SPACE, SUN, AND AIR 279 



In the fields of economics and sociology, forest research lags. Of this 

 most foresters are well aware. "As between the economic benefits which 

 accrue to a forest or near-forest community when tourists come in numbers, 

 on the one hand, and between sociological consequences, both beneficial 

 and harmful, on the other," say the authors of a recent research memo- 

 randum, "there should be a more accurate means of accounting." But the 

 difficulties of drawing any such a balance sheet are obvious; for the tourist 

 money thus brought in is a tangible gain, whereas the disruption of cherished 

 local values, when such occurs, may be largely intangible. 



The Healing Forest . . . There is a saying often exchanged among visitors 

 to the national forests, a trite saying, possibly, but one that seems to men 

 whose life work has been forestry, profoundly true. Something like this: 

 "I like coming up here. It makes a new man of me." To renew a man, or a 

 woman, worn and weary, to restore them in health and spirit, is the purpose 

 of forest recreation. And along with a restoration of the spirit goes a restora- 

 tion, a conservation, of the source. 



Surely, in this large sense, forestry is a good calling, a calling in which a 

 man may work hard and without great riches, yet be proud. Much of it is 

 inside work, nowadays, paper work; but generally there are outings, 

 trips on business "for the good of the Service"; and professional foresters 

 are in general given far more than most men to know the beauty and wonder 

 of our land. 



The office work may be stuffy, the piles of paper "for immediate atten- 

 tion" may tower high, the sense of imprisonment in a great stone city may 

 seem to a range-reared forester at times intolerable; yet there are many 

 compensations — memories of trips afoot or by horse over lone heights where 

 the air went to the head like wine; where each day unfolded a new heaven, a 

 fresher, more beautiful earth. 



Our forebears fled an older world. Those were parlous days. So are 

 these. But as our forebears had faith, so must we. Faith in America. Faith 

 in democracy. Faith, too, that our forest lands cannot only create new jobs 

 but can also make life pleasanter and more secure. 



There is reason for this faith. Man's first food is said to have been acorns 



