160 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



wear out ni v welcome then. I am glad to see so many of you here as 

 there arc. I had hoped thai we might have this hall full to-day aud 

 am sorry that I » annul be with you more, but 1 have a number of ex- 

 trusive operations going on in another part of the State and had 

 simply come home for the purpose of packing up to get off, and 

 thought I would take the time to call and see you here. We are glad 

 to see you iu Chester county. We believe we have got here in Ohes- 

 tre county one of God's own spots. I have traveled over a good deal 

 of North America and am always glad to get hack to Chester county, 

 not simply because it is my home, but because I find that wherever I 

 go there is no place that appeals to me so much as this county does. 

 We have got a magnificent section of the State here. We havn't got 

 the great coal mines of the central part of the State. There are a 

 great many things that other regions have that we do not have, but 

 we have a splendid section, and we have an honest, intelligent com- 

 munity here who will welcome you I am sure with open hands and 

 open hearts. Whatever makes for the interest of agriculture, we be- 

 lieve makes for the interest of this great country. It is true that my 

 work has not been very largely in agriculture, as agriculture is under- 

 stood usually, yet I believe that the work which I have in hand and in 

 my humble way have been trying to do, is one that will help agricul- 

 ture in the end. 



Take for example the work we have been doing in the Cumberland 

 Valley. A short time ago a certain official said to me: "You have paid 

 too much money for the land you have purchased in the Cumberland 

 Valley, 13.50 an acre. You could have gone into my county and 

 have bought three times that amount of land for the same money;" 

 all of which was true, but what good would that land there have 

 done for the Cumberland Valley? We purchased 50,000 acres of 

 land there and we purchased it for the State as long as time endures, 

 and so long will the benefits inure to that county as the result of that 

 purchase, and I believe the prosperity of the whole Cumberland 

 Valley depends upon the forestry conditions which will be promoted 

 by this purchase. Governor Stone made a remark some time ago 

 that was eminently wise. It was this: "If the forest reservation 

 is a good thing in Cumberland county, why is not a forest reserva- 

 tion a good thing for every part of the State?" Now Governor 

 Stone was right. I hope to see the time come when every county 

 of this Commonwealth will have the water nurtured, for water is 

 a necessity for the sustenance of your crops and your flocks, and I 

 hope that every county in the State of Pennsylvania will have a 

 forest reservation. 



In 1880 I visited Germany and when I was there, for the first 

 time in my life I saw what the people were doing on waste land. 

 Now what does it mean to Germanv? The forest reservations of 



