PERIODICAL LITERATURE 491 



ing the year some incomes from sales of land, etc., occurred, which 

 are not counted in the final income, as they will be used for future pur- 

 chases of land. 



Expenditures: General administration, $48,64:6 ; State forest serv- 

 ice, $2,108,930; State farm lands, $33,972; total expenditures, $2,191,- 

 548— a net income of $5,087,166. 



This, from an area of around 20,000,000 acres, would approach 30 

 cents per acre per year; but since at least 70 per cent of this area is not 

 really producing, the net yield may be assumed as nearer one dollar 

 from productive area. 



O. N. 



Skogsvards Foreningens Tidskrift, November, 1916, pp. 733-7. 



In a thoughtful paper before the American 

 Conservation Institute of Mining Engineers Dr. Richard T. 



and Bconomic Ely, professor of economics in the University 

 Theory of Wisconsin, claims that the chief role in con- 



servation belongs to the political economist, be- 

 cause in the end "wise conservation means wise property relations." 

 Conservation, the author explains, has to deal not only with preserva- 

 tion of natural resources, which must often take the form of public 

 ownership and management, and with improvement of our natural 

 inheritance, but also with production and with justice in distribution, 

 and here property and contract and their social theory are involved.- 

 There are, then, two orders of inquiry involved in conservation, 

 namely, that falling within the broad field of natural sciences; the 

 other within the field of economic thought and of the too much 

 neglected question of property relations. "When we decide upon 

 what we want so far as property relations are concerned, engineers 

 and other technical men will be able to carry out the desired policy, 

 and political science must be called on for aid." The author gives 

 examples from various fields, and especially the irrigation policy in 

 the United States is highly illustrative. 



After showing that "waste" is a relative term, the striking thesis 

 is discussed that "the conservation of human resources limits the 

 conservation of natural resources." "How shall we balance the inter- 

 ests of the present and the future?" is the problem. 



In attempting to find principles upon which conservation policies 



