THE IMPROVEMENT OF PLANTS 585 



The utilization of these waste lands forms one of our great national 

 problems, and the beginning of the solution of the problem rests in 

 finding the crops best adapted to such areas or in all probability in 

 breeding crops that will be adapted to them. The necessity of using 

 these waste lands in the near future is evident. Shall we plant them to 

 forest? Certainly much of this land should be in forest, or in tree 

 crops of some sort, but we want tree crops, at least in many cases, that 

 will return food as well as shelter. The Italian yield of chestnuts is 

 said to average 12 bushels per acre, and J. Eussell Smith states that 

 " the value of European mountain-side chestnut orchards equals acre 

 for acre the Illinois corn belt." The kinds of trees to plant in such 

 areas for wood, fruit, sugar, starch, camphor or forage require care- 

 ful study and the proper breeding in order to secure the best sorts 

 possible. 



But this is not all of the problem. Grain, forage and special fruit 

 crops, not necessarily forest trees, require to be as carefully considered, 

 and here again breeding to secure good races adapted to the condi- 

 tions will be the key note of success. All this requires time, and the 

 generations to follow will not have the time and certainly not the 

 money if they do not repudiate our war debts. The work should be 

 started immediately in order to obtain the results by the time conditions 

 demand them. When I urge this as one of the important national prob- 

 lems of conservation, I speak not without some authority. My life has 

 been given to agricultural work in various parts of the United States. 

 My boyhood on an Iowa farm gave me a knowledge of the rich prairie 

 regions of the west. My education in the University of ISTebraska and 

 Washington University, Missouri, extended that knowledge. My six- 

 teen years of service in the National Department of Agriculture, work- 

 ing with cotton and oranges in Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi 

 and Texas, taught me southern conditions and demands, and now my 

 experience of the last five years in Cornell University, associated with 

 that master agriculturist. Dean L. H. Bailey, has broadened my hori- 

 zon to at least some conception of the field of agricultural education. 



As to the possibilities of producing the suggested improvements in 

 plants, it again may be granted that I can speak with some degree of 

 authority in view of the fact that the great cotton, corn, timothy, 

 orange and pineapple industries have, at least in certain places, felt the 

 influence of new varieties that have gone out from my laboratory. I 

 say this not to extol myself, as any man in my place with my oppor- 

 tunity could have accomplished the same results and many would have 

 done very much more. I say it simply to lend weight to my statements. 



I can by no words of mine present this problem in its importance 

 as I see it. In no way, probably, can my efforts stir the nation to a rec- 

 ognition of the necessities of this case, so that action will not be too 

 long delayed. Recognizing the urgency of the problem as I do, how- 



VOL. LXXX. — 39. 



