THE PRESIDENT'S ANNUAL ADDRESS 



LJ< >.\. . J \.\IKS \\ II.S* >.\. President IK- benefited by the American ; 



oi the American Forestry Asso- that the forest is to !< for 



ciation, called the annual meeting to the benefit of thosi live now and 



order and addressed the members as f..r the benefit of succeeding genera^ 



f"Il"v>~ ' tions, .n and .,ii toward all future 

 GENTLEMEN .n- THE ASSOCIATION: tinK ' s Th ey arc dealing \\ii\\ the 

 I am glad to welcome you to this meet- reat tree of tlV( ' hundred 

 ing. to the city of Washington, and to g r wth ; they are dealing with the fires 

 congratulate you upon the progress that nave 1)cnl destroying so mam 

 that is being made along so many lines acres ever ) > rar - ami they are -teadily 

 in the direction of forestry. There are redu cjng the number of fires : they art- 

 some gentlemen here, one in particu- stud y in g tn ^' .^reat problem^ ,,f rt-f..r- 

 lar, who helped begin the National for- estati.m. something that is new t, us. 

 e>try sy>tem Air. Xoble, of St. Louis. Anybody can take a spade and plant 

 And he no doubt will be quite as much a tre e, if he can get a young tree. It 

 interested as anyone here in knowing ( l es n<J t take a very great deal of re 

 the progress that has been made in the search to ascertain how to germinate a 

 great work that he had so much to do -^ed, but all the American army and 

 with inaugurating. all the American navy and everylx >dy in 



The American people are learning Washington in the Government service 

 the actual conditions concerning the combined could not reforest the hart- 

 forests of the country. It has been a lands in the forests of the I'nited 

 work of years, and will be a work of States if they were all set to work at 

 years, before everything is done that ^ u 'ith a spade. It cannot be done. 

 should be done along these lines. Our ^ e have to get a new plan of doing 

 country is a forested country by na- things. Instead of planting as many 

 ttire. When the Pilgrims founded trces as a man can plant in a day in 

 Xew England and the Cavaliers the ordinary way a few hundred- 

 founded Jamestown there were for- the time of one man must result in re- 

 ests; and for hundreds of years it has planting four or five hundred acres in 

 been murdered the proper thing to be a da . v - Machinery must be adapted to 

 a good axman, cutting down trees and the planting of tree seed. The prob- 

 destroying woods. And in that direc- ^ em how tree seed can be planted by 

 tion our forerunners have been emi- machinery must be wrought out: and 

 nently successful. They have succeed- it ^'ih 1 be wrought out. The <|ue-ti"n 

 ed in cutting down trees and destroy- ' ls not where to get enough of rh 

 ing woods until it has become a ques- labor to do this work- the question j< 

 tion with us no\\- what we are to see how to encourage the intelligent la- 

 in the future, and what those who fol- borer to do it. The American prob- 

 low us shall see. with regard to the ' em 1S not s " much getting hold (" 

 wood<. cheap labor as the making of intelli- 



You will pardon my saving a -ingle S ent ' a bor. 



word about the National Forests. They I recollect some years ago. when f 



number over 162.000,000 acres, scat- was trying to encourage ri 



tered throughout the great Northwest, some patriotic citi d if 1 did 



The people there are learning that the not know that 1 was waging the pnh- 



foresters of the United States are their lie money, because labor was so cheap 



servants: that the forester has no self- in the Orient that v. .m- 



i^h aim to serve: that all hi^ aims are pete; that we never could gn>w rice in 



for the good of the people who are to the I'nited State-, and we never could 



*Delivcrcd at the Annual Meeting of the American Forestry Association. Wash- 

 ington, January 29, 1908. 



