resources not use or destroy them as they see fit? The court, in effect,
says they have no such right. In the court's own words, the "inviolate
compact between the dead, the living, and the unborn requires that we
leave to the unborn something more than debts and depleted natural
resources. Surely, where natural resources can be utilized, _and at the
same time perpetuated_ for future generations, what has been called
'constitutional morality' requires that we do so."

The New York Times, in commenting upon this revolutionary but perfectly
sane decision, says: "Time is truly running short; the annual cut of
saw-timber, with natural losses, is 50% greater than annual growth....
If the individual forestland owner is too lazy, short-sighted, or
indifferent to act, the Federal Government will have to enter the
picture."

It is a complex picture. The American farm owner is, by every
implication, also involved along with the forestland owner. He, too, has
a duty to the unborn, but it is an opportunity as well as a duty. It is
only because of what J. Russell Smith calls his insane obstinacy, that
the average farmer is now operating a one-story agriculture in place of
a two-story agriculture. If he were thinking and doing more about his
debt to the unborn, he would also be serving himself better.

I am convinced that the farmer is the key man in forest husbandry. And
the best way to interest him in tree planting is through his
specialty--through _crop_ production. A _two-story_ agriculture! Tree
crops along with other crops!

The farmers' education along this line has been very inadequate. We have
been very stupid. Can we never learn to begin, as Hitler began--as the
Russians are even now beginning--with the nation's children?

Perhaps we are learning a little. It is heartening to know that school
and community forests are fast increasing in number, notably in New
England. When fully used and well managed, they can work a revolution in
the thinking of the young people who are so fortunate as to have some of
their schooling out in the open. These future American leaders are
learning at first hand through the ways of the woods how to make the
work of their hands live far beyond the span of their lives.

Perhaps, as the result of this training early in life, a new interest
among the farmers will emerge and some of our sins of omission will be
remedied. As a planter of trees for the future, the American farmer,
both of yeste