The setting of standards to correlate methods and practices has now become a familiar and successful feature of administration on the National Forests. Such standards have proven a simple and effective means of detecting and ironing out the discrepancies in the intensiveness with which similar work is done in separate places, and the relative emphasis given various lines of work. So far, however, standards have been applied principally to the machinery of administration. What would be the probable result if they were applied to the objectives of administration, as distinguished from the machinery with which those objectives are to be attained? It is believed such an application of standards would result in certain fundamental and beneficial changes, the nature of which it is the purpose of this paper to discuss. At the outset, it may be well to give examples of the two classes of standards. When an administrative officer is directed to spend at least 40 days a year on grazing work or to make at least two general inspections per year of each unit of range, there is set up a machinery standard (heretofore vaguely called administrative standard, or standard of performance). On the other hand when there is set up as an objective of administration that a certain unit of range should be brought to an .8 density of grama grass capable of carrying 1 head per 20 acres, there is established a standard of conservation for that unit. Before discussing the possible effects of standards of conservation, it may be well to answer the question of why they need be set. Is it not axiomatic that every resource should be conserved as far as possible? To be sure, but natural resources are a complex affair, and few men agree on what is possible. For example: three administrators were examining a piece of range, having about .5 oak brush and .1 grama grass, with a very few old fire killed Junipers. It developed that one was looking forward to a .5 oak brush and .3 grass objective, another to a .5 oak and .9 grass objective, and the third to a stand of Juniper and Pifion woodland with a little brush and grass mixed in. Each objective was probably obtainable, but the method of setting about it radically different in each case. How could any man administer this area intelligently without knowing which of the three he was to work toward? Another example: A certain area was withdrawn for protection of a reclamation project watershed. Previous overgrazing had thinned the grass and begun to let in a little Juniper reproduction, whereas previous to the grazing, Juniper had been kept out by grass fires, as evidenced by charred stumps. One man examining the area wanted to reduce the grazing and restore the grass as cover. Another wanted to increase the grazing to fill out the catch of Juniper reproduction as cover. How could either administer the area intelligently without knowing which kind of cover he was to work toward? Another example: A certain area on a watershed forest was covered with vigorous even aged pine saplings, with a scattering ground cover of nonpalatable Ceanothus brush and a few weeds. In the course of an inspection it developed that the ranger had striven for years to stock the area as heavily as possible with cattle, with a view to forcing them to browse the Ceanothus and thus reduce the fire hazard. The inspector noticed that this heavy grazing was destroying all the willows in the watercourses, causing heavy silting by tearing out of banks, in spite of the excellent protection of the by the young pines. He wanted to risk the fire hazard and prevent the silting. Here were two men, both anxious to conserve, but with opposite ideas as to what most needed conserving, and hence with opposite plans of administration. It can be safely said that when it comes to actual work on the ground, the objects of conservation are never axiomatic or obvious, but always complex and usually conflicting. The adjustment of these conflicts not only calls for the highest order of skill, but involves decisions