534 



CONSERVATION 



and go down to death. And yet the 

 Kew forest will live on to show the 

 denizen of the great city what trees, and 

 shade, and cooling rest are. I shall not 

 soon forget the pleasant hours I passed 

 in the old Kew forest. 



As one runs through rural England 

 he sees many bodies of forests ; in fact, 

 one is impressed with the abundance of 

 trees in the ordinary English landscape. 

 It shows that at bottom John Bull loves 

 the forest, and loves trees for in the 

 fields and along fence rows everywhere 

 <me sees trees. Maybe his love of hunt- 

 ing had something to do with it, but 

 even this reason for preserving the 

 patches of forests is far better than 

 that greed which sees nothing but so 

 much money-bringing lumber in every 

 tree and every acre of forest. Let us 

 honor the Englishman for his love of 

 trees, and let us learn from him that a 

 beautiful landscape dotted with trees 

 has a value for our lives that cannot 

 be estimated in terms of money that 

 the rest and shade of a piece of wood- 

 land are of more value than rubies, and 

 that all the gold of Ophir cannot buy 

 them. 



( )n the Continent one is impressed 

 with a feeling that centuries ago the 

 people cleared away the forests, and 

 laid waste the whole land. As a rule, 

 the only natural forests are those on 

 the steep hills and mountains where man 

 could not make cultivated fields. Here 

 the feeling that prevailed was like that 

 which still dominates in America, 

 namely, that a forest-covered tract has 

 only two possible uses : ( i ) to be cut 

 for its wood, as fuel or lumber ; and 

 (2) to be turned into fields to be 

 plowed. And too often where the ax- 

 man did not care to cut the trees for 

 his use, the plowman demanded the re- 

 moval of the trees in order that he 

 might have fields to plow 7 . So, as the 

 centuries went on, the country was 

 mostly cleared of trees, and then came 

 the awakening. And to-day one sees 

 artificial forests that have become a 

 necessity because of the reckless lack 



/ 



of forethought of the people many years 



