AN EPOCH-MAKING CONFERENCE 



293 



elms and the beauty of the Parkway, besides the millions 

 of dollars, they objected, and determined to save the 

 trees and beauty — and they did. 



Petitions were signed, street corner meetings were 

 held, and in other ways the people showed how they felt 

 and what they wanted. It was a long fight; there were 

 hearings galore, and it continued until the work began. 

 By this time Park Commissioner Ingersoll had a new set 

 of plans ready to submit to the Public Service Commis- 

 sion. The people kept pounding hard and the new plans 

 were adopted, though the destruction continued until 

 they went into effect. 



The contracts now call for double-decked track con- 

 struction. The work is being pushed from an open cut, 

 and men from the Park department are on guard, making 

 sure that only the trees specified are taken out. Because 

 of the new contracts more than 800 trees are saved, as 



well as a half million dollars in constiixction. Compara- 

 tively few have been cut, but the stations doomed a 

 number. The contractors are required to replace all taken 

 out. All the trees have been inspected and arranged in 

 three classes: those that must be saved; those that should 

 be saved, and those that must go. In some places novel 

 engineering tactics were used in "shoring up" the roots 

 exposed by the excavation. 



At first the contractors looked askance at this idea of 

 changing approved plans to save trees; they thought it 

 would mean added trouble and expense, but when they 

 felt the force of the public will, objections were no longer 

 offered. The change proved to be an advantage and sav- 

 ing, and their present attitude may be judged by the 

 action of the Intercontinental Construction Company, 

 which was given permission to cut 145 trees and found it 

 necessary to cut only 100. 



AN EPOCH-MAKING CONFERENCE 



BY HERMAN H. CHAPMAN 



ON April 11, 12 and 13, at New Orleans, Louisiana, 

 there was held a meeting, termed the Cut-over Land 

 Conference of the South, under the auspices of the 

 Southern Pine Association, of New Orleans, and the South- 

 em Settlement and Development Association of Baltimore. 

 The sessions, which lasted for three days, were remarkable 

 for the representative character and earnestness of the 

 delegates in attendance and the number of notable men 

 on the program, and the character of the papers and talks. 

 The addresses might be classed in three groups : patri- 

 otic, scientific, and practical. Honorable Carl Vrooman, 

 Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, struck the keynote in 

 his talk on "Agriculture from a National Standpoint." He 

 vividly impressed upon his hearers the vital importance 

 of food production in the present world crisis. On the 

 South, in particular, rests a great responsibility. At 

 present, over $700,000,000 of food products are imported 

 into this region from other states. This year the South 

 must feed herself and in this way release an equivalent 

 amount of food to supply our allies in the struggle. Mr. 

 Vrooman emphasized the need for a careful classification 

 of the cut -over lands into those suitable for agriculture, and 

 those best fitted for the production of timber crops. 



Patriotism found a silver-tongued exponent in Gov- 

 ernor Charles S. Brough, of Arkansas. Southern oratory 

 deserves its reputation if it even approaches the standard 

 set by this able representative of the new South. The 

 governor cited the Book of Revelation, in a prophecy of 

 the great part America was to play in the future. "And 

 a woman shall go forth into the wilderness, — and on a 

 barren rock shall bring forth a child, — and this child shall 

 rule the world " His interpretation of this prophecy — 

 that on Plymouth Rock, in the New England wilderness, 

 the child, America, was bom, destined to lead the world 

 in the establishment of free government, — was a thovight 

 worth more than passing notice. 



The convention then took up the second phase, — a 

 scientific discussion of the possibiHties of cut-over lands. 

 The fundamental question, that of the soils and their char- 

 acteristics, was most ably treated by Mr. C. F. Marbut, 

 of the Bureau of Soils, Department of Agriculture. The 

 speaker dealt only with the so-called "coastal plains " soils, 

 omitting the alluvial lands of the Mississippi Valley. Only 

 the portions not already developed as farms were included 

 — and in this part of the South — for the States of Texas, 

 Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, the unde- 

 veloped land occupies from two to three times the area of 

 farms under cultivation. These unimproved areas Mr. 

 Marbut divided into foiu- classes of soil — sandy loam, con- 

 stituting the best type of land for permanent agriculture ; 

 wet and heavy land, suitable more largely for grazing; 

 sandy land, on which truck crops and cotton can be raised, 

 and rough or broken land, unsuitable for agriculture, on 

 which forests should be the permanent crop. The areas 

 in each of these classifications are roughly 25 per cent. 

 The total cut -over area, as brought out by other speakers, 

 is now 76,000,000 acres, and will in time amount to 250,- 

 000,000 acres. On the basis of this classification, there 

 probably exists from 40,000,000 to 50,000,000 acres of 

 permanent forest land in the Southern states. A great 

 deal of attention was devoted to the livestock industry, 

 and the grazing problem. In discussing this question, the 

 convention had the testimony not only of such experts as 

 Dr. C. V. Piper, Chief Agrostologist of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, Mr. George M. Rommel, Chief of the Animal 

 Husbandry Division of the Department of Agriculture, 

 but of several experts connected with the state agricultural 

 departments, and the testimony of a number of owners 

 of cut -over lands who had experimented with livestock. 

 No attempt was made to introduce any of the exaggerated 

 advertising common to the booster and land-speculator, 

 but the speakers talked facts, and the audience got down 



