174 ARBOR DAY 



stuff drowns the voice of God Himself. Yet the 

 dawn of a new day in forestry is breaking. Honest 

 citizens see that only the rights of the Government 

 are being trampled, not those of the settlers. Merely 

 what belongs to all alike is reserved, and every acre 

 that is left should be held together under the Federal 

 Government as a basis for a general policy of admin- 

 istration for the public good. The people will not 

 always be deceived by selfish opposition, whether 

 from lumber and mining corporations or from 

 sheepmen and prospectors, however cunningly 

 brought forward underneath fables and gold. 



Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged 

 long. An exception would seem to be found in the 

 case of our forests, which have been mismanaged 

 rather long, and now come desperately near being 

 like smashed eggs and spilt milk. Still, in the 

 long run the world does not move backward. The 

 wonderful advance made in the last few years, in 

 creating four national parks in the West, and thirty 

 forest reservations, embracing nearly forty million 

 acres; and in the planting of the borders of streets 

 and highways and spacious parks in all the great 

 cities, to satisfy the natural taste and hunger for 

 landscape beauty and righteousness that God has 

 put, in some measure, into every human being and 

 animal, shows the trend of awakening public opinion. 

 The making of the far-famed New York Central 

 Park was opposed by even good men, with mis- 



