American Forest Congress 409 



eighteen has grown to thirty-nine, and we have hopes 

 of sixteen more in the spring. 



Now I only speak about this, my friends, because it 

 is a kindred question. It is one of the things that 

 grows out of the agitation of forestry. A man or a 

 woman who preserves a tree in a practical way will 

 preserve the things that that tree shelters and produces 

 and that are useful to man. Again, I wish to bid you 

 Godspeed, and I hope you will carry with you to every 

 part of the United States the enthusiasm which you will 

 generate here — ^the enthusiasm which you bring here 

 and which you will convey to one another — and that 

 you will be a mighty band of missionaries all the way 

 from Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon. 



Address by Hon. W. A. Reeder 



Member of Congress from Kansas 



I REGARD it as a privilege to be permitted to speak 

 to so intelligent an audience from all sections of 

 this great country of ours, interested in so vital a work 

 as the preservation of our forests. I had the good 

 fortune to be born in one of the best valleys of Penn- 

 sylvania, the Cumberland Valley, but I had the better 

 fortune to be removed, very early in my history, to 

 the Solomon Valley, in the semi-arid regions of western 

 Kansas, and for considerably over a third of a century 

 I have lived in that section, and it has probably changed 

 my characteristics considerably from what they would 

 have been had I remained in the land of my nativity; 

 also my interest in certain matters, particularly the 

 matters of irrigation and the preservation of our 

 forests. 

 What a dense population we will be able to find 



