AN AMERICAN FABLE 



By Gifford Pinchot 



Chief of the United States Forest Service 



THE conservation of our natural 

 resources is a subject which 

 has had little attention in the 

 past; but it is so simple, so elementary, 

 that it might almost be told in words 

 like those of the old fairy tales that we 

 all loved when we were boys and girls. 

 It might run in this way: 



Once upon a time there was a young 

 man who had been given a great prop- 

 erty in a distant region, and left home to 

 take possession of it. When he reached 

 liis property he first made himself ac- 

 quainted with it. As he explored it and 

 studied its value he began to think how 

 he would make his living out of it. The 

 problem was not a hard one. 



He found that his property was won- 

 derfully rich, and supplied his needs at 

 the cost of far less exertion than he 

 would have had to make at home — a fair 

 land, well watered, well timbered, and 

 abounding in game and fruits, with 

 broad meadows for cattle and horses and 

 sheep, and with no small store of rare 

 and curious minerals, and an outcrop of 

 ■excellent coal. Life was easy, and he 

 lived lavishly and joyously at first, after 

 the initial hard work of moving in and 

 Ibuilding his house and raising his first 

 crops was over. He had far more land 

 than he could use, far more game ; and 

 what he lacked he was able to buy from 

 home with furs, with timber, with min- 

 erals, and with the surplus of his crops. 



By and by he saw and liked a girl and 

 finally married her. Together they pros- 

 pered on their property, which seemed 

 too rich to make it necessary for them to 

 trouble about the future. Game was 

 still plentiful, though less so than at first ; 

 the timber, though growing less, was 

 still abundant enough to last longer than 

 they could hope to live ; by breaking new 

 land they could always count on mar- 



velous crops; the coal was a little harder 

 to get at, but still close to the surface, 

 and besides the man only dug out the 

 easiest, and when the earth began to 

 cave in started again at a new place. 

 His stock, pastured on the meadows, had 

 trampled out some grass, but there was 

 still no lack. That some day strangers 

 would possess their property when they 

 had done with it, and find it somewhat 

 run down, did not trouble these two 

 good people at all. 



But children had come to them with 

 the years, and by and by these children 

 began to grow up. Then the point of 

 view of the man and his wife changed. 

 They wanted to see their sons and 

 daughters provided for and settled on 

 their home property, and they began to 

 see that what was enough and to spare 

 for them would not support all their chil- 

 dren in the same comfort unless they 

 themselves used it with better foresight. 

 Through thinking of their children they 

 were led to live more in the future. 



They looked forward and said to 

 themselves, "Not only must we meet our 

 own needs from this property, but we 

 must see to it that our children come in 

 for their fair share of it, so that after a 

 while the blessedness we have had here 

 may be carried on to them." So the 

 family established itself. The man be- 

 came respected and his children grew up 

 around him ; and when in the fulness of 

 time he passed away and his children 

 took the place in which he had stood, be- 

 cause of his foresight and care, they en- 

 joyed the same kind of prosperity he had 

 enjoyed. 



It is a perfectly simple story ; we all of 

 ns can name scores of men who have 

 done this same thing. The men and the 

 women who do it are not famous, are 

 not regarded as remarkable in any way ; 



* An address to the National Geographic Society, January 31, 190S. 



