THE OHIO DISTRICT 221 



if the ground anywhere within the limit of the forest 

 becomes permanently swampy, the trees die and the 

 ground falls under the dominion of alder and juniper 

 bushes. Wherever these are found, however, in this 

 district, there has been a beaver-dam. In other parts 

 the cedar tree occupies the swamps, and often grows 

 so closely together that a man cannot force his body 

 between the trunks of adjoining trees. 



On the whole, the trees here are much finer in 

 growth than in English close woods ; and beneath them 

 the light is dim to a degree that I have never noticed in 

 English woods. The gloom of an American forest is, 

 indeed, intense; and there is, as in most close forests, 

 an almost total absence of animal life. 



How it may be at this day I cannot say, but at the 

 time of which I am writing, now more than thirty years 

 since, there were still forests of many miles in extent. I 

 mean unbroken, primeval forest ; the only kind of which 

 I use the word forest in any of my writings. When man 

 has violated them with " clearings " they cease to be 

 forests hi my opinion, and become mere parks or woods. 

 In speaking of the forests generally, I am compelled to 

 put strong control on my feelings, lest I should be 

 betrayed into a strength of language which the reader 

 would find it difficult to understand ; for I look upon the 

 wanton destruction of trees as a crime, as a sin, of a 

 heinous character, as I do on the unnecessary and useless 

 destruction of animal life. To me it is an abomination 

 for man to consider any of the natural productions of the 

 earth as an encumbrance thereon. Yet thousands, yea, 

 at least tens of thousands of square miles of timber have 

 been destroyed by fire in the States and the British 

 possessions during the last century alone, the sole object 

 being to clear the land. This timber, if it could have 

 been cut, would have produced tens of millions of pounds 

 in England and other parts of Europe ; and it would have 

 been felled for use had it not lain far from conveyance by 



