The Mena weekly star., 1909-02-11
NATIONAL INVENTORY
WORK CUT OUT FOR NEWLY.
 CREATED COMMISSION.
Body of Men Under Direction of Pin. chot to List Resources of Entire Land and Will Compare Re
 suits for Good of All.

Washington--A work on the inventory of the natural resources of tho United States has begun. Under the direction of the national conserva throughout the summer This Is necessary in order to enable the commission to make the repor President Roosevelt has requested of it for January 1, 1909.
 A meeting of the chiefs of bureaus ot the executive department has been held, and the heads of the various di visions concerned with the country's natural resources have offered their hearty cooperation in the task the within only a few days more than 2 month from the date the national con 4eryation commission was named b the president, active work is going or In every bureau of ha government hat can furnish material available fol the commissions report.
 A great amount of this material al ready Is available in the government departments; other important paris O
 t. however. will be collected throlgi special channels. Among these vii be the state conser alton ccmC,,s sions, which the governors are ay pointing; and some of the great ns Eonal Organizations that were gcprt sented at the White House conference and that have entered with spirit intc the general conservation movement n other words, the machinery fof the first inventory of the re sources of the nation ever attempted has beon set in motion and is running 
 Clifford Pinchot, chairman of the has changed his plans and will return to Washington shortly to continue personal supervision of the work. By early fail the commission expects to have in hand sufficient material to begin the study of the stock of the country's resources, and by the middle of October it hopes to have the greatest part of this material in hand This will be necessary in order that the full commission, which holds it's first netting Tuesday, Decem. Der 1, in Washington. may take up al once the study of the facts that the summers work has brought together.
 One week later the commission will hold joint meeting in Washington with the governors of the states, or their representatives, with view of bringing about further and closer CO., operation with the various state com missions.
 The commission has devised a new and interesting method by which to collect this material. A schedule of inquiries. embracing the whole sub ject of conservation.-w forests, lands and minerals-has been ar ranged and sent to each bureau chief with request for suggestions and criticisms. This has resulted in ob- taining the expert advice of the men at the head of the different bureaus who will have immediate charge of the collection of the material.
 President Roosevelt, who Is keeping in close touch with the commission, has approved this method, and has written to each chief of bureau a letter commenting the enthusiastic CO., operation shown by the bureau chiefs and emphasizing his belief in the great importance of the work the national conservation commission has in mind.
 Among the government bureaus that will furnish large part of the i'm portant information the commission Is seeking are the bureau of corpora. tions of the department of commerce and labor, under Commissioner Her. bert Knox Smith: the bureau of the census, under Director North; the for. est service, under direct supervision of the chairman of the commission and Overton w. Price, secretary of the for est section of the commission; the reclamation service, under Director Newell; the geological survey, under Director Smith; the corps of engineers of the army. under it's new chief, Gen. William l.. Marshall. and almost every bureau under the department of agri culture.
 Cooperation among all the agencies now engaged In this inventory-taking is conspicuous feature. Taking the of the national commls- sion and the several memberships of the state commissions together, the number of persons engaged and inter ested in the work is large. One of tue most important requirements is. therefore, to make sure that every step of the work is known to all who are sharing in it, so that there may be the utmost amount of coordination and concentration, no misdirected en- ergy and no duplication.
 Accordingly. bulletins of progress and information are issued to the off cers of the commissions, the state com missions and others, and a volumin- ous correspondence is kept up. In this way the work, complex and scat tered as 1t is, is effectively centralized and simplifed.