04 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



wrote, talked and pleaded till the tide turned and a great victory was 

 won. A crisis came and issues involving hundreds of millions. The 

 forester broke a piece of red tape and he must go. No matter that 

 be stands for a great principle. No matter that he has given his 

 means and his life to a great cause. "Just look at that piece of red 

 tape; can't you see it is broken?" But. thank God, the nation is fully 

 aroused and our forestry system is established. 



You can readily see the clashing of interests. Leading men in our 

 Pacific coast cities want the bars thrown down. The future may care 

 lor itself. They want the coal dug and the water powers to be exploited, 

 and flocks and herds to have free range. It all makes business and we 

 want business now. There never yet was a national park laid out or a 

 forest reserve made but what there was a tremendous protest. . When 

 the government made a reserve near Cass Lake, Minnesota, a howl, long 

 and deep, went up. When we tried to have a park in the Wet mountain 

 valley and could have gotten a bill throueh congress for one of the 

 publimest resorts, Colorado congressmen sat down on it. But slowly 

 and surely the people are going to rule. This country is going to be 

 saved. Not only conserved but made more beautiful and attractive. 



THE PAKT NEBRASKA MUST PLAT^ 



The rich soil of Nebraska is hunery for trees. In 1872 there was 

 not a tree or shrub on the townsite of York. Now it is called the forest 

 city. We have single trees that would make over 1.000 feet of lurnber. 

 Timber pays. In scores of instances men have cut |!!00 worth of cotton- 

 wood lumber per acre, besides the firewood, which was enous-h to cover 

 the cost. The land was left all the better because it was subsolled by 

 those vigorous roots. 



The sidehills must and will be defended from erosion and washing. 

 You see farms with deen gullies nlouehed throueh the cornfield too deep, 

 almost, to get a team across. Sometimes a erain of sense will come to 

 the owner and he will dumn in a load of straw which stons the wash. 

 One year we had a fearful dust storm in the snring and in some cases 

 entire furrows on the hills were blown away. In one instance the rich 

 soil of a neighbor drifted three feet deep on one of my hedges. I told 

 him I wished he would lariat his farm and keep it at home. Groves 

 and windbreaks are needed to ston the fierce gales which for ages have 

 swent over our prairies. Buffet cror>s can be sown on the long sloning 

 sidehills. I once saw In the Renubllcan valley a large field of alfalfa 

 whif'h was catching the wash from the long slones above it. The time 

 will come when instead of the man moving his barn to get away" from 

 the manure pile he vill get a snreader and put it on his farm. The man 

 who feeds cattle will learn sooner or later that corn fed manure is 

 worth a small gold mine and it will pay to save. 



People are waking up to tbeir possibilities. The boys of the future are 

 going to show their fathers how thines will be done and that farmine 

 will pay. Two boys in North Carolina raised 125 bushels of corn per 



