26 THE TREE PLANTERS OF AMERICA 



PUBLIC OPINION 



Honorable William M. O. Dawson, formerly Governor of West 



Virginia, Charleston, W. Va. 



It appeals to me as a good move in a very desirable object. I 

 wish the League every success in the effort to conserve our forests. 



J. Ralston Cargill, General Manager Penick & Ford, Ltd., 

 Columbus, Ga. 



I have read with a great deal of interest and pleasure your 

 pamphlet outlining a plan of organization for the "Tree Planters of 

 America." The idea is an excellent one, and it appeals to me 

 strongly as affording a definite and tangible working basis for the 

 reforestation of the country. Volumes have been written and much 

 has been said about "Conservation," and yet today many people 

 have only a hazy idea of what conservation really is. It is in 

 danger of becoming an empty phrase, as vain as "sounding brass 

 and tinkling cymbals." But you* plan has a handle to grip to. 



I was an interested listener to the speeches of Mr. Pinchot 

 and others recently at a banquet at The Piedmont Driving Club 

 in Atlanta. The Southern Conservation Congress was in session, 

 and I attended as the representative of The Columbus Board of 

 Trade. The talks were all entertaining and instructive, but there 

 was the lack of a definite working plan whereby tangible results 

 might be gained. 



On my recent trip through South Georgia and Florida I was 

 struck by the enormous waste of forest land denuded of its yellow- 

 pine growth. The turpentine and saw-mill interests have cut a wide 

 swath through that section, and down there now they have the 

 problem of reforestation, or digging up the stumps to prepare the 

 land for agriculture or of allowing the land to remain idle a dead 

 investment with soil erosion going on and depriving the land of its 

 virgin fertility. 



I was with Mr. Hardaway, of Hardaway, Fla., for a brief stay 

 on his Columbus and Rosemeads sugar-cane and tobacco plantation, 

 and he told me that he intended to plant three hundred acres of his 

 land, of the kind just described, in pecan trees. This is being quite 

 generally done by the more progressive planters and land owners 

 in that section, and there is no doubt they will reap a rich harvest 

 in the next decade as a result of their foresight. I think I would 

 be safe in estimating that ten thousand acres of old pine tree land 

 in South Georgia alone had been planted in pecans in the last few 

 years. 



I not only think your plan is practical, but, as a member from 

 Georgia of your National Advisory Committee, I want to suggest 

 that you form your first organization of a state group in this State. 

 I am persuaded that the Governor, Commissioner of Agriculture 

 and other officials would heartily co-operate, and I think, too, that 

 you could rely on the assistance of the various Boards of Trade. 



