OUR NATIONAL ESTATE n 



potential crop values in undeveloped irrigation op- 

 portunities, or estimate future lumber values in Na- 

 tional Forests. But who can estimate the worth of 

 the National Forest as an organized, scientific and 

 finely administered machine for conservation of the 

 nation's all time future lumber resources? Or that 

 of National Parks in health, sanity, education, prop- 

 agation of pride of country and inspiration? Or 

 that of the extraordinary outdoor museum system 

 which we call our National Monuments ? 



Thinking of values, it is only possible to say at 

 this time that the new concentration upon the unin- 

 dustrial uses of our Federal Lands discloses already 

 a horizon vastly greater than even the most opti- 

 mistic of the men and women who have been looking 

 ahead during a few years past have dared to predict. 

 With recreational organization of people and govern- 

 ment effected, however lamely yet, we are entering 

 a new Land of Promise with feelings akin, perhaps, 

 to those of our fathers of the forties and fifties when 

 they looked westward at their possessed but little 

 known wilderness empire. 



This full fledged era of new uses arrived on 

 wheels at high speed. The automobile had been with 

 us for many years, but long distance touring began 

 on a national scale only about 1915. Not only has it 

 invested our Federal Lands with new uses and new 

 values impossible of estimation, but it has changed 

 their very face. Some one has yet to estimate what 

 the motor has cost the national, state, county, and 



