al conditions. We hold the key to
the solution of a great problem, which for the past quarter of a
century, has puzzled the brightest minds and best thinkers among our
statesmen. The problem of how best to control the devastating floods,
which each year, with increasing power and violence, continue to destroy
hundreds of lives and millions of dollars worth of property, on the
farms and in the towns and cities throughout the river valleys of our
broad land. For this growing terror, we hold the cure! With the
completion of this system of forestry, the floods will disappear. The
interests of our coastwise and inland commerce, will be greatly extended
and benefited. Many rivers, with beds choked and obstructed by the
unsightly rocks and debris deposited by the annual floods, and for the
same reason, dry for many months in each year, will again become
navigable. Perennial streams, fed by permanent mountain springs, will
serve to keep these rivers with full channels throughout the year.

"The clear water will be free from the lighter silt which now finds its
way to the sea; slowly filling up the river-mouth harbor, and finally
destroying the commerce of the city which depends upon it. In this way,
every individual, child or adult, who plants a tree, aids directly in
the restoring some distant seaport to its former commercial importance;
and has proudly earned the right to be placed as an important working
member, on the peoples' great 'Committee for Improvement of Rivers and
Harbors.'

"Tree-planting, persistent tree-planting, by all classes of agricultural
people, offers the only means or hope of checking the wide-spread,
calamity-producing floods and erosions, which commenced with the
destruction of our mountain forests. The destructive process is
accelerated with each passing year. Unchecked, it threatens, a few
centuries hence, to rob us of all fertile soil; to reduce our hills and
mountains to a dreary waste of bare, sun-scorched rocks: our plains and
valleys, to uninhabitable deserts. United action is therefore
imperative!

"Other incentives, worthy of our attention, urge us to commence the
work. By yielding even one-half of the area of our tillable lands to the
needs of forestry, we have all the richest lands left in the remaining
half. The productiveness and fertility of these lands is sure to be
speedily doubled. The amount of labor required to produce the same crops
from the diminished areas, will be reduced one-