THE AMERICAN FORESTS 167 



trees as only a larger kind of pernicious weeds, 

 extremely hard to get rid of. Accordingly, with 

 no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged 

 interminable forest wars; chips flew thick and fast; 

 trees in their beauty fell crashing by millions, 

 smashed to confusion, and the smoke of their burn- 

 ing has been rising to heaven more than two hundred 

 years. After the Atlantic coast from Maine to 

 Georgia had been mostly cleared and scorched into 

 melancholy ruins, the overflowing multitude of 

 bread and money seekers poured over the Alle- 

 ghenies into the fertile Middle West, spreading 

 ruthless devastation ever wider and farther over the 

 rich valley of the Mississippi and the vast, shadowy 

 pine region about the Great Lakes. Thence still 

 westward the invading horde of destroyers, called 

 settlers, made its fiery way over the broad Rocky 

 Mountains, felling and burning more fiercely than 

 ever, until at last it has reached the wild side of the 

 continent, and entered the last of the great abor- 

 iginal forests on the shores of the Pacific. 



Surely, then, it should not be wondered at that 

 lovers of their country, bewailing its baldness, are 

 now crying aloud : " Save what is left of the forests!' 7 

 Clearing has surely now gone far enough; soon timber 

 will be scarce, and not a grove will be left to rest in or 

 pray in. The remnant protected will yield plenty 

 of timber, a perennial harvest for every right use, 

 without further diminution of its area, and will 



