AGRICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS 265 



who raise it, much less a profit, when the infinite 

 pains and severe labor required to raise cotton are 

 taken into account. There is still good agricultural 

 land in the cotton belt which might be cleared to 

 take the place of that which should be re-forested. 



In my last annual report to the Trustees of Cor- 

 nell University I urged upon them the desirability 

 of purchasing small areas of the depleted lands 

 near the University and of re-clothing them with 

 forests so that the people of the State and the 

 students might have proper object lessons in re- 

 forestation ; and that some of the lands which were 

 running their owners into debt might not furnish 

 inferior products, raised at a loss, to glut the mar- 

 kets. To cite a specific case : within twenty miles 

 of the University and within a mile of a railway 

 station there was a farm of 100 acres offered to 

 me for $ i ,000. There was still enough timber in 

 the wood lot to remind one of the valuable timber 

 which had once covered these rolling acres but 

 which had been wantonly burned or sawed into 

 lumber and sold for six to eight dollars per 

 thousand feet scarcely more than the cost of 

 marketing. 



Such ideas as these were the result of my various 

 journeys. If I were now starting out in life I 



