CANADIAN FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 7 



of the community, they must eventually drift into a state of material as well 

 as moral bankruptcy. 



flow to conserve the natural resources in the interest of posterity, while 

 obtaining from them the greatest profit that scientific management can 

 secure for the enrichment of the living, is the problem which the President 

 of the United States has invited the Governments of all parts of the North 

 American continent to consider. 



In May, 1908, the President convened a Conference of the Governors 

 of the different States for the purpose of considering how best to conserve 

 and develop the natural resources of the country. A National Conservation 

 Commission was appointed to make a report. That report has recently 

 been presented. The facts set forth in the report, in the .language of the 

 President, "constitute an imperative call to action." The Government of 

 the United States is thoroughly convinced that the better conservation of 

 the national resources is the fundamental question before which all other 

 questions would appear to sink into minor importance. 



We are told that the American people are already convinced by the 

 revelations of this Commission that there is a direct relation between forests 

 and the stream flow, upon which both navigation and agriculture depend, 

 and that they consequently are already standing "almost as a unit for 

 forest protection." 



In the message of the President of the United States, communicated to 

 the two Houses of Congress at the beginning of last session, the President 

 printed some pictures showing the terrible and awful desolation occasioned 

 in parts of China by reckless deforestation. I wish these pictures could be 

 republished in Canada for the information of your schools. They would 

 show, in a manner that could not fail to impress the imagination of the 

 rising generation, how deforestation causes the washing of fertile soil into 

 the streams and the covering of the former fertile plains with rock-waste 

 from the denuded hillslopes, and thus prevents the continued growth of crops 

 upon the plains. 



I know no more impressive or conclusive illustration of the close and 

 direct connection existing between scientific forestry and prosperous agri- 

 culture, and I would, therefore, suggest to this conference that among the 

 other methods it may adopt for the education of the public mind upon this 

 all-important subject, they should consider the desirability of publishing 

 these parts of the President's message, accompanied by the illustrations 

 confirming the importance of his solemn warnings, and showing how as a 

 direct consequence of reckless deforestation the terrible Mongol Desert is 

 steadily extending eastward over Northern China. 



