118 Missouri State Horticultural Society. 



Governments, it will be understood, originate, discover and 

 invent few things, and our own is no exception to the rule. No 

 government eevr discovered the power of steam, electricity or new 

 mechanical forces. It was not a government that discovered gun- 

 powder to mangle men with, or chloroform to aid in repairing its 

 damages. It is very seldom that a regular oflficial of a government 

 ever strikes out in a new j^ath, or develops a fresh idea. The 

 thinking in this world is done by private, and frequently obscure 

 men. In time their ideas become the property of the community, 

 and lastly they are adopted by the government. 



The United States government when established possessed 

 absolutely the most magnificent forested domain on the face of the 

 earth. Even after a century of spoliation and waste, as well as 

 legitimate sale and transfer, it is still magnificent. Exactly how 

 large it is is not known, but in 1880 it was estimated that the 

 United States owned 85,000,000 acres of timber land. 



This is a mere fraction of what the national government once 

 owned, and which was parted with, or stripped, burned or stolen 

 from, with scarcely a thought of its value. 



Probably the first trees set out under the authority of ttie 

 federal government were those in the Capitol grounds at Wash- 

 ington, pi anted under the supervision of tlie first American landscape 

 gardener, A. J. Downing. Those who have seen these trees can 

 testify that they are not yet very large. As to the extensive planting 

 of trees on the streets and in the public grounds of Washington, 

 that is the work of the last fifteen years. The general government 

 is a very young forester. 



The Department of Agriculture assumed its present shape 

 about twenty years ago ; but the Division of Forestry was organized 

 not over five years ago, and with its organization the interest of the 

 federal government m the preservation and growth of forests may 

 be said to have begun. 



The position taken by the government in the passage of the 

 timber culture act strengthened the growing sentiment in favor of 

 forestry — it, so to speak, made forestry fashionable. If Western 

 people wish an illustration, let them look at Wichita, Kansas, as it 

 stands embowered in trees to-day, and remember how Topeka — the 

 capital of that state, looked fourteen years after its settlement ; 

 that being the time that has elapsed since Wichita was first 

 settled. 



The principal advance made in what may be called the for- 

 estry work of the Government has been, since the establishment of 



