EDITORIAL 



451 



pendence, Manchester. Anamosa. Ma- 

 quoketa, Belle Plaine, Waverly, Osag-e. 

 New Hampton, Waukon, Decorah, 

 Cresco, Mason City, Northwood, and 

 Hampton, all in Iowa ; Austin and Al- 

 bert Lea Minn., and Perry and Forest 

 City, Iowa. An address was delivered 

 at each of these points except Dubuque, 

 where the meeting was prevented by the 

 violent storm of June 20. The work 

 closes on August 30, and includes nine- 

 teen points in Missouri. A more ef- 

 fective method of breaking new ground 

 and carrying to the people the truth for 

 which the American Forestry Associa- 

 tion stands would be hard to devise. 

 The following report indicates the scope 

 of the lecture : 



"Our matchless resources have long 

 been our pride. We have thought 

 them inexhaustible. We have used 

 them prodigally and abused them un- 

 pardonably. 



"To-day two great facts face us. 

 First, is the g^rowth of our population. 

 A half century hence will find on Amer- 

 ican soil probably 200,000.000 people. 

 Feeding, clothing, and sheltering these 

 would be a problem, even though our 

 resources were unfailing as the widow's 

 cruse of oil. 



"But the second fact is more omi- 

 nous ; it is the depletion or exhaustion 

 of those resources. Buffalo, fish, arte- 

 sian water, natural gas, and oil, are 

 swiftly going or gone. Coal, chief 

 source of artificial heat and power, is 

 the basis of our material civilization. 

 Its volume is estimated as equalling a 

 cube nearly eight miles on the edge. 

 Yet we waste vastly more than we 

 utilize. Further our consumption by 

 decades, once trebling and quadrupling, 

 is still almost doubling. Unless wise 

 economies are promptly adopted another 

 hundred years may be expected to 

 empty our national coal bin. 



"Because both of their intrinsic im- 

 portance and the dependence upon them 

 of other vital resources and interests, 

 our forests are of inestimable value. 

 We consume each year enough lumber 

 to floor the State of Delaware, enough 

 shingles to shingle the District of Co- 

 lumbia, enough lath to load a train 



reaching from Chicago to Memphis, 

 enoug-h cooperage stock to build a 

 rick four feet wide and high, and ex- 

 tending from New York City to Colo- 

 rado, enough firewood to make a one- 

 mile cube, and enough railroad ties to 

 build a railway around the globe with a 

 side track across the Atlantic, while our 

 annual wood bill exceeds a billion dol- 

 lars. A New York newspaper con- 

 sumes each three months a forest as 

 large as Central Park, or 843 acres. 



"Under present policies another third 

 of a century will probably finish our 

 wood supply. The resulting tragedy 

 challenges human imagination. 



"Further, the forest is a grand, nat- 

 ural regulator of stream-flow. With de- 

 forestation comes floods, destroying- 

 agriculture, commerce, and manufac- 

 turing. 



"Our inland waters are probably our 

 greatest natural resource. Neglect and 

 railroad hostility have brought them 

 into disuse and decay. But the rail- 

 roads are now unable to handle our 

 growing traffic, and an irresistible de- 

 mand has arisen for the rehabilitation 

 of our inland waterways. A national 

 commission has been created to promote 

 this work, but it finds rivers and har- 

 bors filling with washings from fields 

 and slopes, while multiplied millions are 

 annually spent by Congress to remove 

 the effects without touching the causes. 

 Of these causes, one of the chief is for- 

 est destruction, with resulting erosion. 



"Two-fifths of the United States is 

 arid, or semi-arid. This area exceeds 

 that of the Roman Empire. Much of 

 it is irrigable. Its value, reclaimed, will 

 exceed a thousand times the cost of its 

 reclamation. 



"On June 17, 1902, Congress enacted 

 the reclamation law, placing in the 

 'Reclamation Fund' the proceeds of 

 certain public land sales. With this 

 fund, the Government is constructing 

 enormous dams, tunnels, and irrigation 

 works, and converting the desert into a 

 watered garden, the fund being con- 

 stantly renewed from payments made 

 by settlers upon these lands. Yet the 

 Director of the United States Reclama- 

 tion Service says : 'The water of this 



