Miscellaneous. 



382 



[April, 1909. 



behind them. Iq order to develop 

 associations on sound and safe lines the 

 department should interest Collectors 

 of districts in them. The Director 

 of Agriculture should obtain from 

 Collectors suggestions as to places where 

 an association would be likely to 

 succeed, and the names of persons who 

 would give it active support. He should 

 then send a competent man to the place 

 to give the necessary information and 

 to inaugurate the association. The co- 

 operation of Collectors, who have local 

 knowledge of the districts, might prove 

 invaluable to the Department. 



The Governor in Council considers that 

 it is impossible to overrate the value of 

 the work which the Department of 

 Agriculture will in time be able to 

 accomplish. Poi the present, however, 

 it is not desirable to put upon the 

 Department duties which is not yet able 

 to perform. The teaching work of the 

 College is going on well, and the result 

 will be a steady output of young men 

 who have some scientific knowledge of 

 agriculture, which it may be hoped 

 they will disseminate. Research work, 

 however, is still in the embryo stage, 

 and, as many of the innumerable pro- 

 blems arising in India are new, progress 

 must be slow, if, as is essential, it is to 

 be sure and well ordered. The action to 

 be taken should, therefore, be cautious 

 lest expectations should be raised, which 

 cannot be fulfilled and disappointment 

 created which might lead to distrust of 

 the Department. — Indian Agriculturist, 

 Vol. XXXIII., No. 9. 



THE GOVERNORS' CONFERENCE, 

 U. S. AMERICA. 



The following is President Roosevelt's 

 address at the historic Conference at 

 the White House called to determine 

 upon a means to check the vanishing 

 national resources of the U. S. A. :— 

 Governors of the several States and 

 Gentlemen : — 



I welcome you to this Conference at 

 the White House. You come hither 

 at my request, so that we may join to- 

 gether to consider the question ' of the 

 conservation and use of the great funda- 

 mental sources of wealth of this Nation. 

 So vital is this question, that for the 

 first time in our history the chief exe- 

 cutive officers of the States separately, 

 and of the States together forming the 

 Nation, have met to consider it. 



With the Governors come men from 

 each State, chosen for their special 

 acquaintance with the terms of the 

 problem that is before us. Among them 

 are experts in natural resources and re- 



presentatives of national organizations 

 concerned in the development and use 

 of these resources. The Senators and 

 Representatives in Congress; the Su- 

 preme Court, the Cabinet, and the Inland 

 Waterways Commission have likewise 

 been invited to the Conference, which 

 is therefore national in a peculiar sense. 



This Conference on the conservation 

 of natural resources is in effect a meet- 

 iug of the representatives of all the 

 people of the United States, called to 

 consider the mightiest problem now 

 before the Nation ; and the occasion for 

 the meeting lies in the fact that the 

 natural r esources of our country are in 

 danger of exhaustion if we permit the 

 old wasteful methods cf exploiting them 

 longer to continue. 



With the rise of peoples from savagery 

 to civilization, and with the consequent 

 growth in the extent and variety of 

 the needs of the average man, there 

 comes a steadily increasing growth of 

 the amount demanded by this average 

 man from the actual resources of the 

 country. Yet, rather curiously, at the 

 same time, the average man is apt to 

 lose his realization of this dependence 

 upon nature. 



Savages, and very primitive peoples 

 generally, concern themselves only with 

 superficial natural resources ; with those 

 which they obtain from the actual sur- 

 face of the ground. As people become 

 a little less primitive, their industries, 

 although in a rude manner, are extended 

 to resources below the surface; then, 

 with what we call civilization and the 

 extension of knowledge, more resources 

 come into use, industries are multiplied, 

 and foresight begins to become a neces- 

 sary and prominent factor in life. Crops 

 are cultivated : animals are domesti- 

 cated ; and metals are mastered. 



Every step of the progess of mankind 

 is marked by the discovery and use of 

 natural resources previously unused. 

 Without such progressive knowledge 

 and utilization of natural resources 

 population could not grow, nor industries 

 multiply, nor the hidden wealth of the 

 earth be developed for the benefit of 

 mankind. 



From the beginnings of civilization' 

 on the banks of the Nile and Euphrates) 

 the industrial progress of the world 

 has gone on slowly, with occasional 

 setbacks, but ou the whole steadily, 

 through tens of centuries to the present 

 day. But of late the rapidity of the 

 process has increased at such a rate that 

 more space has been actually covered 

 during the century and a quarter 

 occupied by our national life than 

 during the preceding six thousand 

 years that take us back to the earliest 



