OUR NATIONAL ESTATE 13 



Forests and cities and private resorts to glance about 

 in passing. It is important to recognize this. 



Attempting to present the supposedly dull sub- 

 ject of land in its actually dramatic and often thrill- 

 ing aspects, this book sees long distance touring the 

 principal factor of recent great enlivenment and 

 mighty change. It would need a book of its own 

 adequately to present the visible changes the auto- 

 mobile has made on the face of our country, to say 

 nothing of its effects upon the human view-point and 

 character. In these pages we can give this fascinat- 

 ing influence little space, but its effects, far more 

 than those of any other dictating factor, will con- 

 stantly appear. The motor cannot be overlooked nor 

 forgotten for a moment in any modern consideration 

 of lands of any kind. It is at once the most benefi- 

 cent and the most destructive of tyrants, one of our 

 greatest hopes and greatest perils. And what will 

 the history of two decades hence say of the airplane, 

 which already threatens our National Parks. 



History will celebrate the last decade also be- 

 cause it has brought together into national co-op- 

 eration all the many popular movements of the past 

 toward conservational achievement. Beginning un- 

 der George Bird Grinnell more than fifty years ago, 

 a single national movement for conserving wild 

 life in Yellowstone National Park has begot thou- 

 sands of organizations, great and small, for con- 

 serving, developing and wisely using our wild lands 

 and their non-industrial products, Literally millions 



