140 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



I'liomgraph by Underwood and Underwood. 



THE DEAD HILLS OF THE MEUSE" 



THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION 



HP AKEN from "They Shall Not Pass" the 

 striking story on the battle of Verdun by 

 Governeur Morris, in the issue of Collier's 

 Weekly for February 2, 1918: 



"Two years ago . the forests that clothed 



the surrounding hills from crest to valley looked pleas- 

 ant and inviting, and, so far as I am concerned, any 

 real reasons for thinking that Verdun and Hell were 

 going to meet each other halfway and become one and 

 inseparable simply did not exist 



"In 1915 there was no very expansive view to be had 

 from any of these hills; forests clothed them from top 

 to bottom, forests of beech, oak, and cone-bearing trees. 

 In whichever direction the eye sought an escape it was 

 arrested by the trees. But today, square mile after 

 square mile there is nothing left that you could fairly 

 call a tree. It is as if after long months of dry weather 

 the forest had caught fire and burned to the ground. 

 Here and there the black skeleton of a tree twists Jap- 

 anesquely against the sky. That is all. The eye is no 

 longer a prisoner. It roams at large, and has for a 

 boundary to its wanderings only some elemental sub- 

 stance higher than that from which it starts to wander. 



It was not enough to destroy the forests; there is no 

 longer any forest floor. 



"Lovers used to stroll arm in arm through the well- 

 ordered forests of Verdun. To stroll arm in arm where 

 these forests once stood is no longer possible. You 

 must go alone. If there has been rain, you should have 

 nails in your boots. The smooth convolutions of the 

 hills have been tortured and turned into ridges and hol- 

 lows like the Atlantic Ocean during the equinoctial 

 gales. 



"I doubt if there is to be found one single square yard 

 of the original forest floor. I doubt if there is to be 

 found one single perfect example of a shell crater. One 

 crater breaks into the next; and there, merged into one 

 shocking hollow, are a dozen which at the first moment 

 of looking appeared to have been but one. 



"It has been well and truly 'worked,' that forest floor; 

 but not for a hundred years can it ever again be worked 

 by man in any peaceful and profitable pursuit. Rich 

 soil (doubly rich now), it will be shunned by the farmer 

 with his plow; a prospect very rich in copper and iron, 

 the prospector will shun it; for here, buried and half 

 buried, the shells, great and little, which did not ex- 

 plode at all, are as thick as temptations in the life of 

 Everyman." 



