The Fight for Conservation | Page 8

agricultural societies with a total membership of 100,000 persons.
Since 1894 their total business has been more than $300,000,000.
But, after the farmer has begun to make use of his right to combine for
his advantage in selling his products and buying his supplies, is there
nothing else he can do? As well might we say that, after the body and
the mind of a boy have been trained, he should be deprived of all those
associations with his fellows which make life worth living, and to
which every child has an inborn right. Life is something more than a
matter of business. No man can make his life what it ought to be by
living it merely on a business basis. There are things higher than
business. What is the reason for the enormous movement from the
farms into the cities? Not simply that the business advantages in the
city are better, but that the city has more conveniences, more
excitement, and more facility for contact with friends and neighbors: in
a word, more life. There ought then to be attractiveness in country life
such as will make the country boy or girl want to live and work in the
country, such that the farmer will understand that there is no more
dignified calling than his own, none that makes life better worth living.
The social or community life of the country should be put by the
farmer--for no one but himself can do it for him--on the same basis as

social life in the city, through the country churches and societies,
through better roads, country telephones, rural free delivery, parcels
post, and whatever else will help. The problem is not merely to get
better crops, not merely to dispose of crops better, but in the last
analysis to have happier and richer lives of men and women on the
farm.
CHAPTER IV
PRINCIPLES OF CONSERVATION
The principles which the word Conservation has come to embody are
not many, and they are exceedingly simple. I have had occasion to say
a good many times that no other great movement, has ever achieved
such progress in so short a time, or made itself felt in so many
directions with such vigor and effectiveness, as the movement for the
conservation of natural resources.
Forestry made good its position in the United States before the
conservation movement was born. As a forester I am glad to believe
that conservation began with forestry, and that the principles which
govern the Forest Service in particular and forestry in general are also
the ideas that control conservation.
The first idea of real foresight in connection with natural resources
arose in connection with the forest. From it sprang the movement
which gathered impetus until it culminated in the great Convention of
Governors at Washington in May, 1908. Then came the second official
meeting of the National Conservation movement, December, 1908, in
Washington. Afterward came the various gatherings of citizens in
convention, come together to express their judgment on what ought to
be done, and to contribute, as only such meetings can, to the formation
of effective public opinion.
The movement so begun and so prosecuted has gathered immense
swing and impetus. In 1907 few knew what Conservation meant. Now
it has become a household word. While at first Conservation was
supposed to apply only to forests, we see now that its sweep extends

even beyond the natural resources.
The principles which govern the conservation movement, like all great
and effective things, are simple and easily understood. Yet it is often
hard to make the simple, easy, and direct facts about a movement of
this kind known to the people generally.
The first great fact about conservation is that it stands for development.
There has been a fundamental misconception that conservation means
nothing but the husbanding of resources for future generations. There
could be no more serious mistake. Conservation does mean provision
for the future, but it means also and first of all the recognition of the
right of the present generation to the fullest necessary use of all the
resources with which this country is so abundantly blessed.
Conservation demands the welfare of this generation first, and
afterward the welfare of the generations to follow.
The first principle of conservation is development, the use of the
natural resources now existing on this continent for the benefit of the
people who live here now. There may be just as much waste in
neglecting the development and use of certain natural resources as there
is in their destruction. We have a limited supply of coal, and only a
limited supply. Whether it is to last for a hundred or a hundred and fifty
or a thousand years, the coal is limited in amount, unless through
geological changes which we shall