Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1908-05-14
SECOND DAY Of
BIG CONFERENCE
Foremost Men of
Nation Deliver
Addresses
]. ]. HILL SOUNDS WARNING
President of Great Northern
Says Time To Call a Halt
Has Arrived.

washington, May 14.--The second
days conference at the White House
between President Roosevelt and the
governors Of the various states and
territories, for the consideration OF
the conservation of the natural re.
sources of the country, met at ten
o'clock this morning. The president
called the session to order and invit.
ed Governor John A. Johnson OF Min.
nesota, to preside.
Perhaps the most distinguished
speaker today was James j. Hill, pres.
ident of the Great Northern Railway,
who spoke on the Natural Wealth
OF the Land and it's Conservation"
Then followed Professor Chamber
lain president of the American AS
ISOLATION for the Advancement OF
Science, who spoke on Soil Vast,
age" and II. A. Long, of Kansas City.
who spoke on Forest Conservation
Hill Given an Ovation.
j. j. Hill was given an ovation when
he spoke. He talked nearly an hour
and at the conclusion Of his address
was warmly congratulated by mem
bers Of the convention including W
j. Bryan, who shook hands with him.
Hill likened the assemblage to di.
rectors meeting of a great political
and economic corporation known as
the United States of America. The
stockholders, he said, were eighty
seven millions Of the people of the
country. He said the mineral wealth
could be used but once and It was
rapidly being exhausted, the exhaus.
tion of the coal supply alone not be
Ing III the indefinite future. The
forests were also rapidly disappearing
and the stock of unappropriated land
rapidly decreasing. Hill then took
up the subject of soil waste and
showed how the fertility of the soil
was being decreased by present reck-
less methods of farming.
At the afternoon session. Land Re
sources" was the theme OF discus.
sion. Addresses were made by form.
Ter Governor Pardee. of California, on
Resources Related to Irrigation" and
by President H. A. Jastro, OF the
American Live Stock Association, on
Grazing and Stock Raising" The
general discussion of these subjects
was opened by former United States
Senator Joseph M. Carey, of Chey.
enne, Wyoming.
Soil Wastage.
The paper of Professor Thomas c.
Chamberlain Of the University of Chi,
cago, on "Soil Wastage" was in part
as follows:
ITO give thought to the future ap-
peals to me with peculiar force, be-
cause recent studies have led me to
the belief that the earth's future hab
liability is vastly greater than we
have been wont to believe. 1t is com
mon conception that the earth sprang
from chaos at the beginning Of our
era and is plunging on to catastrophe
lor a final winter in the near future,
but have come to believe that the
earth arose from a regenerative pro
cess and offers a fair prospect Of hab.
liability for tens of millions of years
to come. If this be true, 1t is eminent
ly fit that our race should give
thought to the distant results Of It's
action.
1T is familiar geologic doctrine that
for eras rains have fallen on the sur
face and soils have been produced by
rock decay, while the surface has been
washed away. Soil production and soil
removal have run hand In hand, and
yet so controlled by natures adjust
ments that no large part OF the sur.
face has been swept bare enough to
altogether exclude vegetation. More
than this, 1t appears that the usual ad-
justments Of nature make rather for
increased fertility OF soil than deple-
Ition. It is true that at times deforma-
tions have interviewed, giving noun
famous heights and precipitous sur
faces from which the soil-product has
)been washed faster than It could be
produced; and desert conditions have
Ialso interviewed locally; but these dia
strophic efforts are perhaps rather re-
|juvenations necessary to the preserva-
ton OF the continents than indestruc-
tive episodes. Whenever such
heights and slopes have been raised,
the atmosphere and it's waters have
at once begun to grade them down. to
cover them with soil and to give them
a new habitability. So in this and
other ways, the gifts of the great past
shape themselves as products Of a
marvellous system Of control that has
checked excesses and forced move
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