FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



He actively discussed big questions in the Biological Society, 

 and also attended the Entomological Society, where he helped 

 to broaden the talk into the bigger phases of biology. His illus- 

 trated lecture on "The Battle of the Forest," given at one of the 

 Saturday afternoon public functions of the Biological Society at 

 the National Museum, was very notable. President Schurman 

 consulted me about his appointment at Cornell, and I pointedly 

 remarked that, entirely aside from Fernow's high standing in 

 forestry, it would be a big thing for Cornell to have a person 

 of such culture in its faculty, on account of the unconscious in- 

 fluence that such a man exerts, not only on the students, but on 

 the other members of the professional staff. 



He had been there but a few years when the State stopped 

 appropriations for the school, because of the protests of wealthy 

 landowners in the Adirondacks against the system of reforesta- 

 tion that Fernow was introducing on public lands adjoining 

 their holdings. 



I was a trustee of Cornell at the time, and I tried to induce 

 the Board to continue the school even without the State appro- 

 priation, on the ground that they had practically guaranteed 

 the course to the students already enrolled, and on the ground 

 also that the first forestry school in the United States should not 

 be abandoned in a cowardly way. I argued the question at length 

 and there was a heated discussion. Ex-Governor Stewart L. 

 Woodford was in the chair and was about to put the question 

 after my final speech when President Schurman interposed and 

 took the wind quite out of my sails. He jumped to his feet 

 and said, "Before this question is put, I should like the Board to 

 know on whose advice I recommended Dr. Fernow as the first 

 Director of the School of Forestry. It was done on the advice 

 of the late Abram S. Hewitt of New York and of Dr. L. O. 

 Howard of Washington." The question was put and I was de- 



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