Impressions by the Way. 



The writer was born among the timber-clad hills of New 

 England, but emigrated to the prairies of the west when a boy. 

 I had read of the changes taking place in the east, but every- 

 body sees things from a different standpoint, and personal ob- 

 servation is the only way that anyone can learn the existing 

 conditions in any section of the country. Recently I made a 

 visit to my native state. While on my journey, as I was whirled 

 along through the denuded hills, I was reminded of these lines: 



"No more I see in this loved spot 



The groves I loved of yore, 

 The woodman's axe has cut the trees 



That I would fain restore. 

 The little brook where on summer days, 



I wandered gay and free, 

 Is but a dry and pebbly path, 



O'ershadowed by no tree." 



To one who has lived in a prairie country, where groves 

 of forest trees are planted and every effort made to encourage 

 their growth, the ruthless destruction of the grand old forests 

 makes a deep impression on his mind. 



The people who originally cleared off the timber from 

 these hills intended to utilize them as pasture and farm lands, 

 but their barrenness, and the introduction of the silo, has 

 wrought their abandonment, and today they are a mass of 

 blackberries and brush. 



I noticed, in some places, where interest had been taken 

 in the matter, some fine groves of second-growth timber, but 

 this movement is not general and there is not the interest taken 

 in it there should be. 



Serious results have followed this destruction of the for- 

 ests of the eastern states. The streams and lakes are gradually 

 drying up. Many streams that used to carry a large volume 

 of pure, living water all the year, dwindle down to mere rivu- 

 lets in the summer. 



[119] 



