ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 83 



a seedless orange, and a coreless apple. Let us now have 

 a birdless hat. 



The beautiful and fruitful service berry or juneberry 

 is well nigh exterminated by the vandal-like practice of 

 cutting down the trees to gather the fruit. This was a 

 sin against nature. 



I remember the hills and streams of the eastern states 

 in my boyhood. The old swimming holes, described by 

 Whitcomb Riley, were there, a source of delight to the 

 boys of forty years ago. After long absence I revisited 

 some of these old streams. The trees had been felled 

 and the springs had gone dry. The streams were grav- 

 elly beds, as dry as Sahara, except for a few hours after 

 a big rain had converted them into muddy torrents. 



Dr. English described this condition with deep pathos 

 many years ago : 



The shaded nook by the running brook 

 Where the children used to swim. 

 Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt, 

 And the spring of the brook is dry. 



This wail touches the heart in every part of the older 

 states. The club women of America are moving for the 

 preservation of the Big Trees of California, and it now 

 looks as if Niagara Falls might yet be converted to a 

 dry cliff, surrounded by all sorts of mills. 



In central and southern Italy are striking illustrations 

 of the results of forest destruction. Ghastly seams show 

 the track of the occasional flood. 



Surrounded as Italy is by the Mediterranean the ef- 

 fects upon her climate have not been so serious as it 

 would be in the interior of a continent, or as it has been 

 in Asia Minor. Nature has given up the struggle with 

 man in Italy. 



Hawthorne tells us that where man has carved a stone 



