other things undertaken on a large scale. Of a similar order 

 are acts relating to pollution-control districts and authorities. 

 What is especially needed in addition to these is permissive 

 legislation for the establishment of small districts or authori- 

 ties, of any size and shape, for the regulation and control of 

 little waters and of land use, so that any progressive area 

 can organize for execution of a program, independently or 

 in cooperation with the State and Federal Governments. 

 There should be authority to establish, for any or several 

 of a half dozen different objectives, local authorities over 

 an area the size of a township or of a county, but irregular in 

 shape and involving contiguous sections of several political 

 jurisdictions. In some instances the existing political area 

 might become the water-control and land-use district or 

 authority, as in many cases of highway and sewer construc- 

 tion and administration, but it must be recognized that 

 political jurisdictions rarely coincide with drainage areas, 

 large or small. 



One example of such permissive and directive legislation 

 is offered by acts in several States, notably in Wisconsin and 

 Minnesota, permitting the zoning of rural areas by counties. 

 These acts are limited in purpose and scope, but they express 

 the principle of permissive legislation directed toward the 

 control of natural resources in relatively small areas. This 

 legislation has been motivated primarily perhaps by the 

 problem of financing educational, highway, and other social 

 services in those marginal and submarginal sections of a 

 county which are unable to maintain these for themselves; 

 but it also gives opportunity for expression of a more rational 

 policy of land use. Under conditions a county may zone its 

 area, restricting the use to which sections having certain 

 characteristics may be put. This permissive zoning, together 

 with modification of the tax system in a manner to influ- 

 ence individual action in the direction desired, tends to cause 

 a reallocation of lands inferior for tilled crops to timber and 

 grasses, and a concentration of population in the more 

 productive sections of a county. From the social point of 

 view, as well as from the point of view of individuals 



