54 North American Forests and Forestry 



degenerate relic. The latter-day backwoodsman has 

 the poverty, the ignorance, the lack of civilized 

 ways which we found in his predecessor, to an exag- 

 gerated degree. But he lacks the spirit of adven- 

 ture, the state-building genius, which made the old 

 generation so important a factor in our national 

 life, and above all the energy which enabled the 

 men of 1812 to lay the foundations for an enduring 

 civilization. The railway, which gave his prede- 

 cessor an opportunity to grow, is reaching him also, 

 and the question is : Will he be able to seize the 

 chances offered, or will he disappear from the face 

 of the earth ? 



Since the building of railways through the forest 

 began, the dominion of man over nature has been 

 established there, as it has been on the prairies and 

 the plain. Settlement now invariably follows the 

 railway lines, forming a strip extending a few miles 

 on either side of them. The conditions under 

 which newcomers now make their homes in the 

 forest are very much easier, indeed, than they used 

 to be in the old days. Scores of things which the 

 backwoodsman had to provide for himself as best 

 he could, the modern settler buys at cheap rates 

 in the railway town : windows, doors, sawed lumber 

 of all kinds, hardware, furniture no less than clothes 

 and a hundred luxuries which his predecessor never 

 dreamt of having. The modern settler is a link in 

 the great chain of world-wide commerce, where the 

 backwoodsman was an isolated being, having to pro- 

 duce almost all he needed with his own hands. 



