EDITORIAL 



Change of Title 



WITH this, the September num- 

 ber of the magazine, the lately- 

 adopted title is used, and the magazine, 

 instead of bearing the words "Forestry 

 and Irrigation" on cover and at the 

 head of its pages, will hereafter be 

 known as Conservation. We believe 

 that under the new title the magazine 

 will have a wider appeal, and will reach 

 a more sympathetic audience than un- 

 der the old, and we feel certain that its 

 field of usefulness will be vastly 

 increased. 



It has been felt for some time that 

 the old title did not express all that 

 the magazine, as well as The American 

 Forestry Association, stands for. As 

 we said, editorially, in the August 

 number, there is more to the broad 

 world-movement for conservation than 

 forestry and irrigation. The protec- 

 tion of the forests, and the reclamation, 

 by irrigation, of the country's arid 

 lands, present two phases of the move- 

 ment, but only two. To be sure, these 

 phases are the ones that have hereto- 

 fore taken first rank, but the movement 

 is broadening; for a long time, now, 

 there has been a feeling that other 

 natural resources besides those of the 

 forests and the arid lands require at- 

 tention. This feeling has, as all think- 

 ing men realize, increased in intensity 

 and acquired vigor in the increase, un- 

 til to-day there is no more vital prob- 

 lem facing humanity than that of how 

 best to conserve all the resources of 

 Nature, for the best uses of all man- 

 kind, not only for to-day, but for all 

 time. 



«? 5S «« 



Our Duty to Posterity 



MORE and more is the fact becom- 

 ing realized that mankind owes a 

 duty not only to mankind, but to the 



children of men. Once upon a time — 

 not so long ago, for that matter— a 

 statesman, whose eyes Time has 

 not opened, remarked, "Posterity be 

 damned! What has Posterity ever 

 done for us?"' And a cackle of senile 

 laughter accompanied the words. But, 

 thank Heaven, there are men in this 

 land of ours who have ideas more ad- 

 vanced than those of the statesman 

 quoted here, and such men realize the 

 truth of the statement that the genera- 

 tion of to-day has only a life estate in 

 the resources of Nature — only a brief 

 leasehold — and that to ravish those re- 

 sources, leaving them exhausted for 

 those who are to come, is as criminally 

 dishonest — only in a far greater and 

 more criminal degree — as to destroy a 

 house that is held on the tenure of a 

 year's lease. The man who, as a 

 renter, would wantonly destroy and 

 lay waste a property he occupied would 

 be prosecuted in the courts ; how much 

 more, then, should such an one be pun- 

 ished if he lay waste, ravage, trample 

 down, uproot and destroy beyond re- 

 pair by those who are to follow him. 

 any of Nature's resources? If it were 

 true as many men have said, that to 

 the present generation belongs the 

 earth and the fullness thereof, and that 

 posterity must take care of itself, what 

 would become of modern civilization ? 



J^ )^ 5« 

 Not for To-'day Alone 



MORE and more is it coming to be 

 realized that the conservation of 

 natural resources is not a work to be 

 done merely for the men and women 

 of to-day, or to-morrow, but as well for 

 the generations to come. It is not a 

 work that is to be of direct benefit only 

 to those who are now using these re- 

 sources, but, if our children and our 

 children's children are not to suffer, 



493 



