1 76 ARBOR DAY 



benign influences be diminished any more than the 

 sun is diminished by shining. Mere destroyers, 

 however, tree-killers, spreading death and confusion 

 in the fairest groves and gardens ever planted, let 

 the Government hasten to cast them out and make 

 an end of them. For it must be told again and 

 again, and be burningly borne in mind, that just 

 now, while protective measures are being deliber- 

 ated languidly, destruction and use are speeding 

 on faster and farther every day. The axe and saw 

 are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snow- 

 flakes, and every summer thousands of acres of price- 

 less forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, 

 climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away 

 in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national 

 parks, not one forest guard is employed. 



All sorts of local laws and regulations have been 

 tried and found wanting, and the costly lessons of our 

 experience, as well as that of every civilized nation, 

 show exclusively that the fate of the remnant of our 

 forests is in the hands of the Federal Government, 

 and that if the remnant is to be saved at all, it must 

 be saved quickly. 



Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run 

 away; and if they could, they would still be de- 

 stroyed chased and hunted down as long as fun 

 or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, 

 branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. 

 Few that fell trees plant them; nor would plant- 



