Forestry and Government 175 



the hot, sunshiny lake. Fish and fishing become 

 burdensome after a while ; they would rather hear 

 the thrushes and warblers, or see the rabbits skip 

 through the underbrush. The woods are there, less 

 than half a mile away, but to the majority of the 

 summer guests as inaccessible as if they were on 

 another planet. There are no roads through the 

 woods. As if in mockery, the hotel-keeper adver- 

 tises the fine drives of the surrounding country. 

 But every road that an ordinary vehicle dare ven- 

 ture on runs through the sunny, uninteresting 

 fields down in the valleys. The woods, where one 

 would like to drive, are carefully fenced off, and 

 only the more venturesome among the guests ever 

 enter their shades. Then they are left to chance 

 as to whether they get the most enjoyment out of 

 them or not. There is no guide-post, not even a 

 foot-path leading to the spot where that fine view 

 of the lake can be had. The particularly fine group 

 of large trees at the other side can be found only 

 by accident, and then you must crawl through four 

 barb-wire fences, which keeps the ladies from ever 

 reaching the spot. 



Such a picture is true of hundreds of American 

 summer resorts, even some of the most famous 

 ones. Nobody seems to think of the enormous 

 advantage a place of that kind would derive if the 

 picturesque surroundings were made accessible to 

 the travelling public. Suppose that a tract of for- 

 est in the hilly portion of the neighborhood were 

 in some way acquired by the village, town, or 



