370 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



committee's report, and, whereas, many of these individual 

 exhibitors from the different states and foreign nations got a 

 medal, your state had a list of points of excellence that ex- 

 ceceeded those of any other one state or nation that entered 

 into competition for an award. (Applause.) It was a great 

 pleasure to my department, and it was a great pleasure to me 

 to write the committee's report and to make the award. I men- 

 tion this simply as due to the state to know why the award 

 stood as it did. 



The time is rapidlj' approaching- when rational forestr}- must com-, 

 niand the attention of every lover of his couutrj', but before that 

 time arrives there must be a better knowledge disseminated as to 

 what the science of forestry reall}^ means, or, perhaps, what is more 

 important, what it does not mean. The proper idea has apparently 

 been that it consists of two propositions: First, the suspension of 

 further cutting of the forests of the country, as far as possible to do 

 so, by congressional or legislative action, and by moral forces; 

 second, the indiscriminate planting of trees, with the half-formed 

 idea that in some waj^ or soinehow this will pay in the dim future. 



It must further be taught that the Creator did not cloth the earth 

 with forests from anj^ mere sentimental or aesthetic motive, but for 

 the good of His creatures who were to inhabit it to the end of time; 

 therefore, that the forests are grown to be cut for the benefit of man- 

 kind, for fuel with which to cook his food and to warm him in 

 winter, and for lumber with which to build a shelter over his head. 

 These are the actual necessities of humanit}' if it would be in any 

 degree above a savage; if man would not continue to eat his food 

 raw, dress in skins or ^voven grass and dwell in caves. 



These wants of the human animal mark the first step in mental and 

 moral development. The next step, the production of food other 

 than the wild game of the forest, pre-supposes the cultivation of 

 vegetable products suitable for his nourishment. This cannot be 

 done in the uncut forests; and as inaia's first wants compel his living- 

 in a wooded area, he must destroy a portion of the forest that the 

 ground it occupied might be tvirned into fields, and ultimatel}' into 

 pastures for tamed beasts suitable for food, as the dependence upon 

 wild game became more precariovis and the chase irksome; his de- 

 velopment carrying this point further to include domesticated 

 beasts of burden. 



Had man been content to go down the ages satisfied with the grati- 

 fication of these simple wants, the inroads upon the forests, even to 

 this day, would be small. But the Great Designer of his destiny de- 

 creed otherwise. It was necessary to man's perfect developinent that 

 the finer, the iesthetic part of his nature should 1)e cultivated. This 

 demanded something better than a hut of bark or logs. With this 

 demand came the one for better tools than were found in the stone 

 ax and the saw of shark's teeth. The metals lay in the earth at his 

 feet. But to utilize them required the further destruction of the for- 

 est to feed the smelting furnace and the forge. The development of 



