io HAND-BOOK OF TREE-PLANTING. 



the dense masses of trees, whose leafy tops shut 

 out the sunlight and whose roots defied the 

 plow. Accordingly, they were made away with, 

 and in the speediest manner possible. They 

 were felled by wholesale, and burned by the 

 acre upon the ground where they lay. Wood 

 was worthless, except for the scanty needs of 

 fuel and house-building. The pioneer could 

 hardly have too little of it. The forests were in 

 the way. They were almost a nuisance ; and a 

 man was famous in proportion as, in the lan- 

 guage of Scripture, " he had lifted up the axe 

 among the thick trees." 



The feeling engendered in that early time 

 has characterized our people ever since. We 

 have continued to make ruthless warfare upon 

 the woods. The trees have continued to be in 

 the way as the population has increased and 

 the tide of migration has swept westward from 

 the Atlantic coast. Naturally our best friends, 

 we have come to regard them as our natural 

 enemies. The forests, the slow growth of cen- 

 turies, have been held as an impediment to the 

 national growth, and one of our States has 

 even taken for its seal and heraldic device the 



