seven of the States and three of the Territories. Editor H. L. Wood, of the Nebraska City Daily Press, having conceived the happy idea of issuing an Arbor Day edition of his paper, received congratulatory responses from many distinguished citizens. From James Russell Lowell, poet and diplomatist: "I am glad to join in this tribute of friendly gratitude to the inventor of Arbor Day." From George H. Broker, of Philadelphia: "I beg to join with you all in the congratulations that may be offered to this friend of humanity on his birthday, which was a happy day for the world into which he was born." From the brilliant author, T. J. Headly: "All honor to the founder of Arbor Day." From George William Curtis, editor: "I am very glad to join in grateful congratulations to the author of the suggestion which has resulted in so beautiful and serviceable an observance as Arbor Day." From Gov. Martin of Kansas: "Mr. Morton's thought has brought forth good fruit, and has been of vast pecuniary value to Kansas and Nebraska, and to all the states of the West." From ex-Senator T. F. Bayard: "I count it my good fortune to have long known J. Sterling Morton, and appreciate his many delightful qualities of head and heart." From John C. Fremont, the explorer and pathfinder of empire: "I am glad to have the opportunity to enroll myself among the friends and well-wishers of Mr. Morton, and to congratulate him upon the success of his unselfish and broadly useful work." In the House, the irrepressible and genial Hon. Church Howe introduced the following resolution, which was passed: Whereas, The President-elect of the United States has seen fit to select one of the most distinguished citizens of this State for Secretary of Agriculture; and Whereas, J. Sterling Morton, one of the pioneers of Nebraska and the creator of Arbor Day, is particularly well equipped for the position, which we firmly believe he will fill with credit to Nebraska and honor to the Nation; be it RESOLVED, That the house, irrespective of party politics, tender its thanks to the Hon. Grover Cleveland for the honor conferred upon the State of Nebraska. The fact that the measure was introduced by a republican and was passed without a dissenting vote was especially gratifying to the friends of Mr, Morton. Within two months Mr. Morton became Secretary of Agricul When the people of New Jersey, in compliance with the governor's proclamation, met to celebrate Arbor Day, their program spread before them an elaborate, philosophic, and statistical essay, by the Secretary, upon the Forestry of Civilized Nations. Of the "relentless, never-ending war between the animal and vegetable kingdom," he said: " Like great wheels the cycles revolve and reappear, now in the animal and then in the vegetable world, as mere We die, we are buried, and down into our very graves the The almost infinite possibilities of a tree germ came to my mind, one summer when traveling in a railway carriage amid beautiful cultivated fields in Belgium. A cottonwood seed on its wings of down drifted into my compartment. It came like a materialized whisper from home. Catching it in my hand I forgot the present and wandered into the past, to a mote like that which had, years and years before, been planted by the winds and currents on the banks of the Missouri. That mote had taken life and root, growing to splendid proportions, until in 1854 the ax of the pioneer had vanquished it, and the saw seizing it with relentless, whirling teeth reduced it to lumber. From its treehood evolved a human habitation, a home-my homewherein a mother's love had blossomed and fruited with a sweetness surpassing the loveliness of the rose and the honeysuckle. Thus from the former feathery floater in mid-air grew a home, and all the endearing contentment and infinite satisfaction which that blessed Anglo-Saxon word conveys, that one word which means all that is worth living for, and for which alone all good men and women are living. Never did the Secretary of Agriculture seem a more fitting part of his surroundings than when on Arbor Day, 1894, he stood uncovered under the towering trees and among the aspiring shrubs, upon the flower-clad lawn of his great department; and there, with firm hand, steadied in place the Morton Oak of the future. And equally true to nature and the occasion did inspired intellect entwine the moral and epitaph: It seems to me that a tree and a truth are the two longest lived things of which mankind has any knowledge. Therefore it behooves all men in rural life besides planting truths to plant trees; it behooves all men in public life to plant economic and political truths, and as the tree grows from a small twig to a grand overspreading oak, so the smallest economic truth, as we have seen in the United States, even in the last year, can so grow as to revolutionize the government of the great Republic. I say, then, that we should all plant trees and plant truths, and let every man struggle so that when we shall all have passed away we shall have earned a great epitaph which we find in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. You remember Sir Christopher Wren was the architect of that wondrous consummation of beauty in building, and there among the heroic dead of England's greatest heroes upon land or sea repose his remains. On other tombs are marked words of eulogy, fulsome sometimes, always intense, but upon the sarcophagus where Sir Christopher Wren's remains repose is inscribed only these simple words: "Si quæris monumentum circumspic"-If you seek my monument look around you. So every man, woman and child who plants trees shall be able to say, on coming as I have come, toward the evening of life, in all sincerity and truth: "If you seek my monument, look around you." This occasion was a surprise arranged by the officials of his department; but one year afterward it was more than duplicated on Congress Heights, D. C., April 22, 1895, being Arbor Day and his sixty-third birthday, when sixty-three trees were planted in his honor and named for distinguished persons. One of these he planted and named "Sound Money." Mr. Morton's ability as a platform speaker made him a favorite in many states long before his introduction to a president's cabinet, not only on the stump but in the lecture hall as well; and whether his efforts were reported from cosmopolitan Chicago or primitive Boston, prairie garlands twined gracefully with conservative chaplets. Had his fortune been cast in a democratic state, he would, in national politics, have at once wielded the rudder as well as the oar. In 1890, Prof. Perry of Williams College, being ready to dedicate the crowning effort of his life, "Principles of Political Economy," inscribed that supreme analysis: TO MY PERSONAL FRIEND OF LONG STANDING OF NEBRASKA A FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE, ALSO For forty years Mr. Morton has illustrated the "survival of the fittest," and the Roman motto, "Semper paratis”—always prepared. Mr. Morton unintentionally and unexpectedly evoked a storm of denunciation as the result of clear conceptions, bold utterances and intellectual aggressiveness, from a speech delivered in the "Congress of Agriculture," at Chicago, Ill., Oct. 16, 1893. The American farmer has foes to contend with. They are not merely the natural foes-not the weevil in wheat, nor the murrain in cattle, nor the cholera in swine, nor the drouth, nor the chinch-bug. The most insidious and destructive foe to the farmer is the "professional" farmer who, as a "promoter" of granges and alliances, for political purposes, farms the farmer. He thought "individual investigation of economic questions" of more value to farmers than granges or alliances attempting "to run railroads and banks, and even to establish new systems of coinage." He affirmed that "no man should give a power of attorney to any society or organization or person, to think for him." Immediately upon the delivery of the address, he was denounced as an enemy of agriculture, and the president was importuned by granges and editors for his summary removal as Secretary of Agriculture. r In reply to these violent accusations Mr. Morton published the address without note or comment and incorporated with it the most violent criticisms of his traducers, in order that the public might discover the grounds on which they planted their enginery. A copy of this most valuable address, falling under the attention of a distinguished economist, received the compliment, "clear as a bell, sound as a nut, and lively as a play." When the Hansborough bill was before Congress, offering a government appropriation for the destruction of the Russian thistle, and an applicant was seeking appointment as chief of exterminators, the Secretary ironically suggested including "cockle-burs and fan-tail grass," and further said: The Hansborough bill will never be perfect until paternalism has so amended it as to have the government not only weed, but plow, cultivate, and garner all crops for the people of the United States. The circulation of pint, quart and gallon packages of the Kentucky antidote for snake bites, gratuitously, under government franks through the mails, ought to begin as soon as the serpents open up for summer business. There is no crop so dangerous to mankind (as Adam's experience in the Garden of Eden shows) as a snake crop. When Mr. Morton took charge of the Department of Agriculture, March 4th, 1893, he found 2,497 employees on its pay rolls, of whom 305 were discharged within nine months. He was able to submit an estimate for the fiscal year, to end June 30, 1894, of $369,658 less than was appropriated for the previous year. He found the Department in its fifth year taking on all the extravagant vices of the older ones, as indicated by a few items from an interview. The conversation here turned to the Department of Agriculture and I asked the Secretary whether he was making any changes in the methods of running it. He replied: I am making a great many, and I am trying to bring the department down to a practical business basis. I believe in spending money where it should be spent, but I don't believe in wasting it. I have already found a number of big leaks which I am stopping. One is in these experimental |