in pay dirt, have steadily increased in volume 

 2nd destnictiveness. 



America has used, wasted or destroyed three- 

 fifths of its virgin timber and lumber. Our 

 original forests covered about 822 million 

 acres. More than two-thirds of this area has 

 been culled, cut over or burned. In hilly 

 land in particular, the loss of trees has had 

 serious consequences to agriculture. Accord- 

 mg to the latest available figures, there are 

 about 1}7 million acres of virgin timber (93 

 million of which are in the west), 112 mil- 

 lion acres of culled and second-growth timber, 

 large enough for sawing, and 81 million acres 

 of devastated and practically waste land. The 

 nation's normal annual wood bill includes 

 about 40 billion feet of lumber, between 80 

 and 100 million crossties, )>/2 million cerds of 

 pulpwood (about half of which is imported) 

 and around 61 million cords of fuel wood. 



It is reassuring to know that artificial and 

 natural reforestation is under way in many 

 regions where trees are needed to conserve, 

 bind and build top soils. Public and private 

 tree planting in the United States in 1936 

 was on a vastly larger scale than in any other 

 year. Thousands of farm woodlots were begun 

 in many of the leading agricultural states. 



Although changes and adjustments in wood 

 uses and iii timber and lumber production will 

 continue in an age of steel, concrete, glass 

 and other materials, let us bear in mind that 

 the functional value of trees to man, histori- 

 cally and now, can hardly be over-emphasized. 



Cashed Fertility 



During about 70 years in particular, preced- 

 ing 1933, there was no widespread active con- 

 sciousness of the soil as a basic, living resource 

 which could be worn, weakened, soured, 

 washed away, or blown loose and widely 

 scattered. Many a farmer drew heavily on the 

 fertility of his best fields in order to pay off 

 a mortgage or buy more land. Everywhere in 

 the nation it was the habit and the practice of 

 both farmers and stockmen every year to pro- 

 duce to the limit on all suitable land that they 

 controlled and could operate; and, having no 

 organized bargaining power, they sold their 

 pr^ucts for whatever they could get. What 

 happened, therefore, was that the nation's soil 

 fertility was farmed out and cashed on a 

 prodigal scale, and an enormous wash-ofT 

 and loss of valuable top soil occurred. 



In a Shakespearian drama, an old physician 

 prays very simply and briefly in the presence 

 of a tragedy, saying, "Forgive us all." All of 

 us are parties to depleting and wasting the na- 

 tional birthright of soil fertility. The soil is 

 the first national bank of America, and the 

 people's withdrawals and waste of wealth 

 from it are national debts that can gradually 

 be paid back to the soil to the profit of every 

 citizen. 



Strengthen the Nation 



All of us are interested in national policies 

 that protect, conserve and increase the produc- 

 tivity of the soil. Such policies, supported by 

 organized farmers, have been adopted, and 

 they authorize flexible, regionalized programs 

 under which farmers throughout the nation 

 are increasing their income by acting together 

 in working out sound, balanced systems of 

 farming. In doing this job in their own in- 

 terest, they are strengthening the nation at its 

 roots. Power to their elbows is flowing 

 through the cooperation of state agricultural 

 institutions, the Department of Agriculture and 

 other agencies of the government. 



Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace 

 said recently that "a permanent policy of con- 

 servation of s*il resources has been laid down 

 and a start has been made in applying it." 

 Such a policy will improve the lot of the 

 whole population. History makes clear the 

 fact that the day by day welfare of what Lin- 



32 



jt VIGOROUS defense of a program to maintain 



,^X f^iir price levels for farm products by a metro- 



/^Ix ^ # politan newspaper is "news." The Daily 



Times, fast-growing tabloid newspaper of Chicago, has 



this to say about the AAA of 1938: 



"It is easy to foretell the anguished editorial wails of 

 regimentation,' dictatorship' and other dire prophecies 

 that will arise from certain conservative newspaper quarters 

 as a result of the senate's passage Monday of the "ever- 

 normal granary' crop control bill. Nevertheless the bill is 

 a completely logical development of the illogicality arising 

 from a half-century's abuse of the protective tariflF. 



"For generations manufacturers have had artificially 

 protected markets, artificially maintained prices, through 

 the device of the protective tariff. Through that same 

 period the farmer has paid high prices for protected manu- 

 factured products and been forced to sell his own produce 

 on an unprotected market. 



Manufacturers, in the main well-financed and operat- 

 ing upon a large scale, automatically have curtailed produc- 

 tion whenever supply exceeded demand. They have, in 

 brief, practiced an 'economy of scarcity.' The farmers, un- 

 organized, each one dependent upon each year's crops for 

 his living, have been unable to follow the same practice, 

 with the result of frequently glutted markets and ruinously 

 low prices. 



"The ever-normal granary bill, therefore, is the at- 

 tempt of agriculture to place itself as a unit upon a basis of 

 economic equality with industry 



"Agriculture for many years has been confronted with 

 economic anarchy. In 20 years the prices of farm products 

 have run over a range of more than 1 ,000 per cent in many 

 instances — in some cases as high as 2,500 per cent. In 

 times of scarcity the consumer has been faced with prices 

 outrageously high. In times of glut the farmer has had an 

 income outrageously low. 



"This, as the saying goes, is a condition, not a theory. 



Prattling of the inviolability of "natural economic laws,' 



and 'supply and demand,' or expressions of horror about 



loss of foreign markets,' "artificiality' and "an economy of 



scarcity' won't cure it. 



""It is perfectly natural for the people to seek to cure 

 the condition by government action. TTiat's what govern- 

 ments are for — to handle affairs that individuals can't 

 handle themselves. To talk of "dictatorships' or a "czardom' 

 in connection with the farm bill is inordinately silly. Any 

 time more than one-third of the farmers raising any par- 

 ticular crop don't want it, there can be no marketing quotas 

 imposed. And furthermore, if the farmers don't like the 

 new bill, congress can and will repeal it in a hurry." 



coin called "the common people " is the best 

 definition of national interest and the out- 

 standing objective of government. 



Cooperative health and hospital as- 

 sociations (similar to the one operating 



at the University of Illinois for stu- 

 dents) are recommended by the Bureau 

 of Cooperative Medicine, 5 E. 57th 

 St., New York. A new pamphlet, 

 "Cooperative Health Associations" is 

 ready for distribution. 



L A. A. RECORD 



I.. 



