Introduction 3 



has a sympathy so deep and true that the poetaster 

 who sings his dainty elegy on the death of a tree 

 cannot even imagine it. This very depth and 

 truth help him to realize that the primeval wil- 

 derness is but one of the changing forms of life, 

 which plays its part and does its task, and pres- 

 ently must give way to other and better develop- 

 ments. Nature untouched by human hands is 

 beautiful and grand, but grander and more beauti- 

 ful is the life of man, with its constant striving for 

 a more complete subjection of the forces and mat- 

 ter of nature to the aspirations of the human 

 spirit. Nothing could be farther from the inten- 

 tion of the author, as it is from the mind of the 

 forester who loves his work, than to swell the 

 chorus of those who ignorantly, although often in 

 imagined superiority of knowledge, cry out against 

 the activity of those sturdy and simple men who 

 are adding untold millions to the national wealth 

 by utilizing the stores which nature has prepared 

 for us by the patient work of untold ages. 



But the author, like the true forester, would fain 

 do his share to combat, wherever he finds them, 

 the ignorance which wastes instead of using the 

 riches kind nature has prepared for us ; the heed- 

 lessness that does not take the trouble to do its 

 best ; the greed that overreaches itself in its haste 

 to get all ; the selfishness which cares not for its 

 neighbor, though he suffer and perish. The pro- 

 fessional forester will not find in this book any- 

 thing that is not already familiar to him, and will 



