WA ERS 



Vol. XV 



SEPTEMBER, 1909 



No. 9 



HOMExBUILDING FOR THE NATION 



By GIFFORD PINCHOT, United States Forester, and Chairman 

 National Conservation Commission* 



THE most valuable citizen of this 

 or any other country is the man 

 who owns the land from which 

 he makes his living-. Xo other man 

 has such a stake in the country. No 

 other man lenc's such steadiness and 

 stability to our national life. There- 

 fore, no other question concerns us 

 more intimately than the question of 

 homes. Permanent homes for our- 

 selves, our children, and our Nation 

 this is the central problem. The policy 

 of national irrigation is of value to the 

 I'nited States in very many ways, but 

 the greatest of all is this, that national 

 irrigation multiplies the men who own 

 the land from which they make their 

 living. The old saying. "\Yho ever 

 heard of a man shouldering his gun to 

 fight for his boarding-house?" reflects 

 this great truth, that no man is so 

 ready to defend his country, not only 

 with arms, but with his vote, and his 

 contribution to public opinion, as the 

 man with a permanent stake in it as 



the man wlr> owns the land from which 

 he makes his living. 



( )ur country began as a nation of 

 farmers. During the periods that gave 

 it its character, when our independ- 

 ence was won and when our Union 

 was preserved, we were preeminently a 

 nation of farmers. We cannot, and we 

 ought not, to continue exclusively, or 

 even chiefly, an agricultural country, 

 because one man can raise food 

 enough for many. But the farmer who 

 owns his land is still the backbone of 

 this Nation ; and one of the things we 

 want most is more of him. 



The man on the farm is valuable t< > 

 the Nation, like any other citizen, just 

 in proportion to his intelligence, char- 

 acter, ability, and patriotism : but, un- 

 like the other citizens, also in propor- 

 tion to his attachment to the soil. That 

 is the principal spring of his steadi- 

 ness, his sanity, his simplicity and di- 

 rectness, and manv of his other desir- 



*Delivered before the Nationnl Irrigation Congress at Spokane, Wash., on August 10, 1909. 



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