43 8 Presidential Addresses 



farmer has had the farm for his life he should be 

 able to hand it to his children as a better farm than 

 it was when he had it. 



In these regions, in the Rocky Mountain regions, 

 it is especially incumbent upon us to treat the ques- 

 tion of the natural pasturage, the question of the 

 forests, and the question of the use of the waters, all 

 from the one standpoint the standpoint of the far- 

 seeing statesman, of the far-seeing citizen, who 

 wishes to preserve and not to exhaust the resources 

 of the country, who wishes to see those resources 

 come into the hands not of a few men of great 

 wealth, least of all into the hands of a few men 

 who will speculate in them; but be distributed 

 among many men, each of whom intends to make 

 his home in the land. 



This whole so-called arid and semi-arid region 

 is by nature the stock range of the Nation. One 

 of the questions which are rising to confront us is 

 how this range may be made to produce the great- 

 est number and best quality of horses, cattle, and 

 sheep, not only this year, not only next year, but 

 for this generation and the next generation. The 

 old system of grazing the ranges so closely as to 

 injure the whole crop of grass was a serious detri- 

 ment to the development of the West, a serious detri- 

 ment to the development of our people. The ranges 

 must be treated as a great invested capital ; and that 

 old system tended to dissipate and partially to de- 

 stroy that capital. That is something that we can 

 not as a Nation of home makers permit. The wise 



