300 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



June 



due to reckless and wasteful use, once more 

 calls for common effort, common action. 



Since the days when the Constitution was 

 adopted, steam and electricity have revolu- 

 tionized the industrial world. Nowhere has 

 the revolution been so great as in our own 

 country. The discovery and utilization of 

 mineral fuels and alloys have given us the 

 lead over all other nations in the produc- 

 tion of steel. The discovery and utilization 

 of coal and iron have given us our railways, 

 and have led to such industrial develop- 

 ment as has never before been seen. The 

 vast wealth of lumber in our forests, the 

 riches of our soils and mines, the discovery 

 of coal and mineral oils, combined with the 

 efficiency of our transportation, have made 

 the conditions of our life unparalleled in 

 comfort and convenience. 



The steadily increasing drain on these 

 natural resources has promoted to an ex- 

 traordinary degree the complexity of our 

 industrial and social ilfe. Moreover, this 

 unexampled development has had a deter- 

 mining effect upon the character and opin- 

 ions of our people. The demand for effi- 

 ciency in the great task has given us vigor, 

 effectiveness, decision, and power, and a ca- 

 pacity for achievement which in its own 

 lines has never yet been matched. (Ap- 

 plause.) So great and so rapid has been 

 our material growth that there has been a 

 tendency to lag behind in spiritual and 

 moral growth (laughter and applause) ; but 

 that is not the subject upon which I speak 

 to you to-day. 



Disregarding for the moment the ques- 

 tion of moral purpose, it is safe to say that 

 the prosperity of our people depends direct- 

 ly on the energy and intelligence with which 

 our natural resources are used. It is equal- 

 ly clear that these resources are the final 

 basis of national power and perpetuity. 

 Finally, it is ominously evident that these 

 resources are in the course of rapid ex- 

 haustion. 



This Nation began with the belief that its 

 landed possessions were illimitable and ca- 

 pable of supporting all the people who 

 might care to make our country their 

 home ; but already the lirpit of unsettled 

 land is in sight, and indeea but little land 

 fitted for agriculture now remains unoccu- 

 pied save what can be reclaimed by irriga- 

 tion and drainage. We began with an un- 

 approached heritage of forests ; more than 

 half of the timber is gone. We began with 

 coal fields more extensive than those of any 

 other nation, and with iron ores regarded 

 as inexhaustible, and many experts now de- 

 clare that the end of both coal and iron is 

 in sight. 



The mere increase in the consumption of 

 coal during 1907 over 1906 exceeded the 

 total consumption in 1876, the Centennial 

 year. The enormous stores of mineral oil 

 and gas are largely gone. Our natural 

 waterways are not gone, but they have been 

 so injured by neglect, and by the division 



of responsibility and utter lack of system 

 in dealing with them, that there is less navi- 

 gation on them now than there was fifty 

 years ago. Finally, we began with soils of 

 unexampled fertility and we have so im- 

 poverished them by injudicious use and by 

 failing to check erosion that their crop pro- 

 ducing power is diminishing instead of in- 

 creasing. In a word, we have thoughtless- 

 ly, and to a large degree unnecessarily, di- 

 minished the resources upon which not only 

 our prosperity but the prosperity of our 

 children must always depend. 



We have become great because of the 

 lavish use of our resources, and we have 

 just reason to be proud of our growth. But 

 the time has come to inquire seriously what 

 will happen when our forests are gone, 

 when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas 

 are exhausted, when the soils shall have 

 been still further impoverished and washed 

 into the streams, polluting the rivers, de- 

 nuding the fields, and obstructing naviga- 

 tion. These questions do not relate only to- 

 the next century or to the next generation. 

 It is time for us now as a Nation to exer- 

 cise the same reasonable foresight in deal- 

 ing with our great natural resources that 

 would be shown by any prudent man in 

 conserving and wisely using the property 

 which contains the assurance of well being 

 for himself and his children. 



The natural resources I have enumerated 

 can be divided into two sharply distin- 

 guished classes accordingly as they are or 

 are not capable of renewal. Mines if used 

 must necessarily be exhausted. The miner- 

 als do not and cannot renew themselves. 

 Therefore, in dealing with the coal, the oil,. 

 the gas, the iron, the metals generally, all 

 that we can do is to try to see that they are 

 wisely used. The exhaustion is certain to 

 come in time. 



The second class of resources consists of 

 those which cannot only be used in such 

 manner as to leave them undiminished for 

 our children, but can actually be improved 

 by wise use. The soil, the forests, and the 

 waterways come in this category. In deal- 

 ing with mineral resources, man is able to 

 improve on nature only by putting the re- 

 sources to a beneficial use, which in the end 

 exhausts them; but in dealing with the soil 

 and its products man can improve on nature 

 by compelling the resources to renew and 

 even reconstruct themselves in such manner 

 as to serve increasingly beneficial uses — 

 while the living waters can be so controlled 

 as to multiply their benefits. 



Neither the primitive man nor the pioneer 

 was aware of any duty to posterity in deal- 

 ing with the renewable resources. When- 

 the American settler felled the forests, he 

 felt that there was plenty of forest left for 

 the sons that came after him. When he ex- 

 hausted the soil of his farm he felt that his 

 son could go West and take up another. So 

 it was with his immediate successors. When- 

 the soil-wash from the farmer's fields 



