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generation that legislates for itself alone is a selfish genera- 

 tion. The generation that legislates only for itself and its im- 

 mediate successors is an unstatesmanlike generation. The 

 generation that, through carelessness or greed, is willing that 

 its heritage should pass on to succeeding generations impaired 

 and impoverished, is an unworthy generation ; and it were bet- 

 ter for the world it had never been born. 



Is the problem of the world's daily bread supply for future 

 generations a hopeless one? We are comforted when we re- 

 member that all the elements essential to fertility, all of the 

 potassium, the nitrogen and the phosphorus that were in the 

 world when Adam delved and Eve span, are still in the world 

 somewhere, in some form. We are comforted when we re- 

 member that the elements of fertility in the black soil under 

 our feet, that to-day gives to it its wonderful productiveness, 

 will be in the world a thousand, ten thousand, untold thou- 

 sands of years from now, somewhere, in some form. The 

 problem of science, then, is the proper conservation of these 

 elements. Indeed this is the great problem of our nation, of 

 all nations to-day, conservation of their natural resources. 

 When the cjuestion of food supply presses hard. Science will 

 follow the crops as they go out to the markets to do their 

 work in feeding animal and man, will gather up the frag- 

 ments, will save the refuse and restore it to the soil. Science 

 will teach the farmer that it is as important to care for the 

 manure heap as for the milk supply. In that day of pressure, 

 Illinois with Science will not dig million dollar canals to 

 carry millions on millions of dollars' worth of fertility an- 

 nually past our borders to be dissipated and lost; but will 

 properly treat the sewage of our cities, and restore this to 

 the soil where the elements may do their work over again. 

 It is said that in China are found farms that have been tilled 

 for untrtld generations without decrease of their fertility. 

 What the Chinaman has done, the American can and will do 

 when the pressing demand comes upon him. 



Illinois without Science? Her black soils gradually robbed 

 of their ferlilitv; fruits and orchards destroyed by insects and 



