LAND AND OTHER AGENTS OF PRODUCTION 205 



It would be a shortsighted land policy to withhold agricultural 

 land for the growing of timber. The fundamental principle upon 

 which a wise national land policy should rest is that every acre of land 

 should be put to the use under which it will bring the highest returns. 

 Realizing as a nation that the forest lands in this country will have 

 to be reduced in order to make room for agricultural crops, we should 

 perceive that a national policy which will provide for the proper care 

 and protection of the remaining forests is essential to the best develop- 

 ment of the country. It is the duty of the government to help the 

 people in adjusting the various lands for the uses to which they are 

 best adapted by classifying them upon the basis of their properties 

 and the climatic conditions. A thorough survey of the lands in the 

 United States with a view of determining the best use to which the 

 various classes could be put would go a long way toward bringing 

 about the most productive use of our greatest resource the land. 



58. ONE AVENUE OF ESCAPE ATMOSPHERIC NITROGEN 1 

 BY THOMAS H. NORTON 



One of the chief services rendered by chemistry during the nine- 

 teenth century was to reveal the dependence of animal and vegetable 

 life upon nitrogen, to define clearly the role of this element in nature, 

 and to increase the number of technical products containing nitrogen. 

 At the close of the century the consumption of such compounds had 

 reached an enormous figure and was growing at a steadily increasing 

 rate. At the same time economists saw clearly that the sources were 

 limited, that their value would soon mount, and that at no distant 

 date it would be impossible to supply the world's demand for com- 

 bined nitrogen. The recognition of these facts has led to the intense 

 study of the best means of increasing the supply of nitrogenous com- 

 pounds, one of the pressing economic problems of the twentieth cen- 

 tury. Its importance is felt most keenly in Germany, where the 

 annual per capita consumption of nitrogen in the form of crude pri- 

 mary compounds has now reached 5 . 18 pounds. 



In the United States the per capita consumption is at present only 

 a little over half that for Germany. It is, however, rapidly growing, 

 and the United States is now sending abroad over $32,000,000 annually 

 for the purchase of nitrogen in its various combinations, and over half 



1 Adapted from Reports of the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of 

 Manufactures, Special Agent Series, No. 52. 



