KORKSTRY. (i5 



acre where their neighbors were raising twelve. A boy near West Point 

 last year raised 114 bushels where the neighboring men were getting 

 forty. Never yet has an acre of rich land west of the Missouri river 

 been put to its best. The possibilities of our state are astounding. The 

 time will come sooner or later whdn more will be raised on forty acres 

 than the present system gets from 100. 



The roots of corn have been known to go down six feet where they 

 had a chance, yet you see men plowing three inches deep for corn. 

 The sidehills will not always be planted to corn which gives such a 

 chance for washing. They will be planted to trees which will be 

 mulched with straw or else sown to grass which will be well manured. 



The strangest thing is that men will not plant trees, i'here are 

 millions of acres that are sometimes subject to overflow which for 

 thirty years have raised nothing but weeds and which might be put to 

 raising houses, barns and woodpiles. Better restore the old wood shed 

 and raise your own fuel and give the coal barons the go-by. A farm is 

 an empire of itself. If the farmei raises everything he needs he will 

 grow rich. The nation whose imports exceed the exports is growing 

 poor. For the last few years the balance of trade was in our favor. The 

 past year we were about 150 millions short and if this keeps up we will 

 have trouble. The farmer who buys more than he sells will soon raise 

 a big crop of mortgages. True conservation makes us work the land 

 to advantage and save it as one of God's best gifts to man. So stand 

 up for Nebraska and make it one of the most brilliant stars in our 

 national constellation. 



AFTERNOON SESSION, 2 P. M. 



Mrs. F. C. Laflin favored the convention with a song, entitled "The 

 Magic Month of May." 



The Chairman: The next number on our program is a talk, or 

 paper, by Mrs. W. A. Harrison, of York. 



FORESTRY. 



MRS. W. A. HARRISON. YORK. 



The subject assigned to me is rather an ideal one. 1 have changed 

 the title so as to read "Women in Forestry." Woman's interest in trees 

 is inherited. Her belief in her naturally religious make-up that God's 

 first temples were the groves. President Roosevelt sounded the key- 

 note of the subject in his speech on "Conservation," when he said: "The 

 Ufe of the state and the nation depends on the preservation of our 

 forests, which is an imperative necessity. We have come to see clearly 

 that whatever destroys the forests, except to further agriculture, 

 threatens our well-being." He found listeners in the Federation of Wo- 

 men's Clubs. The "Cry of the Pines" all over the land was "The Trees 

 are Dying," and that one piece of silver was buying the life of a tree. 



