138 FOREST commissioner's report. 



tain forest8 which was then going on, and her pet and par- 

 ticular ambition was some time to see a piece of forest in its 

 primitive condition, untouched by the hand of man. At that 

 point in the conversation I began to evince a rather particu- 

 lar interest. I inquired particularly to what points she had 

 been, where her rides and walks had taken her, and then I 

 informed her, very much to her amazement, that she had seen 

 and traversed many miles of virgin timl^er. 



About that time I got an insight into the White mountain 

 agitation that tallied very well with impressions received from 

 the reading of numerous magazine articles then current. I 

 thought of the artist that Frederic Remington mentions who 

 painted a picture called "The Forest Primeval" but inconsist- 

 ently chose his scene in second growth. Opportunity again 

 occuring to learn the impressions of White Mountain visitors, 

 I gladly availed myself of it. 



This time it was a gentleman of prominence, a college pro- 

 fessor whose intelligent interest in all around him and whose 

 powers of observation, too, one would think, must have been 

 much greater than those of the average visitor. He had 

 spent many summers in the mountains. Within a year or 

 two he had ridden from Jefferson round the north end of the 

 Presidential Range to the Glen House, passing thus through 

 the very region where I had been at work in the spring. I 

 inquired as to his impressions of the valley. Plainly it had 

 not been hurt for him. l^or all he knew it might all be virgin 

 growth. In short, those mountain sides from which lumber- 

 men had taken everything they wanted, at a little distance 

 and for scenic purposes were just as beautiful and satisfactory 

 to this intelligent tourist as virgin timber would have been. 



That in fact seems to be the case in general. Certainly 

 as long as evergreen trees are the staple of the cut the inter- 

 ests of the lumbermen and of the sight-seer will not at many 

 points clash. For scenic purposes hard wood is as good as 

 spruce — even second growth, which in this climate quickly 

 covers almost every stripped or burnt piece of ground, is 

 after a few years and at a little distance quite as satisfactory. 



