298 THE DARK PLAINS. 



About thirty years afterwards I revisited this wood, 

 and traversed the greater part of it, accompanied by an 

 old friend of the generation that had passed before 

 me. From him I learned that the original growth of 

 timber had been mostly felled, and a second growth of 

 inferior height and dimensions occupied its place. He 

 pointed out to me how the whole character of the wood 

 was changed by the simple act of felling the primitive 

 trees. The ground was not so wet as formerly ; the 

 standing waters did not occupy so wide a space ; the 

 forest contained more openings, the barren elevations not 

 having been supplied with a new growth of trees. In 

 the place of them were a few scrub oaks, some whortle- 

 berry-bushes, and other native shrubs ; the trees were 

 smaller, and there was a greater predominance of pitch- 

 pine in all the more sandy parts of the tract, and nu- 

 merous white birches had sprung up among them. 



" Such is the change," he remarked, " which is gradually 

 taking place over the whole continent." He seemed to 

 regret this change, and thought the progress of the civil- 

 ized arts, though it rendered necessary the clearing of the 

 greater part of the wooded country, ought not to be at- 

 tended with such universal devastation. Some spacious 

 wood ought to remain, in every region, in which the wild 

 animals would be protected, and where we might view the 

 grounds as they appeared when the wild Indian was lord 

 of this continent. Even at that time I found some acres 

 of forest which had been unmolested still retaining those 

 grand, wild, and rugged features that entitled the region 

 to the poetic name of Dark Plains. 



