MONEY IN TIMBER. 147 



Plant and care for the trees a year or so and then you look on and see 

 them work for you and they will bring in better returns than you would 

 get from your wheat and oats. Perhaps you are growing old and it is 

 better for you to look on and let those trees do the work. Years ago there 

 was a Saharah in the heart of France. The winds would drive the sands 

 into great drifts and sometimes whole villages would be enveloped, and 

 you would see church spires sticking out of the sands, telling where a 

 village was buried. A thoughtful man, Bremontier, submitted a plan to 

 Napoleon, and he proposed planting pines in those sands. The great Gen- 

 eral seconded the movement and furnished means for carrying out the 

 plan, which shows what that wonderful genius could have done if he had 

 turned his energies to the arts of peace instead of war. The plan was 

 a success, and now the French are shipping lumber, turpentine and resen 

 from those fields of sand — even to the United States. 



Go from Lincoln to Kansas City some wet summer and see the mil- 

 lions of acres submerged lands — an utter waste. Thirty years from now 

 we might have millions on millions of dollars coming in from lumber 

 grown on those worthless lands. There is going to be a hereafter for 

 Nebraska. It is a glorious state, and every man should do his best to 

 increase her beauty and wealth. Go through our northern and western 

 forests and see the awful ravages of the ax and the fires. Lumber is 

 something people can not live without. Think what the price must be 

 thirty years from now. Again, with the increase of population, unless 

 our lands are made more productive the next generation will have a hard 

 time. How easy it is to plant ten acres of trees and let them grow as a 

 legacy for your children. 



There was never a more faithful servant than a tree. It never 

 shirks. It is always working day and night, in sunshine or storm it is 

 faithfully at it. Those long slender fingers are reaching through the soil 

 on a foraging expedition gathering food to send up that valveless way, 

 the cambium route between the bark and the tree. How they distribute 

 their sustenance, feeding leaves and branches and add to the diameter 

 of the trunk. That ceaseless fidelity is marvelous. When such a faith- 

 ful friend stands knocking at your door, ready to give the most faithful 

 service without wages, just give him a chance. 



DISCUSSION. 



Mr. Yager: I would suggest to the society that our secretary write 

 a letter to Father Harrison and sign it for the State Horticultural Society 

 and thank him for this paper. And send him congratulations. 



Member: I move that that be amended that we wire him a night 

 letter tonight. 



Seconded. Motion put as amended. Carried. 



Mr. Pollard: Yesterday there was a motion made, seconded, and 

 carried that a committee on publicity be appointed, and it was done so. 

 I will say as a member of that committee that we had aj meeting last 

 night with the board and went over the matter very carefully, and this 

 morning we had an audience with Professor Pugsley, who is at the head 



