674 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



to remind you that if this bill becomes a 

 law the sum of $200,000 will be appropriated 

 by the Federal Government to enable the 

 Secretary of Agriculture to co-opertae with 

 the states, when requested to do so, in organ- 

 izing and maintaining a system of fire pro- 

 tection on private or state forest lands sit- 

 uated upon the watersheds of navigable 

 rivers. The amount expended in any state 

 will not exceed the amount appropriated by 

 that state for the same purpose in the same 

 fiscal year. No agreement will be made, 

 however, with any state that has not pro- 

 vided by law for a system of forest fire pro- 

 tection. In order, therefore, that the South- 

 ern states may take advantage of this pro- 

 vision in the proposed law I can not urge 

 too strongly the organization of such pro- 

 tective systems. 



The next speaker was Dr. W J McGee. 

 soil-water expert of the U. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, whose subject was the con- 

 servation of the soil. Dr. McGee pointed out 

 that the soil products of the south are three 

 times as valuable as the mine products, and 

 contended that whatever threatened the 

 productivity of the soil should not be suf- 

 fered to go unchecked. "The water supply 

 of the United States," he said, "is only one- 

 half enough to make all our territory pro- 

 ductive, as it is, and this shows how impera- 

 tive is the need to save every drop of this 

 supply." In conclusion, he added : 



To this end we must begin immediately 

 the conservation of the forests at the head 

 of our streams. In the state of nature in 

 this section, the streams were clear as crys- 

 tal, while now they are red with the blood 

 of the land which is being washed away to 

 some day build up an empire in the Gulf of 

 Mexico. Freshets, such as we now have as 



a result of deforestation are ruinous to both 

 hills and valleys alike and must be checked 

 if we would save our one most valuable 

 asset — our soil. 



J. B. White of Kansas City followed 

 with an address on "The Lumberman's In- 

 terest in Conservation." The most impor- 

 tant point made by Captain White was that 

 lumber is now, and always has been, sold for 

 less than its true value. In discussing this 

 he followed closely the lines taken the day 

 before by Dr. Hayes. He contended that 

 "If forest conservation is ever to be a suc- 

 cess, lumber has got to be worth more 

 monev than it is now. It must bring what 

 it will cost to produce it. It is our duty to 

 educate the people to this fact, and that if 

 conservation comes the people will have to 

 pay the bill. There is no way of saddling 

 this cost upon the lumbermen. It has got 

 to come fairly upon all classes." 



The remaining speakers at the morning 

 session were Mrs. J. K. Ottley ; Dr. J. Hyde 

 Pratt, president of the Annalachi;m Good 

 Roads Association; J. H. Finney, Secretary 

 of the Southern Appalachian Association, 

 and Dr. Thomas D. Coleman of Augusta. 



President Worsham presided at the clos- 

 ing session, the first part of which was 



taken up by the address of Philip Werlein, 

 president of the New Orleans Progressive 

 Union and short speeches by a number of the 

 more prominent persons present. The clos- 

 ing address was by Theodore Roosevelt, 

 who touched upon the need of forest conser- 

 vation in the South, as follows : 



The South has the last hardwood forests 

 of great industrial value on the North Ameri- 

 can continent. There are coniferous for- 

 ests placed elsewhere that are not ex- 

 hausted. I hope the South will use those 

 hardwood forests in such fashion as to get 

 the very utmost business value out of them of 

 which they are capable, provided that the use 

 is always conditioned upon keeping the forests 

 so that our children and children's children 

 shall have their portion of the benefit from 

 them. Cut every big tree that is worth 

 cutting, cut all the timber that can now be 

 used, but cut it in such fashion and use 

 such safeguards that the forests will still 

 remain, that the young trees will remain to 

 grow up in their turn into trees that can 

 be used by your children and your children's 

 children in their turn. Treat each forest as 

 an asset of the country as a whole, as the 

 wise farmer treats his land as, not a merely 

 personal asset for himself, but as an asset 

 for his family. 



I hope that Congress will pass the bill 

 for the creation of the great Appalachian for- 

 est. Those forests lie in several different 

 states. The waters which rise in them 

 go through more than one state, and it should 

 be peculiarly the work of the national gov- 

 ernment to see to their preservation. I hope 

 that every one of your representatives in 

 Congress will bestir himself in this matter. 



Before adjourning, the Congress adopted 

 the following: 



STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES AND 

 POLICIES 



This Southern Conservation Congress in 

 session assembled in the City of Atlanta, 

 State of Georgia, on this 8th day of October, 

 1910, after full deliberation on matters of 

 vital moment to the people of the South, 

 and througn them, to the people of the 

 entire Nation, does hereby adopt and_ de- 

 clare the following statement of principles 

 and policies. 



We hold firmly and unalterably that such 

 conservation of our natural resources as 

 is consistent with their proper and wise 

 utilization is a deep moral obligation, and 

 that only through recognition and observance 

 of this obligation can the perpetuity of our 

 people be assured. 



Pleading for posterity whose rights we 

 hold to be a sacred trust, we enjoin our 

 generation against all needless waste of those 

 abounding resources with which our country 

 is blessed. 



Holding it within the legal power of the 

 state as fixed in the Constitution and es- 

 tablished by a decision of the Supreme 



