and following with a subsoil plow and making a perfect seedbed, my neighbors were not interested except to regard it as more folly and foolishness on my part, but when they saw the result and realized that the crop taken from one acre of that land was worth at least $100.00, and that it represented ten per cent interest on $1,000.00 as the value of the land per acre, they were compelled to take notice, and now they are, figuratively speaking, falling over themselves, to learn how it was done. There is no mistake about the effect of the demonstration. The farmers of that community saw the preparations; they saw the alfalfa growing; after it was cut; in the winrow; in the shock, and on the way to the barn. The lesson could not have been brought to them as effectively in any other way.

I want to reiterate my approval of the plan proposed, of placing a qualified instructor in every county devoted to agriculture, to do things on the farms that the farmers can see and show them how to procure the results they read and hear about.

I know that the plan is feasible and that it will bring results, for I have tried it.

We have reached the point in the extension of agricultural knowledge where less talk and more demonstration work is demanded.

If this Congress does nothing more than to get behind this movement and assist in making it the success it deserves, it will have accomplished more for the maintenance and increase of the fertility of the soil than any other agency, and helped to solve the greatest of all industrial problems.

Chairman COBURN-The report of the committee on resolutions, Mr. Fowler, chairman of the committee.

Mr. Fowler read the resolutions (which will be found in full at the beginning of this volume) to the Congress, framed and unanimously adopted by the following committee: Arkansas, E. N. Plank, Decatur; California, L. R. Glavis, San Francisco; Colorado, Dr. Hubert Work, Pueblo; Connecticut, Prof. J. W. Towney, Hartford; District of Columbia, W J McGee; Illinois, A. P. Grout, Winchester; Indiana, H. E. Barnard, Indianapolis; Iowa, J. R. Doran, Beaver; Kansas, Thomas Potter, Peabody; Louisiana, Oscar Dowling, Shreveport; Massachusetts, W. P. Wharton, Groton; Michigan, Henry N. Loud, Au Sable; Minnesota, A. W. Gutridge; Mississippi, H. L. Witfield, Columbus; Missouri, Dr. W. H. Black, Marshall; Montana, C. Q. O'Neil, Kalispell; Nebraska, Geo. Coupland, Elgin; New York, Albert B. Sheldon, Sherman; Ohio, Edmund Secrist, Wooster; Oklahoma, Thos. P. Smith. Muskogee; Oregon, M. J. Kinney, Portland; Pennsylvania, Dr. Harry S. Drinker, South Bethleham; South Dakota, R. Newbanks, Pierre; Texas, W. H. Gray, Houston; Washington, Everitt Griggs, Tacoma; Wisconsin, Herbert Quick, Madison.

Chairman COBURN-You have heard the report of the committee on resolutions.

Delegate POTTER-I desire to move its adoption by this Congress of the able report that we have just heard read by the chairman of the committee on resolutions.

The motion was duly seconded.

Chairman COBURN-It has been regularly moved and seconded that the report of the committee as read be adopted. Are you ready for the question?

Delegate JOHN C. SHOFFER, of Chicago-As one looks over this hall and compares the number of suggestions made by the committee on resolutions, it would seem that there are more resolutions offered than there are delegates here. I think it is an unfortunate thing, sir, that this platform or these resolutions should go out as expressing the sentiment of this Congress. There are too many absentees to vote on this question at this time. If we are going to put this forward as an expression of this great Congress, the delegates should be here to vote on it, and not be bound by the vote of the few who are here this afternoon. It is not fair that this should go out as an expression of this Congress when there are only a handful of delegates left to vote on it.

Delegate CONDRA-We have a committee, one from each state. It is perfectly regular, and there is a pretty big handful here to vote on it.

Chairman COBURN-Are you ready for the question?

(Cries of question, question.)

All in favor of the motion to adopt the resolution as read, signify the same by saying aye. Contrary no. The motion is carried and the resolutions as read adopted.

[Resolutions will be found in front part of this volume.]

Delegate A. W. STUBBS, of Kansas City, Kan.-I realize what the gentleman has said, that the resolutions are very long, and I am greatly embarrassed by the enormity of the subject taken in hand by this National Congress. There has been one disappointment to me, and I have embodied that in a resolution which I believe will be appreciated by every delegate present, as well as by the officers who have had to sit and listen to some of the addresses, well intended, on this floor, but not germane to the subject at hand, and I have prepared this brief resolution to submit now, not as a part of the platform, but more as an expression from the delegates to this Congress.

Resolved, that we recommend to the executive committee of this Congress that in the preparation of future programs care be exercised to prevent the time of delegates being taken up by papers and speeches

not germane to the purposes of the Congress, and that provision be made for brief discussion of papers presented by the delegates from the several

states.

I move the adoption of this resolution.

The motion was duly seconded.

Chairman COBURN-You have heard the motion. It has been moved and seconded that the resolution as read by the gentleman be adopted. Are you ready for the question?

Mr. CONDRA-Will you please read the last section of that resolution? Chairman COBURN-Will the gentleman read the fast, about the several states?

Mr. STUBBS-And that provision be made for brief discussion of papers presented by the delegates from the several states. Many interesting papers have been read here, and many delegates have come hundreds of miles who would have been glad to say just a word perhaps, not any extended discussion, but express themselves from the body of the Congress, and expressions from a body like this would be found invaluable to the entire audience.

Mr. CONDRA-I asked the question because I misunderstood. I thought that he meant representation on the program from the various states, which would absolutely kill this Congress.

Mr. STUBBS-Oh, no.

Mr. CONDRA-I hope that the matter he refers to may be taken up and by departments, thus giving opportunity for further discussion.

Delegate POTTER-I don't want any misunderstanding of the intent of this resolution. The author of it, as I understand it, does not mean to embody this in the general resolutions, but only as a suggestion of the desire of this Congress through our committee to make arrangements for the future.

Delegate STUBBS-That is correct.

Chairman COBURN-Those in favor of the adoption of the resolution as read say aye. Contrary no. Motion carried.

Chairman COBURN-Our program for the afternoon is now concluded and a motion to adjourn until 8 o'clock this evening is in order.

Upon motion to adjourn, duly seconded, being put, was unanimously carried, and Congress adjourned until 8 o'clock p. m.

CLOSING SESSION.

President WHITE-Ladies and Gentlemen of the third National Conservation Congress will now come to order. I will introduce as the first speaker Prof. William Hoynes, Professor of Law at Notre Dame University.

Professor HoYNES-Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: In the limited time at my disposal, aware as I am that Senator Owen and Mr. Bryan are to follow, I recognize the need of brevity, and though I shall contend that the conservation movement is but the fulfillment of a natural impulse or instinctive privilege as old as the human race, yet I shall do so in as few words as practicable. In short, what I have to say may be viewed in a threefold aspect, as conservation in respect to soil fertility, conservation in respect to waste and extravagane in the affairs of daily life and the utility of education as a means of furthering the efficacy of conservation and common sense in these matters.

As viewed by many the principle of conservation is of recent origin. But this is a mistake. It is as old as mankind. In reality it amounts simply to the natural protest of reason and experience against waste and extravagance. It originated simultaneously with the consciousness of the need of food, raiment and shelter for the protection and preservation of life.

As men struggled in the primitive ages to procure food for sustenance, the pelts of animals to cover their bodies and the shelter of caves or rudely constructed huts to protect them from the rigors of the elements and the incursions of prowling beasts and venomous reptiles, they at the same time realized the indispensableness of these things and the necessity and wisdom of conserving them.

As in the case of our own Indians, the struggle they made to obtain the necessaries of life taught them to be saving of what they procured in that line and to be vigilant in providing for the future. They took no more fish from the waters of lake or river than seemed necessary for actual use, they did not destroy wantonly the wild creatures of the forest, and the denizens of the air were free from trap and arrow beyond the range of hunger and necessity. Thus they conserved carefully the sources of their food supply, and the pathetic story of a Hiawatha had rarely to be told.

It was only on the coming of the white man, who did not specially rely upon such means of livelihood, that the wild creatures of the air, forest, prairie, plain, lake and river were heedlessly slaughtered, or wantonly destroyed in sport, or driven to hiding places in swamp or mountain.

It may thus be seen that when things are deemed essential to the maintenance of life the lesson of care in using and conservation in protecting and preserving them is brought home to the comprehension and

firmly fixed in mind and habit. But when, on the other hand, things appear to be measurably superfluous or easy of acquisition, the sense of their value becomes abated and the spur of conservation blunted.

And so with the land, which to civilized man is the source of life's sustenance and the basis of progress and prosperity. Heretofore in abundance and easily procured at moderate cost or for the mere taking of it under the homestead law, but little attention was bestowed upon the preservation of its fertility. When there came manifest and pressing occasion for keeping it up by the restoration of its exhausted elements the owners sold it for whatever it would bring and migrated to the easily procurable new lands of the great West. But now this movement has met with a decided check, for there is hardly any more arable free or cheap land to be had. The most desirable government land has been taken by settlers under the homestead law, and that which has been reclaimed under the irrigation system is held at comparatively startling prices. Thus exists a condition which is measurably responsible for the overflow of nearly a million of our people into the British possessions on the North, actuated by the lure of virgin soil and cheap lands. And even this door is now less ajar through the taking by first comers of the choicest holdings and the failure of our reciprocity negotiations.

The comparatively impoverished lands sold by those who sought new homes in the West were usually purchased by persons who knew little about farming, or took them as an experiment or for speculative purposes, and placed tenants on them-tenants whose chief aim was, not to restore the fertility of the soil, but to make it yield all the profit possible with the least possible outlay of money and labor.

But a halt has been called in this state of things, and mainly so, as it seems to us, through the instrumentality of the many agricultural boards, alliances and societies, not to mention the Grange and Department of Agriculture, that appear to have united or coöperated in the organization of this great conservation movement. There is a marked tendency, as observers must admit, to look backward to the neglected lands and abandoned farms. These are being sought again by the returning pioneers of the West or their descendants, and so probably to a greater extent relatively in the South than in the East. This countermovement is unmistakable and has led to a notable and increasing advance in the prices of these lands during the past decade. The cause lies not alone in the acquisition by settlers of all the desirable free and cheap lands of the West, but also in the expected restoration of soil fertility in the South and East.

To this end the deliberations of the present Conservation Congress have in large measure justly and wisely tended. Much has been said, and well said, touching the study and utilization of scientific means to restore soil fertility in the case of impoverished lands throughout the