294 HANDBOOK OF NATURE STUDY 



Important as the influence of forests is upon the material 

 welfare of man, its influence upon the mind of man must 

 not be overlooked. To the first settlers on our shores the 

 forests were the abode of thousands of warlike Indians. To 

 all settlers in new countries, and to primitive man in gen- 

 eral, the forests were always fraught with unknown and 

 invisible danger, and the imagination of our children still 

 peoples the big woods with hosts of bears, wolves, and all 

 kinds of monsters. The dragons and other chimera which 

 were killed by the knights of yore invariably lived in caves 

 in the dark forest. For these obvious reasons settlers in 

 a wild country always fought the forest with axe and fire. 

 To-day we have conquered our forests. Groves and groups 

 of shade trees shelter our farms and homes; they have 

 inspired our poets, and they enable us to find rest and soli- 

 tude whenever we are in need of them. From a nation of 

 forest destroyers we must now become a nation of forest 

 planters. Let us hope, and let us do our best, that we may 

 accomplish the second task as thoroughly as we accom- 

 plished the first. 



REFERENCES 



Shaler. Chapter on Forests and Man in his Aspects of the Earth. 



United States Department of Agriculture. The Relation of Forests to 

 Farms. Tree Planting in the Western Plains. Forestry for Farm- 

 ers. 



References given under 43, II. 



Poems and Places, North America, Edited by Longfellow. 



Guyot. The Earth and Man. 



