TREES AND TREES. 105 



This country has been favored above all others in the 

 natural variety and abundance of useful and ornamental 

 trees, and had farmers and lumbermen shown due wis- 

 dom and foresight in their treatment of the forests, 

 using only such timber as their necessities required, and 

 clearing such portions as were needed for tillage, leav- 

 ing larger and more frequent areas uncut, especially on 

 steep hillsides, along all water courses, shores of lakes, 

 banks of rivers, smaller streams, and along all highways, 

 the enjoyment of magnificent landscapes, of shade and 

 shelter from winds, would have been cause for future 

 generations to bless the memory of their ancestors. 

 Instead, this generosity of nature has been met by 

 man's most lavish and destructive spirit. A ceaseless 

 war has been waged on our pine forests, more destruc- 

 tive than that upon the Indians. N^ot only have the 

 trees been used for proper purposes, but the speculating 

 lumbermen have swept over millions of acres, denuding 

 them of their priceless products, and oftentimes ruining 

 themselves at the same time they despoiled God's fair 

 country. The valuable groves of black walnut have 

 nearly all been felled, and their huge trunks cut into logs 

 and hurried to the jaws of the mills, as though their 

 presence were hateful in the sight of their owners. 

 Hardly a tree of the beautiful black cherry remains in 

 the Eastern States. The bass-wood and white-wood are 

 rapidly following. The red beech, chestnut and white 

 ash have been split into rails or burned as fuel. The 

 cedars have been made into pails and fence posts, until 



