868 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 729 



dition of mucli of the level upland plains 

 of populous China, where now exist soil 

 areas hundreds of square miles in extent 

 that are absolutely depopulated, the restora- 

 tion of which has been called "The Prob- 

 lem of China." 



Permanent agriculture is the only struc- 

 ture upon which the future prosperity of 

 the American nation can be secured, and 

 the absolutely essential foundation of per- 

 manent agriculture is the fertility of the 

 soil. Cybil G. Hopkins 



University of Illinois 



EXTRACTS FROM PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S 

 MESSAGE TO THE CONGRESS 



If there is any one duty which more 

 than another we owe it to our children 

 and our children's children to perform at 

 once, it is to save the forests of this country, 

 for they constitute the first and most im- 

 portant element in the conservation of the 

 natural resources of the country. There 

 are, of course, two kinds of natural re- 

 sources. One is the kind which can only 

 be used as part of a process of exhaustion ; 

 this is true of mines, natural oil and gas 

 wells and the like. The other, and of 

 course ultimately by far the most impor- 

 tant, includes the resources which can be 

 improved in the process of wise use; the 

 soil, the rivers and the forests come under 

 this head. Any really civilized nation will 

 so use all of these three great national 

 assets that the nation will have their benefit 

 in the future. 



Just as a farmer, after all his life making 

 his living from his farm, will, if he is an 

 expert farmer, leave it as an asset of in- 

 creased value to his son, so we should leave 

 our national domain to our children, in- 

 creased in value and not worn out. There 

 are small sections of our own country, in 

 the east and in the west, in the Adiron- 

 dacks, the White Mountains and the Ap- 



palachians, and in the Rocky Mountains, 

 where we can already see for ourselves the 

 damage in the shape of permanent injury 

 to the soil and the river systems which 

 comes from reckless deforestation. It mat- 

 ters not whether this deforestation is due to 

 the actual reckless cutting of timber, to the 

 fires that inevitably follow such reckless 

 cutting of timber or to reckless and uncon- 

 trolled grazing, especially by the great 

 migratory bands of sheep, the unchecked 

 wandering of which over the country means 

 destruction to forests and disaster to the 

 small homemakers, the settlers of limited 

 means. 



Shortsighted persons, or persons blinded 

 to the future by desire to make money in 

 every way out of the present, sometimes 

 speak as if no great damage would be done 

 by the reckless destruction of our forests. 

 It is difficult to have patience with the 

 arguments of these persons. Thanks to our 

 own recklessness in the use of our splendid 

 forests, we have already crossed the verge 

 of a timber famine in this country, and no 

 measures that we now take can, at least for 

 many years, undo the mischief that has 

 already been done. But we can prevent 

 further mischief being done, and it would 

 be in the highest degree reprehensible to let 

 any consideration of temporary convenience 

 or temporary cost interfere with such ac- 

 tion, especially as regards the national for- 

 ests which the nation can now, at this very 

 moment, control. 



All serious students of the question are 

 aware of the great damage that has been 

 done in the Mediterranean countries of 

 Europe, Asia and Africa by deforestation. 

 The similar damage that has been done in 

 eastern Asia is less well known. A recent 

 investigation into conditions in North China 

 by Mr. Frank N. Meyer, of the Bureau of 

 Plant Industry of the United States De- 

 partment of Agriculture, has incidentally 



