• ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 111 



same limitation as to the creation of reserves hereafter 

 upon the President, so that in making future additions to 

 the existing 46,000,000 acres the consent of the governor 

 of the state in which the reservation was located must be 

 given ; but the reserve would not be under the control of 

 the governor. 



I endeavored to show that as a matter of administra- 

 tion, as to the propagation of trees, as to their preserva- 

 tion, and as to all these various matters of administration 

 of forestry the Department of Agriculture is better fitted 

 by the nature and purpose of its organization than any 

 other department of this government. In other words, 

 we are entering upon a great system of what might be 

 called tree farming — raising timber for future genera- 

 tions; and the department that has the looking after the 

 agriculture of the country, the department that protects 

 especially the interests of the farmer, is better capable of 

 handling this branch of the administration of these re- 

 serves than any other department. The protection of the 

 forests is essential to the farmer. 



Now, I remember when I was a little boy, going out in 

 the hills of my native state to gather service berries, I 

 was surprised to see the gentleman in charge of the party 

 of children took an ax along. I soon found after we got 

 into the woods what the ax was for. It was to cut down 

 the trees in order to gather the berries. We cut the trees 

 down and gathered the fruit. And I am credibly inform- 

 ed that there never have been any berries in that forest 

 since. Every gentleman here who has passed middle life 

 will recollect just such an offense against nature as that. 



Now, when our fathers landed on these shores, they 

 had the idea that the forest was the enemy of mankind. 

 There was in the mind of the white man the idea that 

 there were two special duties to be performed — one to 

 cut down the trees and the other to kill the aborigines. 



