SUPPLEMENTARY PROCEEDINGS (continued 3)

The association has always been active in advocating the passage of various federal laws looking to the conservation of our native wild life. Through its officers, agents and members large numbers of violators of the game laws are annually reported to the state authorities and in many instances prosecutions are begun and pushed by its representatives.

Its continuous fight against the millinery traffic in the feathers of native birds is a well-known subject in contemporaneous history. To safeguard American water birds, the association has purchased, leased and in other ways secured control of numbers of islands, lakes and swamps where birds of this class are accustomed to congregate in great numbers for the purposes of laying their eggs and rearing their young. Today virtually all of the important breeding colonies of birds on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, as well as many of those along the Pacific coast, are guarded in the summer by wardens employed by the association. Through its efforts, the United States Government has been interested in establishing fifty-three bird sanctuaries by making islands and lakes frequented by breeding birds in summer federal reservations. The association coöperates with the Government in paying for the services of wardens who guard these birds from the inroads of hunters who may desire to kill them for food or to secure their plumage for the feather markets.

The association conducts a wide educational campaign by means of lecturers and the annual distribution of hundreds of thousands of pages of literature and pictures of native birds. It is pushing the organization of bird study classes in the schools, and as an example during the past year, over ten thousand Southern school children received systematic instructions in bird study.

The association in its various fields of endeavor coöperates with the officials of the United States Department of Education, with the United States Commissioner of Education and numerous scientific societies. Its growth during the past few years has been almost phenomenal and the results achieved in rehabilitating the bird life of many sections of the country is a source of great encouragement.

A LETTER.

From J. L. Van Ornum, Representing the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education and the Society for Testing Materials.

Had there been time for me to extend the greetings of the Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education to the Third Conservation Congress, I should have stated that:

At our annual convention of fifteen years ago a paper was presented on the subject of “The Conservation of Government Energy Through Education and Research,” in which the statement is made with reference to our natural resources, “the Government must be possessed of large resources and a settled policy. Resources are not so easily commanded now as formerly. All sources must be guarded and everything realized must be successfully husbanded.”

In the work of the engineering colleges, which distinctively consists in educating young men in those fundamental principles which particularly concern the direction of the great resources of materials and power in nature to the use and convenience of mankind, the student is trained to regard wastefulness as serious a fault as he does otherwise defective design.

With this idea of the essential economy of their plans and works thus impressed, engineers have been filling their place in the development of the material resources of the Republic for more than half a century, until there exists a body of trained men to whom conservation is an ingrained trait.

Having this common ground of interest, it would seem that each organization may be of service to the other; that which I represent gaining an enlarged interest in those social, economic and moral questions which so vitally affect human welfare, and you, perhaps, utilizing the trained experience available to most fully disclose the true conditions upon which conclusions must depend, so that the principles advocated may always be based upon ascertained facts.

As I listened to the reading of the resolutions on the last afternoon, it seemed to me that if the situation referred to in my last paragraph had been utilized, the statement with regard to the purity of rivers would have been materially modified. I think that civil (sanitary) engineers are rapidly realizing that there is a practicable limit set by conditions of civilization to the absolute purity of rivers, in some cases, which has been theoretically deemed desirable. However, I wish to say in general, that it seems to me the resolutions passed by the Congress are excellent.

ADDRESS.

By J. C. Baumgartner of California.

I regret exceedingly that a gentleman from our state with whom many of you are well acquainted, a former governor, George C. Pardee, who is the chairman of our State Conservation commission, is not here. I feel wholly incompetent to represent California upon this occasion, but have been asked to say just a few words.

When the governor of California asked me a few days ago to take a place upon the state Conservation commission I was very proud and glad to do so. I happened to be a newspaper man by profession, and quite a number of papers throughout the state had little items about my appointment, and the heading in many instances read something like this: “Baumgartner gets a fat plum,” “An editor recognized,” and so on down the line. I made a little reply to that in this way: I said that I was very glad indeed to be recognized as a man who was willing and perhaps in some little measure competent to have a part in the great work of conservation, without money and without price, as you all know, and as was expressed from this platform this morning, this work is a work in which no individual has any selfish interest. It is a public-spirited work. And it is certainly one of the biggest and best things that is going on in this country today. Nothing has been done in California by the state government by way of recognition of this work until within the past few months. So that we who are here from that state are here to learn, and not to attempt to instruct. If we can learn our A B Cs here, we shall feel that our time and money have been well spent in coming here.

About five or six months ago—I haven’t a recollection of the exact date—the Conservation commission of California was appointed and began its work. I have had the pleasure and the privilege of attending only one meeting which was held a week ago last Friday, and at that meeting I was prevailed upon to come to this Congress, because other members, more competent to represent the state, could not leave home. Accompanying me are other gentlemen from that state. The secretary of our state commission, and representatives of other phases of conservation are here. We have a great deal of rich agricultural land in California, and we are a little shy of water in some places. We have ideal conditions in many respects for manufacturing, but we are also a little shy on coal. So that we turn our attention naturally to water and power first. We have entered into coöperative agreements with federal employes, representatives of the various federal bureau departments, who are working in our state, especially the geological survey people, and the representatives of the department of agriculture, and we have men of our own in the field gathering data on those important phases of conservation in California—water resources and power resources. The work has only just begun, but we feel that we were fortunate in securing this coöperation of the National Government. It is barely possible that this may be a suggestion to some other state. We entered into agreements with these people to gather the data that we need in order to give us the information necessary for intelligent recommendation to the legislature as to the necessary legislation in our state. This work has just begun, and we feel that we have saved a great deal of time in not having to organize a complete force of our own, and also a great deal of money has been saved in eliminating overhead charges. These gentlemen are gathering for us complete data as to the amount and character of lands that can be irrigated, and complete data as to the water that is available for irrigating those lands. We also in our last legislature, in addition to providing for this commission, provided for a board of control of water power, and under that law the state has absolute control and regulation of water power. In California there is sufficient water power to turn every wheel that is now turned in the United States. It is estimated by federal government experts that we have in California in use and operation 250,000 horsepower, and that we might easily develop five million. It is also estimated that this five million horsepower on the basis of the price of coal in California is a billion dollars a year. So you can see how important that phase of the work is to us. We are accompanied here by the secretary of our commission, Mr. Louis R. Glavis, and during the course of the convention if there is anything that any one wishes to ask about our work or plans, Mr. Glavis can no doubt answer the questions intelligently. Very likely I could not if the questions were put to me.

We wish to say in this same connection that we would indeed be glad to have the representatives and the conservation commissions in other states and all conservation bodies and organizations, send us any information they have that may be of benefit to us, and we shall be glad, indeed, to reciprocate that courtesy. I do not think there is anything else that I can say, ladies and gentlemen. We merely wanted you to know that we were awake, or just beginning to get awake in California on this important subject, and that we shall give it our best efforts, and invite your hearty coöperation. I thank you. (Applause)

REPORT FROM IDAHO.

By Mrs. Holland C. Day.

While I am not a native of Idaho, I must say that I claim allegiance to the state of Missouri, and Governor Hadley is my governor. (Applause) But, as I spent many months in Idaho, I was appointed by the newspapers to speak a word for Idaho in case there was no one else here to represent her. Therefore that is my excuse for appearing before you.

Through the Carey act Idaho has had more opportunity to be settled than through the general homestead act, as there is not so much time required to stay on the land before beginning to cultivate. Of course, you all know that is a sage brush country, and there is lots of grubbing to be done there. A few years ago I helped to plant an orchard of 167 acres. Eight thousand fruit trees were planted there. It is called Pasadena valley. From my little hut we counted sixteen settlements of school teachers and their wives, and young people settling in that valley, making a new start in life. That valley blossoms, I was going to say, like a rose, but I mean like an apple tree. For two years now these apple trees have been growing and putting out fine new shoots and they have been obliged to cut these twigs away in order to have the best kind of apples two years from now. Dr. Morrison’s orchard is situated in Pasadena valley: he has 167 acres there. He is a man well known in the State of Washington, and he took up this land for the sake of inducing others to come. Now, as far as the irrigation problem is concerned, you all know about it. I am confined to five minutes, but I want to say that the sooner the people of the United States, especially of the East, will not think so much about the productiveness of the soil as they will of the locality, and they think more of the locality I would say, than the productiveness, then the whole western country will be a Mecca for some of the hide-bound people of the East. (Applause)

Now, I am a New Yorker myself originally. I was a New York girl up to thirty years ago, and now I am a Missourian, and once a Missourian always a Missourian. And when I went out West they did not have to show me, either. (Applause) But I see the people of the East do not understand the conservation theory as well as they might. I have talked with many, and you take up the New York papers, and you will find that they are very provincial. There is nothing outside of New York. You have to come West and get the western papers to find out what is going on all over the world, and conservation is the touch-word nowadays. I want to say that Idaho is heart and soul in this movement. I represent a paper that goes all over Idaho and is looking forward to some report from this Congress with a great deal of interest, and I shall be pleased to report it as well and effectively as only a woman can. I thank you very much, and if you want to plant any orchards and have them grow and make money, and send your apples to Europe and all over the world, come to Idaho, to King’s Hill or Glenn’s Ferry. I thank you. (Applause)

REPORT FROM ILLINOIS.

By Colonel Isham Randolph.

Col. Randolph—I bring you God speed and the good will of our Governor who cannot be here himself. He is lying upon a bed of pain with a broken leg, but that is the only thing that is lame about him. He is as determined in spirit, and as earnest in his efforts for the good of his own people and for the good of the whole Nation as though he was sound in every bone in his body.

Illinois, the sister state to Missouri, is not a novice in the conservation movement. She began it a long time ago. She has had her conservation work going on for many years, and she has learned that in union there is strength. In Illinois we have had for a number of years, the Internal Improvement commission, which joined hands with the State Geological Survey, with the United States Government Survey, with the water survey, with the fish commission, and hand in hand they have worked for the development of the state and the conservation of our resources. Something has been said about the failure of the land in the East. It was my good fortune to be a delegate to the first Conservation Congress in the White House. The president of our Illinois University, in the course of his remarks said, that so much was said about the misfortunes, of the impoverishment of the land of New England, of the lands of New York, of the lands of Virginia and other eastern states, but, he said, “My friends, I do not so regard it. The impoverishment of these lands has sent the sons of those states to build up the West. They have carried with them their energy, their brains, their character, and they are making the great West what it is today.” I repeated that to a distinguished educator in agricultural lines who is now in this audience, and what do you think his remark was? He said, “Did he also go on to say that wherever the English-speaking people had set foot they had robbed the soil, and given it nothing back?” Now, our universities are teaching our English-speaking people, and our people of all languages, how to give back to the soil that which has been taken from it. Our University of Illinois, with its experiment stations, its work on behalf of agriculture, has so educated its people that each year the results of that education is to give back to the state more than all the money that Illinois has ever put into this great institution. It has been said of a great eastern college that it is a kindergarten for hell. Not so of our great institutions. That is a kindergarten from which we are educating men to upbuild our state, to make it agriculturally and in every other way, what that great state should be. We have in Illinois a number of things to be conserved. We have our coal resources. These problems have been taken up by the Geological Survey, and are being handled in a way which still result in great good for the state. We have no arid lands in Illinois, but we have flooded lands, overflowed lands. We have hundreds of thousands of acres which we are now starting in to reclaim. It is the business of a commission which was appointed by the State of Illinois to study its streams, to look out for the interests of the state, to recover from all unlawful owners, unlawful seizure of lands which rightfully belonged to the state. It is the business of that commission to conserve the water power of the state. There is a great asset for which our Governor is making an excellent fight. The question is, shall Illinois own the water power of the Illinois river, and conserve it for all use, or shall private capital own that, and all the people use it by paying for it? It has been said that we have been defeated in this thing. Why, gentlemen, as a great leader—I believe he was a commander of a vessel—when called upon to surrender said, “We have just begun to fight.” We are going to conserve that water power for the people of the state and we are going to give the state and the Nation a water way. This is a congress to consider the conservation of the land, the soil development of the land, but, gentlemen, you must bear in mind that this country is growing by leaps and bounds, and that the railroads of our country cannot keep pace with the transportation demands. We must look to the future. It is said that our water ways are of no use today. Ah, but they will be of use. The time is coming when these water ways, when every water way that can float a boat will be required to take the produce of our farms to market. The time is not long past when our railroads were so glutted with produce that the farmers were losing their hard earnings because they could not put their grain into market. This occurred at a time when the population of the states which may be considered tributary to the Mississippi river were only 31.4 per square mile. The same census gave Great Britain a population of 312.5 to the square mile, and these states are so rich in soil that they will support a population equal to that of any other area on the face of the earth, and that population is coming—you cannot begin to get ready for it too soon. In 1913 at the present rate of progress the Panama Canal will be opened to the nations of the earth for business. Will the Mississippi valley be able and ready to float its produce down to avail that great opening, or must it go on forever shipping its produce by rail to some Pacific or Atlantic port, to be there loaded into the vessels, and go through this canal in vessels that ought to be loaded at your own doors, in your own city? I make this appeal for the water ways, and I make it brief, because my time is up, and I thank you for your attention. (Applause.)

REPORT FOR INDIANA.

By Harry Everest Barnard.

I represent the Indiana branch of the National conservation association. The state which is the center of population, the center of industrial activity, the center of literary activity. We believe that Indiana is the state most progressive in the way of constructive, conservative legislation of any of the states of our great country. During the last few years our legislature has been doing active constructive work. We have this last year placed upon our statute books the first cold storage bill passed in the United States which is really constructive legislation. We believe, in Indiana, that conservation means utilization, economic utilization, and that the manufacturers who know how to make a better brick out of Indiana clay; the health officer who shows us how to conserve and improve the health of our school children, or teaches us how to build a better school house; the man who can produce a new product out of Indiana oil, is a true conservationist. The state boards of health of Indiana have been devoting most of their time in the last few years to a study of stream pollution. We have been studying the pollution of the southern end of Lake Michigan, by the industrial activities at the northern end of our state. We have shown the citizens in that northern part of Indiana how they are pouring their sewage into Lake Michigan through one pipe and drawing water from Lake Michigan through another. At the present time we are studying the pollution of the Ohio river by the sewage of the cities of Indiana, and we have now demonstrated by a survey which is still in operation, but which has covered over 300 miles of the Ohio river, that wonderful stream of water is nothing but a stream of sewage its entire length, wholly unfit for drinking purposes.

Indiana is regulating the propagation of the unfit, by effective legislation. Indiana is taking a stand in the front of all health organization work. It has this last year introduced compulsory medical inspection of school children. Within the last two years Indiana, although not at the present time a forest state, has become aroused to the necessity of work along the lines of intelligent forest conservation, not only because we need the lumber, and the timber and wood, but because we need to preserve the life of our streams. Indiana has found that within the last twenty years the ground water level throughout the state has been lowered some twenty feet, and is now realizing that without proper forest conservation it cannot expect to find sufficient water for its needs in the not distant future. (Applause.)

REPORT FOR IOWA.

By Thomas H. MacBride.

I shall say nothing about the resources of Iowa. This is an intelligent audience (applause) and I take it there is not a man or woman in any state in the United States who does not know all about the fact that Iowa is the most magnificent garden on the face of the earth. I shall, therefore, say nothing about Iowa. I do say, however, that my notion of this whole conservation movement is simply the devotion to an idea. And that idea is the right use of this world. Our problem, therefore, is the right use of the state of Iowa. Now, then, we have magnificent soil; we have streams that run riot in spring and winter and are so dry in summer that all the large catfish have to move away. We have lakes, the most beautiful perhaps of all the lakes, the small lakes, on the northern plains. We have some forests, and Nature put the forests in the right place; she put it to protect the streams. Four years ago the legislature of Iowa made provision for a commission which should report upon the proper conservation of our soils, our lakes, our streams and our woods. That commission did make a report. That report is available for the members of this Congress; it can be had. That report was presented to our last legislature, our latest legislature was called to the momentous task of choosing a senator for the senate of the United States, and in devotion to that tremendous problem the report of the commission was entirely overlooked. That report was a good one; I say so because I was a member of that commission, and I therefore make this apology for the legislature of my state, in view of the fact that I think the legislature overlooked the most magnificent piece of work. But in all seriousness, Iowa is at work. The people of Iowa are alive to these problems. We have there many agencies that are at work. Our whole subject is before our state colleges of agriculture, than which it is admitted there are none better. There are many men in all parts of the state who are devoted to this idea, and one of them has been so prominent that he stands above us all today as the president of this Congress (applause). It is therefore less necessary that I should say anything about Iowa. Mr. President, do you believe that hundreds of men and women would leave their homes at their own cost, and at the cost and sacrifice of their own business, for anything less than an idea? And, Mr. President, the time has come when that idea shall win. It must win, if we are going to use this world rightly, because no problem is solved until it is solved rightly. Then, when that time comes, you will see in Iowa, and in all these border states, not only the freest people on the face of the earth, but the happiest. (Applause.)

REPORT FROM KANSAS.

By Dean H. J. Waters, Of the State Agricultural College.

I understand that this is a report of progress in the great movement of conservation. I regret that Kansas, unlike Iowa, has no beautiful lakes. They have all long since gone dry, as has Kansas in other particulars, and where these lakes once were are now growing crops, great and bountiful crops of alfalfa, and in the places where Kansas went dry in other particulars there is now growing a great crop of temperate and stalwart men and women. (Applause.) It was said by your distinguished chairman this morning that Kansas was the experiment station of this Nation, and she pleads guilty to the charge, and is proud of it. They have the courage to try any experiment in government, in business, in farming that promises to be successful, and that promises real progress.

You ask what Kansas is doing to conserve its resources? She is conserving her resources of men and women by having less intemperance than any other state in the union; by having less illiteracy than any other state in the union; by having empty jails and almshouses, and having full school houses with seven months of school in every district in Kansas each year; with a teacher the minimum salary of which is $50 a month. (Applause.) And, with a larger proportion of our sons and daughters in colleges, in proportion to our population, than any other state in the Union. (Applause.) But, speaking more specifically concerning the questions immediately before this Congress, what is Kansas doing towards the conservation of her so-called material resources? Our last legislature made provision for a state commission of conservation, and I regret exceedingly that the chairman of that committee happened to be absent at this particular moment, so that I might have been spared the embarrassment of speaking for the state on this occasion. That commission is actively at work, and is considering the matter of soil fertility, of the education of the people in the country and in the city, and considering all matters that would naturally be considered in connection with this subject.

And then, what has the agricultural college been doing along this line, and these agricultural colleges have been the pioneers in this field of conservation? Last year the Kansas state agricultural college spoke to 150,000 people in Kansas concerning the question of conservation, and at every farmers’ institute held in that state for the last six years the question of soil fertility has been discussed, and has been the topic of discussion at meetings, and the details of soil fertility has come to be a household word.

There are today in the state of Kansas 340 farmers’ institutes or farmers’ clubs, that meet once every month, with a membership of 14,000 heads of families, the membership representing sixty or seventy thousand persons. They discuss once a month the details of prosperous, progressive and successful farming, including soil fertility. In the great corn belt, on an average fully 25 per cent of our great corn crop—and the greatest crop we produce—is wasted for the want of a silo in which to preserve it. In Kansas four years ago there were 62 silos. The agricultural college has made a special campaign through its extension department along this line, and today there are 2,000 silos in Kansas, and all of them full. That is the only thing I know of in Kansas that is full. Within the last six years the area of alfalfa has been doubled; and this is in the line of conservation, for here is a crop that enriches the father but does not impoverish the son, and that is but a part of what Kansas is doing. I say these things not boastfully, for Kansas is not doing a quarter of what she ought to do in these lines, and not a quarter of what she will do in the very near future through the stimulus of great Congresses like this. (Applause.)

REPORT FOR LOUISIANA.

By Fred L. Grace.

Just a few words about conservation from our state, Louisiana. Our very emblems are symbolic of conservation. Our state emblem is a pelican, the only bird of flight that will pull the flesh from its own breast to feed it to its young. Our state flower is the magnolia, whose stately trees by the same name grow all over our state, and whose wood is very valuable for furniture.

At the last session of the general assembly of Louisiana, under the progressive administration of Governor J. Y. Sanders, there were enacted and made into laws twenty-nine measures relating to conservation of our natural resources and the preservation of the gifts so bountifully provided us by an all-wise Providence.

Louisiana leads in the production of lumber, as well as sulphur, and salt, much mineral oil and gas. In fact, Louisiana leads in having the greatest store of natural resources.

She has in pine lands, as near as I have been able to figure, about 4,269,928 acres.

In hardwoods, such as oak, gum, willow, persimmon, hickory, magnolia, beech, elm, sycamore and poplar, 3,338,486 acres.

In cypress approximately 900,000 acres.

We have, in Louisiana, two mills which alone cut daily nearly one and three-quarter million feet of lumber. Of these the mill of the great Southern lumber company of Bogalusa, La., and Fullerton, La., is the largest in the world.

This company is putting in an alcohol plant so that utilization can be made of waste products and they be manufactured into alcohol. The number of employees at this plant and their logging operation are about 1,600 to 1,800. Their motto is, “Utilization as well as Conservation.” They now make charcoal of the limbs, and paper and alcohol of the refuse wood and sawdust. In a short time they will begin to work the stumps, and in connection with this I will add that there is more turpentine in a stump than in any part of the tree. Utilization of the stumps will clear the lands for farming purposes and these soon will bloom with growing crops.

Louisiana has many bayous and creeks and all of these are lined with mills and lumber companies which are steadily cutting on the vast supply at hand. Our forests are teeming with woods of all kinds and Louisiana has more kinds of woods than any state in the Union.

The long leaf pine of Louisiana obtains preëminence over those of other states for its superior qualities of strength and elasticity, combined with comparatively light weight and ease of working, making it adaptable to many classes of work.

Our cypress, which grows principally in the southern part of the state and also to some extent in the lower and swampy portions of the middle and northern portions, is of extremely slow growth, but is the most lasting of all our woods, and under water is practically indestructible. We ship more cross-ties of oak and cypress than any other state, a great many of these being creosoted and exported to foreign countries where they are in great demand.

Another tree that is springing into prominence is the pecan. East Baton Rouge has a pecan orchard of 700 acres and the Parish of Iberville has a number of varieties of several hundred acres each. In some of the parishes bordering on Bayou Teche, inhabitants are going into the culture of this tree on a large scale. The profits in this business are large, each tree producing, when having attained a growth, one or more barrels of the pecans of which the average price is from 15 to 25 cents per pound.

We are now drafting laws for the protection of timber from devastation by fire and from indiscriminate logging.

Over in the southwestern part of Louisiana is located the plant of the Union Sulphur Company, engaged in the mining of sulphur by a novel process.

The product is mined by being melted by superheated steam pumped down through the deposits and it is then pumped up in a molten state and allowed to cool and solidify in vats where it is broken up and shipped to market.

This mine is one of the largest in the world, if not the largest, and its output is close to one thousand tons per day. This, I think, shoves Sicily hard for first place in the production of this mineral.

Borings made by the company to ascertain the amount of sulphur in that vicinity show fully 40,000,000 tons underlying their holdings.

The discovery of the famous Beaumont oil field in 1901 was the signal for oil exploration, both in Texas and Louisiana.

Since that time Louisiana has proven to have within her borders oil deposits second only to the famous Pennsylvania fields. And the deposits of the Caddo field are generally conceded to be the greatest single field in the world.

The depths at which oil is found varies from 500 to 2,200 feet in the different fields.

The Welsh and Jennings fields have produced oil at from 1,000 to 2,000 feet. And while these fields in their beginning produced gushers, they are now all pumpers and are producing in the neighborhood of 10,000 barrels per day.

Along with oil in the Caddo field have also been found large supplies of natural gas and this is now being utilized in many ways and will continue to be, as the supply is seemingly inexhaustible.

A great waste of these valuable mineral deposits was made before pipe lines were built and receptacles constructed. Now the matter is being taken in hand and soon, under the conservation measures adopted at the last general assembly, control of the situation will be complete. There is still some work along this line to accomplish, and at the next session of the General Assembly these will be written in our statutes.

The conservation of game and fish, as well as the other natural resources, is most momentous to the people of our state. Louisiana has adopted good and sound measures for the protection of her game and fish and has created a commission with a system of wardens and provides that hunters shall contribute to the support of the commission for protection by the payment of a nominal license for the privilege of hunting.

Of course, changes will have to be made, but the ground work has been done.

Louisiana has in her many streams and water courses, as well as in her bays and lakes, a vast supply of fish and shrimp. The shrimp and salt water fisheries furnish employment to a great number of persons. These are dependent on the supply of this valuable resource and are directly interested in the protection of it.

The oyster industry during the past year has enjoyed a healthy and expansive growth, and while the general business depression has affected the canner, still a great many acres of water bottoms were leased for oyster culture and other improvements were made.

There are now under lease and cultivation over 14,391.24 acres of water bottoms at $1.00 per acre per annum, and yielding on an average of two hundred barrels of oysters per acre.

There are more than 2,700 boats engaged in the oyster industry and 2,400,000 bags were caught last season with a market value of something over $2,000,000.

The shores of Louisiana are largely indented with lakes, bayous and bays, where the tides ebb and flow daily, mixing the salt water of the Gulf of Mexico with the fresh waters of the Mississippi river and the bayous and small rivers leading therefrom. The area of this water surface, susceptible to oyster culture, is calculated to be 4,720,502 acres.

There are now under cultivation slightly over 15,000 acres, producing about 200 barrels of oysters per acre each year, and something like 62,740 acres, estimated, of natural reefs where oysters grow wild and unaided.

Deducting the leased bottoms and the natural oyster reefs from the total area mentioned would leave about 4,660,000 acres of barren bottoms at present unproductive, but which, with the expenditure of labor and a small amount of money, could be made to yield enormous revenues and be a great source of food supply.

The oyster industry of Louisiana offers to the people of this country one of the greatest fields of exploitation and development.

Salt has been known to exist in Louisiana for many years, and has been mined commercially in one deposit, that of the Avery salt works, since 1852. This deposit is one of pure salt rock and at the present time nearly a thousand tons a day are being produced. This is only one of the several similar mines in Louisiana and I have no doubt that there are many very valuable deposits of salt yet undiscovered and undeveloped.

REPORT FROM MASSACHUSETTS.

By Prof. Frank William Rane, State Forester.

Complying with the request of the officials of this association in reporting herewith for the state of Massachusetts, I wish to say at the outset that I feel certainly incompetent to undertake the task and to point out the numerous activities that the good old Bay State is fostering. Being a Massachusetts citizen by adoption only, I feel privileged to express myself more frankly as otherwise my report might seem prejudiced.

We have in Massachusetts, in the first place, a conservation of the old-time ancestry which is not only renowned for its brilliant deeds in the Nation’s early history, but is still firm and abiding even after these many years. What state has a fairer reputation in its dissemination of its natural resources and still lives to enter more heartily into the conservation and restoration of those remaining.

The historic setting and general environment of Massachusetts in the early days of the Nation are natural resources that constitute an ever-bubbling fountain. Yearly the pilgrimage to the old Bay State of thousands upon thousands from throughout the Nation to visit Boston, Concord, Lexington, Arlington, Cambridge, Salem, Plymouth and a score of other cities and towns goes to show what the conservation of high ideals and true patriotism mean.

The state has always been liberal, progressive and a natural leader in all that stands for education, advancement and enlightenment.

Many wonder at the splendid showing that Massachusetts always makes and seem confounded at her successful progress. The explanation is that as a state we do not confine our interests to state bounds, but our people are equally interested in promoting and developing copper and other mines or sheep ranches and other industries in the South or West, as much as they are at home. Succeeding elsewhere means also better opportunities for home development. In this way mutual associations and enterprises of a stalwart and permanent nature are established.

The old biblical saying that it is more blessed to give than receive is literally true of the old Bay State. While she has been generous in the Nation’s life, yet there are few states that for their size have greater natural advantages and hold out better prospects for success in the future.

Contrary to the minds of many, Massachusetts has advantages that are hard to surpass. I wonder how many have read the article entitled “Golden New England,” by Sylvester Baxter, which appeared in the Outlook in 1910. If not, you may be interested in doing so. The author therein portrays various rural industries and very entertainingly points out their success. One of our enterprising business houses, N. W. Harris & Co., bankers, Boston, very kindly has sent out excerpts to those desiring the same.

Massachusetts is a state with many manufacturing centers and, therefore, a great consumer of all kinds of resources, particularly in the raw material. This material is put through our factories and goes out as the manufactured article.

Our high standard of education in literature, science and art has evolved men of usefulness. In the modern or applied sciences we point with pride to our technical, agricultural and trade schools which are already accomplishing results toward conservation, restoration and economic utilization of natural resources.

Massachusetts people began to see the handwriting on the wall many years ago and even before this Congress was born they were agitating and accomplishing actual results. Our cities and towns are already well forearmed with generous water supplies. The great metropolitan water system of Boston and its suburbs, already a reality, is one of the greatest engineering feats yet accomplished in its line. Our metropolitan and municipal park systems are a credit to our people. The state highway system of Massachusetts needs no introduction to an intelligent audience like this, as its reputation has attracted road engineers from all over the world and many states have come to the Massachusetts highway commission and induced our men away. Dr. Field of the fish and game commission is here at the convention; hence, he will inform you of this field of our activity. Simply let me say that our marine natural resources are far greater than most people realize. Massachusetts has a large and important coastal boundary and were I able to tell you of the great possible future we have in mind even for the old historic Cape Cod Country, I know it would interest you. While the great fishing industries of Old Gloucester, Nantucket and New Bedford are not as thriving as in earlier times, nevertheless with the guidance of modern science to water farming, we have great promise of the restoration of these industries that will go far toward feeding the Nation in the future.

Speaking of fishing and game, forestry, natural history and Appalachian clubs, I am frank to say that I believe there are no people on earth who are more in love with Nature herself, heart and soul, than our Massachusetts people. We have organizations galore and they are not only organized but bubbling full of real activity and accomplishing things. Were you the state forester of Massachusetts, I can guarantee that you could spend your whole time simply lecturing on conservation or forestry, as the demands are so great and the work so popular.

In the development of a new nation it invariably follows that conditions are constantly changing, and as intercourse with other nations through trade and business relations progresses, the evils and blessings are shared. While we are greatly indebted to the various countries of the world for many an introduction, nevertheless now and then we unfortunately get an insect or fungus development that proves extremely disastrous.

It would not be fair to Massachusetts in reporting on her conservation policies did I not mention the great fight that the state has waged for years against the gypsy and brown-tail moths. These two insects are indigenous to Europe and while they have their natural enemies and are under subjection there, upon reaching this country they find an open field and with no enemies become a veritable pest.

Both species are destroyers of trees. The brown-tail moth devours the leaves of the deciduous, or hardwood trees only, while the gypsy is no respector of vegetation and will defoliate evergreens as well, if food is scarce, although it, too, prefers the deciduous. The brown-tail moths besides being tree destroyers, give off hairs from the larvae and moth, which, when brought in contact with the skin of human beings produce a rash that is extremely irritating. Of the two insects the gypsy moth is generally considered the worse. The fact that when the white pine, or our evergreens, are once stripped they die outright; and that the pine in particular is one of our most valuable species, both from the economic and aesthetic standpoint, make their protection from the gypsy moth important.

I will not take time to give you the life histories of these insects, for should anyone be interested this information can be had by applying to the State Forester, Boston, Mass. We have illustrated matter in natural colors showing these insects.

Practically all of our trees in the residential sections of the cities and towns, in the eastern part of the state, are sprayed annually. Our main travelled roadsides are sprayed each year. Individuals, municipalities and the state all coöperate in this work. The annual appropriation of the state is $315,000 a year. The total expenditure from all sources, within the state, up to the present time in this work is estimated at $6,000,000. Besides this the United States Government has spent in Massachusetts probably $700,000. We have had as high as 2,700 men at work at one time in the busiest season of the year. The renewed North Shore, our fashionable summer resort, spends practically $100,000 a year to protect the trees in this section alone.

The state forester’s spraying apparatus is composed of an aggregation of 300 spraying outfits. We use in a single season over 400 tons of arsenate of lead, the state’s contract alone being for 250 tons a year.

During the past two years the state forester’s department has made great improvements in power spraying equipment, the cost of spraying woodlands having been reduced from $30.00, or more, per acre, down to as low as $6.00 in some instances. Instead of its being necessary to climb trees as heretofore, the modern power sprayer enables us to spray directly over the tops of tall trees from the ground. The whole spraying problem has been revolutionized. It is certainly to be hoped that these insects may not secure a foothold elsewhere. Surely Massachusetts is doing her part, and I cannot urge too strongly the necessity of other states and the Nation realizing the importance of this work. We have introduced parasites from all over the world, and they are showing great promise. The work with disease also seems very effective, and I feel optimistic. It is clear that the practice of modern forestry methods, and the employment of highly developed mechanical devices, are doing much, and we trust ere long the parasites and diseases will bring about the desired balance.

Massachusetts is enthusiastically interested in forestry and the state forester this past season was given an appropriation of $10,000 for forest fire work. We have appointed a state forest fire warden, who is organizing and perfecting a workable system. He is also establishing lookout stations, and patrol systems in different sections of the state.

Our forest management, reforestation and general forestry, educational and demonstration work are all well established and progressing. We have 3,000,000 trees in the state nursery for use another season. The state is planting 1,000 acres each year, and our lumbermen and people generally are showing interest, and doing more each season. Our appropriation, including that for forest fires this past year, was $40,000.

In Massachusetts the work of restoration is even of more importance than conservation when applied to forestry. The annual cut of our forest products at present amounts to only five per cent of that used each year throughout the commonwealth for manufacturing, building and other purposes. Surely we can and ought to supply a larger amount of our own home grown woods. Although the state has been well cut over, even now our wood harvests play an important factor in the industries of many of our rural sections. While we believe thoroughly in conservation where it will apply, still the more potent force begins farther back. We need to teach the A B C of restoration in forestry. When our work of reforestation shall have begun to demonstrate its value, it will be an object lesson, which will mean much toward perfecting a better state forest policy.

Practical forest restoration, therefore, is what Massachusetts needs most. If we will reconvert our hilly, rocky, mountainous, moist sandy and waste non-agricultural lands generally into productive forests the future financial success from rural sections of the commonwealth is assured. This is no idle dream; it can be accomplished. Massachusetts is a natural forest country and all that is needed is simply to assist nature, stop forest fires and formulate constructive policies. Then we can grow as fine forests as can be found anywhere. Germany and many of the countries of the old world have already demonstrated what can be done. Are we to be less thrifty and far-sighted? Americans do things, when they are once aroused, and it is believed that reforestation and the adopting of modern forestry management must be given its due consideration in this state from now on.

I have been delighted to follow the interest that has been aroused and the great tendency for all our people to not only welcome and appreciate the new idea of “conservation,” but to even credit the term or phrase, as covering every phase of new endeavor.

It is not my purpose to lessen the glory one whit or bedim a single gem in the crown of the national phrase, “Conservation of Natural Resources,” nor could I were it to be tried, for the heralded motto has already stamped itself firmly upon the Nation.

As time goes on, however, it will be found that our popular phrase will not carry with it the whole panacea for overcoming our wasteful and depleting conditions, and that new and equally applicable terms, though perhaps never so popular, will come to express more aptly our real needs.

To my mind the phrase, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” vies with that of “Conservation of Natural Resources,” and expresses a force to be aroused in the Nation for good that in many ways surpasses the present popular one.

We have our forest reserves and minerals, what are left, and now to conserve them economically is a worthy undertaking, but in the older sections of the Nation to conserve what we have in depleted and worn-out lands and forests is to pick the bones of the withered and shrunken carcass.

Let conservation apply where it may, but the force that is needed in Massachusetts and all of New England, yea the South, extending even well into the middle of the Nation, following the great depleting agricultural cereal and cotton crops on the one hand, and the lumberman’s axe and forest fires on the other, is greater than this term can begin to express.

The term, “Restoration of Natural Resources,” I claim, meets our present needs far better and breathes greater hope and definite accomplishments for our children’s children in the future.

REPORT FROM MINNESOTA.

By D. M. Neill.

To undertake to tell you of the resources of the state of Minnesota would be to recapitulate nearly the resources of all the states of the union. But I don’t understand that is what we are here for. When the governor of Minnesota asked me to come down here, I asked him what I was to say to the people who might be here at this time. He said, “You have been on the state conservation commission for two years, and you ought to know what to say,” and in addition to that he said, “Go down and tell them what we are trying to do in Minnesota.” That is what I will try to tell you about. In the first place, the men who settled Minnesota looked far into the future. The state had an immense amount of what was called swamp lands donated by the government for educational purposes. These men of the early days, looking to the future, passed a law whereby these lands could not be disposed of except at a minimum price of what then seemed to be a ridiculous sum entirely beyond what these lands would probably then be worth. But these lands are found to be among the most valuable assets of the state of Minnesota, and have sold at double, triple, ten times, and some of them for more than a thousand times the minimum price. So that today the state of Minnesota is next to the state of Texas, has the largest school fund in the United States—something over $25,000,000—and with the resources on hand belonging to the fund, it probably, in the course of time, will amount to over $250,000,000. That looks like conservation of our school resources.

In our farm work, our agricultural college has been doing of late years a splendid work throughout the state. In connection with the commercial clubs it has established a considerable number of experimental farms in different localities, to give somewhat of a practical education to the farmers already tilling the soil. The leaders in this movement have felt that the ordinary processes of sending the children to school, giving them an agricultural education, trying to get them back to the farm again—to spread that education was too slow. It seemed necessary to do something with the parents that they may see the necessity for the children having an agricultural education, and for that reason the state agricultural college has been conducting this set of experiments through the experimental farm. The results are already beginning to show.

The state of Minnesota has succeeded in the last few years in raising the number of bushels of wheat alone 3½ bushels to the acre. That is some of the practical conservation of the soil. Minnesota used to have the reputation of having the worst roads in the United States, and I think she fully lived up to her reputation. That condition is very rapidly being changed. The state wide campaign for good roads is being constantly conducted by the good roads commission. The last legislature, in fact the legislature of four years ago, took the matter in hand and levied a small tax for the betterment of the state roads. These roads were required to be built under the supervision of state engineers. If the roads were so built the state contributed one-third of their cost up to a certain maximum amount which to any one county did not exceed $2,000. That was the starting of the state movement. The last legislature provided for a tax that will raise something like $2,000,000 to be divided among the eighty counties of the state to aid in the work of good roads. A project is now on foot to build a state highway from the southern boundary to the northern boundary, and one across the state from the city of Duluth to the city of East Grand Forks. These to be great state highways, and all other highways radiating out from them. These experimental roads are built on scientific lines furnished by the state, and are conditioned according to the quality of the soil through which the road runs. The effort is first to get a system of good dirt roads. The state is not yet developed sufficiently to warrant us going in to macadamized roads at this time, except in the large cities.

In the matter of our mineral wealth the state long ago provided that the people at large shall receive the benefit of it. No state land is now sold except where the mineral rights are retained and the mines already opened and in operation pay very large taxes toward the maintenance of the state government, thus contributing to the welfare of the whole people. These are some of the things that the state of Minnesota is trying to do and is doing. I do not feel that I can take the time to go into detail of many other things that we are just starting, the prevention of disease—already one or two tuberculosis institutions have been started in the pine woods of Minnesota—and a general campaign against the great white plague is constantly in progress. My time is up. I thank you. (Applause)

REPORT FOR NEBRASKA.

By George Coupland.

I have been very strongly reminded today in these remarks that I have heard made that the state that I represent is purely an agricultural state. That is about all the industries that we have. I thought perhaps of one manufacturing interest that we were trying to develop, that of furnishing presidential timber, but we had to give that up, and the factory is in the hands of the repairers today. (Applause.) I think that perhaps there is no more important factor in the development of a sentiment that means what it says, than such a gathering as this. I notice in the paper that I just picked up it is, “Back to the Land”—yes, I am glad that that is the story—for it is out of the land that this country has to maintain its position as a nation.

The state that I represent, I am glad to say, recognizes the importance of perhaps its only industry, and how much its future was tied up in its development. It has had in motion for quite a number of years agencies that are looking forward to the betterment of life upon the land and the development of the natural resources, the only natural resources perhaps that we have. And I am glad to say that this movement had its inception in the hearts and minds of the men who lived upon the land in Nebraska. I am also glad to say that the men who lived in the cities, the business men, have responded in splendid manner to this idea. My mind runs back to that fine pioneer of my state, J. Sterling Morton, and the idea that he had in mind, and I want, Mr. President, to impress the thought that you so beautifully expressed today, that it is not the giving of more expert ability to exploit the soil, but it is the building up within the heart of the man and the boy and the woman and the girl who live upon the land a love for the place where they live; to love the tree that father planted; to love the home that father built, to love the farm that father homesteaded. That is what we want to cultivate. If along with these other agencies that we have in motion, we will see to it that this is emphasized in our educational system, then we will have a better conception of what real country life means. I like to think of my ancestral home, the generations that were born and died on the land. I was born on the land and I hope to die on the land. My children were born there, and I hope that they will have the same sentiment, and be willing and glad to die upon the land. Our state has in motion today—I will hurriedly tell you—I do not want to take any more of your time than necessary—I will tell you the agencies that we have at work. We have a farmers’ congress; we have a conservation congress; we have a rural life commission that was authorized by our last legislature, which I consider one of the most potent agencies for the betterment of rural conditions in the state of Nebraska; an affiliated agricultural society which takes in all the agricultural organizations. Every year our state university is their host, and nearly every year we have two thousand representative farmers of Nebraska gathered in our capital city to discuss questions pertaining to agriculture. Then we also have a conservation soil survey which is doing splendid work.

There is one feature to which I want to draw your attention, that I think is very important, and that is the question of sanitation upon the farm, sanitation in the small town. And this has been taken up by our conservation congress. We have different divisions of this congress, and we have splendid men at the head of these divisions, who during the year take pains with the particular work that has been assigned them, and then each year we meet and hear their reports. We have a lot of splendid things that are going forward in our state, and I am sure what we have heard today is inspirational, and that we will go home vowed to do better things. I do not want to boast, but I just thought as I listened to what every man who has spoken for his state had to say, I must tell you this story.

I live on a little farm in eastern Nebraska, which is typical of a large area of our state. If I had to go to the commercial fertilizer man and buy the fertilizing matter, the lime, the phosphorus, the potash, and nitrogen that are wrapped up in the first four feet of the soil that I till it would cost me $7,000 per acre. If I had to buy the same kind of fertilizing matter that is wrapped up in the first ten feet of the soil that I till, and which my alfalfa fields, when they are planted, supplied, it would cost me $28,000 per acre. I feel that we own pretty good land in Nebraska, and for that reason we are anxious to take good care of it. (Applause.)

REPORT FOR NEW YORK.

By John D. Moore, Member State Conservation Commission.

On my arrival in Kansas City this morning a man at the hotel asked me where I came from, and I said I came from New York. And he said, “What have you fellows got in New York you want to get conserved?” And I said, “We have the greatest conservation problem in New York of all the states in the Union.” In the first place, we have nine million people, over one-tenth of the population of the United States. It is one of our jobs to provide these nine million people with pure water to drink. I told him about the great reservoir on which the city of New York alone has spent upwards of two millions of dollars in order to bring into New York drinking water at the rate of five hundred millions of gallons per day. I told him furthermore that in the state of New York there were 32,000,000 acres of land, and of that more than one-third wild forest land. I told him, too, that in the public parks of New York we had a conservation problem of our own which did not begin three years ago, or five or ten years ago, but began forty years ago when Governor Seymour appointed a commission in 1872 to investigate the matter of public parks and public forests.

Since that time the state of New York has accumulated more than 1,600,000 acres of the greatest parks in this Union, and of that 1,300,000 acres are in the Adirondacks, and in these parks any citizen of New York, or any other state can come and hunt and camp as freely as he will. Furthermore, of the timber land of that park, which is of priceless value, and a value which has been protected by a constitutional amendment adopted in 1894, and not yesterday, or the day before, but sixteen or seventeen years ago. This law says that these lands shall neither be leased or sold or exchanged nor taken by any person, or by any corporation, and the timber thereon shall not be removed, or cut or destroyed. That has placed a perpetual safeguard, the like of which exists in no other state in the union. (Applause.)

In the reforestation we have six state nurseries. In these nurseries there are at the present time 15,000,000 trees. A man this morning said he did not believe it. I told him they were there and he could go and count them. (Laughter.)

Last year we sold to the railroad companies, and to the lumber companies of the state of New York approximately two million seedlings, and obtained for the state of New York something upward of ten thousand dollars. The state law says we must sell those seedlings at cost. We are able to furnish to the lumbermen and the railroad interests of New York seedling trees at the rate of less than one-half cent apiece. Furthermore, the state has reforested, as an example to her citizens, more than 6,000 acres of its own land. Those trees are there, and constitute an object lesson to every visitor to the Adirondacks. This afternoon I heard some of our friends say what their state was doing for good roads. The state of New York has expended within the last five years upwards of $100,000,000 for its state roads. (Applause) Of that we have built 10,000 miles of road—not dirt road, or earth road, but the finest kind of macadam roads, running from sixteen to twenty-four feet in width. We are gridironing New York with a system of highways the like of which is not found under the Stars and Stripes. More than that, we are not devoting our attention entirely to the development of our land locomotion. We are equally strong with water ways.

The Birch canal of the State of New York will be completed within three or four years. The state has appropriated money, sold bonds, and got the money in the treasury for $101,000,000 of Birch canal improvements in order that you Western gentlemen can bring your wheat on boats to the seaboard at the lowest possible cost of transportation. (Applause) Furthermore, we have a system of fish and game laws which is extremely rigorous and has had a marvelous tendency to improve the condition of the wild life of the state. I hold in the State of New York, ladies and gentlemen, that we must not look after only our water power and our forests; we must look after the wild things that live in the water and forest—the fish and the game. (Applause) The deer have been so thoroughly protected by our laws that they have increased so that last year in the Adirondacks there were killed 16,000 deer. Trappers tell our woodsmen today that never in the history of the Adirondacks have so many deer been seen.

This may appear to you strange. It is strange, except when we consider that in primitive times before the settlers came with firearms wolves were abundant in the Adirondacks and preyed upon the deer. Now there is not, within the confines of the State of New York, a single wolf—not one. The present legislature has passed a game law which has been in effect since the first of September, and we take a fair view of the protection of wild life. We are not confined to the protection of game in New York State. We have extended it to every state in the Union. The game law says in effect this: That you cannot bring into the State of New York and sell in the State of New York a bird or animal which has been killed under the American flag. In other words, we have closed to the pot hunter and the market hunter, to the slaughterer of game, the richest and the most plentiful market which they have enjoyed in the past. We have turned it to good account. The law states that they may bring in from foreign countries outside of the United States the unplucked carcasses of birds and venison. Incidentally we expect to import this year 100 tons of venison, and we have already imported 200,000 birds, and upon the leg of each the state has fastened a tag, and exacted for the tag one nickel. So out of the 2,000,000 birds which the dealers tell us they will import this year the State of New York is going to exact the magnificent sum of $100,000 and maybe more. This game law should be a lesson to every state in the Union. It is not fair for a state to protect its own game and fish and let the state be a market for the game of its neighbors.

The State of New York, gentlemen, is more prolific and a more bountiful spender in water power and more bountifully supplied with this power than almost any other state of the Union. I won’t dispute the figures of our friend from California who says there are 5,000,000 horsepower running loose there, but I do know that whereas his state has developed 250,000 horsepower, the State of New York, outside of the St. Lawrence river and Niagara Falls, which are really international waters, and do not come under consideration, my commission has upwards of 650,000 horsepower and we know from actual survey which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and has been in progress some eight years, that a million horsepower is still going to waste, but that million is to be harnessed and put to use, so that the State of New York can get some of the profits which have heretofore gone into private coffers.

REPORT FOR OKLAHOMA.

By Milton Brown.

As yet Oklahoma is not conserved in presidents like Ohio. We have conserved a lot of fads and vagaries and isms down there, but nevertheless notwithstanding all that, Oklahoma for the past two years has got down to a practical standpoint in this matter of the conservation of our material resources and a few of the items I want to mention in my five minutes are these. First, good roads. We are now constructing a road, beginning at the north line of Oklahoma and running almost through to the south, across the whole state, to be entirely of macadam. Of course, the Automobile Association started the matter in one sense, but yet all the farmers’ institutes joined in, and the two are now working together. Not only have we state aid in that matter, but we have aid in the counties. That is one item of the good roads that will make some of these older states ashamed of themselves when they come down to Oklahoma and see it. (Applause)

Another proposition is that we have gone into the development of our water supply down there for our own consumption, not only for the farmers but for the cities, and that, too, without any Federal aid. Some of the older states have been aided by donations from the Federal Government, and although millions of dollars have been taken from Oklahoma by the sales of lands to the settlers of that state, not one penny has been returned to Oklahoma in the way of any particular aid in the matter of the conservation of these resources. Yet at the last session of our legislature we appropriated $45,000 for the purpose of sinking deep wells in the extreme northwestern part of Oklahoma to get down to the underflow water, so that we can irrigate the lands out there in the extreme Northwest. They are going ahead and now have several of those wells in operation.

Another proposition is that these underground waters in the northwestern part of the state are just like the underground water in Nebraska, in Kansas and Colorado; they flow along with the country, with the fall of the country from the mountain ranges. We enacted a law at the last legislature to encourage any person, any firm, any corporation that will come in and put down wells, drains, dams or anything of that kind, and encourage them by exempting them from taxation for a period of five years. That is having its effect already. Some parties are there now engaged in the North Canadian and in the lower Canadian making surveys and putting in plants to raise this underground water by a process of gravity underflow and bring it out on the surface to spread it over our broad acres.

Also we have a pure water supply for the city, keeping the sewage separate and apart. We have laws upon that subject and they are being enforced.

We finally had to go into the Federal Court to have one proposition settled down there, so that our swamp lands could be drained under the law passed by our state legislature. We had a state drainage law by which they undertook to drain some of the lands southeast of Guthrie and Oklahoma City. That entrenched upon the railroads, and they set up the howl that the act was unconstitutional, that we could not change the bed of the river, that we could not change the flow of the water so as to bring our ditches in and drain the swamp lands. But Judge Cotterill of the United States Court held that law constitutional, and that big drainage ditch has been constructed and the swamp lands there have been reclaimed within the last year.

You remember the Arkansas river; if you have ridden along on the Santa Fe railroad out in Kansas you have seen it at times when you could walk across it dry shod and would not get your feet wet, for the bed was as dry as a bone. And yet from Arkansas City south there is more water. Congress passed an act, and today they are working on a survey, making the preliminaries up as far as Muskogee, and they propose to go on up to Arkansas City, so as to make the bed of that river broader and run boats. They have run boats up as far as Arkansas City in times past, and they have run to Muskogee in more recent years. Now, they are going ahead on that proposition to make the Arkansas navigable as far as Arkansas City.

REPORT FOR OREGON.

By Joseph N. Teal, Chairman Oregon State Conservation Committee.

On behalf of the Oregon State Conservation Commission and in response to your request, I herewith submit brief report of its work and activities.

The first conservation commission in Oregon was appointed by Honorable George E. Chamberlain, Governor of the state, on May 23, 1908. It was a semi-official organization and consisted of fifteen members. All funds were secured through voluntary subscription.

As the most pressing subject demanding legislation then was the use and conservation of water resources, a water code was prepared and submitted to the legislature for its consideration and action. The bill was adopted substantially as prepared. The act is elastic and practicable. It provides: (1) A simple, inexpensive method of determining and fixing rights initiated under earlier statutes; (2) a precise and definite procedure for initiating and perfecting new rights, beneficial use always being the basis thereof; (3) an elastic administrative board, to insure the enforcement of water right decrees and its own decisions.

The cost of administration is borne by those benefited. Water power franchises are limited to forty years with a preference right of renewal.

While it was not expected the fees provided for would produce excess revenue, the operation of the law has been very satisfactory and more than self-sustaining under the intelligent and careful administration of the State Engineer, John H. Lewis. The beneficial results following its enactment are conceded and are set forth in the official reports of the State Engineer. Since its enactment some minor changes have been made respecting practice and procedure, but none as to principle.

We are now engaged in a careful study of its workings in order to recommend such further changes as experience may show wise or necessary. That changes will be necessary is not to be doubted, but I feel I am safe in saying we have the foundation and framework of a water code based on right principles.

The legislature of 1909 also passed an act creating a state conservation commission of seven members, to be appointed by the Governor, carrying an appropriation of $1,000. Upon the enactment of this measure the original commission discontinued its work and Hon. F. W. Benson, then Governor, appointed another commission, the membership of which was selected from the original commission.

During the year 1909 the commission offered money prizes to students in the various educational institutions of the state covering the following topics: The Forests in Oregon; Irrigation Institutions in Oregon; Soils; Dry Land Farming in Oregon; Roads in Oregon; Fish in Oregon.

The prizes were awarded and paid according to announcement. The money for this purpose, as well as for other uses by the commission, was secured through voluntary contributions, no public money being used for this purpose.

In 1909 Mr. C. B. Watson, one of the members of the commission, called the attention of the commission to the beauty and grandeur of the Josephine County caves and asked that steps be taken to preserve and keep them in their original beauty as a national monument. The commission took up the matter with Mr. Gifford Pinchot, then Forester of the United States, and on July 12, 1909, the caves were, by proclamation of President Taft, duly set apart as a national monument by an act approved June 8, 1906, under the name “Oregon Caves.” These caves are under the immediate care of the Forest Service, being in a national forest. They are of great beauty and will be preserved as a public monument forever.

During the year 1910 the work of educating the public to the necessity of action in the protection of our forests from fire and other destructive agencies was carried on. In coöperation with other organizations a law was framed to submit to the legislature for action. The legislature of 1911 adopted this measure, and it was passed with but few amendments, and in connection with the bill an appropriation of $60,000 was made.

We submitted to the same legislature a bill for coöperation between the state and federal agencies engaged in gathering physical data of the state’s resources and in disseminating the information so gathered. This bill carried with it an appropriation of $20,000 in addition to the $5,000 provided by the Act of 1905, conditioned upon the Federal Government appropriating an equal amount. The legislature passed this measure with substantial unanimity.

The commission has prepared and circulated annual reports for the years 1908, 1909 and 1910; also a special report during the years 1908 and 1910 on the rivers and harbors in Oregon, setting forth their needs and requirements for improvement and justification therefor. In conjunction with the Forest Service and other associations, the commission also aided in the preparation of a pamphlet for general distribution on the use of Oregon woods.

The only appropriation the commission has received from the state was the one made in 1909 of $1,000.

To insure prosperity to the agriculturist, the tiller of the soil, the producer, should be our constant aim. His well-being is the measure of the well-being of the country. The commission has therefore undertaken to aid and further better agricultural methods throughout the farming sections of the state, particularly in the semi-arid regions of eastern Oregon. It is its desire to encourage improved methods, wise selection of products, diversity of crops and increased animal productions. It is operating in close and sympathetic affiliation with the State Agricultural College, the railroads and others taking an active interest in this work. It is proposed to offer prizes, employ an expert farmer to live in the particular section in question during the coming harvest year, to encourage the holding of district fairs, and in every way possible awaken an active interest in better farming methods. It seems to us that a more fruitful field for the principles of conservation cannot be found. It is practical and shows that conservation is a real vital force with a definite object and aim.

It is hoped something can be accomplished toward encouraging the development of this industry in the state. One of the members of the commission is especially qualified for this task, and he has it in hand.

While Oregon is a great agricultural state, it also has large mineral resources. The state, however, has not given the encouragement to this industry that it deserves.

The laws for the protection of game birds and other fowl and food fish are constantly being improved. A very excellent game commission has been appointed with a game warden of national reputation who has the keenest sympathy with animal and bird life, who does not believe in extermination, and who will, we believe, enforce the law.

It has been suggested that the national resources in the various states, and heretofore undisposed of, be turned over to the respective states by the National Government. Personally, I do not think this would be the wise course to pursue. Those of us—and there are many—who were born and raised in the West understand how little regard has been paid in the past to the public interest in the disposition of public resources by both state and Nation. We know that it is not necessary for the rapid development of the West that every valuable right and resource now belonging to the public should irrevocably pass from the public to be monopolized by the few. It is my conviction that in every state on the Pacific Coast the great mass of the people is in favor of the conservation of the public resources in the interest of the people as a whole. I do not believe the methods of the past appeal to them. Their face is toward the rising sun. The conservation in which they believe is that which secures the greatest, widest and wisest use. They believe in equal opportunities now, and, what is of more importance, opportunity for their children hereafter. They are not alarmed at national conservation where necessary or proper. They realize that many of the public resources are the property of the Nation and not that of the state. That there must be a wise and sympathetic coördination of purpose and effort. The Nation has its duties and functions; the state has its duties and functions; and the individual has his. They must all unite in a common cause, under a common banner, for the common good. No matter by what name conservation may be called, conservation has come to stay. No more will the great resources of this country, either public or private, be treated or allowed to be treated as they have been in the past. An enlightened public opinion and a growing one will in itself prevent it. A much higher standard in viewing this matter now prevails than formerly. Money and material prosperity are not everything. Patriotism and good citizenship are much more important. We look at things now from a different point of view than we did formerly. Those who are primarily responsible for this great movement builded more wisely than they knew and their work will endure forever. No one need feel in the least discouraged—the old ways are gone forever. All that is needed from now on is a wise, prudent, conservative policy, meeting the problems as they arise and allowing for the greatest possible use, without unnecessary waste, of every resource. The principles are understood. It is in their wise application that wholesome results will be secured.

REPORT FOR PENNSYLVANIA AND PHILADELPHIA.

By Emil Gunther.

As a concrete example of what conservation has done, I desire to cite the County of Lancaster, which, according to its area, occupies the distinction of being the leading county in agricultural wealth in this country. I am also informed that the children in the public schools are taught the importance of each planting at least two trees each year.

The campaigns inaugurated throughout the states for the conservation of the national resources of our country have secured the attention of the whole Nation. To some it may seem that the East has looked supinely upon the movement which has received the most practical endorsement of the western half of our continent. The City of Philadelphia, however, which I have the honor to represent, may justly claim to have been a pioneer in questions of conservation, nor is there any state more alive to the importance of this matter than the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Philadelphia’s place in the history of this movement may not be known to all, but it is interesting to note that as early as 1868 there was organized in our city a national board of trade largely under the initiative of our local board of trade of the Executive Council, of which I have the honor to be a member. That this board has taken an early interest in such matters permit me to quote from an address lately delivered by Mr. George H. Maxwell at the annual meeting of the National Board of Trade.

“I should like to say for Philadelphia that its local board of trade was among the first to recognize by official utterance its deep interest in the question of national irrigation. It expressed in its petitions and memorials the view that the national control of this important subject was of the deepest interest to the whole Nation, independent of locality. It has likewise strongly urged upon the National Government the improvement of all navigable rivers and harbors, believing that such improvements must inure greatly to the prosperity of our whole country and to place our manufacturers and producers in a position successfully to compete with foreign trade.”

It is hardly necessary for me to call to your attention the place which Philadelphia holds in the manufacturing world due to its position upon the banks of the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. Nor have these waterways alone been put to commercial use; they have also afforded to the inhabitants of Philadelphia opportunities of real recreative value.

Philadelphia has recognized that true conservation is to put to proper and immediate use those resources which are peculiarly its own. From the days of the proprietors large areas have been set aside and improved for the enjoyment of the people; under the Fairmount Park Commission has been developed the largest—and it would seem to many of us the most beautiful—park of its kind in the world. Thirty-five hundred acres abounding in streams and woodlands, with formal gardens and wild ravines, are always open to the use of our citizens. There have been organized, not only under municipal control but also through the instrumentality of private citizens, many associations to conserve those resources which are our heritage.

Therefore, it is with pleasure that on behalf of the city of Philadelphia I bring to this Congress a word of greeting and assure you that our interest in all that pertains to conservation is both practical and sincere.

ORGANIZATION OF THE CONSERVATION MOVEMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA.

By A. B. Farquhar, President of the State Branch of the N. C. A. of Pennsylvania.

Our movement is nowhere a thing of yesterday and least of all in Pennsylvania, where work of the highest value for conservation in certain particular directions has for a number of years been conducted. Only within three months, however, has the cause of conservation in general progressed so far as to have an organization especially devoted to it, and it was on the 23d of last June that the Pennsylvania state branch of the National Conservation Association was formed in Harrisburg. It is of and for that branch that I speak.

The aims and purposes of the branch which I shall first set before you are in ten sections, designated by Bishop Darlington, one of the conferees, as “The Ten Commandments of Conservation.”

“1. A Purified Water Supply. Since the physical, mental and moral health of our people is the most important of all national resources, and since stream pollution by sewage and by factory wastes is a menace to the health as well as to the comfort of all citizens, the state should continue and extend its systematic investigation of the extent, sources and effects of stream pollution to the extreme headwaters of every stream in the commonwealth, where danger is often the greatest because least suspected, in order to discover the facts and to propose adequate remedial measures. Any further legislation required should be promptly enacted into law, under conditions which would continue, strengthen and fully enforce the present admirable work of the Department of Health, under Dr. Dixon and his assistants.

“2. Forest Fire Protection. The state authorities should have power in dry and dangerous seasons to establish, in such localities as need protection, efficient patrols for the prevention of forest fires. The expense of such fire-patrol service should be assessed upon the forest lands protected thereby. Lumbermen should be required, under adequate inspection, to burn or otherwise dispose of all inflammable debris, at times and under conditions to be prescribed by the State Forestry Reservation Commission. The use of fire in or near woodlands in dry and dangerous seasons should be prohibited, except under stringent regulation and upon written permit from a responsible officer of the forest service or fire patrol; and the governor should have power to designate, upon suggestion to that effect from the Commissioner of Forestry, periods of peculiar danger within which the carrying of firearms, the carrying and use of matches, and the setting of fires for any purpose in public or private woodlands, should be forbidden by law.

“3. Just Taxation of Forest Lands. To encourage reforestation and the growth of timber on land chiefly valuable for that purpose, timber land which the owners are willing to treat upon modern reproductive forest methods should be classified separately from other real property, with the levy of a nominal annual tax until the trees are cut at the proper stage, under regulation or with knowledge of the State Forestry Commissioner, when a higher rate of tax should be imposed either per acre or per thousand feet.

“4. Watercourses as a Public Resource. The waters of the state are one of its most important assets. They should be systematically mapped and considered, and eventually developed and utilized for the equal benefit of all citizens. In such development every stream should be considered as a unit, from its source to its mouth. Domestic and municipal water-supply should be recognized as the highest use, and consideration of the value of the stream as a potential source of attracting revenue by reason of its scenic beauty and for its educational worth should rank as equal in importance with its potential value in respect to navigation and the production of power; and preference rights should be recognized and granted in order of the above uses in all cases where projects for two or more of these uses conflict. There should be every endeavor to combine these various uses in so far as such combination may be found practicable. For these ends the coöperation of the Federal Government may require to be sought. Existing private rights in waters and riparian lands should not be enlarged, except upon conditions adequate to insure full public control.

“5. Supervision of Use of Water by Corporations. Private projects for water-power development seeking state aid in the form of a corporate franchise carrying the right to condemn property, to use land or water rights belonging to the public, to obstruct navigable rivers, or otherwise, should be subjected to careful consideration and to strict regulation, in order to secure prompt, complete and orderly development; efficient service at fair prices and on equal terms to all consumers in like conditions; full public information as to costs and profits; honest capitalization on the basis of cost; and fair rentals for public property used within the franchises granted. No water-power franchises or privileges should be granted for a longer period than from thirty to fifty years, with a provision for a readjustment of the compensation or terms at least each ten years, and any assignment of the right or privilege should require the approval of the proper state authorities to be legal.

“6. Wild Life in the Forest and Stream. A prompt recognition of the remaining wild life in the forest and in the stream as a valuable natural resource is desirable, through uniform game laws for its effective protection, and the present game laws of Pennsylvania should be revised and extended as required to properly protect such wild life for its beneficient value to the state.

“7. Economy of Mineral Resources. Mining is the most important industry of Pennsylvania. It is now accompanied by a culpable waste of human life and of minerals, especially coal. There should be promptly applied preventive measures reducing materially the loss of life through mine accidents, and requiring careful economy in the exploitation of our remaining mineral wealth. The state should take the position that, in respect to these unreplaceable natural resources, the temporary owner of the land has no right so to treat his property as to work injury to all.

“8. Agricultural Resources. Since cultivated land is the foundation of the Nation’s prosperity, the proper use and continued improvement of the soil should everywhere receive especial care; and in order that agricultural and horticultural products may reach the best markets with the least loss of time and at the least expense, we most heartily favor the present policy of Pennsylvania in the development of improved highways, and urge their rapid and efficient extension, with due economy and under capable and expert engineering supervision.

“9. The Value of Natural Scenery. We hold that the beauty of the land is one of the main sources of that love of country which is at the very basis of patriotism, and that natural scenery is an economic asset of great value yet unconsidered and undeveloped. With the rapid disappearance of the great primeval forest which once covered two-thirds of the area of the state; with the mutilation of wide areas in the careless abstraction of mineral wealth; with the pollution and restriction of streams for private benefit, and the laying waste of areas of arable lands through preventable floods, this great and potentially valuable resource is being constantly and ruthlessly destroyed. We insist that it should be considered as of great economic importance, and we point, in support of this attitude, to the scenic travel income of many millions of dollars contributed each year to Europe by Americans, who leave at home, unnoted and in process of destruction, many natural scenic advantages of at least equal merit.

“We further assert that it is not only in the interest of the state to foster and encourage the provision of adequate breathing places and playgrounds for the relief of our congested population, but that it is equally important that the state shall open and adequately maintain in suitable forest reserves public camping-grounds, available especially to those of our population who cannot otherwise obtain access to the restorative and uplifting influences of an intimate association with Nature. We insist that it is the part of wisdom for the state to intelligently promote public parks in all their forms—municipal, county and state—in order that every citizen may have easy opportunity to receive the material and definite benefits attendant upon their proper use.