532 



CONSERVATION 



the entire season of eleven weeks. He 

 might give the same lecture or enter- 

 tainment at each point visited, or he 

 might vary it. The season began at 

 Winona, Minnesota, on June i6, and 

 ended at Salisbury, Missouri, on Au- 

 gust 30. 



Continuing eleven weeks, and serv- 

 ing six towns per week, the Redpaths 

 held sixty-six Chautauquas in the sum- 

 mer of 1908. Of these, two were in 

 Wisconsin, six in Minnesota, nineteen 

 in Missouri, and thirty-nine in Iowa. 

 On rare occasions, a session was broken 

 up by a violent rainstorm. As a rule, 

 however, eighteen sessions were held in 

 each town visited. Tickets cost $1.50 

 each. Single admission was charged 

 for at a higher, variable rate. 



The writer began at the beginning 

 and stayed to the end of the Redpath 

 season. He visited each of the sixty- 

 six towns and spoke at sixty-four. At 

 two, Dubuque, Iowa, and Savannah, 

 Missouri, though present and ready, he 

 was hindered from speaking by furious 

 rainstorms. He carried with him a 

 handsome set of slides and a first-class 

 lantern and outfit. He was accompan- 

 ied by an operator, who attended for 

 the most part to lantern, curtain, bag- 

 gage, and the like. 



The audiences addressed at these 

 sixty- four meetings were conservatively 

 estimated at about 1,000 each. In 

 addition, much space — commonly from 

 one column to two columns — was 

 given by the local press to reports of the 

 lecture on conservation. Thus the 

 number reached through the press was 

 probably very much larger than the 

 number reached in the tents. Marked 

 copies of papers reporting the lectures 

 were also quite commonly sent to the 

 representatives and senators of the 

 states in which the lectures were given. 

 To most of the hearers, the subject of 

 general conservation and even that of 

 forestry seemed practically new. Ear- 

 nest expressions of approval were, how- 

 ever, constantly heard, some auditors 

 declaring the conservation lecture to be 

 worth the entire price of the one-week 

 season ticket to the Chautauqua. 



Among the speakers with whom the 

 writer was privileged to associate on 

 this tour may be mentioned the Rev. 

 Samuel Parkes Cadman of Brooklyn ; 

 Dr. John S. Carson, of Brooklyn ; Hon. 

 David A. De Armond, congressman 

 from Missouri ; Judge Lee S. Estelle, of 

 Omaha ; Thomas Brooks Fletcher, 

 of Cleveland ; Rev. Samuel Garvin, 

 of Kansas City ; Dr. Thomas E. Green, 

 of Chicago ; Gov. Warren G. Harding, 

 of Ohio ; Gov. E. W. Hoch of Kansas ; 

 Capt. Richmond Pearson Hobson, of 

 xAlabama; Judge Ben B. Lindsey, of 

 Denver ; Mr. George L. McNutt ; Opie 

 Read, of Chicago ; Senator Robert L. 

 Taylor, of Tennessee ; and Dr. E. A. 

 Winship, of Boston. A majority of 

 these men spoke in high terms of the 

 importance of the writer's mission. An 

 officer of the Redpath Chautauqua Sys- 

 tem said the lecture was the type of 

 what, in his judgment was ideal Chau- 

 tauqua work — solid instruction on a 

 vital theme, combined with a measure 

 of entertainment. 



As a medium for presenting forestry 

 and allied truths to the ear and eye of 

 the people who make up the bone and 

 sinew of the common life, the Chau- 

 tauqua has no equal. A certain con- 

 tingent comes merely to be entertained, 

 and may not stay to the end of a solid 

 lecture. The great majority will, how- 

 ever, listen intently to every word. 

 Seed may thus be sown which will, in 

 time, bear a rich fruitage. Hence, no 

 more important work could be done by 

 the Association than to cultivate the 

 Chautauqua field. 



In closing, the writer may mention a 

 personal experience. On August 25 he 

 spoke at Carrollton, Missouri, the county 

 seat of Carroll County. As a boy, he 

 had lived in that county and now re- 

 turned to it for the first time in thirty- 

 one years. With feelings probably 

 similar to those of Goldsmith, author of 

 "The Deserted Village," he visited the 

 home of his childhood, to find it re- 

 duced to a corn field ; one of the few 

 traces still remaining of the old home 

 site being the newly-made stump, over 

 three feet in diameter, of a magnificent 

 maple tree planted by his father nearly 

 forty years ago. 



