EDITORIAL PREFACE
The purpose of this editorial preface is not to praise the present work by Mr. Frank B. Williams. If, as I believe, it is pace-setting and path-breaking, it needs no words of mine to assign it its proper place. "Good wine needs no bush." My purpose is rather to explain the position that this book occupies with respect to related books also published, or to be published, under the auspices of the Institute for Research in Land Economics.
As the idea of Land Economics is a new one, the very phrase itself having come into use only within a few years, I venture to give definitions of Land Economics and Land Policies, with a few words of explanation:—
Land Economics is that division of economics, theoretical and applied, which is concerned with land as an economic concept and with the economic relations which grow out of land as property.
As science, land economics seeks the truth for its own sake. It aims to understand present facts pertaining to land ownership in all their human relationships, to explain their development in the past, and to discover present tendencies or growth. As an art, it aims to frame constructive land policies for particular places and times.
A land policy takes asa starting point the existing situation with respect to the land, land as here used being equivelant to all the natrual resources of the country. It examines the processes of evolution by which the existing situation has been reached and proceeds to develop a conscious program of social control with respect to the acquisition, ownership, conservation and uses of the land of the country and also with respect to the human relations arising out of use and ownership.
Books have been published on many of the topics which fall within the scope of Land Economics, but they have appeared to lack close relationship with one another. This concept of Land Economics places these works in their proper
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