160 " Dead Trees Love the Fire " 



of a pine-knot fire, suggested that if every one 

 took to wood fires and burned up a dozen 

 cords of wood in the winter, as we did, wood 

 would become exorbitantly dear, and none but 

 millionaires would be able to afford it. It is 

 said that it takes the wood of five square miles 

 every year to furnish matches for the world, 

 the daily consumption in this country reaching 

 ten matches per head for every man, woman, 

 and child. And about once a year the papers 

 contain articles warning the people that our 

 forests are disappearing, never to grow again. 

 This sort of talk is rather lost upon any one 

 who lives down on Long Island anywhere be- 

 yond Babylon, for here there are tracts of 

 country where one can walk for miles and miles 

 without meeting a soul or seeing a house, and 

 yet covered with a growth of excellent fire- 

 wood, untouched almost from generation to 

 generation. Yet we are within seventy-five 

 miles of the greatest city on the continent. 

 If New York City should ever take to wood 

 fires, Long Island can grow wood just as well 

 as cabbages. Even now, when our Long 

 Island woods have been shamefully neglected 



