A NATIONAL PLAN FOR AMERICAN FORESTRY 997 



land. Moreover, large expenditures of public money have been made 

 and are still being made to conserve and propagate our fish, game, and 

 other wild life resources. 



URBAN LAND 



Many public restrictions on the use of urban land are so obviouslv 

 necessary and of such long standing that they are accepted by most 

 people without question. In this class are building codes, fire regula- 

 tions, sanitary ^codes, and the like. Most, if not all of them, are 

 based on the principle that an owner may not use his property in such 

 a manner as to harm or threaten harm to his neighbor or to the com- 

 munity as a whole. Many newer restrictions, typified by the various 

 zoning laws, that have grown up within comparatively recent years 

 carry this principle even farther, but generally have not been con- 

 sidered unreasonable infringements on private property rights. 



WATER RESOURCES 



The private use of water resources, even though the stream origi- 

 nates on private land, is subject to a greater or less degree of public 

 control by most States, and in the case of navigable streams by the 

 Federal Government, for such purposes as maintaining navigation, 

 preventing waste of irrigation water, preventing damage to owners 

 of property down stream from dams, preventing pollution of domestic 

 water supplies or of fishing streams, etc. In a few instances the public 

 has gone a step farther and regulated the use of land bordering the 

 streams or on their headwaters, so far as might be necessary to accom- 

 plish the above purposes. This has been done, for instance, under the 

 law regulating hydraulic mining in California, previously mentioned. 



FORESTS 



Individual owners have not felt the same incentive to handle forests 

 for continuous production as in the case of farm lands. As with 

 mines, they have deemed it more advantageous to exploit the timber 

 as quickly" as possible, and leave the regeneration of the forests to 

 chance. "This has resulted largely from the long-time nature of forest 

 crops and the interchangeability of timber capital and timber product. 

 It has been the common experience of all civilized countries that 

 unguided, voluntary action by private owners will not assure such 

 use of forests as will guarantee their perpetuation or safeguard the 

 interests of the public. Public control over the use of private forests 

 is a live question all over the world. In recent years it has become 

 increasingly evident in the United States that unrestricted freedom 

 of individual action is leading not only to waste of a great natural 

 resource, despoliation of forest lands and lasting injury to the general 

 welfare, but also to the ruin of the lumber and other forest incfustries 

 themselves. 



EXISTING RESTRICTIONS ON FOREST OWNERS IN THE 



UNITED STATES 



As a matter of fact, some aspects of forest-land use by private 

 owners are already subject to a considerable degree of public regula- 

 tion in the United States. So far, the Federal Government has not 

 undertaken such regulation, although, of course, the various Federal 



