i 3 o FORESTS AND MANKIND 



is part of our heritage just as our love of sunlight and air. 

 After all, for a few centuries only have we been city dwellers, 

 and behind those relatively few years stretch untold ages when 

 we lived on the border of the forests and filled our various 

 needs from them. So trees are among our oldest friends and 

 it is back to them, as to old friends we go when we are tired 

 of the noise and hurry of the city. We rest and play and are 

 born again. We find there something civilization and its 

 crowded places can never give us a sense of fulfillment and 

 joy of life. A sense of peace. This, too, is a gift of the trees. 



So when all is said, the forests mean much more to us than 

 to serve just as mines of timber and of wood more even than 

 as protectors of our streams and of our soil. Trees are all these. 

 But if they were none of these if only it were for the beauty 

 they bring, and for the renewed life that man can find among 

 their shadows, trees would still be one of nature's richest gifts 

 to man. 



