Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1908-07-30

FTO1Q wednesday S Dally.
With nearly every seat in the spac-
ious C%hautauqua tent taken last night,
DR.. Thomas e. Will, secretary Of the
livered his famous address "Our
Heritage" The lecture was illustrated
with stereopticon pictures showing the
valleys, forest and streams and the
industries dependent on the forests
and streams. The lecturer was great
ly handicapped because some of his
films had been damaged unknown to
him by water, and the first he knew of
it was when they were thrown on the
screen. This greatly disappointed MI.
Will as he is one Of those affable gen
tlemen who desires everything to go
off just as it should be.
Royal Hungarians.
Preceding the lecture of DR.. Will
the Royal Hungarian Orchestra de-
lightfully entertained the audience.
There was no Disappointment in this
musical organization and the only re-
gret of many Of the chautauqua goers
was that it was the last appearance at
this c~hautauqua.
Following in part DR.. Will said:
Life a Struggle.
Life involves a struggle. The
means of life are found in our natural
resources. Our stock Of these was
once thought inexhaustible. We have
neglected them and permitted them
largely to be ravished and despoiled.
Game, artesian, water, gas, oil, coal
and the public range have already
suffered almost ir%reparably.
Our forest stock, once the richest
on the planet, is going like snow in
springtime. Under present policies.
our western forests will last about
thirty years, our northern twenty, our
southern fifteen and our entire stock
from twenty-five to thirty years.
Forest destruction mean not only
a famine in wood-as terrible, almost,
as a famine in food-but it means
floods and droughts, the impairment
of water powers, the consequent de-
pletion of electric power, and a vast
increase in the cost of production az
fecting every citizen, young or old,
rich OF poor.
The Arid Lands,
Two-fifths of our national area has
been arid or semi-arid. Irrigation,
public and private, is gradually trans
forming this desert into a garden. The
reclamation fund, now about 100000
900 and constantly renewed from pay
ments by users of irrigated lands, is
the chief factor In redeeming the des-
ert. Without forests, however, irriga-
ton cannot proceed, for upon forests
the streams depend.
Our swamp and oyerflowed lands
equal an area so great as that of New
England, New York and New Jersey.
In them are our dormant resources.
Properly drained and titled they would
feed the present population of the
United States. Investigation shows
that the cost of drainage would be
trifing in comparison witt the sub.
sequent value of the lands drained.
Again, drainage will remove sources
of malarial disease. In large measure,
however, drainage, like irrigation, de
ponds upon forests; for the excess OF
water must not only be removed but
prevented from returning. Hence
overfiows of streams must be obviated
IA work which ~necessitates forest
conservation.
Public Health.
The public health is involved. Our
people are being swept in e~ver-increas
ing numbers into the cities, where life
is cramped and artificial, Children
suffer; sixty per cent of the schooI
children of Chicago are reported al
physically deficient. Nervous disor
ders and insanity multiply. Nationa,
health demands a closer contact with
mature, But If nature is desolated and