THE DESTRUCTION AND REPAIR OF OUR NAT- 

 URAL RESOURCES l 



The people of this continent do not sufficiently appre- 

 ciate the immensity of the period that nature employed 

 in building the New World and preparing it as a home 

 for civilized man, nor how easily those advantages may 

 be destroyed. When first Columbus set his foot upon 

 these shores the vast forests and splendid prairies lay 

 rich and inviting as the home of the coming race. The 

 forest, which has done so much to prepare the earth for 

 man's use, was encountered by the early settlers along 

 the whole Atlantic shore. The necessity of clearing 

 away this vast mass of vegetation led the pioneer to look 

 upon the woods as the enemy of man. The ax was used 

 unsparingly, and but few specimens of the original con- 

 tinental forests still remain. 



Trees have their poetic as well as their practical side. 

 While sensible to their beauty, we are now deeply con- 

 cerned in their utility. All they have asked heretofore 

 has been standing room. Give them but place, and they 

 will patiently do their work. Their long arms have 

 reached out for ages, and gathered from the air the ele- 

 ments of growth which they have added to the soil. As 

 one poet has expressed it: 



Cedars stretch their palms like holy men at prayer ; 

 and another speaks of them in winter, 



With their bare arms stretched in prayer for the snows. 



i Delivered before the American Forestry Association and the National 

 Geographic Society in joint meeting, January 27, 1896, by Hon. John F. 

 Lacey, M. C, chairman committee on public lands. 



