HISTORY OF DERRYFIELD. 53 



made in vain ; lovers of nature have bewailed the rapid razing 

 of our mountain groves, on the aesthetic ground of disfigurement 

 and consequent loss of attraction to the summer tourist. But 

 these sentimental appeals have no effect upon the lumber kings 

 who have possessed themselves of our fair heritage. We must 

 first create an educated public sentiment, resting upon grounds 

 of public interest, and powerful enough to invoke the strong arm 

 of the state. To accomplish this it must be shown that the de- 

 nudation of the mountain slopes is a distinct menace to the prop- 

 erty and lives of our citizens. A paid employe has written and 

 caused to be printed in one of our city dailies an article in apol- 

 ogy and defence of the lumber interest. This was evidently 

 inspired by the unexampled freshet of the spring of 1896, which 

 involved wide-spread disaster, a burdensome interruption to pup- 

 lie travel, and a financial loss in the state of more than a million 

 dollars. The writer says the unprecedented and rapid rise of 

 the mountain tributaries was owing to a warm sun acting upon 

 reserves of snow ; that the exposed slopes were coated with ice, 

 and that the melting snow, reinforced by rain, sped unchecked 

 into the valleys. This was all true; but he did not tell us how 

 the slopes became bare and ice-covered, nor did he suggest that 

 if the protecting timber-fringe had been allowed by the lumber 

 magnates to stand upon the steep flanks of the White Hills, that 

 the disastrous freshet of March would have been averted. We 

 utter this warning, at the risk of its being considered out of 

 place, anxious only to contribute to public enlightenment upon 

 a theme which must soon compel attention. The eyes of our 

 great manufacturing interests already look askance toward the 

 north, and their ears are primed to hear the roar of advancing 

 floods. It has already become a question of self-protection, and 

 efficient action is to-day imperatively needed. 



Without further digression, we proceed at once to present a 

 list of the more common trees and shrubs now to be found in 

 or near this locality, a list necessarily incomplete, adding occas- 

 ional observations concerning them : 



