268 OUR USE OF THE LAND 



type of regional planning, why not have a plan for the use of 

 all our land on the basis of resources? There could be a series 

 of government bureaus like the Forest 'Service to control all 

 the land resources. 



Such a plan would not be a good one, however. In the first 

 place, it would be too confused. The Forest Service represents 

 a plan for a single resource. If there were similar plans for all 

 other resources, it would be clear that there would be a conflict. 

 Someone would have to find a way to combine all these plans 

 so that they could work together. And when that was accom' 

 plished, the whole development of the nation would be in the 

 hands of a central bureau. 



The Forest Service is, as was said before, a bureaucracy. 

 The fact that it controls government property explains why it 

 has been organised as a bureaucracy. The vast majority of our 

 resources is private property. No plan could be made without 

 taking these private resources into consideration. And the 

 owners of these private resources would not willingly permit 

 a bureau in Washington to control them. 



The federal Soil Conservation Service (see page 84) is, 

 like the Forest Service, a bureaucracy. That is, it is an organi- 

 Cation composed of appointed officers and an appointed staff. 

 The voters have no direct control over it. The S.C.S. method 

 of land-use management follows, however, a somewhat different 

 pattern than that of the Forest Service. 



With money made available by Congress, the Soil Conser 

 vation Service purchased some nine million acres of land in 

 certain important distressed regions. Most of these purchases 

 were made in the Great Plains country where one of the 

 great land-use problems arises from the fact that private peo 

 ple do not possess sufficient land on which to make a living. 

 The Service leased its land to the private owners with certain 

 requirements which would protect the land from misuse. With 

 this added land, and proper organization, and the improve- 



