238 EDITOEIAL NOTES. [Feb., 



and kingdoms of Europe will be to the fore, with exhibits in 

 quantity, quality, and variety amply sufficient to show to the world 

 the immense importance of forests to modern science and arts, and 

 to prove what an important factor they are in the internal economy 

 of every prosperous State. 





How vital indeed is the importance of this great subject is cleverly 

 shown in the following lines, which have been courteously sent to 

 us (cut from the Nevj York Sun) by Mr. Eobert Bright Marston, 

 the able Editor of the Fishing Gazette. The lines represent what 

 this world would be without the forest and stream : — 



" 1 HAD a dream wdiicli was not all a dream ! " 

 A great State was a desert, and the land 

 Lay bare and lifeless under sun and storm, 

 Treeless and shelterless. Spring came, and went, 

 And came, but brought no joy ; but in its stead 

 The desolation of the ravening floods 

 That leaped like wolves and wildcats from the hills 

 And spread destruction over fruitful farms. 

 Devouring as they went the works of man, 

 And sweeping southward nature's kindly soil 

 To choke the watercourses, worse than waste. 



The forest trees that in the olden time — 

 The people's glory and the poet's pride — 

 Tempered the air and guarded well the earth. 

 And under spreading boughs for ages kept 

 Great reservoirs to hold the snow and rain, 

 From which the moisture through the teeming year 

 Flowed equably but freely — all were gone. 

 Their priceless boles exchanged for petty cash. 

 The cash had melted, and had left no sisn ; 

 The logger and the lumberman were dead ; 

 The axe had rusted out for lack of use ; 

 But all the endless evil they had done 

 Was manifest upon the desert waste. 



Dead springs no longer sparkled in the sun : 

 Lost and forgotten brooks no longer laughed ; 

 Deserted mills mourned all their moveless wheels ; 

 The snow no longer covered as with wool 

 ]\Iountain and plain, but buried starving flocks 

 In Arctic drills ; in rivers and canals 



