300 CONFERENCE ON NATURAL BEAUTY 



KENNETH MORGAN. I have very much enjoyed the reports 

 that have been made by this panel and I don't know that I can add 

 much to them. I think the problems mentioned by Professor 

 Scheffey, and Mr. Monk of Louisiana, have been encountered in 

 South Dakota. We are talking about a big country. We can talk 

 about a big program. I can see now that there are some things that 

 were mentioned here that will work in South Dakota, and I 

 think your suggestions, Prof. Scheffey, that we proceed through the 

 universities and mechanical arts colleges, would be of great help, 

 because we already have these established in our State. We also 

 have established something which we haven't yet touched upon, but 

 I am sure we are all familiar with, and that is the forest range pro- 

 gram. We are an agricultural State. The river forms a natural 

 barrier extending north and south. The West River country is 

 cattle, while the East River is mainly large ranch country and smaller 

 farm units. In the West River primarily, I think, the beautification 

 program can be carried on to a great extent through the Interior 

 Department and through the forestry range program which has to do 

 with our cattle. 



DAVID BROWER. I wonder if your panel, Mr. Chairman, 

 might recommend something like these four points in your final 

 recommendations to the President. 



1. That means be found to seek standing in the courts for rural 

 beauty, something that would limit the corporate right to seize and 

 confiscate beautiful landscape. 



2. That means be found to establish national and State reserva- 

 tions of Class 1 lands, perhaps financed out of taxes on overcrowded 

 development, on capital gains, on landowners a tax on ugliness. 



3. That commissions be established that would devote themselves to 

 the restoration of diversity in the countryside. These commissions 

 would seek to carry on advanced studies of the importance of 

 such diversity. 



4. That means be found by every commission to guard against the 

 ominous forecasts that we are confronted with, predictions, for 

 example, which, if they are repeated over and over again, bring 

 about their own fulfillment, like the regretful or boastful prediction 

 that the population will double in 40 years. 



LEONARD HALL. Mr. Williams, I go back to the early days 

 of the Federal Soil Conservation Agency. Your agency was the one 



