form. In view of the annual losses to the wealth of this country that will continue so long as the McLean bill fails to pass, it is impossible for any one to put forth one good reason, unless it be on purely technical grounds, against that measure. By the inexorable logic of the situation, any man who opposes the enactment of a law for the Federal protection of migratory birds becomes by that opposition an enemy to the public welfare. The bills introduced in Congress by Representatives Weeks and Anthony have dragged long enough. They provided for the protection of migratory game birds, only. Now it is time to strengthen their proposition, as Senator McLean has done, by providing also for the protection of all the migratory insectivorous birds.

Unless the people of America wish to shut their eyes to their own interests, and pay out millions of dollars annually in the form of increased cost of living, they should arouse from their lethargy and put up to Congress such a demand for the passage of the McLean bill that it will be enacted into law at the next session of Congress. It is Senate Bill No. 6497, and on the Senate calendar it is No. 606. We can not afford to wait until 1914 or 1915; and Congress has full power to act next winter.

How many people in the North know that the negroes and poor whites of the South annually slaughter millions of valuable insect-eating birds for food? Around Avery Island, Louisiana, during the robin season (in January when the berries are ripe), Mr. E. A. McIlhenny says that during ten days or two weeks, at least 10,000 robins are each day slaughtered for the pot. "Every negro man and boy who can raise a gun is after them!”

There are seven States in which the robin is regularly and legally being killed as game! They are Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennsesee, Virginia and Florida.

There are five States that expressly permit the killing of blackbirds as "game": Louisiana, South Carolina, Tennessee, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania.

Cranes are killed and eaten in Colorado, Nevada, Nebraska, North Dakota and Oklahoma.

In twenty-six States doves are regularly killed as game-much to the less of the farmers.

The bobwhite quail is a great destroyer of the seeds of noxious weeds. In our fauna he has no equal. And yet this fact is ignored. Throughout the North and most of the South that species is mercilessly shot, and as a result it is fast becoming extinct. In New York State it will soon be as extinct as the mastadon, unless given a ten-year close season at once. Its value as a plentiful game bird is gone.

The shore birds are fast becoming exterminated by sportsmen and pot-hunters who kill them for food, "according to law." The Eskimo

curlew is totally extinct, and other species are fast going over the same road. Nothing in this world will save this group of birds except a law for the Federal protection of migratory birds, such as the McLean bill, now before Congress. The way the whole group of shore birds is being exterminated is nothing less than a crime. And yet, at least thirty members of this group are of a great value to all of us, because of the great numbers of crop-destroying insects that they annually consume.

THE DUTY OF THE HOUR.

The only way in which all these valuable migratory birds can be saved to us is through the strong arm of the National Government, and a Federal law for the protection of all migratory birds! Protection of game birds alone will not answer. Too many other birds are being killed for food, especially in the South.

The Wild Life Protection Committee urges all delegates to take home with them the burden that rests on every good citizen regarding the enactment into law of a satisfactory measure for the preservation of the insect-eating birds. If any opposition should arise on account of the feature of the bill which covers the ducks, geese and swans, and other migratory wild fowl, the committee is quite willing that those birds should be stricken out of the bill entirely, in order that the protection of the crop-saving birds may be secured. It is believed that no sensible person can possibly raise any objection to the protection of the insectivorous birds by the passage of the McLean or Weeks bill, in case the water fowl are left out. It is, however, regarded as extremely necessary that the shore birds should be included because of their immense value to agriculture.

In concluding, the committee urges all delegates to take this matter up with your members of Congress, and urge them to vote for, and work for, whatever bill may finally be agreed upon as best calculated to protect the insectivorous birds, and be free from objections regarding its constitutionality. A number of able lawyers have decided that it will be wholly within the spirit and letter of the Constitution of the United States for the Federal Government to protect all insectivorous birds through a law of Congress.

VITAL RESOURCES OF THE NATION.

Dr. HENRY STURGIS DRINKER, President of Lehigh University, a Delegate from the State of Pennsylvania, from Lehigh University, and from

the American Forestry Association.

What subject is there to which the constant attention of Conservationists, of patriotie men and women, could be better devoted than to the care of the vital resources of the nation-the care of the lives of all our people, not of a selected few, the teaching and the impressing of the

lessons of steady life, of sobriety, of continence, and of due rest and recuperation from the wear and tear of our American life. Surely we have good reason to be proud of the intelligence and activity of our people, formed as they are of the intermingling of many peoples, with a resulting product as a nation that is markedly free from in-breeding and its usually unsatisfactory outcome.

I think it was Mr. Lieber, in the course of his gracious and cordial opening address of welcome to the Congress, who referred to our duty to endeavor to alleviate the condition of the sweat-shop and mine workers, but is there not another and equally great duty of which we are habitually more neglectful? What is our duty, the duty of society, to those self-sacrificing, altruistic men, devoted to public service, men such as Dr. Wallace, Mr. White, Mr. Farquhar, who devote themselves to and ably lead great movements like this Congress for the betterment of conditions among our people-men who are not only captains of industry. but generals in the army of public service, and leaders and exemplars in the pursuit of public duty? What should we, as a body, say to them and to others like them (for, thank God, America owns a great army of good men like them), who uphold the good cause of public service? They become in leading these great movements, in a measure, the custodians of the public welfare, but-"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"? Who shall watch these very guards, and see that they conserve the intelligence, patriotism and energy, that goes out from them to public welfare, that it may not be prematurely exhausted? Surely we should take measures to have them feel how the Nation values them as a public asset, and how they owe it to their country as well as to their homes to heed and to preach to others the wise words of dear old Mark Twain, who (writing from Naples in 1867) sent us these words, pregnant with the lesson of the higher Conservation:

"We walked up and down one of the most popular streets for some time, enjoying other people's comfort, and wishing we could export some of it to our restless, driving, vitality-consuming marts at home. Just in this one matter lies the main charm of life in Europe comfort. In America, we hurry-which is well; but when the day's work is done, we go on thinking of losses and gains. we plan for the morrow, we even carry our business cares to bed with us, and toss and worry over them when we ought to be restoring our racked bodies and brains with sleep. We burn up our energies with these excitements, and either die early, or drop into a mean and lean old age, at a time of life which they call a man's prime in Europe. When an acre of ground has produced long and well, we let it lie fallow and rest for a season; we take no man clear across the continent in the same coach he started in-the coach is stabled somewhere on the plains and its heated machinery allowed to cool for a few days; when a razor has seen long service and refuses to hold an edge, the barber lays it aside for a few weeks, and the edge comes back of its own accord. We bestow thoughtful care upon inanimate objects, but none upon ourselves. What a robust people, what a nation of thinkers we might be, if we would only lay ourselves on the shelf occasionally and renew our edges."

As the official call for this Congress stated, we have in previous meetings dealt with four great subjects-our forests, waters, lands, and minerals, but in taking for its theme this year the subject of "Vital Resources," the Congress is studying the very life of the Nation, is seeking to benefit our people not only by the conservation of our material natural resources, but to do good to them by bringing home the duty of life Conservation in our whole Nation; and what greater task can patriotic men and women devote themselves to than this, and what words can epitomize the sentiment underlying this service better than those in Sophocles' "Oedipus," where it is said:

"Methinks, no work so grand

Hath man yet compassed, as with all he can
Of chance or power, to help his fellow-man."

CONSERVATION OF THE SOIL.

Hon. JAMES J. HILI, of St. Paul, Minn.

Just as all industry depends upon the production and increase of the fruits of the earth, so all other forms of Conservation must be held subordinate to the preservation of the productivity of the soil. To preserve and defend the public health, to see that human beings are brought into the world and kept there under favoring conditions, and to lengthen their term of life will but add to the total of human misery unless they are well fed and housed and clothed. For this, as for the material of all their varied activities, they must come back in the last analysis to the soil. Earth is the mother not only of mankind but of all human industry.

In the years during which the necessity of this most imperative form of Conservation has been the subject of my thought and the theme of most of my public utterances, much has been accomplished. The interest of the public is awake. It is not necessary any longer to urge a Conservation movement, but rather to direct the energy already enlisted in its behalf into wise channels. While the farmer is still subject to some unfavorable legislative discrimination, we know that his prosperity must be made a first object before prosperity can visit others. The progress of the farm is put first in many schemes of public improvement where, a few years ago, it would have been mentioned perfunctorily if at all.

Education in agriculture has made much progress. The number of institutions teaching agriculture increased more than sixty per cent. in nineteen months. They had ten per cent. more students in agriculture in 1910 than in 1909, and more than eight times as many students taking the teachers' course in agriculture. Colleges and high schools give place to some form of agricultural instruction; and the necessity of fostering soil Conservation is recognized today as never before.

What we need to do at once belongs rather to the practical than to the theoretical side of Conservation. There is little reason to doubt that the farmer of the future should be a highly intelligent man, commanding from his acres crops that are far beyond those of today in their abundance. But the present generation may and should do far better for itself, in its own time, while it is also preparing the way for the more careful and productive agriculture which should follow.

I use intentionally the words "careful" and "productive" instead of the word "scientific," as applied to soil treatment and crop raising, because they express the simple and easy processes within the reach of men of the present generation as well as the new; because they avoid a misleading implication that attaches to the word "scientific." It is true that the best methods of soil treatment and crop growing are scientifie; but they require only that form of popular science which is within the comprehension and use of every farmer.

The essentials of soil Conservation have been known for centuries. They were practiced in Babylonia, just as irrigation was resorted to there on a splendid seale. They have been the property of the Chinese for four thousand years, and maintained there a dense population in spite of croppings so frequent and severe that it would seem impossible for any soil to stand such treatment without exhaustion. The latest bulletin of the best agricultural institution is scarcely more instructive or helpful than a study of the "forty centuries of agriculture" included in the experience of these skilled and laborious people of the Orient.

The soil is a living thing, and must receive the treatment due to all organic and vital beings from which we expect service or tribute. The first requisite is that the individual man learn with what manner of soil he is dealing. There is now an agricultural college or experiment station within the reach of every farmer in the country. Some are and all should be equipped for a scientific analysis of all soils submitted to them. From this the cultivator may learn the first two things indispensable to any intelligent conduct of his industry: First, to what crops his land is best adapted; second, what elements of fertility have been drawn from it so lavishly that they need to be restored. This information having been given by competent authority, every farmer may do all the rest for himself.

There is no secret and no mystery about the processes involved. farmers will rotate their crops, fertilize plentifully and intelligently, keep live stock to diversify their industry, refresh the land and utilize waste products, and cultivate thoroughly and frequently, the problem of soil Conservation is solved. The earth has been kept as productive for thousands of years as it was when it produced its first crop of cultivated cereals wherever these few and simple conditions have been observed. If seed is carefully selected, after a test for germination, and the practices