68 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



destroyed until good lumber has reached a very high price and 

 turpentine and resin in sufficient quantities to meet the world's 

 requirements can scarcely be obtained. In the meantime large 

 areas, denuded of forests, have been changed in clim.atic condi- 

 tions and the fertile soils exposed to destructive erosion. Coal 

 beds are being worked in ever increasing quantities and must ulti- 

 mately be exhausted. The Chilean nitrate of soda deposits are 

 approaching exhaustion. We use without thought of the morrow. 

 The conservation movement has extended to the consideration 

 of soil fertility, the proper utilization of water, of water power, 

 of our land domain, and the like. 



The problem of all problems confronting us is the necessity 

 of increasing the production of food stuffs. How can this be 

 done ? Obviously the problem can be attacked from many sides, 

 but the side which I desire to emphasize is the conservation of 

 the best breeding stock of plants and animals. This seems a 

 simple matter, but I am sure that the far-reaching possibilities 

 of such conservation are not understood and are beyond our con- 

 ception at the present time, as our viewpoint is necessarily lim- 

 ited by our present knowledge. Nevertheless the possibilities, as 

 judged by our present knowledge, are so great as to place this 

 factor, I believe, among the important features of the conservation 

 movement. 



What do we not owe to our domesticated and improved plants 

 and animals? They are the greatest heritage which has come 

 down to us from our ancestors. If the cultivated varieties and 

 breeds of wheat, oats, corn, cotton, potatoes, cattle, sheep, hogs, 

 and horses were all destroyed from the earth and we were forced 

 to go back to wild nature, and begin the improvement over again, 

 it is probable that the world would be almost depopulated and 

 that the progeny of the few hardy individuals that survived would 

 in the centuries that followed repeat the history of plant and 

 animal improvement that has taken place in the past. Doubtless, 

 however, new plants and animals now unknown to us would be 

 the successful ones in the new evolution. That we now cultivate 

 wheat, oats, corn, and the like, is probably in large measure due 

 to attempts to artificially cultivate plants started in regions where 

 the wild ancestors of these plants were native. In many cases 

 the wild ancestors of our cultivated plants are not positively 

 known. 



It is not probable that the ancestral types have become extinct 

 but that the cultivated forms have been so greatly modified that 



