A BEGINNER IN FOREST 



019 



spaces every little way, places where 



the sun streams in and illuminates the 

 whole scene with a radiant, heavenly 

 glory, that makes the legend of St. 

 Hubert most easily believed. 



I spoke once of the exquisite "order" 

 of the German woods, and I must 

 speak of that again. As I said before, 

 this is no frequented resort, no show- 

 place, and yet the woods-paths, the 

 little bridges, the tiny stone culverts, 

 the wide, even macadamized roads for 

 wood transport everything is in what 

 we might call "most beautiful order." 

 The dead branches and twigs belong 

 to the poor to gather for the first two 

 days after storm or wind. We see 

 them coming home old men and wom- 

 en their loads bound on their shoul- 

 ders just as they have come for thou- 

 sands of years. They go quietly by 

 piles of neatly stacked cut-wood to be 

 taken to town and sold when the men 

 shall have time, and the cut-wood re- 

 mains undisturbed until that time. The 

 absolute sturdy honor and honesty of 

 the poor man in Europe is quite as 

 much to each nation's credit as the care 

 they give to their trees. To my eyes 

 it links somehow to the spirit that leads 

 the market women to leave her full 

 basket outside the church door and go 

 in to pray. We shall come to that 

 spirit in future centuries ; we laugh at 

 it now because it is as easy to laugh as 

 it is to give the California trees over 

 to the executioner but a long wax- 

 ahead we shall not laugh. We shall 

 pray, ton. in that day we shall give 

 cast off wood to the poor, instead of 

 heaping it together to burn forthwith : 

 we shall have a reverence for what ha- 

 grown old in service, and we shall be 

 as willing to furnish schools f< >r our 

 trees as fnr <>ur children. Some fexv 

 out of each thousand know now h<>\\ 

 close is the un-eeii bond betxxven thr 

 trees that xve are trying to guard and 

 those same children. It is clo-er vet 



between the trees and those children's 

 children. And betxvcen our trees of 

 to-day and the third generation hence 

 it may well be vital. 



One little word more and then 1 shall 

 have filled my space and must end. I 

 want to tell of a curious way. the like 

 of which I never saxv before. 



Eor about a quarter of a mile along 

 the highway there runs on one side 

 a wide strip of land laid off in rows of 

 parallel trees (parallel with the road) 

 planted about ten feet apart, but with 

 deep hollows running lengthwise be- 

 txveen. The trees have had their tops 

 cut in the old French fashion until the 

 new sprouts form a thick cover over- 

 head, the whole too low to walk upright 

 through. I was very curious about 

 this way and could not think by whom 

 or for what purpose it could possibly 

 have been made. 



So I asked the forester, and he told 

 me that the way used to stretch around 

 the angle and down the hillside to the 

 manor-house barns, and that it was 

 planted centuries since and kept filled 

 in as the old trees died, so as to pro- 

 vide a covered shelter for the herds 

 and flocks which were driven daily 

 through the wood and out to the pas- 

 ture land on the other side. The herd- 

 and flocks are not so plenty noxv. and 

 the way itself has been curtailed, but 

 when it rains xve go in under its close 

 green shelter and like many moderns 

 who think the sun takes a year to go 

 carefully and kindly around our little 

 earth thank the old Lords of the Man- 

 or for having thoughtfully saved us a 

 x\ et ting. 



T hope next time to \\rite -onietliuii; 

 of the old forest hi-try of ( lermanx - 

 something of the ('ays when the kal- 

 or koeni^s gladly gave forests axxav if 

 the receiver xvould just kindly measure 

 them and -ave the crown the trouble 

 of working out the problem of its own 

 generosity. 



