INSECURITY OF OUR FORESTS. 71 



The sentiment of the American public seems to have 

 been excited in favor of trees individually considered, 

 rather than forests. People look upon trees as their 

 friends ; and more indignation is generally caused by the 

 felling of a single large tree standing in an open field or 

 by the roadside, than by the destruction of whole acres 

 of woods. Our love of trees is a sort of passion; but 

 we need yet to learn that a wood on a steep hillside is 

 of more importance than as many standards as there are 

 trees in the same wood, scattered upon a plain. This aes- 

 thetic sentiment seems to be the only conservative prin- 

 ciple that has yet produced any considerable effect in pre- 

 serving trees and groves. It often extends to groups of 

 trees, and sometimes to large assemblages, especially on 

 estates which have remained through several generations 

 in the possession of one family. But generally the ava- 

 rice or the necessity of our farmers has been more power- 

 ful to devastate, than the taste and sentiment of others 

 to preserve our woods. 



I have long been persuaded that, unless the governments 

 of the several States should make this a subject of special 

 legislation, the security of our forests must depend on 

 men of large property in land. Men of wealth, if not 

 learned, are generally in communication with men of 

 learning, from whom they may obtain a knowledge of 

 vegetable meteorology, and not being obliged, by pecuni- 

 ary necessity, to cut down their woods, will, from a sense 

 of their importance in the economy of nature, become 

 their preservers. The wealth and taste of certain fami- 

 lies in every town and village will save a great many trees, 

 groves, and fragments of forest. But if our law-makers 

 neglect to legislate for this end, we must look to the pos- 

 sessors of immense estates, the lords of whole townships, 

 for the preservation of any large tracts of forest. 



There is a sentimental theory of political economy that 



