TREES WOODLAND FOBESTS. 45 



own excuse for being," and know that a homestead 

 embowered in, belted by, stately, graceful elms, 

 maples, and evergreens, is really worth more, and 

 will sell for more, than if it were naked field and 

 meadow. I consider it one positive advantage (to 

 balance many disadvantages) of our rocky, hilly, 

 rugged Eastern country, that it will never, in all 

 probability, be so denuded of forests as the rich, 

 facile prairies and swales of the Great Valley may be. 

 Our winds are less piercing, our tornadoes less de- 

 structive, than those of the Great West. I doubt 

 whether there is another equal area of the earth's 

 surface whereon so many kinds of valuable trees grow 

 spontaneously and rapidly, defying eradication, as 

 throughout New-England and on either slope of the 

 Alleghenies ; and this profusion of timber and foliage 

 may well atone for, or maybe fairly weighed against, 

 many deficiencies and drawbacks. The Yankee, who 

 has been accustomed to see trees spring up spontane- 

 ously wherever they were not kept down by ax, or 

 plow, or scythe, and to cross rtmning water every 

 half mile of a Summer day's journey, may well be 

 made homesick, by two thousand miles of naked, 

 dusty, wind-swept Plains, whereon he finds no water 

 for fifty to a hundred miles, and knows it impossible 

 to cut an ax-helve, much more an axle-tree, in the 

 course of a wearying journey. No Eastern farmer 

 ever realized the blessedness of abundant and excel- 

 lent wood and water until he had wandered far from 

 his boyhood's home. 



