322 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



That means something more than the exhaustion of a 

 source of commercial prosperity. It means something more 

 than as though you had underneath the soil of Minnesota a 

 mine of some valuable mineral which you might exhaust and 

 still leave the earth useful for agricultural purposes. 



It is something to which few men, except students, have 

 given much thought, but the fact is that more deserts may yet 

 be formed on the surface of the earth, and that there are at 

 present enormous areas of country in Asia and Africa where, 

 in times gone by yet clearly within the records of history, there 

 were thriving and populous nations. Today they are nothing 

 but deserts and swamps. You are all familiar with the condi- 

 tions on the plains of Mesopotamia, where Babylon of old ex- 

 isted in the midst of its multiplied millions, and where to-day 

 the hyena and the jackal, the tiger and the lion, prowl at night 

 through the swamps and over the desert, and where a human 

 foot is rarely set, and where no human sound mingles with the 

 cries of the wild animals. How many are there in this state 

 who have taken it seriously into consideration that if the peo- 

 ple of Minnesota are not more wise in their day and genera- 

 tion than were the people of those ancient lands you may des- 

 troy all your forests and wear out your soil and eventually re- 

 duce this magnificent state of Minnesota to a desert of sand, 

 depopulated and uninhabited. 



That is a strong statement, but it is nothing but what is 

 true. The soil of this state over an immense portion of its area 

 is not a strong soil. It is not a soil that will stand up year after 

 year under continuous cropping without fertilization and keep 

 on producing. You do not have to go to Asia or to Africa to 

 find lands that are practically worn out and useless to-day; 

 you find them in many old settled portions of our own United 

 States. 



Now I want to talk to you today about a subject that is 

 near all your hearts, but I want it understood that I speak of 

 it in an argumentative sense and in the hope, possibly a futile 

 one, but in the hope, that if there are here today gentlemen from 

 northern Minnesota who are interested in the development of 

 that portion of this great state, that they may be willing to 

 take up that magnificent work along the right lines and make 

 of northern Minnesota a great and populous country, instead of 

 developing it along lines which will deteriorate it and in the end 

 possibly put large areas of it back to a desert. (Applause.) 



You take that great country up there, — and I will speak of 



