crops to be produced without any significant addition to the nation's cropland area.

This tremendous changeover in farming methods has taken the form of mechanization-replacing millions of draft animals and millions of farm workers through rural electrification, pesticides, fertilizers, better strains of plants and a constant input of new information from governmental and private research.

Between 1940 and 1963, farm production rose 60 percent while the number of farm workers dropped from 11 million to 6.5 million and the farm population fell off precipitously from 30.5 million to 17.1 million. Most of the displaced rural people migrated into the towns and cities.

In 1900, one farm worker produced enough to feed 7 persons. In 1940, he could feed 17. Now his productivity can feed 31.

To raise all a nation requires year in and year out has been a goal sought by peoples since the beginnings of history.

The United States stands between famine and enough to eat in developing nations around the world. The Food for Peace program has expanded to the point where Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman has declared 60 million acres of land in the "conservation reserve," eligible for planting in wheat and feed grains for next year's harvest.

The American farmer over the next several years increasingly becomes a key man in the subsistence future of much of the world. The ability to continue to increase his productivity on a limited amount of cropland is of enormous importance.

Yet erosion and faulty drainage remain serious problems on substantial areas of farmland. Too many farmers regard their land as a capital asset and concentrate on raising productivity at the expense of soil conservation.

A keystone of the nation's land policy since 1785, the family-operated farm has been actively and consistently supported by organized labor since the 1870s. The AFL-CIO continues its strong efforts to prevent the weakening of the 160-acre restriction provisions of federal reclamation law in California and Arizona under the less than forceful administration of the Secretary of the Interior and the pressures of the powerful farm corporations of those states.

From 1949 to 1964, there has been a sharp decrease of 1.8 million in the number of farms-from 5.2 million to 3.4 million units. This drop took place almost entirely among the small part-time, technologically inefficient and non-commercial holdings with less than $2,500 annual sales. Those with more than $2,500 annual sales remained about the same in number. And farm land values have risen more than 70 percent in the last decade, according to the Department of Agriculture.

Relatively large farms are increasing in number and relatively small farms with marginal income are decreasing. Family farms are getting fewer and larger,

but there is no strong trend toward their replacement by the huge factories in the field.

The main problem of land use for commercial timber is the expected deficit in forest products by the year 2000 as related to supply. The U.S. Forest Service estimates that requirements for timber products will increase by 80 percent between now and 2000 and, by that time, supply could fall short of this demand by 16 percent or some 13 billion board feet.

Continued population growth could lead to demand far in excess of the Forest Service projections. It proposes more intensive forest management procedures-timber stand improvement, access roads, planting and reseeding, protection against fire, insects and disease and timber salvage. It also urges increased sustained yield production by farmers and miscellaneous smaller private owners who control 60 percent of U.S. commercial forest land.

Forest land provides an invaluable additional function of protecting soil and stabilizing water flow on the headwaters of river basins. It also will increasingly serve as a recreational resource. A substantial amount of marketable timber already has been withdrawn in many areas of the wilderness system.

Until there are strong programs to assist small timber owners to grow and market trees, the heaviest demands will be exerted on the timber companies and the public forests, particularly those in the Far West.

If more land is required for tree raising, there will be an increasing conflict with other land uses, particularly recreation and fish and wildlife.

The Public Domain

There are 180 million acres of residual federal public domain lands in the continental United States and an additional 270 million acres in Alaska.

These lands are administered by the Bureau of Land Management, within the Department of the Interior, under a maze of laws which date back to the 1860s and hamper modern multiple-use management.

The present and future value of public domain

The Classification and Multiple Use Act as a permanent program has resulted in decisions as to what land should be retained for the American people for economic and recreational benefits and what land should be reclassified for sale or exchange with other federal, state and local agencies.

The old Homestead, Desert Land and Mining Acts of 1872 no longer serves a modern purpose. No public domain land is left for agricultural settlement. The Mining Act simply keeps the Bureau of Land Management in constant administrative and judicial snarls. The Public Land Law Review Commission created by Congress in 1964 is to make recommendations on existing laws and policies by December 31, 1968.

The remaining 150 million acres of land intended for retention as a national heritage should be guarded well. It contains $300 billion worth of oil shale rock, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of coal, natural gas, phosphates, uranium, timber and other resources. It also protects vital river headwaters.

Land for Mining

While mining does not account for a large proportion of total land use, placer, strip, auger and open pit operations in the United States have ruined or seriously damaged about 1.75 million acres of once beautiful land, of which 900,000 acres are in the Appalachian region.

Timber interests already had done immense damage to the land. The open pit coal mines of recent years have done an even more brutal job. They have blighted surrounding areas. Sulphur in the soil prevents anything from growing. Acid washes into the streams, killing all marine life. Landslides occur, tons of silt are washed into streams.

TVA has developed economically feasible techniques of reclamation of stripped land and at last is requiring such restoration as part of its new coal

supply contracts. Kentucky and other states have passed laws requiring mining operators to reclaim the damaged areas. The recent Interior Department report on strip mining recommends that all affected states enact strong laws requiring mine operators to restore the land. Cooperative state-federal programs are proposed to correct past damage and develop recreational and other uses in the recovered areas.

Land for Recreation

In 1960, recreation not only gave pleasure to millions of Americans who made 4.4 billion visits to all kinds of places, but generated a $20 billion demand for associated goods and services.

Demand for recreation land and the recreation business are expected to triple by the end of the century the former from 44 million to 134 million acres, the latter from $20 billion to more than $60 billion.

The two principal problems to be solved are competition in land uses, particularly in urban areas and rising land costs due in large part to speculation.

If the necessary land is found for the needs of 2000, it will leave a 50 million acre deficit nationally. This means that other lands-farm, timber, grazingwould yield to recreational uses if these were considered of higher national priority.

The slowness of federal and state governments to acquire recreational land makes possible the tremendous price escalations. The $169 million provided by Congress for the Land and Water Conservation Fund is already short $87 million in 18 areas. In 22 others, the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation does not know if the properties can be purchased with available funds.

The AFL-CIO actively supported legislation recently signed into law by President Johnson establishing a 5-year period, ending in fiscal 1973, during which royalties from continental shelf oil and gas leasing will be placed into the Land and Water Conservation Fund in amounts necessary for the fund to yield $200 million annually for acquisition of recreational lands.

Proposals to get around land price hikes have included giving authority to river basin commissions to issue bonds for land purchases; stronger land zoning, both urban and rural; private foundations holding land by option until federal money becomes available; and special taxes for recreational land.

Workers have a tremendous stake in the use of the nation's land. Workers, in common with all other citizens, have both needs and responsibilities. The needs are for land which will be developed, managed and conserved to yield them the fundamentals of a good life in all of its aspects and to be handed to the next generation in just a little better shape. The responsibilities are those of citizens who will consistently work to help reach those goals.

It is necessary to understand the American condition no longer permits the luxury of doing with land just exactly what any person wills, regardless of how it affects others.

When the right circumstances conspire, air pollution can turn into a deadly mass killer.

In 1930, there were 60 people killed when a deadly smog settled in over the industrial Meuse Valley in Belgium.

In 1948, the steel and chemical town of Donora, Pennsylvania, was visited by a fog and a temperature inversion which left 20 dead.

In 1950, a tank of poisonous hydrogen sulfide was accidentally released to the atmosphere from an oil refinery in Mexico City. The toll: 22 dead and 320 hospitalized.

In 1952, a "black fog" hung like a shroud over London for four days and took 4,000 lives.

Ten years later, both London and New York City suffered through serious smogs.

And in late 1966-as if to publicize the National Conference on Air Pollution about to open in the nation's capital-the elements conspired to form a temperature inversion over New York City. Preliminary estimates put the number of deaths at 80, a toll expected to rise when the death rate is checked against mortality tables over a longer period.

These dramatic instances of smog disasters serve

as periodic reminders that the city air we breathe is unclean. Air pollution is taking its toll of people's health every day in every city in the United States. It is a problem which most people are aware of by now and to which they seem to be adapting.

Unfortunately, it may take a major air pollution disaster to crystallize support for strong regulatory action.

President Johnson attempted to point up the critical urgency of the problem when he sent a special message on air pollution to Congress in 1967. The President declared:

"We are not even controlling today's level of pollution. Ten years from now, when industrial production and waste disposal have increased and the number of automobiles on our streets and highways exceeds 110 million, we shall have lost the battle for clean air-unless we strengthen our regulatory and research efforts now."

The superficial aspects of air pollution are widely evident. People are aware of the offensive smell, the dirt deposited on clothing and curtains, the corrosion of metal and stone, the lack of visibility on roads and the damage to bathing areas.

But the dangers from air pollution are far broader and more insidious. The longterm effects of air pollution begin to work on the human organs from the day of birth. Increasing numbers of Americans are becoming afflicted with respiratory conditions-everything from the common cold to lung cancer-which are aggravated by breathing polluted air.

One of the fastest growing causes of death in the United States is emphysema, a progressive breakdown of air sacs in the lungs caused by chronic infection of the bronchial tubes. In 1962, over 12,000 persons died of emphysema. Each month, 1,000 or more workers are forced to retire prematurely because of this disease.

Other diseases of the lungs and air passages which are worsened by breathing polluted air include bronchial asthma, chronic restrictive ventilatory disease and even the common cold.

The death rate from lung cancer has been rising. Research points to a variety of causes. However, the incidence of cancer is twice as high in urban as in rural areas and appears to be related to population density as well. This is the basis for speculation that air pollution may be a contributing cause of lung

cancer.

The first public concern over pollution involved the smoke nuisance in the 1940s. Public indignation focused on offenders responsible for dirtying the community. Anti-smoke ordinances were adopted in such large cities as St. Louis and Pittsburgh. The changeover from coal-burning to diesel locomotives and the increasing use of natural gas for home and office space heating helped to reduce much of the smoke nuisance in many urban areas.

Now the concern and danger is only partially with smoke. The newer industrial processes and many of the older ones are expelling a wide range of gases and minute particles. These pollutants often overload the ability of the atmosphere to disperse them and they produce effects which are sometimes unpleasant, sometimes unhealthy and, on occasion, disastrous.

The basic causes of the air pollution problem are well-known. They involve an increasing population which is becoming more and more concentrated in urban areas. The U.S. population will grow to an estimated 225 to 250 million by 1980. About 200 million people will be living in cities.

These urban area people will be driving more cars, consuming more electric power, buying more manufactured goods, creating more wastes. The overall result will be an ever-rising amount of air pollution. The main trends are apparent.

In 1960, 60 million automobiles in the United States burned 40 million gallons of gasoline. By 1980, over 110 million automobiles are expected to be on the road, almost doubling the gasoline being burned and emitting most of the pollutants into urban areas.

More solid wastes are dumped each year, most of it combustible. In 1960, the per capita amount of combustible waste was 1,100 pounds. Even if the per

capita figure does not increase, which is unlikely, this nation will be producing 175 million tons of combustible waste by the year 2000, enough to bury a city the size of Pittsburgh or Boston or Washington, D. C. under a 30-foot mountain of trash.

By 1980, use of electric power may have increased threefold over present demand. Most of it will be generated by fossil fuels-coal and oil-although nuclear energy will be rapidly moving to the fore in the next decade. As of 1966, generation of electricity is one of the major sources of air pollution.

The growth of industrial production-iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, chemicals, petroleum, paper and allied products-is expected to double or triple over the next decade or so. These are the major industries which share responsibility for atmospheric pollution.

There is also the clear danger created by a constantly changing technology. By the end of the century, the annual expenditure by industry and government in industrial-oriented research may reach as high as $70$80 billion. Increased research and development already has contributed to the introduction of dozens of new materials, many releasing airborne contamination to the environment, the effects of which are yet unknown.

The principal pollutants released to the air total about 125 million tons per year at present, according to a 1966 report by the National Academy of Sciences.

Automobiles, trucks and buses powered by internal combustion engines are the major emitters of carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and hydrocarbons. Generation of electric power by burning coal and oil produce most of the oxides of sulfur. Industrial production is the chief contributor to the atmosphere of particulate matter and miscellaneous pollutants.

The data clearly show that moving sources of pollution spew six of every ten tons of pollutants into the air. Thus the nation's motor vehicles constitute the number one air pollution problem.

Industry, including electric power generation, is the next greatest offender, contributing nearly four of every ten tons of polluting materials emitted.

People do not die immediately from foul air, even though it may affect their health adversely when pollution of the air they breathe is chronic, which is true in nearly every large city.

But sometimes a smog disaster strikes. Such disasters occur when there is a prolonged temperature inversion and takes place in localities where there is a great volume of toxic materials being emitted into the atmosphere from industrial emitters, automobiles and homes and offices burning soft coal.

A "temperature inversion” is a meteorological situation that occurs when the normally cool upper layers of air become warmer than ground air. In a situation when the air mass is not moving on the back of a prevailing wind, or rain comes to the rescue, the cool upper air stays put and prevents the dirty air at ground level from circulating up and out. Angeles is the prime example of a metropolis with

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a chronic inversion situation. But they can take place anywhere. When they happen suddenly and remain for several days where there is a great deal of emission of pollutants, people who are well get sick, the sick get sicker and some of the sick and some of the older people die.

The burden of principal pollutants is expected to double by the year 2000. Over the great metropolitan areas of the West Coast, the Great Lakes and other regions, inversions are expected to become more and more lethal, together with the kind of "ordinary" air humans breathe between inversions, which merely takes longer to infect individuals with chronic respiratory diseases and possibly lung cancer, but produces few headlines.

In the long-range view of the situation, the steady increase in the release of pollutants to the atmosphere, in addition to what is already there from natural and man-made causes, can work what may very well become a permanent change of the world's climatic