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+*** 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 ***
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