NEW GROUND 



LL the Dryads are awailing 

 ruin has fallen heavy on their 

 immemorial haunts. Steel is 

 eating to the heart of oak and 

 beech, and walnut and hickory. 

 Giants primeval, they must all lie low that 

 corn may laugh in their stead, or wheat 

 wave yellow, or rank tobacco stand aglisten 

 in the sun. After all, axe and plough are 

 your real Vandals. They overrun, destroy, 

 the forest's royal savagery, turn all its seat 

 to tame fields ready for lowliest use. 



The fatness of fresh ground delights all 

 growing things. Grain, flower, or weed gets 

 root, strength, substance, as by magic. What 

 wonder man, living in the sweat of his 

 brow, has scant reverence for green trees 

 holds them but cumberers of the ground. 

 Useful, indeed, for shade and timber and 

 firewood, but not one to be set over against 

 the sweet, the fat, that may be wrought in 

 their stead. 



