TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



65 



do the right thing along these lines. We 

 did plant in Iowa, when we went there lirst, 

 which was over half a century ago. The 

 winds had a magnificent sweep there at 

 that time. It was so bad I have been driven 

 off a haystack many times. I could not 

 stay on the haystack long enough to get 

 sufficient hay for a team of horses half a 

 century ago. We began planting trees, and 

 we planted them along the lines of the 

 road; we planted them along the sub-divi- 

 sion lines of the farms. We planted the 

 lirst thing we could get, which means we 

 went to the bottoms and got cottonwoods. 

 They have been despised, yet they are 

 valuable. We are discovering now how to 

 prepare those soft cottonwood trees so they 

 will last. Then we thought the white wil- 

 low was better and we planted many of those. 

 I have had as much as five miles of white 

 willows on my home farm. Then along 

 came the automobile men, and they went to 

 the legislature and got them to enact a 

 statute compelling us to cut all those hedges 

 down to four feet in height, so they would 

 not hold snow and keep the roads in bad 

 shape for the automobile people, and so we 

 had to begin cutting and slashing those 

 trees that broke winds off of us in Iowa. 



The next question is how to get tree seeds 

 to grow, particularly out West in the forest 

 ranges. We have 168,000,000 acres now. 

 Last summer I went out West among the 

 trees, as I have been doing for two 

 summers. A question has been _ in 

 our minds, how to get reforestation 

 done. Of course you can plant seeds 

 in a bed and then take them up with a spade 

 and set them where you want them set, and 

 all that; but, if the Department of Agricul- 

 ture had all the army and all the navy, they 

 never could get it done in time. We have 

 probably 5,000,000 acres to plant. We 

 ought to be reforesting a quarter of a mil- 

 lion acres a year — think of that! You can 

 never in the world do that with a spade! 

 Nature's plan should be followed in this 

 sort of work. I recollect the first time I 

 went out West and discussed this proposi- 

 tion with some of the people there. If I 

 were wanting to get a field to grow grass 

 that had no grass on it, I would sow the 

 grass seed on the last snows in the spring, 

 and the seed would sink down in the soil 

 and would be moistened and would germi- 

 nate before the moisture from the spring rains 

 and snows deleteriously affected the roots. 

 That is the way we get pastures quickly. 

 Sow the seeds in the last snows in the 

 spring, and you will get results. "I wish 

 you would try that with regard to refores- 

 tation," I said to them. I was then in the 



Black Hills, speaking to some of our forest 

 people. They said they would try it. I 

 told them to get their seed in ample quantity 

 in the fall, take an eighty-acre tract in the 

 spring, and sow on the last snows. I was 

 out there again last summer. It was three 

 years since I had been there and made that 

 suggestion, and they had carried it out. 1 

 drove thirty-five miles to see that eighty- 

 acre tract. It seemed to me that every seed 

 had grown, and that was a mile above the 

 level of the sea. I saw at once that the 

 plan was a success a mile above the level 

 of the sea; but last summer I was at places 

 where they were over two miles above the 

 level of the sea. Will it work there? That 

 is the problem for my people in the Forestry 

 Bureau to solve. Can we do that away 

 up near the timber line, which is generally 

 10,000 or 11,000 feet above the level of the 

 sea? That is a practical question for our 

 people to solve. They are working on it 

 now in the effort to demonstrate whether or 

 not it is feasible. 



It is difficult to get seed to plant as much 

 as we should plant. We will have to search 

 the ends of the earth to get tree seeds of al- 

 most any kind that promises to do us any 

 good, and try to get these mountains, that 

 are entirely bare now, in a reforested condi- 

 tion. 



Let me go back to my original proposi- 

 tion, because that is the one thing I arose 

 to say to you to-day. If it does not please 

 Congress, in its wisdom, to take hold of 

 these mountain ranges, let us take hold of 

 them ourselves, as citizens of States, as 

 members of associations, of corporations, 

 and societies, and as individual farmers. Let 

 us take hold of the problem and push it. 

 The time is coming when trees are going to 

 be as scarce as diamonds — yes, as scarce as 

 diamonds. They are getting scarcer and 

 scarcer every day. We have 40,000,000 acres 

 in the Philippines that the Government is 

 holding for the Filipinos. We may go there 

 some day and get some of that; we may 

 hunt the world over for wood, and all that 

 sort of thing. It will not take us a great 

 while, at the rate we are now going, to reduce 

 the supply of wood all over the world ; but we 

 are not doing our duty. This Association 

 has been doing much, but we must not de- 

 pend too much on Congress to do for us. 

 We must set our heads and set our faces 

 and set our teeth with the determination 

 that we are going to get reforestation in 

 this country, and that we are going to get 

 trees enough growing if we have to do it 

 ourselves, for that is the best way to get 

 things done. 



