Though I have presented a sad picture, it is not pessimistic. The background is altogether cheerful. Two words express the most simple and effective remedy: intelligent farming. This will not only make farming profitable, but it will surround the home life on the farm with so many attractions as to remove all desire for the deceptive allurements of a city. Intelligent farming does not merely guarantee good dividends on a farm investment, but it builds good roads to save cost of transportation, consolidates rural schools where intelligent farming, industry and home economics can be taught by precept and example, beautifies the home and its surroundings and fills it with all the attractions that elevate manhood and womanhood, teaches the younger generation the dignity as well as reward of farm labor, and inspires the laborer with the hope of a bright future.
Drainage, farm settlement, good roads, forestry, transportation, industrial education, minerals, cheap heat and power resources, are all important factors in the Conservation movement. Minnesota has successfully drained about 3,000,000 acres in the northern part of the State at an average cost of two dollars per acre, and converted into meadows, grain and clover fields, celery and cranberry gardens, what only a year or two since was a rough wilderness. Every State should have some effective way of making these results known to prospective settlers through exhibits and judicious advertising. No State officer is in a position to bring greater returns to the State than the immigration commissioner, and it is to be regretted that his work is so often crippled by lack of sufficient appropriations.
In marketing produce, distributing material, fertilizer and machinery, the farmers of Minnesota haul annually approximately 20,000,000 wagon loads. Averaging the cost of each load over mostly unimproved roads at $1.50, the cost of highway transportation in the State aggregates $30,000,000. Most experts claim that uniformly good roads would reduce this cost one-half, but conceding for the sake of argument that the reduction would be only a third, the net saving to the farmers of the State in one year would be about $10,000,000. However, this is not the most important result. The building of good roads would build up farm intercommunication and promote the consolidation of rural school districts by making it possible to carry the pupils at all seasons of the year some distance over country roads to the school at a minimum cost.
Several of the north-central border States were the chief shippers of lumber only a few years ago. Now our great forests are largely depleted, and scientific deforestation has become an absolute necessity. One of the most important duties the States as well as the Nation have to perform is the transformation of this vast stumpage area into forests and farms. Practical and scientific reforestation should convert the lands unsuited for farming into forests, so that every acre would produce revenue and furnish some necessity of life. The dry season of 1910 has particularly emphasized another important duty in this connection, and that is the protection of our forests and settlers from fires. It is a well known fact that enough timber has been destroyed by fire within the last four months to pay for the adequate protection of all our forests for a period of ten years or more, not to mention the great loss of human life, which in itself imposes upon States and Nation the duty of protection. This Congress should be instrumental in stirring public sentiment to such an extent that the various legislatures and the Congress will take immediate steps to stop this needless and expensive waste.
Since mineral wealth is exhaustible, it follows that the interest of the people in this important resource should be guarded against the encroachments of greed with the utmost care. Minnesota furnishes now one-half of all the iron-ore in the United States, and one-fourth of that of the world, exporting this year about 40,000,000 tons. It is estimated that not less than 2,000,000,000 tons of ore has been definitely located, and that the volume of the undeveloped properties is enormous. The State is the owner of very large quantities of ore, and the income from this source alone will increase the State school fund by at least $100,000,000.
No section of our country could profit more by water transportation than that tributary to this great mineral wealth. The canalization of the Mississippi river system with its 16,000 miles of streams would by cheap transportation bring together the coal fields of the central interior with the iron ore of the North, and produce in the Mississippi valley the greatest iron and steel industries of the world, besides opening up the greatest agricultural and industrial sections to the transportation facilities of the Panama canal.
No commercial nation can long retain supremacy unless it has unlimited supplies of cheap heat and power. In the north-central border States are located peat deposits that should furnish cheap heat and power for untold generations, Minnesota alone possessing more than 1,000,000 acres; and as the source of the three great watersheds of the country, with an elevation of about 1,500 feet over sea and gulf level, there is an abundance of water-power to turn the wheels of manufacture and commerce.
Time will not permit any consideration of the strictly human side of Conservation. We have saved millions of dollars annually by guarding against plant and animal disease, and are just beginning to take note of the untold millions wasted every month through neglect of preventable and curable disease, impure foods, defective sanitation and health inspection in homes and schools, unsuitable playgrounds for children, and the lack of safeguards against railway, mine and factory accidents, all of which come properly within the Conservation scope.
The splendid progress made by Minnesota and other States merely emphasizes the importance of the Conservation movement. Warned by the decay of older nations, we must act before the crisis of exhausted natural resources reaches our Nation and commonwealths. Indeed, warned by signs that are only too plain in our own midst, we must take decisive action without delay. Fortunately, we have passed the pioneer stage of development. Our Nation and commonwealths have all experienced many of the disasters resulting from the skimming of natural resources. Having discovered the vast mines of wealth which surround us everywhere, we must now and forever determine that ignorance, selfishness, and greed shall no longer control our governments and exhaust our resources. (Great applause and cheers)