330 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



The remarkable and surprising feature of the Forestry Con- 

 gress was that, for the first time in the history of forestry, all the 

 great commercial and industrial interests of the country were repre- 

 sented by delegates advocating conservative forestry. The 

 forest lover and the forest user, the lumberman, the railroad 

 manager and the agriculturist, found themselves belonging to the 

 same fraternity and holding a common faith. Mr. Defifelbaugh, of 

 "The American Lumberman," who addressed the convention 

 upon "The changed attitude of lumbermen toward forestry," 

 said: "The character and diversity of the assembly reminds me 

 of the little girl who said: 'Papa, where were you born?' 'In Cali- 

 fornia, my dear.' 'And where was mamma born ?' 'In Massachusetts, 

 my dear.' 'And where was I born?' 'In Philadelphia, my dear.' 

 'Well,' she continued, 'isn't it wonderful how we all got together?' " 



There was Mr. John A. M'Cann who said : 



"It requires a rare quality of courage for the editor and own- 

 er of a trade paper which for twenty years has labored in the 

 cooperage field to come here for the purpose oi offering con- 

 gratulations on the fact that we have a forestry department today, 

 the purpose of which is the reforestation of the land that we of 

 the cooperage industry have religiously, persistently and outrageous- 

 ly helped to devastate, destroy and lay waste. I am here, however, 

 for that very purpose, and primed with the thought that 

 'While the light holds out to burn. 

 The vilest sinner may return.' 

 and we cooperage stock people surely are sinners of the vilest 

 description. 



"As though in pursuit of the most lofty ambition, we have, for 

 vears, gone at the destruction of two of the noblest specimens of 

 the American forest, the zvhite oak and the American elm, and 

 followed them so relentlessly that the end of both is well in 

 sight, unless the forestry department or the government will 

 stay the hand of the stave man, do something to repair his waste- 

 fulness or satisfy his rapacity with other wood of which there is 

 greater abundance. 



"It may be news to many of those within the sound of my voice 

 that grades of white oak which are welcomed b> the furniture 

 factories of Grand Rapids and elsewhere for furniture making 

 would be rejected by the maker of the whisky barrel, and that 

 elm suitable for the interior finish of a luxuriotis home zvould not 

 always do for a Minneapolis flour barrel. We, of the cooperage 

 fraternity, are both finicky and fastidious, but it is earnestly to be 

 hoped that under the operation and influence of the department of 

 forestrv, or the legislation which will follow its recommendations, 

 some of this fastidiousness may be taken out of us. 



"As far back as I have any knowledge, white oak has been, and 

 is today, the chief dependence of the tight barrel cooper. I mean 



