56 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



"I am not a preserver of trees. I am a cutter-down 

 of trees. It is the essence of forestry to have trees 

 harvested when they are ripe, and followed by successive 

 crops. The human race is not destroyed because the 

 individual dies. Every individual must die, but the 

 race lives on. So every tree must die, but the forest 

 will be extended and multiplied. Yet it by no means 

 follows that the face of the land shall be denuded, so 

 that the character of the watersheds shall be altered, 

 with the resulting injury to streams and to agricultural 

 lands depending upon them." 



The United States is quite fortunate in the posses- 

 sion of Gifford Pinchot as Government Forester ; the 

 President is fortunate in having a man to carry out 

 this advanced forest policy, a man who is striving 

 solely to conserve one of the greatest of America's 

 natural resources, thus erecting to himself and his 

 period a monument which will endure for all ages. 



President Roosevelt has uttered some notable truths 

 as to the relation of forest preservation to agriculture 

 and home building. Speaking at Leland Stanford 

 University last year, he said : "In many parts of 

 California the whole future welfare of the State de- 

 pends upon the way in which you are able to use your 

 water supply ; and the preservation of the forests and 

 the preservation of the use of the water are insepara- 

 bly connected. Whatever tends to destroy the water 

 supply of the Sacramento, the San Gabriel, and the 

 other valleys strikes vitally at the welfare of California. 

 The forest cover upon the drainage basins of streams 

 used for irrigation purposes is of prime importance 

 to the interests of the entire State." And, again : 

 "Now keep in mind that the whole object of forest pro- 

 tection is, as I have said again and again, the making 

 and maintaining of prosperous homes. Every phase 



