American Forest Congress 337 



the greatest interest and pleasure to the President's 

 address yesterday, and one of his sentences struck me 

 very forcibly. He said : "We want to change the hope 

 of accomplishment to the knowledge of things done." 

 If we are going to do that we must have a clear-cut 

 idea of what we are going to do and of what we want 

 Congress to do — so plain and clear that there is no 

 possibility of any man being so stupid that he cannot 

 understand it. 



We have listened to these gentlemen here to-day 

 telling of the necessities of the mining industries and 

 of the injustice brought about by insufficient laws. 

 There is a most simple way to get all the things done 

 that they have recommended, and more, too. The 

 first is to bring about a perfect understanding with a 

 business bureau of the Government, if we can create 

 such a bureau, and the way to do that is to pass the 

 bill consolidating the forest reserves, under the control 

 of Mr. Gifford Pinchot. 



And after you have done that and he has consulted 

 with the lumberman and the miner and the farmer 

 and understands what the)'' want, then back him up 

 and make your Congressman help to get it done. 



There has been a good deal said here about tree 

 planting, and I want to speak of the importance of 

 tree planting to California. The water that comes 

 from the Sierra Madre and San Bernardino Mountains 

 produces annually $20,000,000 worth of fruit and other 

 products of the irrigated farms to exchange with the 

 manufacturers of the east for the products of their 

 factories. The forests of those mountains have been 

 neglected, thousands of acres have been burnt over 

 and destroyed. One citizen of that State has interested 

 himself prominently in tree planting. I refer to Mr. 

 Lukens. He deserves to be mentioned by name. He 



