328 
CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL. 
(Address of President Taft before the National Conservation 
Congress, at Kansas City, Mo., September 25, 1911.) 
Members of the National Conservation Congress: 
At last year's convention of this congress I had the honor and 
pleasure of delivering an address on the subject of conservation 
of our national resources, and therein attempted to state what 
the term "conservation" of our national resources meant, what 
were the statutes affecting and enforcing such conservation, 
classified the different public lands to which it would apply, and 
suggested what I thought was the proper method of disposing 
of each class of lands. Nothing has been done on this subject 
by Congress since that time, but it is hoped that the present Con- 
gress at its regular session will take up the question of the con- 
servation of government land containing coal and phosphates or 
furnishing water power, adopt some laws that will permit the 
use and development of these lands in Alaska and in continental 
United States, and evolve a system by which the government 
shall retain proper ultimate control of the lands, and at the same 
time offer to private investment sufficient returns to induce the 
outlay of capital needed to make the lands useful to the public. 
The discussion did not invoke the consideration of any question 
which directly concerned the production of food. 
Tonight, however, I wish to consider in a summary way an- 
other aspect of conservation far more important than that of 
preserving for the public interests public lands ; that is, the con- 
servation of the soil, with a view to the continued production of 
food in this country sufficient to feed our growing population. 
We have in continental United States about 1,900,000,000 
acres. Of this, the Agricultural Department, through its corre- 
spondents, estimates that 950,000,000 acres are capable of culti- 
vation. Of this, 873,729,000 acres are now in farms. The re- 
mainder, about 1,000,000,000 acres, is land which is untillable. 
It is reasonably certain that substantially all the virgin soil of a 
character to produce crops has been taken up. It is doubtful 
how much of the part not included in farms can be brought irto 
a condition in which tillage will be profitable. 
The total acreage of farms in the last ten years, although the 
pressure for increased acreage by reason of high farm prices 
was great, was increased only about 4 per cent., or about 35,000,- 
000 acres. There are upward of 25,000,000 acres that will be 
brought in under our irrigation system, and perhaps more, and 
the amount of lands which can be drained and made useful for 
agriculture will amount to about 70,000,000 acres. 
