Canadian Forestry Convention. 17 



I think I might with your permission, say just a''word concern- 

 ing the fundamental principles upon which the* forest service 

 of the United States is doing its work. 



The first of these is that all permanence in forestry in any 

 country with political institutions such as those of the English- 

 speaking race must be based upon education (loud applause). 

 We are making it our most fundamental effort in the direction 

 of having every man, woman and child in the United States 

 understand that forestry means something to every home (renewed 

 applause) that this is not an academic question, but a matter that 

 appeals directly to every man living in North America at this 

 time. This is the basis (applause). We are going into the schools. 

 We are going to see to it — and this may be called a prophecy 

 merely — that every school child, every boy and girl who passes 

 from the primary into a high school shall know what forestry 

 means; that in every university something shall be taught 

 of forestry as a branch of general culture, not as a profession, 

 but simply as one of the things that every educated man ought 

 to know about (hear, hear). Then, we are trying to establish 

 object lessons in forestry by cooperation with private owners, 

 because, with us the great body of our forests are in the hands 

 of private owners. We hope, by these object lessons to show 

 to every man who cares to see that forestry is a practical thing, 

 that it is not a theory, not merely something to talk about, 

 but something that may be carried out in the forest with a profit. 

 And in this we have been so successful that the great organiza- 

 tion of lumbermen in the United States, the Lumber Manu- 

 facturers' Association has emphasized its belief in actual forestry 

 recently by appointing a committee to raise an endowment of 

 $150,000 for a chair of lumbering in the Yale Forest School 

 (loud applause). They do it, of course, because they believe that 

 they themselves will need foresters and because they feel that 

 they must have men who know something about lumbering. 



Now, as to the use of the public lands for forests. We base 

 our whole policy on a principle stated by the President that 

 we must put every bit of land to its best use, no matter what 

 that may be — put it to the use that will make it contribute most 

 to the general welfare. And we add to that that every acre of 

 land which will contribute more to the public welfare by being 

 maintained in forest, so far as we have that acre as a part of the 

 public lands now, shall remain in public ownership. (Applause.) 

 That means that we set aside, as rapidly as we can, and as our 

 first duty, forest reserves wherever there are to be timbered 

 lands in the United States. 



We have already some 100,000,000 acres of these reserved, 

 an area, unfortunately not one quarter large enough. But 

 we took up this work after the greater part of the best timbered 



