172 FORESTRY AND IRRIGATION Apri 



if you only half learn your profession, lot of the farmer, in the practical solu- 



you discredit it as well as yourselves. tion of forest problems which affect well 



Give yourselves every chance, by thor- nigh every industry and every activity of 



ough and generous preparation and by the nation, the members of this Society 



acquiring, not only a thorough knowl- have an unexampled field before them, 



edge, not only the knowledge that goes You havea heavy responsibility. Every 



deep, but a wide outlook over all the manthatdoes seriouswotk workworth 



questions on which you have to touch, doing has on him a heavy responsibil- 



The profession which you have adopted ity. You have a heavy responsibility, 



is one which touches the Republic on for upon the development of your. work 



almost every side political, social, in- the development of forestry in theUnited 



dustrial, commercial and to rise to its States and the protection of the indus- 



level you will need a wide acquaintance tries which depend upon it will largely 



with the general life of the nation and rest. 



a view- point both broad and high. Any You have made a good beginning, 



profession which makes you deal with and I congratulate you upon it. Not 



your fellow-men at large makes it neces- only is a sound national forest policy 



sary that if you are to succeed you coming rapidly into being, but the lum- 



should understand what those fellow- bermen of the country are proving their 



men are, and not merely what they are interest in forestry by practicing it. 



thought to be by people who live in the Twenty years ago a meeting such as 



closet or the parlor. You have got to this to-night would have been impossible, 



know who the men are with whom you and the desires we here express would 



are to work, how they feel, how far you have been treated as having no possible 



can go, when you have to stop, when relation to practical life. We have 



it is both safe and necessary to push on. reached a point w T here American forest - 



You have got to know all of those ers, trained in American forest schools, 



things if you are going to do work of are attacking American forest problems 



the highest value. with success. That is the way to meet 



I believe that the foresters of the the larger work you have before you. 

 United States will create a more effective It will be a difficult work, which, again, 

 system of forestry than we have yet is true of almost any work worth doing ; 

 seen. If not, gentlemen, if you do it will be a difficult work, and all the 

 not, I will feel that you have fallen be- more so because precedents are lacking, 

 hind your brethren in other callings, It will demand training, steadiness, de- 

 and I do not believe that you will fall votion, and esprit de corps, fealty to the 

 behind them. Nowhere else is the de- body of w r hich you are members, a de- 

 velopment of a country more closely sire to keep the ideals of that body high, 

 bound up with the creation and execu- The more harmoniously you work with 

 tion of a judicious forest policy. This each other, the better and more effective 

 is, of course, especially true of the your work will be ; and a condition 

 West, but it is true of the East also, precedent upon your usefulness to the 

 Fortunately, in the West we have been body politic, as a whole, is the way in 

 able, relative to the growth of the coun- which you are able to instill your own 

 try, to begin at an earlier day, so that ideals into the mass of your fellow-men 

 we have been able to establish great with whom you come in contact, and 

 forest reserves in the Rocky Mountains, at the same time to show your ability to 

 instead of having to wait and attempt work in a practical fashion with them, 

 to get Congress to pay a very large sum to convince them that this is a business 

 for their creation, as we are now en- matter. It will be for them to cooperate 

 deavoring to do in the Southern Appa- with you to convince the public of that, 

 lachians. and above all, so to convince the people 



In the administration of the national of the neighborhoods in which you work, 

 forest reserves, in the introduction of and especially the lumbermen and the 

 conservative lumbering on the timber others who make their life trades deal- 

 tract of the lumberman and the wood- ing with the forests. 



