The New York Times cheers the purchase by Nature Conservancy of 161,000 acres of Adirondack forest. Their response to this enormous and successful act of private-sector environmentalism, however, includes a call for Gov. Spitzer to help defray the purchase cost by having the state buy up some of the land—or at least buy development rights “it would never use.” This seems counterproductive: If you want to encourage people to step up to the plate and support initiatives like this, it’s probably not helpful to send the signal that it’s really the state’s job after all. In any event, I trust Nature Conservancy to “never use” its development rights in the face of a budget crunch more than I trust New York State.