WILD LIFE IN NATIONAL ECONOMY 2 $ 



The Administration, as part of its land-planning program, 

 proposes to withdraw land from agricultural use, but what 

 is it going to do with the individuals living on the land? 

 Either they must be absorbed in the urban population or 

 they must be allowed to open up new agricultural land which, 

 of course, would defeat the program. No plan of land use 

 can be sound until it meets and solves this problem. 



The third difficulty to be faced is the lack of scientific 

 data available for land planning. A great deal of scientific 

 information, both economic, social, and political is necessary 

 to determine the needs of the nation and the best use of the 

 country's physical resources. 



The three scientific dimensions of the land problem 

 physical, economic, and political have all been explored in 

 greater or less measure; yet even today some of its outlines 

 are known only imperfectly. The western movement in 

 America early gave rise to scientific inquiries into the char- 

 acteristics of the land. The exploring expeditions, such as 

 those of Lewis and Clark and of Pike, were scientific as 

 well as political or military missions. To this day many of 

 their shrewd observations are as sound as when originally 

 made. 



By the middle of the nineteenth century the federal gov- 

 ernment was engaged in elaborate inquiries into our western 

 resources. The most ambitious of these projects were the 

 Pacific Railroad Survey, a far-flung reconnaisance of the 

 western half of the country. After the Civil War four sur- 

 vey organizations were established under King, Hayden, 

 Wheeler, and Powell to carry on the work in the West, and 

 in 1879 they were succeeded by the United States Geological 

 Survey. In it and in the earlier organizations were devel- 

 oped the American beginnings of scientific geology, geog- 

 raphy, forestry, biology, cartography, and other branches of 

 learning. The necessity of knowing our western lands was 

 the principal stimulus to this growth of scientific knowledge 

 in the past century. 



