724 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



brightest, the author of this humble homily, with the 

 patient one who shares his few ups and many downs, 

 vacationed, for a pure gold week, in the park, canoeing 

 down the river and up the lakes, carrying the few short 

 portages, fishing, photographing and sheltering under a 

 tent at night, "with only the stars to see." It was an old 

 story, in a way, and yet it was always a new pleasure 

 to see the deer standing on the shores and in the shal- 



THE SENTINEL PINE, THE SOFT FRONDED HEMLOCK 

 AND ALL THE STURDY NORTHERN HARDWOODS, THE 

 CEDAR, SPRUCE AND BALSAM BEND AND SIGH, AS OF 

 CENTURIES AGO, IN THIS UNMARRED BIT OF THE 

 NORTH. NO BLACK STUMPS OFFEND THE EYE NO 

 GASH OR SCAR. 



lows, watch us with inquisitive eyes, or startled beside 

 the trails, retreat to stop and gaze ; to step into the 

 midst of a flock of partridges, strutting and unafraid: 

 to listen, in the ghostly silence of the moonlit solitudes 

 and sense the busy movements of the life about, the 

 mink, the otter and the fox, the muskrat and the 

 beaver: to hear the quavering call of the loon, the 



splash of the fish and the squalling hoot of the great 

 owl all as in the days when the only habitation was 

 a tepee, when the worn top of the desk upon which 

 this is written was potent in a seed not yet dropped to 

 the ground. 



Some day books may be big enough to tell what 

 this wilderness unfolds to its intimates, but not until 

 paper is made of something more common than wood 

 pulp. 



Not long ago a lumberman told me that he believed 

 in what he called the theory of forestry, but that, in 

 America, conditions are not yet ripe for it said that 

 it pays in Europe because their timber is of greater 

 value. And as he talked he pulled from his pocket 

 a box of Swedish matches, which had come across the 

 water to sell in competition with our product, to light 

 his cigar. I wondered how their values could be higher, 

 when the forests of this country are sharing their mar- 

 ket and meeting with their competition here. I thought 

 there must be something interesting about their system, 

 there where they dream that forestry is an established 

 fact, not alone a theory, and that practising horse sense 

 thrift beats sudden exploitation. Of course, he knows 

 his business, and I, who only love the woods, do not. 



This was supposed to be the story of the Northern 

 Lakes Park and it is. You who are aware that, so 

 far as concerns our timber, we have scooped almost to 

 the bottom of the barrel, may wish us well, here in 

 Wisconsin, where we have been fighting the desires 

 and the misunderstandings of some for the sake of all, 

 blazing the way toward preservation of our shaded 

 shorelines, and, so far as may be, return of beauties 

 lost, the cloaking again, in God's green mantle, of 

 roadsides, plains and hills, stretching the hand of for- 

 est husbandry to our barren acres, that once again that 

 crop may grow unscathed. 



Those who would keep the enjoyment of the beau- 

 tiful may well join hands with you who would perpet- 

 uate a timber supply. Those who would cherish a hem 

 of that gamient are one in purpose with you who 

 would stay from needless waste, and regain that most 

 necessary resource. 



Thoreau said, "In wildness is the preservation of the 

 world." He was right. We are at stake, as well as 

 the trees. We must not permit ourselves to run to 

 seed in plowing and merchandising, and pulling and 

 hauling and mauling for the sake of dollar and penny 

 profits. We must keep, as a safe anchor to windward, 

 near to us, the inspiration of things unmarred, as a 

 kind creator made them. Robert Louis Stevenson put 

 it better, when he said that "It is not by any means 

 certain that a man's business is the most important 

 thing he has to do." Anyway, not the business that 

 keeps us in a rut of selfishness and chains us to the 

 commonplace. 



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