558 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



and iiulirectly his name immortal, was simply a log 

 cabin of necessity and humility. Cabin-rearing means 

 for the individual, the tempering of a proud spirit. It 

 was the cabin life that helped Abraham Lincoln appre- 

 ciate the old, old poem, "O Why Should the Spirit of 

 Mortal Be Proud ?" To me today every cabin I observe 

 bears a close likeness to that poem. To store all posses- 

 sions and rear a family in a small cabin was to bow the 

 knee in humility and this too meant industry. The sign 

 of industry is a closed cabin door. Toil calls the occu- 

 pants, both young and old to the fields of growing crops. 

 But it is interesting to study how sentiment changes. 

 The cabins of necessity have not disappeared, but they 



expensive mansions where not many years ago there 

 stood on the same site a cabin of necessity. 



In addition to steeping the occupants' souls in humility, 

 the cabins of necessity blessed them otherwise. They 

 brought no worry over house-painting, of fire insurance 

 ])olicies or house furnishings and the periodic house- 

 cleaning time. During the cabin age of our ancestors, 

 disease germs were practically unknown. The cabin of 

 necessity is a bitter enemy to germ life. This is not at 

 all strange, for fresh air and sunlight permeates the cracks 

 and crevices of the cabins of necessity, and so disease 

 germs are never bred or harbored within their walls. 

 This, I think, in itself answers the familiar question, 



"Why were our an- 

 cestors so healthy 

 and free from dis- 

 ease ?" 



The popularity of 

 the automobile will 

 lead "cabinward," 

 but not towards the 

 cabin of necessity. 

 A man who can af- 

 ford an automobile, 

 will not possess such 



This little cabin of necessity 

 was enlarged as the pioneer's 

 family grew in size. 



are on the wane. Though 

 vanishing, some families of 

 the ])resent generation are 

 still being nurtured in these 

 charming houses built of 

 logs and dirt, and particu- 

 larly is this true in the 

 South. It is doubtful 



however whether the last ATTRACTIVELY SURROUNDED BY TREES 



cabms ot necessity will dis- Happily located, this cabin of necessity has a leanto a step forward in the evolution of home 

 appear until the American 

 forests have been depleted of cabin timber 



That will 



be many years to come. Not until then will they be 

 doomed and so little fear is felt for extinction of the 

 honorable mud-besplattered buildings. 



The cabins of necessity have been melting under the 

 heat of ambition forcibly moved by prosperity. Pros- 

 perity and ambition are sworn enemies to the cabins of 

 necessity. Necessity cuts through the epidermis, and 

 man's advancement is a series of .successive moults. To- 

 day wc look on many thousands of handsome and 



building in the forest, 

 a building. In driving out one pike road in a coimtry 

 where educational facilities are excellent, with high 

 schools as well as grammar schools dotting every locality, 

 in a twelve mile drive on a single thoroughfare, five 

 cabins of necessity are passed. The pictures are all 

 shown here. They are not pioneer Americans who live 

 in them, but the occupants are tillers of the soil. They 

 are not colored people either who have been thus tucked 

 away cheaply by some aristocrat, but white families, who 

 regard the Sabbath and believe in the principles of sani- 



