Mrs. W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Butler</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Walton, Wm. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Butler</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Waller, Joe B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Smithville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Warren, Walter</td> + <td class="tdr">Sedalia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wayland, Mrs. J. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weeks, D. M. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weeks, Edwin R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weeks, Mrs. Edwin R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Welch, Mrs. Milton</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Welch, W. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marshall</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Welsh, Mrs. J. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Werkmeister, Geo.</td> + <td class="tdr">Webster Grove</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weyer, Sophia F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wheeler, W. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Clinton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>White, D. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tarkio</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>White, J. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilcox, Edw. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Burlington Jct.</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>Wiles, John H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, Lee</td> + <td class="tdr">Dexter</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, James</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Williams, W. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Gashland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Willison, Miss Nan</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilson, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilson, Mrs. Richard E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wingfield, J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Windsor</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Withers, Mrs. R. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Liberty</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wolf, Arthur L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Parkville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wood, N. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woods, John B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Smithville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodson, Mrs. Blake L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodson, S. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodson, A. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Woodson, S. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Independence</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wornall, Mrs. Roma</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wright, Mrs. H. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kansas City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Write, James C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Smithville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ziegenheim, Henry</td> + <td class="tdr">Cameron</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Montana.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lake, James</td> + <td class="tdr">Kalispell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>O’Neil, C. I.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kalispell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Nebraska.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burnett, E. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Condra, G. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Coupland, George</td> + <td class="tdr">Elgin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Covell, H. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Plainview</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dalby, J. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Superior</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Garrett, E. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fremont</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gault, Mrs. A. K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Omaha</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grinstead, R. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salem</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Grosvenor, H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Aurora</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Herron, L. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hill, E. C., Sr.</td> + <td class="tdr">Dawson</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kay, David</td> + <td class="tdr">Loup</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Keefe, Mrs. Harry L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Walthill</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lyford, V. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Falls City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McBrien, J. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCoun, L. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Omaha</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mayhew, J. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Miller, Fred A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Aurora</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mudge, W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Dillen</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Munn, H. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Falls City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nichols, M. V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Beatrice</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Nichols, Mrs. M. V.</td> + <td class="tdr">Beatrice</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oleson, Miss M. Crowell</td> + <td class="tdr">Ord</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Paine, Clarence S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Lincoln</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Price, Thos. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Dillen</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Schoenauer, A. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Plainview</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stark, U. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Aurora</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stephens, E. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Crete</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tanner, T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Superior</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Tyler, A. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Bellevue</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Weeks, Chas. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Peru</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>New Jersey.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Libbey, Mrs. Wm.</td> + <td class="tdr">Princeton</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stevens, E. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Hoboken</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>New York.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Coffin, Wm. Edward</td> + <td class="tdr">New York</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mallalieu, W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">New York</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moore, John D.</td> + <td class="tdr">New York City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sevena, Joseph H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Kruka Park</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sheldon, A. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Sherman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Taylor, Edw. R.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pen Yan</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Van Vleck, A. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Jameston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wadsworth, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mt. Morris</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wilson, Warren A.</td> + <td class="tdr">New York City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Willey, Henry Ide</td> + <td class="tdr">New York City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Ohio.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Adams, A. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Youngstown</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Allen, C. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Paulding</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Courtright, John</td> + <td class="tdr">Ashville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Dyar, C. P.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marietta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fordyce, Geo. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Youngstown</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goddard, T. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wooster</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lawrence, Mrs. Elmer G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cincinnati</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Porter, W. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Xenia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rogers, H. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mechanicsburg</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Secrest, Edmund</td> + <td class="tdr">Wooster</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Talbot, Rev. Winthrop</td> + <td class="tdr">Cleveland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Underwood, R. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Marietta</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Oklahoma.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ban, Archibald</td> + <td class="tdr">Claremore</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Beaty, W. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">McAlester</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Beard, J. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Brown, Milton</td> + <td class="tdr">Guthrie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Burke, J. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Norman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Casaver, J. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Davenport, Dr. R. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Oklahoma City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Elliott, James</td> + <td class="tdr">McAlister</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fink, D. N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Muskogee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harrice, T. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harrice, Mrs. T. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Harris, James A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hudson, Kenneth</td> + <td class="tdr">Ardmore</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Larsh, D. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Norman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mullen, J. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ardmore</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Price, H. D.</td> + <td class="tdr">Keota</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Price, J. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Keota</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Ramsay, Asa E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Muskogee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robbins, Clay</td> + <td class="tdr">Chouteau</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Roberts, O. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Welch</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robertson, Alice M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Muskogee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Robinson, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Keota</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Rush, Frank</td> + <td class="tdr">Cache</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shinn, T. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, Thomas</td> + <td class="tdr">Muskogee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span>Thompson, Joe</td> + <td class="tdr">Sapulpa</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Trumbo, A. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Muskogee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Watts, Jess W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Watts, Mrs. Jess W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Wagoner</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wicks, John C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Guthrie</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Oregon.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Allen, E. T.</td> + <td class="tdr">Portland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Kinney, M. J.</td> + <td class="tdr">Portland</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Pennsylvania.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baker, Hugh Potter</td> + <td class="tdr">State College</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Cook, A. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Cooksburg</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Drinker, Henry Sturgis</td> + <td class="tdr">Lehigh</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Farquhar, A. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">York</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Guenther, Emil</td> + <td class="tdr">Philadelphia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McCreight, M. I.</td> + <td class="tdr">Du Bois</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Oursler, Howard B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pittsburg</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Sterling, E. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Philadelphia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Stone, Chas. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Warren</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>South Carolina.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Twitchell, M. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Columbia</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>South Dakota.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Culbertson, R. G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Mitchell</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Heglin, Fred</td> + <td class="tdr">Centerville</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Johnson, C. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fairfax</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Newbanks, N.</td> + <td class="tdr">Pierre</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Wentzy, Harry</td> + <td class="tdr">Rapid City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Tennessee.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Fisher, J. W.</td> + <td class="tdr">Newport</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Moore, Herbert</td> + <td class="tdr">Memphis</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Winslow, Mrs. H. M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Harriman</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Texas.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Gray, W. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Houston</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Jones, W. Goodrich</td> + <td class="tdr">Temple</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Landergin, P. H.</td> + <td class="tdr">Vega</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shackelford, Dr. S. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Austin</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Smith, J. A.</td> + <td class="tdr">El Paso</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Spiller, E. B.</td> + <td class="tdr">Ft. Worth</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Turner, Arry</td> + <td class="tdr">Amarillo</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Utah.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Belliston, Wilford</td> + <td class="tdr">Nephi</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bennion, S. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salt Lake</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Broadbent, Sylvester</td> + <td class="tdr">Heber</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Hemphill, Geo. E.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salt Lake</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Jones, T. Vernon</td> + <td class="tdr">Payson City</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Mackay, Walter S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salt Lake</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>McAlister, W. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Salt Lake</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Shumway, R. F.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tropic</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Vermont.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Bailey, Geo. C.</td> + <td class="tdr">Montpelier</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Goss, Frank K.</td> + <td class="tdr">Montpelier</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Washington.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Llewelling, A. L.</td> + <td class="tdr">Spokane</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Griggs, Everett G.</td> + <td class="tdr">Tacoma</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <th colspan="2"><i>Wisconsin.</i></th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Caples, Mrs. Byron M.</td> + <td class="tdr">Waukesha</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Douglass, C. S.</td> + <td class="tdr">Fontana</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Vilter, Theo. O.</td> + <td class="tdr">Milwaukee</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="INDEX">INDEX</h2> + +</div> + +<ul> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Adams, Rev. Clair S.</span>, Tribute to His Work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agricultural College, How It Meets the Needs of the Farmer’s Wife, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agricultural College, Kansas, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agriculture, Commissioner of New York, Statement, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agriculture, Government Expert in Every County, <a href="#Page_221">221</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Tolls on, <a href="#Page_95">95</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Agriculture, U. S. Dept of, Endorsed and Commended, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alaska Coal Fields, on Leasing System, Urged, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Alfalfa, Experience in Growing, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Allen, E. T.</span>, Report by, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Animal Husbandry, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Ashby, Mrs. Harriet Wallace</span>, “The Farmer’s Wife.”, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Audubon Societies, Report of the National Association, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Bachelor, Irving</span>, Cited, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Back to the Farm”, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Bailey, George W.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Baker, Bernard N.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Barber, O. C.</span>, Telegram from, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Barnard, Harry Everest</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Baumgartner, J. T.</span>, Announcement, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Baumgartner, J. C.</span>, of California, Address by, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Baxter, Sylvester</span>, Author of “Golden New England”, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bayne-Blauvelt Bill, Credit for its Enactment, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Bills to be Pushed, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Beard, Dan</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Beard. W. A.</span>, Made Temporary Chairman, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Benson, Hon. F. W.</span>, Reference to Work of, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Birch Canal, Its Completion in Sight, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bird Life, Importance of Conserving, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Birds, American Water, to Safeguard, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Breeding Sanctuaries on Government Reservations, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Educational, Campaign Among Southern Children, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Important Breeding Colonies, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Wild Insectivorous, Importance of Protecting, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Bone Meal of Commerce, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boys and Girls and the Farm, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boys, Place for, <a href="#Page_40">40</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Boy Scouts, Reference to, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Breeze, Fred J.</span>, Move by, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Brown, Mayor Darius A.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Brown, Milton</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Brown, Miss Frances</span>, on Organizations of Farmers’ Wives, <a href="#Page_128">128</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Bryan, W. J.</span>, Telegram from, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Entrance Greeted with Cheers, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Remarks by, <a href="#Page_203">203</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">California Fruit Growers’ Exchange, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report from, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Camp Fire Club of America, Represented by W. E. Coffin, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, By its Vice-President, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Campbell, H. W.</span>, Apostle of Dry Farming Cited, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charcoal, Animal, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Charity Conference in Boston, Reference to, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Children’s Bill, in England, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Children, the Biggest Crop, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Versus Animals, <a href="#Page_41">41</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Child Labor Law Fallacy Exploded, <a href="#Page_38">38</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Child, the, and the Community, <a href="#Page_36">36</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Child Welfare Bureau Urged, <a href="#Page_xviii">xviii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Church, Country, Its Effect on Economic Affairs, <a href="#Page_258">258</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in open Country, Best School for Farmers, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in the Open Country, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Cities, Instinct to Flock to, <a href="#Page_35">35</a></li> + +<li class="indx">City, Movement to, <a href="#Page_13">13</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Clendening, E. M.</span>, Courtesies Acknowledged by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Clubs, the Ideal Kind, <a href="#Page_137">137</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coal, Are Prices Prohibitive, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Fields, Early Opening Recommended, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Lands, Policy of Withdrawal, <a href="#Page_197">197</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Royalties per ton Exacted by Colorado and Wyoming, <a href="#Page_198">198</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Coburn, F. D.</span>, Assumes the Chair, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Coffin, Wm. E.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coöperation, Failures in, <a href="#Page_86">86</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coöperation, Talk by W. A. Beard, <a href="#Page_78">78</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Twenty Years of, <a href="#Page_82">82</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Leads to Large Success, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, National Trait, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Recommended by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Rise of in America, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coöperative Banks of Europe, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Coöperative Society, What It Is Not, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Combs, Rev. Dr. Geo. Hamilton</span>, Invocation by, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Commercial Club, Escort to President Taft, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Especially Thanked by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Community Center Church, Its Scope, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Community Club, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Community Life, Its Pleasures, <a href="#Page_165">165</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Condra, E. A.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_49">49</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Temporary Chairman, <a href="#Page_45">45</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congestion Problems, <a href="#Page_32">32</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congress, More Liberality Urged, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Congress, International, of Humane Associations in London, Eng., <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation and the National Domain, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation and Utilization, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation, as Exemplified in Education, <a href="#Page_216">216</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation, As Old as Mankind, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation Commission in Oregon, When Appointed, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation Commission of California, a Report of Its Work, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation Commission of New York, Report of, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation Commission, Urged for Each Commonwealth, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation, Education in, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation Movement, Its Organization in Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Misunderstood and Misrepresented, <a href="#Page_195">195</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, A Help in Showing Relation to Society, <a href="#Page_229">229</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Conservation, Not a Theory, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in New York Parks, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Scope, <a href="#Page_186">186</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in the Public Schools, <a href="#Page_118">118</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in South Dakota, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of Bird Life, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of Future Generations, <a href="#Page_143">143</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of Old Time Ancestry in Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of Material Resources in Kansas, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of the Farm, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of the Soil, <a href="#Page_58">58</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>—, Pennsylvania State Branch, When Formed, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the Ten Commandments of, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, What It Is Doing in Georgia, <a href="#Page_25">25</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Constitution, Amendments to, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, as Amended, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Constitution of the Congress, <a href="#Page_ix">ix</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Constructive Statesmanship, Call for, <a href="#Page_85">85</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Contagious Diseases, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Contents, Table of, <a href="#Page_v">v</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Corn, Deep and Shallow Cultivation, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Preparation of Seed Bed, <a href="#Page_255">255</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Susceptible to Climatic Changes, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Corporation, Development of, <a href="#Page_14">14</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Country and City Boys, <a href="#Page_34">34</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Country Child vs. the City Child, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Country Women’s Clubs, Work for, <a href="#Page_123">123</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Country Life Commission, Tribute to, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Discussed, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Coupland, Hon. Geo.</span>, Representative of Nebraska, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Credentials Committee, Appointment of, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Crop Statistics, Not Encouraging, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Doubling Yield, <a href="#Page_178">178</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, European Yield Double, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Possibilities of Rotation, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Crump, Col. M. H.</span>, Remarks by, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Dairying, Certain Forms Wasteful of Fertility, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Darlington, Bishop</span>, Cited, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Daughters American Rev. Represented, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Day, Mrs. Holland C.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Deaths From Preventable Causes, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Delegates Registered, List of, <a href="#Page_303">303</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Delinquent Children, Report of, <a href="#Page_37">37</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Deer, in the Adirondacks Protected by Law, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Deneen, Governor</span>, the Congress Sends Greetings to, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Message from, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Denmark, Reforestation in, <a href="#Page_173">173</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Dillon C. J.</span>, Remarks by, <a href="#Page_127">127</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Dimock, A. W.</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Dix, Governor of New York</span>, Tribute to, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Draper, Mrs. Amos</span>, Complimentary Reference to, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Drinker, Dr. Henry S.</span>, Resolutions Committeeman from Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Dyar, C. P.</span>, Address on Ohio, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Edison</span>, Quoted on Economy of French Menage, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Education, the Most Precious Possession, <a href="#Page_217">217</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Efficiency, Increased Through Combination, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Electrochemical Society of America, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Engineering Education, Society for the Promotion of, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Executive Report, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Experiment Station, Fort Hays, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Experiment Station, Missouri, Cited, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Evans, Powell</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li class="indx">“Farm and Fireside,” Represented, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farm Children, Anxious for Useful Training, <a href="#Page_74">74</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, How to Keep Sensible Young Men on, <a href="#Page_155">155</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Organization, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_124">124</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Production, Cost of, <a href="#Page_57">57</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Sanitation on, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Social Life of, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, to Make Attractive, <a href="#Page_226">226</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmer, Day’s Work of the, <a href="#Page_122">122</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, His Comforts and Conveniences, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the Resources of, <a href="#Page_192">192</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmer’s Coöperative Demonstration, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmers’ Institutes, in Kansas, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmer’s Wife, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmer, Wisdom to be Learned at His Feet, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farmers’ Revolt, Greatest in History, <a href="#Page_81">81</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Farming, Appalling Waste in Essentials, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the Business of, <a href="#Page_208">208</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Farquhar, A. B.</span>, Speaks for Pennsylvania, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Federal Forest Service Commended, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fertilizer, Commercial, Produced, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Importation of, <a href="#Page_102">102</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Importance of Analysis by Reliable, Chemist, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Stress Laid on Intelligent Use of, <a href="#Page_239">239</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the Wrong Kind, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Field, Dr. Geo. W.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Field, Miss Jessie</span>, Tribute to, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Filson, F. M.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fire Losses, in Life and Property, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Need of Federal investigation, <a href="#Page_162">162</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Total on Buildings, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Records of the Board, <a href="#Page_268">268</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fire Marshal, State Creation of Office Urged, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fire Prevention, A Day to Be Set Aside, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Waste, Conservation Efforts for Its Reduction, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Waste, Remarks of Walter L. Fisher on, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Fisher, Walter L.</span>, “Conservation and the National Domain”, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Cited on Fire Waste, <a href="#Page_270">270</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Fisher, Prof. Irving</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Food, President Wallace on How to Produce Cheaply, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Standing Committee on Urged on the Congress, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Supplies, High Price of, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forest Fires of 1910, <a href="#Page_115">115</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Protection, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forest Lands, Just Taxation For, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Taxation, Leads to State Impoverishment, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forest Service, Reference to, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forests, History of, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Practical Methods of Restoration, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Yields in Europe, <a href="#Page_171">171</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forestry Department, Its Tuberculosis Camp, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Forestry, What Massachusetts is Doing, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Fowler, B. A.</span>, Made Chairman of Committee on Resolutions, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, on Work of Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Chairman Committee on Resolutions, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Franchise, Terms on Which It Should Be Granted, <a href="#Page_224">224</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fresh Air, the Gospel of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Fruit, Waste of, <a href="#Page_150">150</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Game Laws, Not Evasive in New York, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Game Protective Legislation and Preserves, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Geological Survey, Investigation of Fire Loss, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gigault, G. A.</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gipe, James C.</span>, Re-elected Recording Secretary, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Glavis, Louis R.</span>, Cited, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Good Roads, Extension of Movement Urged, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, in Oklahoma, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Movement in Minnesota, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gould, Jay</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Grace, Fred J.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_30">30</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address on Louisiana, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Grange, Agency of, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, and the Farmer’s Club, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, National, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Gravel Rock, Analysis, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gregg, Everitt</span>, on Resolutions Committee for Washington, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Greenwood, Prof. J. M.</span>, Appointed to Represent National Educational Association, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Griggs, E. G.</span>, President Nat’l Lumbermen’s Manufacturers Association, Address by, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report for N. L. M. Association, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gross, Howard H.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Grout, A. P.</span>, “The Rape of the Soil”, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Gunther, Emil</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Guthrie, F. A.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Guthridge, A. W.</span>, Resolutions Committeeman from Minnesota, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Greeley, Horace</span>, Cited on Stripping Forests, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hadley, Governor Herbert S.</span>, Address, <a href="#Page_5">5</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Presiding officer, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hansen, Fred</span>, Tribute to His Work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>Harrowing Wheat, Use of the Weeder, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hays, Dr. C. W.</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Health, Department of, the First Step in Conservation, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Owen Bill Favors Cabinet Member at Its Head, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Health, the Great Asset, <a href="#Page_142">142</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hendrix, Rt. Rev. E. R.</span>, invocation, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Highways, Necessary to a State’s Progress, <a href="#Page_164">164</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hill, Curtis</span>, Address on Good Roads, <a href="#Page_163">163</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hill, James J.</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Historic Aphorism, <a href="#Page_91">91</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hoard, Ex-gov. W. D.</span>, of Wisconsin, Address by, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Hook Worm Commission, Work of Approved, <a href="#Page_xviii">xviii</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Holden, B. G.</span>, Address, <a href="#Page_71">71</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Holmes, Joseph Austin</span>, Compliment to, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Homestead Law, Commutation Clause, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hopkins, Prof. Cyril G.</span>, “Worn-out Soils”, <a href="#Page_176">176</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Quoted, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hornaday, Dr. W. T.</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Hoynes, Prof. Wm.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_214">214</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Huebner</span>, Quoted on German Freight Policy, <a href="#Page_96">96</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Humane Association, Report of, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Idaho, Report From, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Idleness, Danger of, <a href="#Page_39">39</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Illinois, Report From, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, What the State is Doing in Soil Investigation, <a href="#Page_181">181</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Indiana, Report From, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Individuals, Value of, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Insanity Fading in the Lives of Farm Women, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Insurance Companies Control, <a href="#Page_158">158</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Rates and Fire Losses, <a href="#Page_159">159</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Sanitary for the Eaters of Sea Foods, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">International Institute of Agriculture, Reference to, <a href="#Page_83">83</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Iowa, Report From, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Irrigation, as Demonstrated by the Work of the Reclamation Service, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Jackson, Fred S.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Kansas, Agricultural College Represented, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Congressman From, <a href="#Page_157">157</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Intemperance Lessened, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Great Corn Crop, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Lack of Silos a Cause of Waste in Corn, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report From, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Work of the Experiment Stations, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Kerr, Rev. Dr. R. M.</span>, Invocation by, <a href="#Page_23">23</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Kinney, F. J.</span>, Resolutions Committeeman from Oregon, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Labor A Proper Conception of Its Dignity, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Land, Changes in the Law for Settlers Urged, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, No Change in the Nation’s Policy, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Values, Increase in, <a href="#Page_154">154</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Landlord System, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Latchaw, D. Austin</span>, Re-elected Treasurer, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lead, Arsenate of, Powerful Insecticide for Tree Pests, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lehigh University, Represented by Its President, <a href="#Page_69">69</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lester, John C.</span>, Address of Welcome, <a href="#Page_4">4</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Thanked by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lewis, John H.</span>, His Work as State Engineer Endorsed, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lillis, Bishop</span>, Invocation by, <a href="#Page_1">1</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lime, Value of, <a href="#Page_103">103</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lindsay, Hon. Ben. B.</span>, Address, <a href="#Page_31">31</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Little Mother and the Fat Hog, Story of, <a href="#Page_219">219</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Live Stock Farming, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Logan, Geo. B.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Long, R. A.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Louisiana, Wealth in Woods, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report For, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Lumber Dealers, Wholesale, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Lyles, Rev. C. S.</span>, Tribute to His Work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">MacBride, Thomas H.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_277">277</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">McFarland, J. Horace</span>, Telegram from, <a href="#Page_131">131</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">McGee, Dr. W J</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_183">183</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">McNutt, Rev. M. B.</span>, Reference to His Work, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Machinery, Evolution of, <a href="#Page_15">15</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mammoth Cave of Kentucky Cited as Example, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Martin, Col. John I.</span>, Elected Sergeant-at-Arms, <a href="#Page_21">21</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Sergeant-at-Arms Receives Thanks of Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Massachusetts, Its Coastal Boundary, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Natural Advantages, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, One of Its Metropolitan Water Systems, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by State Forester, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mexican Ambassador, Telegram From, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Middle West, Its Awakened Public Opinion, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Missouri, Animal Husbandry Recommended, <a href="#Page_234">234</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Experiment Station, Some Results, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Live Stock Husbandry, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Farmer Governor, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Pioneer in Civilization, <a href="#Page_6">6</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Undeveloped Resources, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Waterways Commission, Report by Its Secretary, <a href="#Page_64">64</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mines, Accidents in, Less as Education Spreads, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mineral Resources, Economy of, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mineral Rights, Retained In Minnesota, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Minister’s Duty, in Life Work of the People, <a href="#Page_75">75</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Minnesota, on Record for Good Roads, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report From, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, What is Being Done in Conservation, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Moore, John D.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_46">46</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Moore, Mrs. Philip N.</span>, “Community Center”, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Morton, J. Sterling</span>, Tribute to, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Mosquito, Purveyor of Yellow Fever, <a href="#Page_53">53</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Moths, the Gypsy and Brown-Tail, Fight Against, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Mullin, W. E.</span>, Report for National Board of Fire Underwriters, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Mumford, Dr. Frederick B.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Dean of the University of Missouri, Address by, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Munro, the Rev. Dr. Donald</span>, Invocation, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">National Association of Credit Men, Quoted on Fire Waste, <a href="#Page_271">271</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Association of Manufacturers, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Audubon Society, Represented by Dr. Geo. W. Field, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Board of Fire Underwriters, by Its Committee, <a href="#Page_267">267</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Board of Health Urged, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Congress of Mothers and Parent Teachers’ Association, Report of, <a href="#Page_156">156</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Conservation Congress, Urged to Greater Interest in Wild Life, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Educational Association, <a href="#Page_120">120</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Fire Protection Association, Some of Its Work, <a href="#Page_269">269</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Organizations at the Congress, List of, <a href="#Page_301">301</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Resources, Knowledge of, A Part of Educational System, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Shell Fish Association, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">National Soil Fertility League, <a href="#Page_48">48</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Soil Fertility League, Represented, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Soil Fertility League, the Plan of, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nation, Earning Power of, Its Vital and Physical Assets, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the, Its Motto “Conservation”, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Natural Scenery, Value of, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Navigation, an Economical Means of Transportation, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, and Water Power, <a href="#Page_66">66</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nebraska, Achievement of Rural Commission and Farm Congress, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report From, <a href="#Page_285">285</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Neel, Dr. S. M.</span>, Invocation, <a href="#Page_148">148</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Neill, D. M.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_43">43</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_284">284</a></li> + +<li class="indx">New England Agriculture, Decline of, <a href="#Page_100">100</a></li> + +<li class="indx">New York, Report From, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>—, the State Gridironed by Its Highway System, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potash, Essentials of Successful Farming, <a href="#Page_236">236</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nominations, Committee on Appointed, <a href="#Page_110">110</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Northrop, Dr. Cyrus</span>, Chairman, <a href="#Page_147">147</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address by, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Nutritious Food, the Right to, <a href="#Page_144">144</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Officers and Committees, <a href="#Page_i">i</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ohio, Agricultural Experiment Station Cited, <a href="#Page_180">180</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Represented by C. P. Dyar, <a href="#Page_68">68</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oklahoma, A Water Supply Without Federal Aid, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Practical Good Roads Spirit, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report for, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Taxless Method of Dealing with Underground Water, <a href="#Page_287">287</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Oregon, Caves in Josephine County as National Monument, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Mineral Resources of, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report for, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Organization, Growth of, <a href="#Page_191">191</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Owen, Senator Robert L.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Ozark Regions, Conserver of Pasture, <a href="#Page_7">7</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Panama Canal, <a href="#Page_50">50</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Health Its Greatest Triumph, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Parcels Post, as a Means to Reduce Cost of Living Recommended, <a href="#Page_xvi">xvi</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pelagic Sealing, Some Credit for Its Stoppage, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pennsylvania, Achievements of Its Department of Health, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, and Philadelphia, Report of, <a href="#Page_290">290</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Dutch, Some Characteristics of, <a href="#Page_140">140</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Scenic Attractions Sources of Revenue, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, State College, Reference to, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Penrose, Dr. Chas. B.</span>, Work of, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pension Roll, Evidence of Waste of Resources, <a href="#Page_293">293</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Permanent Committees, Scope Extended, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pheasant, Chinese, Insect Destroyer, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Philadelphia, Its Commercial and Social Importance, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phosphate, Analysis, <a href="#Page_242">242</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Deposits, to be Safe Guarded, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Iniquitous Exportation, <a href="#Page_209">209</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Resources, <a href="#Page_105">105</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Tennessee, Analysis, <a href="#Page_243">243</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Florida Produces Best, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Subdivided into Classes, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Phosphorus, a Lack of Infertile Soil, <a href="#Page_104">104</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, its Use, <a href="#Page_179">179</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Piedro Miguel Locks of Panama Canal, <a href="#Page_52">52</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Pinchot, Gifford</span>, Appreciation of, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Prophet of the Forest, <a href="#Page_184">184</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Reminders of His Work While Forester, <a href="#Page_289">289</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Telegram to from the Congress, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Plowing, Experiments at Many Stations, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Good Rule for, <a href="#Page_249">249</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Relative Depths of, <a href="#Page_250">250</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Under Green Clover Doubtful Economy, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Value of Deep, <a href="#Page_248">248</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Plunkett, Horace</span>, Cited on Social Work, <a href="#Page_138">138</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Poor Preachers Out of Good Farmers, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Pollution, Stream, Value in Filtration Plants, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Population, Drift of, <a href="#Page_12">12</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Increase of, <a href="#Page_56">56</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Postal Savings System, <a href="#Page_260">260</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Extension to Our Schools and Its Value, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Postmasters, Assistant, Missouri Association of, <a href="#Page_259">259</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Potter, Thos. W.</span>, Elected on Resolutions Committee from Kansas, <a href="#Page_62">62</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Practical Experiments in Child Help, <a href="#Page_42">42</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Press Thanked by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xxi">xxi</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Price, Overton W.</span>, New Book by, <a href="#Page_298">298</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Proceedings of the Congress, Supplementary, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Production, Adequate, Problem of, <a href="#Page_9">9</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Per Acre, <a href="#Page_16">16</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Program, Resolution to Change Future, Offered, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Public Health, a Public and Federal Obligation, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Land for Scenic Purposes Approved, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Withdrawal of for Classification, <a href="#Page_xiv">xiv</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Quick, Herbert</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Randolph, Col. Isham</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_28">28</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_275">275</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Rane, Prof. F. W.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_281">281</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Railroads and the Farmer, Relations Between, <a href="#Page_88">88</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, and Population, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Casualties Greater Than Civil War, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, How They Learned, <a href="#Page_89">89</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Railway Folly, the Greatest, <a href="#Page_109">109</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Railways, Inimical to Agricultural Development, <a href="#Page_94">94</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Property, Appraisement of by the Government Urged, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rates and Fertilizers, <a href="#Page_107">107</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, and Living Cost, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Tapering, <a href="#Page_97">97</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Texas System of, <a href="#Page_99">99</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reception for Mrs. Matthew T. Scott by D. A. R. Announced, <a href="#Page_22">22</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reclamation Service, Endorsed, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, What the Real Thing Means, <a href="#Page_182">182</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Work of in Irrigation, <a href="#Page_200">200</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Reforestation, New York’s Six State Nurseries, <a href="#Page_286">286</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Will Come When Profitable, <a href="#Page_246">246</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Religion, a Valuation of Life, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Forward Movement, <a href="#Page_77">77</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Resolutions, Adopted by the Third Congress, <a href="#Page_xiii">xiii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Committee, Expresses Appreciation, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Committee, Members of, <a href="#Page_211">211</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report, Adoption of, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Resources, Agricultural, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Restoration of Natural Resources, an Ally of Conservation, <a href="#Page_283">283</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Richter, Albert</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rochdale Society of England, <a href="#Page_80">80</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Roosevelt</span>, Humanitarian and Statesman, <a href="#Page_185">185</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Colonel, Letter Accounting for Absence from the Congress, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, President, quoted, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Theodore, letter from, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Royer</span>, Chief Medical Inspector, Quoted on Department of Health, <a href="#Page_294">294</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rural Clubs, Plan of, <a href="#Page_73">73</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Rural Communities, Women of, <a href="#Page_132">132</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Life, Modern Conveniences of, <a href="#Page_134">134</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Life, Drawbacks to, <a href="#Page_133">133</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Society, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Rushton, W. J.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_113">113</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, President American Association Refrigeration, Address by, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Sanders, Governor J. Y.</span>, of Louisiana, Reference to, <a href="#Page_279">279</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sanitation, Under Federal Direction Approved, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Schools, Plea for the Basic Subsidiary, <a href="#Page_235">235</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Schwedtman, Ferdinand G.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Chairman N. A. M., Address by, <a href="#Page_261">261</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Scott, Mrs. Matthew T.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_125">125</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Seed Bed, New Method of Preparing, <a href="#Page_251">251</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Preparing by Disking, <a href="#Page_254">254</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Seton, Ernest Thompson</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sewage, Dumping into Streams Deplored, <a href="#Page_xviii">xviii</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Menace and Its Wasted Values, <a href="#Page_263">263</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, What Boston Paid to Put it in the Ocean, <a href="#Page_264">264</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Sheppard, Dr. C. W.</span>, Cited, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Shipp, Thomas R.</span>, Reëlected Secretary, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Secretary, Appreciation of Expressed, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Shoffer, John C.</span>, Remarks by, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Smith, J. B.</span>, on Resolutions Committee for Texas, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Smith, J. Lawrence</span>, Cited, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Soil, Analysis, <a href="#Page_241">241</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Conservation, Rational System of, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Conservation, Not Successful Unless Profitable, <a href="#Page_233">233</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Depletion, <a href="#Page_101">101</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Erosion, Its Remedy, <a href="#Page_xv">xv</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>—, Exhausted by Generation of Peach Culture, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Fertility, <a href="#Page_231">231</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Increasing Yield by Proper Cultivation, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Maintenance, <a href="#Page_206">206</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Robbers, <a href="#Page_210">210</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Rape of, <a href="#Page_205">205</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Reaping the Harvest of Blind Persistence in Tradition, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Reclaimed and Made Profitable, <a href="#Page_232">232</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Waste of Raw Material, <a href="#Page_207">207</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Waste, <a href="#Page_220">220</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Soils, Worn Out, <a href="#Page_170">170</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Song Dedicated to President Taft by Dr. Hiner, <a href="#Page_54">54</a></li> + +<li class="indx">South Carolina, Drainage of Its Swamp Lands, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, How it is Helping Conservation, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Improvements in Rural Life, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Spanish War, Some Tragic Phases of, <a href="#Page_218">218</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Spillman, Prof. W. J.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_152">152</a></li> + +<li class="indx">State and Nation, Conflict Between, <a href="#Page_223">223</a></li> + +<li class="indx">States, Roll Call of, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Stevens, Edward A.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_44">44</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Stillman, Wm. O.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_262">262</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Stubbs, A. W.</span>, Remarks of, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Resolution offered, <a href="#Page_212">212</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Sulphur, Mined by Novel Process, <a href="#Page_280">280</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Swamp Land Reclamation, Need of, <a href="#Page_8">8</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Taft</span>, President, Address by, <a href="#Page_55">55</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Message to Congress Quoted, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Quoted on Anti-Trust Law, <a href="#Page_70">70</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tariff Issues, Settled Only When Business Integrity Governs, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Taylor, Edward R.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_116">116</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Taxation, a Foe to Timber Holding, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Ten Eyck, Professor A. M.</span>, “Practical Methods of Soil Cultivation”, <a href="#Page_193">193</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of Kansas Agricultural College, Address by, <a href="#Page_247">247</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Teal, Joseph N.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_288">288</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Testing Materials, Society for, Represented, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Tolerton</span>, Honorable <span class="smcap">Jesse A.</span>, Complimentary Reference to, <a href="#Page_149">149</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Timber Cutting in Europe, <a href="#Page_168">168</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Resources, Value of, <a href="#Page_245">245</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Should be Taxed Only When Cut, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Toll, the Necessity for, <a href="#Page_228">228</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Tolstoi</span>, Quoted on Labor, <a href="#Page_227">227</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tonnage, Dominance of, <a href="#Page_90">90</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Transportation, Value of Easy, <a href="#Page_93">93</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tree Planting by Rotation, <a href="#Page_169">169</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Trees, Modern Power Spraying, <a href="#Page_282">282</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Tuberculosis, Its Segregation, <a href="#Page_145">145</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, State Sanitorium for at Mont Alto, <a href="#Page_295">295</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Twitchell</span>, Dr. M. W., Introduced, <a href="#Page_47">47</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report by, <a href="#Page_296">296</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Typhoid Fever vs. Pure Water, <a href="#Page_299">299</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Van Ornum, J. L.</span>, Letter from, <a href="#Page_273">273</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Vessey</span>, Governor R. S., Made Chairman, Address by, <a href="#Page_111">111</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Vrooman</span>, Mrs. <span class="smcap">Carl</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_117">117</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">University of Missouri, Represented by Its Dean, Dr. <span class="smcap">Mumford</span>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst"><span class="smcap">Wallace</span>, President, Address by, <a href="#Page_11">11</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Thanks the Congress, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, ex-President, Thanked by Resolutions Committee, <a href="#Page_xx">xx</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wallace, Dillon</span>, Reference to, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Water and Power, Resources in California, <a href="#Page_274">274</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Importance of as Plant Food, <a href="#Page_238">238</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Impounding, <a href="#Page_225">225</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Water Power, <a href="#Page_201">201</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Sacrificed to Lax Laws, <a href="#Page_297">297</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Water, Supervision of Its Use by Corporations, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Supply and Agriculture, <a href="#Page_65">65</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Supply, the Nation’s, <a href="#Page_222">222</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Supply, Purified, <a href="#Page_291">291</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, the Important Problem, <a href="#Page_196">196</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Watercourses, as a Public Resource, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Waters, Belong to All the People, <a href="#Page_xvii">xvii</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Waters</span>, Dean H. J., Elected President of Kansas Delegation, <a href="#Page_29">29</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, of the State Agricultural College, Report of, <a href="#Page_278">278</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Weeks</span>, Mrs. E. R., Address by, <a href="#Page_136">136</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Weller</span>, Miss <span class="smcap">Mame E.</span>, Talk on Federation of Iowa Women’s Clubs, <a href="#Page_130">130</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Western Forestry and Conservation Association, <a href="#Page_114">114</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wharton, Wm. P.</span>, Report of, <a href="#Page_272">272</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Resolutions Committeeman from Massachusetts, <a href="#Page_63">63</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wheat, How to Prepare Seed Bed, <a href="#Page_253">253</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Its Protection From Adjacent Fields, <a href="#Page_252">252</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">White</span>, Honorable <span class="smcap">John B.</span>, Address by, <a href="#Page_17">17</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Chairman Executive Committee, <a href="#Page_19">19</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Assumes Chair, <a href="#Page_87">87</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Report of Executive Committee, <a href="#Page_129">129</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, “Lumber in Europe”, <a href="#Page_167">167</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Elected President, <a href="#Page_174">174</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Address of, <a href="#Page_175">175</a></li> + +<li class="indx">Wild Bird Plumage, Campaign Against Sale of, <a href="#Page_266">266</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Life Depletion, More Stringent Measures Urged, <a href="#Page_xix">xix</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Life, in Forest and Stream, <a href="#Page_292">292</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Life Protection, <a href="#Page_265">265</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Willey, Henry Ide</span>, of New York, Address by, <a href="#Page_237">237</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wiley</span>, Dr. H. W., Address by, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wilson, Warren H.</span>, Introduced, <a href="#Page_139">139</a></li> + +<li class="indx">—, Superintendent Board of Home Missions, Address by, <a href="#Page_257">257</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wilson</span>, Secretary, Quoted, <a href="#Page_92">92</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Wolfe, Henry W.</span>, Quoted, <a href="#Page_79">79</a></li> + +<li class="indx"><span class="smcap">Worsham</span>, Professor E. L., Report by, <a href="#Page_24">24</a></li> + +<li class="ifrst">Yellow Pine Manufacturers, <a href="#Page_76">76</a></li> + +</ul> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="box"> + +<table> + <tr> + <td><p class="center">R. A. LONG,<br> + <span class="smaller">Pres. and Gen’l Mgr.</span></p></td> + <td><p class="center">C. B. SWEET,<br> + <span class="smaller">Vice Pres. and Asst Gen’l Mgr.</span></p></td> + <td><p class="center">F. J. BANNISTER,<br> + <span class="smaller">Secretary-Treasurer</span></p></td> + <td><p class="center">M. B. NELSON,<br> + <span class="smaller">Gen’l Sales Manager</span></p></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center larger">The Long-Bell Lumber Co.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smaller">General Offices: 8th and 9th Floors R. A. Long Building</span><br> +Kansas City, Mo.</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smaller">Manufacturers of</span><br> +LONG AND SHORT LEAF<br> +<span class="smcap larger"><span class="larger">Yellow<br> +<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pine</span><br> +<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Lumber</span></span></span></p> + +<p class="center">Annual Capacity, 550,000,000 Feet</p> + +<div class="box2"> + +<div class="box3"> + +<p class="center">Eleven Modern Saw Mills</p> + +<p class="center smaller">Located at</p> + +<ul class="allsmcap"> + <li>YELLOW PINE, LA.</li> + <li>DE RIDDER, LA.</li> + <li>LUFKIN, TEXAS</li> + <li>WOODWORTH, LA.</li> + <li>BONAMI, LA.</li> + <li>DOUCETTE, TEX.</li> + <li>LONGVILLE, LA.</li> + <li>NEW WILLARD, TEX.</li> + <li>LAKE CHARLES, LA.</li> + <li>TRINITY, TEX.</li> + <li>PINE BLUFF, ARK.</li> +</ul> + +</div> + +<div class="box3"> + +<p class="center">Equipped with 23 +Bands, 8 Gangs, +2 Circulars.</p> + +<p class="center smaller">Planing Mill Capacity to take +care of entire product of sawmills</p> + +<p class="center">100,000,000 feet mixed +Yard Stock in Pile.</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="larger">Railroad Material.</span> +We can surface timbers 4 sides up to +20″×30″, making a specialty of Stringers, +Caps, Ties, Guard Rails, Siding, Lining and Roofing.</p> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="larger">Export Material.</span> +We are large producers of 1×4″ and 6″ +Prime Floorings, 1×4″ Heart Rift Ship +Decking and Crown and Prime schedules for the European market.</p> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="larger">Coast Products.</span> +We solicit inquiries for all grades of the best +Red Cedar Shingles and Siding, Fir Timbers +and Yard Stock, also Spruce Lumber. Shingles in transit for prompt +delivery at all times. We Ship the Product of Our Own Mills Only.</p> + +<p class="center">Yellow Pine Box Shook Factory, Bonami, La. and Pine Bluff, Ark.</p> + +<p class="center">W. M. BEEBE, Mgr. Y. P. Sales Dept. +<span class="spacer">L. R. FIFER, Mgr. P. S. Sales Dept.</span></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="center larger"><span class="larger">Missouri</span> and<br> +<span class="larger">Louisiana Pine</span></p> + +<p class="center">from LOUISIANA MILLS, at</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Co., Fisher, La.,</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + <td rowspan="2" class="valign">Ships over Kansas City Southern & Tex. Pacific</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Louisiana Long Leaf Lumber Co., Victoria, La.,</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Louisiana Central Lumber Co., Clarks, La.,</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + <td rowspan="2" class="valign">Ships over St. Louis, Iron Mountain & South’n</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Louisiana Central Lumber Co., Standard, La.,</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center">and MISSOURI MILLS</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Missouri Lumber & Mining Co., West Eminence, Mo.,</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + <td rowspan="2" class="valign">Ships over Frisco Lines</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="nw">Ozark Land & Lumber Co., Winona, Mo.</td> + <td class="tdr">}</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center">NINE MILLS<br> +250,000,000 FEET ANNUAL CAPACITY</p> + +<p class="center">OUR FISHER, LOUISIANA, MILL HAS</p> + +<p class="center">Excellent Facilities For Shipping Their</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td class="valign"><p class="center">End Matched<br>Hollow Backed</p></td> + <td class="valign"><p class="center larger">Oak flooring</p></td> + <td class="valign"><p class="center">Bored and<br>Bundled</p></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="3"><p class="center smaller">Diamond ◆ Brand</p></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center">It is carefully and accurately worked. Thoroughly<br> +kiln-dried. Bundled and tied with a patent wire<br> +BALING TIE THAT CANNOT SLIP OFF.</p> + +<p class="center">The product of a High Class Modern Oak Flooring Mill.</p> + +<p class="center">We Will Ship Our Oak Flooring in Straight +Cars or Mixed With Our Yellow Pine.</p> + +<p class="center">Address all communications to</p> + +<p class="center larger">Missouri Lumber & Land Exchange Co.<br> +<span class="smaller">1107 to 1112 Long Building, Kansas City, Mo.</span></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="larger"><span class="larger">Southern Yellow Pine</span></span>—successfully +fulfills more building requirements than any other wood</p> + +<p class="center larger">For Residences of All Classes,<br> +City and Country Houses, Bungalows.</p> + +<p class="noindent">The peer of any wood used for interior trim +or flooring. Handsome in appearance, easily +finished at minimum cost; painted or enameled.</p> + +<p class="noindent">The most economical wood in price as well as in service.</p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="larger u">Durable Weatherboarding,</span> House, Garage or Barn</p> + +<p class="noindent"><span class="larger">Wears Well, Costs Less, Holds Paint</span> to Entire Satisfaction</p> + +<p class="noindent">Cost and Adaptability to the intended use +govern the amount and kind of lumber, therefore +as a framing or dimension lumber, or +for use in store or factory construction, no +other wood excels it in strength, availability +or cost. <span class="u">Essential in every modern home.</span></p> + +<p class="noindent">Its appearance stands comparison with selected oak, +and other hard woods, and gives as good service.</p> + +<p class="hanging"><span class="larger">Farm Use.</span> For posts, +fencing, sheds, barns, silos, tanks, shingles, floors, planking.</p> + +<p class="noindent">A good, sound timber—free from defects—hard, +dense, flexible, straight in the grain. There is every +good reason for its use in buildings of every class.</p> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="center">Write and tell us your needs. We will tell you what to ask +for and where to get it.</p> + +</div> + +<p class="center"><span class="larger">Yellow Pine Manufacturers’ Association</span><br> +707 Wright Bldg. <span class="spacer">St. Louis, Mo.</span></p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="center larger">Central Coal & Coke Co.</p> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="center larger">LUMBER<br> +Department</p> + +</div> + +<div class="box4"> + +<div class="box3"> + +<p class="center larger">LONG LEAF</p> + +<p class="center smaller">from our mills at</p> + +<p class="center">Neame and<br>Carson, La.</p> + +</div> + +<div class="box3"> + +<p class="center larger">SHORT LEAF</p> + +<p class="center smaller">from our mills at</p> + +<p class="center">Ratcliff, Tex.<br>Boleyn, La.</p> + +</div> + +</div> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="center">ANNUAL CAPACITY<br> +200,000,000 FEET</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="smaller">GENERAL SALES OFFICE:</span><br> +Keith & Perry Building,<br> +KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI</p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td><p class="center"><span class="smaller">Eastern Sales Office:</span><br> + INDIANAPOLIS, IND.</p></td> + <td><p class="center"><span class="smaller">Southwestern Sales Office:</span><br> + HOUSTON, TEXAS.</p></td> + </tr> +</table> + +</div> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<table class="smaller"> + <tr> + <td>EDWARD HINES, President<br>L. L. BARTH, Vice-President</td> + <td>C. F. WIEHE, Secretary<br>M. W. TEUFEL, Ass’t to President</td> + <td>T. F. TOOMEY, Ass’t to Vice-President<br>EDWARD H. THOMAS, Ass’t Treasurer</td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p class="center"><span class="larger">EDWARD HINES LUMBER COMPANY,</span><br> +<span class="smaller">LINCOLN STREET, SOUTH OF BLUE +ISLAND AVENUE, CHICAGO.</span></p> + +<p class="center mt2">HEADQUARTERS FOR EVERY THING IN LUMBER</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" style="max-width: 2.1875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/deco.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p class="center">LARGEST LUMBER YARDS IN THE WORLD</p> + +<figure class="figcenter mt2 illowp100" id="ad-lumber" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-lumber.jpg" alt="BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF THE + LARGEST LUMBER YARD IN THE WORLD"> + <figcaption> + <p>Bird’s-eye view taken from tower 200 feet high, showing our three + large yards, covering over 45 acres and a water frontage of over one + mile. The piling shown just opposite locomotive (over 1000 in number) + are 60 feet long and appear like a bundle of matches, giving you a + comparative idea of the enormous size of our plant.</p> + </figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>Timbers in stock up to 20×20-100 ft. Shingles and Lath in mixed cars from Chicago or full cars direct from our Northern mills. Inch and +two inch Hard Maple for Warehouse Driveways, Coal Yards, Lumber Yards, Grain Elevators, etc., also for Crating and Packing purposes.</p> + +<p class="center">Western Union and Postal Wires direct to our office.<br> +PROMPT SERVICE ASSURED.<br> +TELEPHONE “CANAL” 349.</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<p class="right">HE WHO USES CYPRESS BUILDS BUT ONCE</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="ad-cypress-1" style="max-width: 43.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-cypress-1.jpg" alt="CYPRESS “THE WOOD ETERNAL”"> +</figure> + +<figure class="figleft illowp84" id="ad-cypress-2" style="max-width: 14.0625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-cypress-2.jpg" alt="CYPRESS DEFIES DECAY"> +</figure> + +<figure class="figright illowp84" id="ad-cypress-3" style="max-width: 14.0625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-cypress-3.jpg" alt="CYPRESS AVERTS REPAIR BILLS"> +</figure> + +<p class="center">You know the ancient fame of<br> +<span class="larger">CYPRESS</span><br> +but do you know its uses <i>today</i>,<br> +and their significance to <i>you</i>?</p> + +<p>CYPRESS is <i>the</i> wood of Scriptural history, and of romance; CYPRESS was the +mystic wood of mythology—and it was the reliance of the sturdy builders of early +America; CYPRESS always has been a magnet for those who have wrought sentiment +and beauty into useful things—and CYPRESS is <i>today</i> the <i>staple wood</i> of the +hard-headed calculating buyer who seeks the most <i>lasting</i> values for his lumber-money.</p> + +<p>This concerns <i>YOU</i>—if you like to avoid repair bills on anything made of wood.</p> + +<p>It was of CYPRESS, according to Pliny, that the famous statue of Jupiter was carved; it existed +more than six centuries without a sign of decay.</p> + +<p>The historic Gates of Constantinople were of CYPRESS; they were on duty for eleven centuries +without a furlough.</p> + +<p>The CYPRESS doors of ancient St. Peter’s, in Rome, were in a state of perfect preservation when +removed by Eugenius IV; they had been swinging on the faithful for twelve centuries.</p> + +<p>The only Egyptian mummies that survive intact and unblemished are those whose executors filed +them in CYPRESS receptacles.</p> + +<p>To bring the record nearer home—there was Thomas Lyon, who in 1640 built him +a house in Greenwich, Connecticut. He put CYPRESS shingles on its roof and sides. +With no exterior repairs of consequence, this house is today occupied as a residence.</p> + +<p>THIS WAS <span class="u">AMERICAN</span> CYPRESS—the kind we own and cut and are +selling you.</p> + +<p>CYPRESS is in truth “the wood eternal.” He who uses Cypress builds but once.</p> + +<p>If you are putting up a palace or a pasture-fence, and want to build it “for keeps”—USE +CYPRESS.</p> + +<p>There is a liberal education (and a wonderful INVESTMENT value for you) in the CYPRESS +advertising—and in the detailed information and reliable counsel to be had promptly, +WITHOUT COST, if you will WRITE US YOUR OWN NEEDS (big or little), and ASK +YOUR OWN QUESTIONS of the “All-round Helps Department” of the</p> + +<p class="center"><span class="larger">Southern Cypress Manufacturers’ Association</span><br> +1219 HIBERNIA BANK BUILDING, NEW ORLEANS, LA.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="ad-cypress-4" style="max-width: 64.0625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-cypress-4.jpg" alt="CYPRESS “THE WOOD + ETERNAL” / CYPRESS DEFIES DECAY / CYPRESS AVERTS REPAIR BILLS / CYPRESS + LASTS PRACTICALLY FOREVER / CYPRESS “THE WOOD ETERNAL”"> +</figure> + +<p class="center smaller">Probably your lumber man sells CYPRESS; if not, <i>WRITE US</i>, and we will tell you the dealer handiest to you</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap"> + +<div class="box"> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="ad-red-gum-1" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-red-gum-1.jpg" alt="RED GUM"> +</figure> + +<p class="center larger">AMERICA’S FINEST HARDWOOD</p> + +<p>Three years ago the architect or builder would have had a hard +time to find any building of importance in the United States in which +the owner had been courageous enough to use RED GUM trim.</p> + +<p>Today there are thousands of apartment houses, banks, hotels, +office buildings and fine residences from New York to Frisco in which +RED GUM has been deliberately chosen for the trim because of its +great beauty and <i>entire practicability</i>.</p> + +<p class="center larger">RED GUM <span class="smaller">is no longer a competing wood +for luxurious interiors.</span></p> + +<p class="center larger">RED GUM <span class="smaller">is now <i>FIRST CHOICE</i> with people of +<i>selective taste</i>.</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="ad-red-gum-2" style="max-width: 31.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/ad-red-gum-2.jpg" alt="SAP GUM"> +</figure> + +<p>Where White Enamel trim is required, SAP GUM is <i>the ideal +material</i>. Not only does it <i>take</i> and <i>hold</i> white enamel <i>better than any +other wood</i>, but it is possible to get good SAP GUM cheaper than any +other wood hitherto used for white enamel woodwork.</p> + +<p>SAP GUM presents remarkable qualities where moderate priced +trim of good appearance is desired. Another field in which SAP GUM +has reached supremacy is in the manufacture of porch columns.</p> + +<p>SAP GUM takes stains and wood dyes beautifully, and all the +popular finishes are easily reproduced in SAP GUM.</p> + +<p class="mt2"><i>Write any firm below for Samples of Red Gum and Sap Gum both rough +and finished, and for market prices of selected Gum Lumber.</i></p> + +<table> + <tr> + <td>Himmelberger-Harrison Lumber Company,</td> + <td class="tdr">Cape Girardeau, Missouri</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Charles F. Luehrmann Hardwood Lumber Co.,</td> + <td class="tdr">St. Louis, Missouri</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Carrier Lumber & Mfg. Company</td> + <td class="tdr">Sardis, Mississippi</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Three States Lumber Company</td> + <td class="tdr">Memphis, Tennessee</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Lamb-Fish Lumber Company</td> + <td class="tdr">Charleston, Mississippi</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Baker Lumber Co.</td> + <td class="tdr">Turrell, Arkansas</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td>Anderson-Tully Co.</td> + <td class="tdr">Memphis, Tennessee</td> + </tr> +</table> + +</div> + +<p class="titlepage"><span class="smcap">Press of<br> +F. P. BURNAP STA. & PTG. CO.<br> +Kansas City, Mo.</span></p> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78622 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-1.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..29e2a4f --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-1.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-2.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b452fb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-2.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-3.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c62a027 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-3.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-4.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..01f9951 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-cypress-4.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-lumber.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-lumber.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9ad080 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-lumber.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-1.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4a0920 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-1.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-2.jpg b/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1d30eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/ad-red-gum-2.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/cover.jpg b/78622-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..15079e0 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/deco.jpg b/78622-h/images/deco.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..0a88ca6 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/deco.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus1.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus1.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1b2de09 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus1.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus2.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus2.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..b30dbc1 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus2.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus3.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus3.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9af31bc --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus3.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus4.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus4.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..9fbd1b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus4.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus5.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus5.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c5758ac --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus5.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus6.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus6.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..04a958c --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus6.jpg diff --git a/78622-h/images/illus7.jpg b/78622-h/images/illus7.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4cd30db --- /dev/null +++ b/78622-h/images/illus7.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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