UNCLE SAM’S BIGGEST BANK ACCOUNT 21 
out waste for the benefit, of the greatest number of 
people for the longest possible time. 
Need of Conservation—That conservation is sorely 
needed is clearly brought out by Gifford Pinchot in his 
splendid book ‘‘The Fight for Conservation.’’ He 
arrays striking instances of prodigal waste and shows 
the crying need of prudence, thrift and foresight in the 
management of our national riches. 
The question of the forests—how they have been 
handled in the past and how they must be handled in 
the future to supply a rapidly growing population with 
material absolutely necessary to our civilization—will 
be considered elsewhere. It is sufficient to say now 
that since the first Colonists felled the forest to make 
room for their fields of maize the total present stand 
of timber plus 200,000,000,000 board feet has been con- 
sumed, either as lumber or by the ravenous but avoid- 
able forest fires. Regarding other resources the figures 
quoted to prove waste are equally startling. Of the 
total coal deposits as a rule only one-half is removed 
from the ground, leaving the remainder to be buried in 
the abandoned tunnels and workings, to be recovered 
at a prohibitive price if at all. Concerning the coal 
used, only five per cent of the total energy is utilized 
on the average and the most economical systems now in 
use obtain but twenty per cent of the total energy. 
There is certainly a possibility for vast improvement 
in the management of our fuel supply. Once it was 
thought to be inexhaustible, but already the coal fields 
in certain parts of Jowa and Missouri are exhausted. 
While it is believed that the supply of bituminous coal 
will last about two hundred years, the end of the anthra- 
cite deposits will be reached in from fifty to seventy-five 
years. 
