TWENTY-EIGHTH ANNUAL MEETING 



67 



ever they marry a young man and young 

 woman, to plant a forest. 



Here is this problem before you and me 

 as to how a quarter of a million acres shall 

 be planted every year — not by the spade, 

 as Secretary Wilson has so well said ; not 

 by the spade, as Scott's hero expected to 

 do, but by encouraging man, woman and 

 child, state, corporation and everybody else, 

 to go into the business of forestry as neces- 

 sary for the welfare of the future. 



Just at this time, in the National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine, they have been publish- 

 ing some most pathetic letters which ought 

 to be read and known everywhere, which 

 Mr. Hunt, our Consul-General in Asia 

 Minor, has been writing, with regard to 

 Asia Minor. H you went into a tolerably 

 well equipped high school and asked who 

 was the richest man ever known in the 

 world, they would say Croesus. Croesus is 

 considered as the monarch of wealth. We 

 always say Mr. Morgan or Mr. Walsh is 

 a modern Croesus, because Croesus is the 

 image of the wealth of the classical world. 

 This classical world Mr. Hunt describes to 

 you as he journeyed up and down through 

 Asia Minor, where Croesus was one of 

 the sovereigns. It is an abomination of 

 desolation now. Ruin upon ruin exists 

 there, and you will find, in the midst of 

 great amphitheaters, where 40,000 people 

 sat 3,000 years ago, a shepherd with three 

 goats, all the result of the denudation of the 

 forests of Asia Minor, the cutting down of 

 trees there, the abolishing of forests, in ex- 

 actly the same way and with the same greed 

 with which the people of America are cut- 

 ting down their forests to-day. 



Why do not individuals rush in? I might 

 take any enterprise which means profit and 

 carry it into Wall Street, or carry it among 

 your business men here, and they would be 

 sure to ask, '"how soon will the profit 

 come?" Men of business experience tell 

 me that it is impossible to float any enter- 

 prise where the profit is not to begin within 

 eight years. That old Scotchman, to whom 

 Secretary Wilson referred, found that out. 

 He told his son to plant forests; but the 

 Secretary very wisely did not repeat what 

 he said to his son further, which was : "My 

 father told me this when he was dying, but 

 I have never had time to attend to it from 

 that time to this." That is the condition of 

 the average capitalist. He has not time to 

 attend to enterprises which are to bring 

 their results the other side of eight years. 



But states are immortal. That is what 

 the word "state" means, something which 

 is established. A state is immortal. The 

 State of New Hampshire is immortal ; the 

 State of Mississippi is immortal in the eyes 

 of the people who live there — and God 

 grant that be true. So that states can in- 

 vest in forests prudently and wisely when an 

 individual cannot invest in forests prudently 

 and wisely. 



Suppose I were a rich man and bought 

 2,000 acres of land in New Hamp- 

 shire. I cannot make laws by which a 

 loafer shall not throw a friction match into 

 a pile of leaves ; I cannot send a man to 

 arrest that loafer when it is discovered what 

 he has done. The State of New Hamp- 

 shire can do that. If, therefore, the States 

 of Massachusetts, New Hampshire or Ver- 

 mont can make an investment in forests, 

 they make an investment which they them- 

 selves can take care of and watch. That 

 is one of the reasons why states should in- 

 vest in forests. The other reason is that 

 they will want the money fifty years hence, 

 and the state, being immortal, can provide 

 money for fifty years hence, as my friends 

 around me do not think it is worth while 

 to do with the millions in their bank ac- 

 counts. The state can make an investment 

 in good faith and wisely which the individ- 

 ual cannot do. 



I brought before this Association a year 

 ago the statistics which show how the 

 European states have profited by that ar- 

 rangement. Bavaria, Prussia and all those 

 European nations which are good for any- 

 thing, owe the credit which they have in 

 the financial market to the fact that their 

 revenues from their forests are as large as 

 they are. I should say, therefore, to any 

 man who has any infliience in state govern- 

 ment, that if he can persuade the state 

 treasurer to invest the sinking funds of that 

 state in forests, he would do a thing wise 

 and prudent, and he would help this great 

 national movement. 



I will not say anything more, further than 

 to suggest that all this is much more the 

 business of the people of America than it 

 is the business of any Congress or any 

 President or any special department. The 

 people of America did a great thing when 

 they made 6,000 people members of 

 this society. Now, if we all go to work and 

 circulate the documents which are presented 

 to us, such documents as our friend Secre- 

 tary Wilson published this last year on the 

 Appalachian and White Mountain reserva- 

 tions — if we will circulate the constant infor- 

 mation which we are receiving from all 

 parts of the country as to the increasing 

 need of forests, and if we will give that 

 to the people who do not die^for corpo- 

 rations do not die, while every individual 

 does — there is no one of us but can help 

 forward this great enterprise. 



The Judiciary Committee last year issued 

 a sort of edict warning us that we must 

 not buy land for the purpose of raising 

 trees ; that that was unconstitutional. It 

 turned out, on a moment's inquiry in the 

 Navy Department and in the Interior De- 

 partment that more than 100 years 

 ago this Government began buying land 

 at the South, because it wanted live oak 

 timber, and my friend who was here could 

 tell us what became of some of that land. 



