half. A most important
consideration!

"The third generation of people, after the planting of these forests,
will gather from them, such an abundant harvest of nuts, fruits, and
valuable timbers, as will more than repay the entire cost of the land
and labor required to produce them; leaving a handsome surplus to be
devoted to carrying forward the work on a still larger scale; in regions
less promising and more remote, even within the borders of the arid
lands. With this lesson before us, how can we hesitate or falter in our
efforts to successfully carry forward this important work?

"I wish now, to call your attention to the following facts regarding the
farms and farmers of our Republic, which altogether offer additional
incentives for the speedy adoption of co-operative farming on a scale
large enough to admit of timber culture, as the only available source of
relief. The significance of these facts has scarcely been considered, by
those most deeply interested. The farming lands now owned or controlled
by our agricultural people, represent the accumulated capital or savings
of a life time; frequently of several generations of the same family.

"A steady decline in the market values of all farm products during the
past twenty-five years, has in the same ratio, affected the selling
value of the farm to such an extent, that from forty to fifty per cent
of its value at the commencement of the decline, has been swept away and
lost to the farmer, from the credit side of his available resources.
This alarming shrinkage, has in the aggregate, amounted to many
millions, yes, billions of dollars! The financial distress which has
followed, has correspondingly affected many other industries. It has
been the real cause of the forced sale of many fine farms at such
ruinously low prices, as to sacrifice at one blow, the savings of a
life-time. Each sale of this character serves to depress the market
value of all lands in that particular locality. In this way the disaster
spreads and gathers additional force.

"A very large number of farmers, who have not as yet been forced to sell
their farms, have found themselves so financially cramped, as to be
unable to secure the additional lands they had hoped and planned to
purchase for their children. What is the result? A most abundant harvest
of blasted hopes for the sons and daughters of our American farms!

"Capital in the hands of shrewd people, is always on the alert, waiting
for