The Forest and Man 57 



upright but killed by girdling, the unkempt, rude 

 aspect of his cabin, were for him the cheerful signs 

 of victory over hostile nature. The woods were to 

 him something to be got rid of, if such a thing was 

 possible. There was for him no sentimental regret 

 over a felled forest giant, no elegiac tones in the 

 song of the axe. But on the other hand the forest 

 was for him a fact of most stubborn character. He 

 had travelled through it, slowly toiling along the 

 trail, carrying his pack of provisions to sustain life, 

 or gliding down the interminable windings of the 

 river. He knew how large it was. East and 

 west, north and south, he knew that forest extended 

 for hundreds and hundreds of miles. He was but 

 too well aware what slow work it was to make a 

 clearing but a few acres in extent, that would hardly 

 be noticed in the vast expanse of woods. The idea 

 that the area of this forest could ever be diminished 

 by human hands to any appreciable extent, so that 

 people would become afraid of not having woodland 

 enough to supply them with the needed lumber, 

 would have seemed an utter absurdity to him. To 

 be sure, where settlers came in thick and fast, the 

 forest might disappear and farms take its place ; 

 but then there would always be plenty of timber a 

 few miles farther on. Thus the legend arose of 

 the inexhaustible supply of lumber in American 

 forests, a legend which only within the last twenty 

 years has given place to juster notions. 



It would have been too much to expect that these 

 ideas with regard to the forest created by three 



