SOME TREE LORE 75 



country, and their allegiance, even in their verses, 

 does not waver from their ov^n sugar maple. 



Thoreau, the great French scientist, was a 

 devoted student of the trees, and a worshipper at 

 their shrines ; he sympathised with their sylvan 

 spirits, and communed with them. He looked upon 

 the wanton destruction of a forest, or even a tree, 

 as sacrilege, and " thanked God that these choppers 

 were not able to cut down the clouds." 



In speaking of the destruction of the pine forests, 

 he says: '' Strange that so few men ever come to 

 the woods, to see how the tree lives and spires, 

 lifting its evergreen arms to the sky to see its living 

 success. 



" Most men are content to see the broad boards 

 and sticks of timber brought to market, deem- 

 ing that the tree's success; but a dead pine cut 

 down is no more a pine than a dead carcass is a 

 man. 



" It is not the lumberman who stands nearest the 

 tree who understands it best and loves it most; it is 

 not he who has bought the stumpage on which it 

 stands, and who must cut into it to find if its heart 

 be sound. 



" All the trees shudder when that man steps on the 

 forest floor. No, no; it is the poet who makes the 

 truest use of the tree; he does not fondle it with an 

 axe, nor tickle it with a saw, nor stroke it with a 

 plane; he loves it as he does his living friends, and 

 lets it stand. It is the living spirit of the tree with 

 which I sympathise; it may be as immortal as I am, 

 and perchance will go to as high a heaven, there 

 to tower above me still." 



In " The Charm of Gardens," Dion Clayton 



