An Address delivered before the American 

 Forestry Association, 



By BUENET LANDRETH, Chief of the Bureau of Agiucultuee, Centenniai. 

 Commission, Philadelphia. 



The modern and doubtless correct idea of the road to perfection is by 

 division and subdivision of labour, study, and investigation ; hence we see 

 lawyers devoting their professional attention to jurisprudence as applied to 

 commerce, others to land titles, even to criminal practice, as it is called, in 

 which latter it is sometimes difficult to determine which is the greater 

 criminal, the culprit at the bar or the professional who defends him. In 

 medicine, some apply themselves to surgery; with others, all their powers 

 of investigation are directed to the eye, or ear, or clinics; and we naturally 

 call to our aid when necessity requires those who have achieved reputation 

 in the special department which suits our case. In agriculture the reverse 

 seems to be the popular rule, and mixed rather than specific farming is 

 generally advocated : probably the presumption is that, whilst preparatory 

 study and practice are requisite to form an accomplished member of a 

 " liberal " profession, men are farmers intuitively, and knowledge, whether 

 of the soil with its chemical constituents, of cereals, of cattle, sheep, or 

 swine, may be sufficiently understood without study or previous acquaint- 

 ance. Never was a greater mistake; and the farmer who should unin- 

 structed step behind the counter of a Stewart and direct the movements, 

 would soon find his error, just as so many citizens have in the reverse case 

 tested to their cost that there is no royal road to technical knowledge. It 

 is not my purpose, however, to dwell on this phase of rural life — there is 

 not one whom I address who does not realize the necessity of training pre- 

 paratory to successful husbandry. 



What I desire now in an especial manner to direct attention to is a 

 branch of agriculture which until recently has been almost entirely over- 

 looked by us. I of course refer to Forestry. Heretofore the way to get 

 rid of timber at the least outlay of labour jDossible, seems in many cases to 

 have been the object aimed at, and we have gone on in that insane effort 

 until now; whilst we are still in our infancy as a nation, our country is 

 made naked, and the sources of supply of valuable timber, either for ship- 

 building, the mechanic arts, or fencing, are so remote that had it not been 

 for premature extension of railroads penetrating the inmost recesses of the 

 forests, prices would have advanced beyond any reasonable measure of 

 values, and have seriously impeded the constructive arts. 



