STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 199 



demanded more intelligent or more radical treatment, nor one fraught 

 with more importance to the future dwellers of this land, which God 

 made so fair and endowed so richly. 



In what direction does duty lie, must be our first thought; that 

 point settled, duty's paths must be trodden persistently and uncom- 

 promisingly. No consideration of a public or private uature must be 

 considered paramount to this one. Investigation will reveal the fact 

 that this question is provided with two duty paths; one is the plant- 

 ing of timber, the other is the preservation of that which we yet pos- 

 sess. Concerning the importance of the first duty we are all agreed; 

 though it must be admitted that we have not pursued this path with 

 the energy, ability", nor to the extent that the exigencies of the case 

 demanded. Tree planting in this country is as yet but a vaguely de- 

 fined sentiment. In many localities, on many farms, this sentiment 

 has crystalized into fair timber belts and thrifty groves; these are, 

 however, but drops in the vast ocean of desolation which has washed 

 over and well nigh obliterated our once magnificent forests. 



But I do not propose to discuss this end of the subject. Change the 

 sentiment of tree culture, if you will, into a great intelligently 

 organized fact; make it a government work of unparalled mag- 

 nitude and efficiency, and yet that will be following but one of the 

 paths of duty to which I have alluded. 



Let us now consider the matter of stopping the unnecessary con- 

 sumption and preventing needless waste. Right here allow me to say 

 that governmental forest planting co-existent with government en- 

 couragement of forest destruction, is a bung hole waste and a spigot 

 saving policy so idiotic that our posterity will be amply justified in de- 

 risively laughing at our folly; and it is a policy that cannot be changed 

 too quickly. 



If we have any resources which can be made to supplement the one 

 of timber, we should surely hasten to utilize them; if we have any re- 

 inforcements which can aid our forests in holding their own against 

 the vandalism which is now so rapidly destroying them, we should 

 not hesitate a moment about enlisting them in the holy cause. The 

 reinforcements are at hand; we possess them in untold quantities, and 

 they are marvelously easy of access; these great resources are coal and 

 iron 



We are burning 17,500,000,000 cubic feet of our precious forests 

 every year. At the same time we possess two -thirds of the known 

 coal of the world, but it is so hemmed about by unnatural trade laws, 

 and so dominated and controlled by ^capitalistic combinations that it is 



