THOMAS B. NOLAN 65 



in hydroponics. Further work in this field may make possible a much 

 more effective utilization of fertilizer resources as well as a more in- 

 telligent correlation of soil types with particular crops. 



I fear that some of my conservationist friends will feel that I have 

 been unduly optimistic in my confidence that scientific research and 

 technologic development have to a large extent eliminated from the 

 conservation movement concern over the adequacy of our resource 

 base. They will, quite correctly, point to a number of commodities 

 and to a number of localities, in which adequacy is far from assured 

 — areas in which ground-water supplies are being drastically, and 

 perhaps permanently, depleted is one example. 



But I am unwilling to acknowledge that such existing local or spe- 

 cific, individual shortages invalidate my firm conviction that con- 

 tinuing research, combined with man's ingenuity, can be depended 

 upon to resolve them. To me one of the lessons to be learned from 

 the 1908 conference is the danger of extending into a future that will 

 be predictably in a state of disequilibrium, projections that are based 

 on static conditions. Carnegie's prediction that the Lake Superior iron 

 ores would be exhausted before 1940 contrasts with a recent estimate 

 of high-grade reserves still in the ground that is significantly larger 

 than the amount he reported for 1907, and reserves of potential ore 

 nearly a hundred times as great.^"^ And in the other direction, his 

 prediction of coal production for 1937 was eight times too large. 



Other examples might be cited, and, in general, it would seem that 

 the more eminent and successful the speaker, the more likely his pre- 

 diction was in error in the direction of imminent exhaustion. It would 

 appear that this inability to predict accurately might be correlated 

 with the necessary intense concern with and profound knowledge of 

 existing conditions that characterize the successful man of affairs. 

 Conversely though, it implies an inability to comprehend man's ca- 

 pacity to adjust to, and devise means to seek control of, a changing 

 physical, economic, and intellectual environment. 



I suppose there will be always a tendency to accept a concept of 

 conservation that is based on exhaustion and that proposes restriction 

 in the use of resources, simply because it is so easy to project the 

 present. But I cannot concur that such a concept can ever prevail, 



3" Andrew Carnegie, op. cit., p. 17. 



