68 AMERICAN FORESTRY 



of, say ten years, and then returns it to the farmer with a forest in existence 

 on what was barren land. The farmer pays simply the cost to the state of 

 raising his forest. That is merely one example of what is being done, not only 

 in one state, but in many states. 



Furthermore, many cities are creating forest reserves. You heard yes- 

 terday how one great railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad, is, by its own private 

 enterprise, creating new forest preserves, and not merely saving the forests 

 but cultivating the forests under scientiiic supervision. What is being done 

 by nation, by commonwealth and by city — and there are even some small towns, 

 like Westfleld, Massachusetts, that have private town reserves, and the in- 

 crease of parks is doing very much — what is being done, I say, by nation, by 

 commonwealth, by city, by corporations and by individuals can he very much 

 supplemented by our institutions of learning. I wish very much that the 

 other colleges of the United States would follow along the path where 

 Lehigh University has paved the way. Lehigh, up there in the hills of 

 Pennsylvania, has a series of lecture courses open to the public. It under- 

 takes to maintain no special forest school but it is a center of information 

 on the subject of forest preservation and forestry construction. All the dis- 

 trict round about, all the citizens in that neighborhood, are carefully in- 

 formed, and their enthusiasm kept alive by the efforts of our friend of for- 

 estry, Dr. Drinker, and by the able faculty which cooperates with him, in 

 spreading such useful and patriotic knowledge among their fellow citizens 

 in that part of the country. 



Not merely the colleges that maintain forest schools, like Yale and 

 Harvard, but every college, every high school can be a center for the dissem- 

 ination of this knowledge for the common good and the common country and 

 for the making of our national life happier and better here in the United 

 States of America. 



What one feature of daily life can conduce more than the forest and the 

 tree, whether in a forest or not, to human happiness? The tremendous 

 sacrifice, loss and waste which has been made in this direction in the last ten 

 years, is pretty well evidenced by the barometer of human comfort, the cost 

 of the necessities of life. Our reckless policy in regard to the forest, and the 

 neglect of conservation by Congress, has cost the people of the United States 

 millions of dollars in every retail purcha.se they make. The cost of all kinds 

 of lumber — look at the market reports — has increased one hundred per cent 

 in fifteen years. Every kind of wood has advanced in price. There is no one 

 article which enters into the cost of living which has been so advanced in cost 

 to the people as wood and timber and the products of the forest, as a direct 

 result, not merely of the wasteful methods of the private owners of forests, 

 but as a result of neglect of national forest reserves by the national govern- 

 ment. When we ask to have the pa.ssage of a bill conserving the forests, we 

 ask also to have the national govei iment help us to keep down the price of 

 that particular necessity of liTe, wuich has advanced more highly than any 

 other one in the entire list. 



I use, of course, more illustrations from my own commonwealth, because 

 that is the one that is the most familiar to me, and where I can speak with 

 absolute exactness and authority. Massachusetts in area is fifth from the 

 bottom of all the states in the American Union. As far as wood manufacture 

 is concerned, we stand very nearly at the foot of the list. We have something 

 to say when the manufacture of cotton, or the manufacture of wool, or the 

 manufacture of leather, or the manufacture of rubber, or the manufacture of 

 boots or shoes, or the manufacture of cotton machinery is concerned; but 

 Massachusetts cannot brag of her wood working industries — we are almost 



