46 



CONSERVATION 



fifty minutes fifty per cent? If it would not, 

 then the history of China is a lie ; then the 

 history of France is false. Three hundred 

 years ago France swept the forests from its 

 hillside, and its soil was eroded and washed 

 into its harbors. If what I say is not true, 

 then France has spent $200,000,000 since then 

 to reforest its mountainsides for nothing. 



The country that does not have forest 

 growth is like a house without a roof — unin- 

 habitable and worthless to the people. 



You may talk about preparing your Missis- 

 sippi for transportation of the products of 

 the country. You may talk about the con- 

 servation of your coal and iron and gas and 

 oil and all that. Coal, iron, gas, o\\ and 

 other minerals are only created once in the 

 creation of the world, and all you can do is 

 to handle them as carefully and as economi- 

 cally as you can ; you cannot replace a pound 

 of them. But your forests — the great ob- 

 jective point, it seems to me, in these splendid 

 conferences we are having — must be saved, 

 and you can only save them by careful hand- 

 ling and by planting. 



Now, go home, and get your legislatures 

 to furnish the money. Build your tree gar- 

 dens. Go amongst the people and relieve 

 their land, that is dedicated to forests upon 

 the farms, from taxation. Encourage your 

 people. Give them the trees free. Let the 

 State furnish its people with the trees free of 

 charge in order to encourage them, and then 

 relieve them from taxation on the land dedi- 



cated to the forests, and you will get every 

 farmer to raising trees. 



Think of what we in New York are doing. 

 The pioneer in the work, twenty-three years 

 old. Held up sometimes as an example. We 

 are doing a lot of things that we do not ask 

 the National Government to help us in. We 

 know we would not get its help. We are 

 going to take care of it ourselves. We are 

 spending $500,000, $600,000, $700,000, $800,- 

 000, $1,000,000 a year in buying lanu, and we 

 are going to keep it up. 



Get your farmers to planting trees. We 

 are building tree gardens all over the State, 

 raising millions and millions of pine trees. 

 We don't plant the poor kinds of trees. We 

 get the best commercial tree, that grows the 

 fastest. The hardwoods will take care of 

 themselves if we let them alone and keep the 

 cattle out. Plant pine trees, plant spruce 

 trees, plant in the South the tree that grows 

 the best there and is the best commercial 

 tree. But you have all got to plant. 



What are we doing? Every Christmas we 

 are cutting oflf two million conifer trees, and 

 the State last year planted one million nine 

 hundred thousand of them. So we went 

 back one hundred thousand trees last year in 

 that . respect. As I have said, our State is 

 the pioneer in this. We are asleep in Amer- 

 ica on this question. We have to get practi- 

 cal and get down to business alid plant trees 

 or in twenty years our children will curse us 

 for our negligence. 



Mr. Whipple's address was so fre- 

 quently interrupted by applause that the 

 continuity of his remarks was somewhat 

 broken. At the conclusion of his talk 

 Governor Johnson arose and asked for 

 time to interrogate the speaker. He 

 asked that he be enlightened as to the 

 remedy for existing conditions. He 

 said : 



"Plant trees ! I heard that last May, 

 at the White House Conference, until 

 I was black in the face. I have heard 

 it out in my part of the country for the 

 past ten years ! This thing of planting 

 trees is all right. We have got to plant 

 the trees ; but the Governor does not 

 own the farms of the people of the 

 vState of Minnesota any more than does 

 the Governor of the State of North 

 Carolina, or any of the other Gov- 

 ernors. He cannot go home and make 

 the legislature do whatever he wants 

 with the public moneys of the State, 

 because the legislature in the State is 

 the custodian of the public moneys and 

 that is true in everv State in the ITnion. 



"We want these discussions ; we want 

 all the information we can get on this 

 subject, and I was very glad that the 

 last speaker mentioned the matter of 

 exemption from taxation of forested 

 lands as means for encouraging the 

 planting of trees. It is about the only 

 reasonable and practical suggestion I 

 have heard here. 



"With regard to the matter of for- 

 estry, I think there was offered at the 

 White House Conference last May the 

 best suggestion that has been made, 

 either here or there. Unfortunately it 

 introduces a political question. But are 

 we going to avail ourselves of the vast 

 areas of Canada, by reciprocal trade re- 

 lations, or are we going to continue the 

 barrier in the way of an imaginary line, 

 which will not permit us to bring in 

 Canadian lumber as a means of pro- 

 tecting our own timber supply? 



"I know full well that there are men 

 here attending this Conference who are 

 personally interested in the manufac- 

 ture of lumber in the United States, and 



