30 TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY Report. 
affects the prosperity and happiness of millions who are not directly 
included in our rural or agricultural population. The development 
of agricultural possibilities opens up the way for other commerce 
and enterprises and readily contributes to the employment and 
happiness of millions of our commercial people. It ought not to 
need more than a mere statement to convince intelligent people that 
this commercial development can not be based on anything else 
than scientifically directed effort. Business cannot long be a series 
of blunders; and it must be the result of commercial intelligence 
and industry. 
A third consideration may now be mentioned, namely, that there 
is a moral phase of this economic question of production and pre- 
servation that the State may not overlook. I suggest that no 
generation has a moral right to live as if there were to be no future 
generations. Reckless or useless waste of natural resources is a 
crime against our children. This world is God’s endowment for the 
race, but no generation has, in my judgment, the right to create 
conditions that make the world less habitable than now. This may 
be a question of moral philosophy, but fundamentally it is a ques- 
tion of economics. To adjust this question Experiment Stations and 
Colleges of Agriculture must give attention. Somebody must speak 
with authority not only upon the moral issue involved but upon the 
economic issue also, upon the preservation of forests, the preser- 
vation of soils, the preservation of minerals, the production of new 
forests, the further development of existing fertility, and the 
wise and economic production for the world’s need. Unless the 
intelligence of a generation shall rise a little higher on these prob- 
lems than its predecessor there is some doubt whether our energies 
have been altogether wisely applied. This high ethical responsibility 
for the use and development of this great storehouse of divine 
goodness for men is an ethical problem that even a secular State 
may not ignore. 
In the application of the above principles briefly stated there are 
problems that are chiefly local and there are problems that are 
national. There are some problems that may easily be undertaken 
and solved by the local State. There are other problems much too 
general in their nature for local consideration. Upon these the 
Federal Government will rightly expend its time and energy. For 
these reasons it is manifest that both the Federal and State govern- 
ments engage in the work of investigation and research with equal 
propriety. The application of public money either from the Fed- 
