Nature Bulletin No. 18   June 9, 1945
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Clayton F. Smith, President
Roberts Mann, Superintendent of Conservation

****:CONSERVATION

That cold fall day when the grasshopper came begging, whining and 
shivering, the ant paused only long enough to say, "Listen, dimwit, I 
worked hard all summer while you were jitterbugging around. Oh. So 
now you're cold and hungry. Sorry, bud no sale. I've got a lotta kids to 
feed all winter. "

The ant is a conservationist. Conservation is a way of living a way of 
living that looks to the future. Conservation means the wise use of all 
our natural resource for the permanent good of all the people.

Conservation is a complicated jigsaw puzzle of many pieces, but they 
all fit together and are all related. Some folks are passionately 
concerned with the conservation of our forests; others with soil; others 
with wildlife; others with water; some with our soil, coal and other 
minerals. These are all phases of conservation, But in the final analysis, 
what we are really concerned with is the conservation of our human 
resources. We want to insure that this will be a better world for better 
people to live better lives.

Forest preserves and parks are a phase of conservation directly 
concerned with improving the physical, mental and spiritual health of 
our people. In the big metropolitan regions, like Chicago, our tough job 
i8 to educate the public to use intelligently its own property; to use 
these recreational areas fully but wisely; to destroy nothing; to leave 
them just as they found them. That is why at the entrance to the 
old-time country lane in Palos, we erected that sign which says:

I invite you to walk as folks have walked for generations and be 
friendly with my trees, my wild flowers, and my wild creatures.