134 



FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION 



March 



Association, as read by Treasurer Otto 

 Luebkert, was unanimously received, 

 approved, and filed. 



MR. PINCHOT's address. 



Continued applause greeted Mr. 

 Gifford Pinchot, the forester of the U. 

 S. Department of Agriculture, who 

 was introduced by Colonel Harvey as 

 "the custodian and trustee of the 

 largest and most valuable asset of any 

 single corporation in the world — 

 162,000,000 acres of land, of which it 

 is almost impossible to compute the 

 present value, in billions, and of which 

 the future value is beyond estimate." 



Mr. Pinchot traced the progress of 

 forestry in the United States from the 

 earliest times, and guided his hearers 

 step by step through all the successive 

 stages of its growth and retrogres- 

 sion in the uncertain and precarious 

 conditions of the past, to the success- 

 ful and promising awakening of the 

 present, and to the outlook for a fu- 

 ture whose scope, whose power for 

 good, and whose far-reaching, all- 

 embracing magnitude not even the 

 wisest is as yet fully able to compre- 

 hend. 



In his address, Mr. Pinchot gave 

 great credit to President Roosevelt 

 for his farsighted policy of preserving 

 all the country's natural resources, 

 which moved Colonel Harvey to re- 

 mark that Mr. Pinchot, in his mod- 

 esty had neglected to mention "the 

 power behind the throne." President 

 Roosevelt, in his address before the 

 National Editorial Association, at 

 Jamestown, June 10, 1907, described 

 the plans for preserving the water, the 

 forage, the coal, and the timber, and 

 said, "In all four movements my chief 

 adviser, and the man first to suggest 

 to me the courses which have actually 

 proved so beneficial, was Mr. Gififord 

 Pinchot, the Chief of the National 

 Forest Service." 



OTHER ADDRESSES SUMMARIZED. 



Dr. J. T. Rothrock, of West Chester, 

 Pa., secretary of the Pennsylvania For- 



estry Reservation Commission, gave 

 figures to prove that timber lands are 

 daily increasing in value; he made a 

 plea for the immediate purchase of the 

 proposed Appalachian National For- 

 ests, saying that the longer we wait 

 the more we will have to pay. 



Gen. John W. Noble, of St. Louis, 

 who was Secretary of the Interior un- 

 der President Harrison, and who in 

 that capacity issued the first order for 

 the preserving of National Forests, 

 and who set apart the Yellowstone and 

 Yosemite National Parks, urged the 

 ^continuance of the present National 

 Forest policy. 



Hon. W. A. Reeder. of Kansas, 

 chairman of the House Committee on 

 Irrigation of Arid Lands, declared 

 himself an ardent advocate of forest 

 preservation ; he emphasized Forester 

 Pinchot's contention that the electrical 

 power of the future, for heating and 

 lighting homes and for culinary pur- 

 poses, depends upon the water power 

 which is conserved by the forests. 



Mr. J. A. Pack, of Cleveland, Ohio, 

 and of Lakewood, N. J., a timber land 

 owner, spoke against high taxation of 

 timber lands. 



Along the line of educational work 

 undertaken by the American Forestry 

 Association, Colonel Harvey here men- 

 tioned the weekly press bulletins, which 

 are sent to 1,500 newspapers through- 

 out the United States. 



He also spoke of the Washington 

 newspaper correspondents, members 

 of the Gridiron Club, representing 

 newspapers and news syndicates in 

 Boston, Philadelphia, New York, De- 

 troit, and other cities, who were sent 

 in a special car on a seven weeks' tour 

 of the West, where they visited irri- 

 gation works and the Irrigation Con- 

 gress and viewed the timber, the 

 grazing lands, and the water power, 

 and became familiar with land condi- 

 tions and land laws. 



Ex-Governor Rollins of New Hamp- 

 shire was called upon, but on account 

 of illness was not present, much to the 

 regret of the Association. 



Chairman Harvey read a letter from 



