34 



ducts, etc. For, iu the long run, this element would determine how 

 large a per cent, of the farmers would really go into the matter. 



It may be objected to this plan that it is not necessary, since farmers 

 are alive to their own interests, to lead them to take up any such thing 

 of theDiselvTS. This, I think, is entirely a mistaken notion. In the first 

 place, under present conditions it is very questionable whether it would 

 pay farmers to take up tree planting on a large scale as a mere matter 

 of dollars and cents. They know very little of the subject. It would 

 cost entirely too much to get the education necessary to make such a 

 thing profitable for any farmer to undertake it on his own account. 

 On the other hand, if the necessary information was brought home to 

 him by a skilled expert in such a form as to be thoroughly intelligible 

 to him, it might pay him well to engage in it. Moreover, it is a well- 

 known fact that if a custom once creeps into a farming community and 

 naturalizes itself, so to speak, among a few of the best farmers, it often- 

 times takes root and grows, when if it had not come so recommended 

 and pushed by strong public influence it might never have come at all. 

 The introduction of nearly all public improvements amply proves this. 

 It is as well established, for instance, as anything can be in agriculture, 

 that at a certain period in the development of the industry of the coun- 

 try the introduction of improved breeds of live stock will result in 

 enormous profit. But the larger part of the agricultural regions of 

 this country, although they have long reached that period, still worry 

 along with the old style of spindle-shanked draught horse, the long- 

 nosed swine, and the scrub cow. [Nearly every good thing is the result 

 of the determined efibi t of public-spirited citizens, or of the Govern- 

 ment, or the ijushing commercial spirit of the manufacturer or mer- 

 chant who has made or bought something which he wants to sell. Of 

 these means the Government ofiers, so far as forestry is concerned, in 

 the long run, the only sure and permanent one, as in nearly every other 

 sphere of education. 



But this knowledge itself which is to be distributed must first be ac. 

 quired; for it is safe to say that it is not now in existence. To acquire 

 it will cost considerable money and many years of effort if the private 

 individuahis to do it alone and at his own expense. It can be obtained 

 only as the result of careful experimentation on the growth and culti- 

 vation of all the different kinds of trees which will grow in this climate^ 

 and which are of any considerable value. This can be best done in con- 

 nection with a regular school of forestry, where all the problems relat- 

 ing to kinds and values of trees, growth and cultivation, management 

 of stretches of woodland, the effect of forests on climate and health, 

 their economic aspects, and the other countless elements of this great 

 subject of forestry are thoroughly studied. Such a school of forestry 

 might and should be established in connection with the several agricult- 

 ural colleges and experiment stations which have been so liberally en- 

 dowed in all the States by the Federal Governmentj and ^hich will be 



