Is the Farmer Missing Something?
JOHN DAVIDSON, Xenia, Ohio
(Read by title)
The farmer is a specialist; a producer of edible crops. Like any other specialist, his thinking tends to be channeled along the lines of his specialty, to the exclusion of other lines.
For example, the average farmer probably knows little and cares less about teleology, metaphysics, or, let us say, forestry. He is a farmer. He makes his living by raising crops. And yet, a better knowledge and practice of forestry will not only make him a better farmer wherever he is located but, in certain locations, this knowledge and practice is absolutely essential to his continued existence.
In a recent decision of the U. S. Supreme Court upholding a decision made by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington, a principle has been approved which may have a profound influence upon our future well-being. It affirmed the constitutionality of a Washington State law which requires the owners of land used for commercial logging to provide for its reforestation.
Such a law is novel indeed. What? May private owners of the earth's 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!