22 Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



children in the same comfort unless they themselves used it with better 

 foresight. Through thinking of their children they were led to live 

 more in the future. 



They looked forward and said to themselves: "Not only must we 

 meet our own needs from this property, but we must see to it that our 

 children come in for their fair share of it ; so that after a while the hap- 

 piness we have had here may be carried on to them." So the family 

 established itself. The man became respected, and his children grew 

 up healthy and happy around him; and when in the fullness of time 

 he passed away and his children took the place in which he had stood, 

 because of his foresight and care they enjoyed the same kind of pros- 

 perity he had enjoyed. 



It is a perfectly simple story; we all of us can name scores of men 

 who have done this same thing. The men and the women who do it 

 are not famous, are not regarded as remarkable in any way; they are 

 simply good, everyday, average citizens, who are carrying out the duties 

 of the average citizen. 



What Have We Done with Our National Resources? 



Once upon a time there was a young nation which left its home and 

 moved on to a new continent. As soon as the people who formed the 

 first settlements began to examine the value and condition of this new 

 continent, they found it marvelously rich in every possible resource. 

 The forests were so vast that, in the early days, they were not a blessing, 

 but a hindrance. The soil was so rich and there was so much of it that 

 they were able at first only to cultivate the edges of their great property. 

 It was quite plain to these people in the early times that, however much 

 land they might cover, however much they might waste, there was 

 always going to be plenty left. As time went on they discovered greater 

 and greater resources. They found wonderfully rich deposits of 

 metallic ore; great oil and gas fields, and vast stretches of the richest 

 bituminous and- anthracite coal lands ; noble rivers flowing through 

 broad expanses of meadow; rich alluvial prairies; great plains covered 

 with countless herds of buffalo and antelope; mountains filled with 

 minerals; and everywhere opportunities richer than any nation had 

 ever found elsewhere before. 



They entered into this vast possession and began to use it. They 

 did not need to think much about how they used their coal, or oil, or 

 timber, or water they would last and they began to encroach on the 

 supply with freedom and in confidence that there would always be 

 plenty. The only word with which they described what they had, when 

 they talked about it, was the word "inexhaustible." 



Let us see for a moment what the course of development of this 



