Publisher's Synopsis
Conservation seeks to insure to society the maximum benefit from the use of our natural resources. It involves the making of inventories, efforts at preservation, the discovery and prompt employment of methods of more efficient use, and the renewal and even restoration of resources. As a local, state, or national program, it is predicated on the assumption that earth-resources, and the materials prepared from them, are vital elements in man's well-being, contributing both to the satisfaction of his material wants and to his so-called higher needs; on the fact that, in occupying any region, man tends to destroy the natural resources on which his very existence depends; and on the conviction that man has it within his power to retard or to stop the destruction of resources, or even to restore certain of them, provided that he wills to do so. Conservational programs involve both short-time and long-time views, and both governmental and private action. A forest fire may work great havoc in a few hours, yet to produce a saw log may require a century.
