182 State HovticMltural Society. 



known varieties, seeds that have been on the market for years and 

 can be obtained from any grocer in our home town. It entails a 

 useless expense of not less than half a million a year, and does our 

 seed men great injustice. These subjects are respectfully referred 

 to our Committee on Resolutions. 



And now, citizens of Boonville, we thank you for your presence 

 tonight. We are glad to see you, and hope you will come back at 

 least each night. Bring some neighbor with you. Take an extra 

 program along and show it. Each can find something interesting 

 and useful in it. All our sessions, except a business session Thurs- 

 day morning, are open to the pubrc, and to them you will be heartily 

 welcome. 



Violin Solo — Capt. Henry Bassert, Kemper Military School, 

 Boonville, Mo. 



Accompanist — Mr. A. H. Sauters. 



TREES AND FORESTS. 



(Anna L. Olark, Boonville, Mo.) 



It is most fitting that the State Horticultural Society of Mis- 

 souri should interest itself in the growth of trees and in the preser- 

 vation of forests. This interest is especially timely in Missouri, 

 where the forests are being destroyed with a ruthless hand, with no 

 thought of the value of tree-growth, its beauty, or of the evils at- 

 tendant upon the stripping of the land of its trees, the destruction 

 of its birds and game, the loss of the varied life of bloom and fruit. 

 Before the destruction of the forests goes too far, it is to be hoped 

 that the State Legislature will take some action in the matter, and 

 have introduced in the State some scientific forestration which will 

 bring us larger commercial returns than now prevail through waste- 

 ful methods of cutting timber. When one considers that the price of 

 lumber rises IV2 per cent a year, though stone, iron and steel have 

 taken the place of wood as building material, and that coal has re- 

 placed it as fuel, it would seem that the perpetuation and preserva- 

 tion of the forests would be the first consideration of the lumber- 

 man. In place of skinning the land and leaving it as bare as the 

 floor of a desert, he should study scientific methods to make of the 

 forests a source of ever increasing gain to him. If the present rate 

 of forest destruction is allowed to continue, there will surely come 

 a tree famine, for not alone is the lumberman responsible for this 

 destruction, but fire is one of its greatest enemies. If it was not 



