194 FORESTRY IN NEW ENGLAND 



railroads throughout the territory many veneer mills and other 

 concerns using hardwoods have sprung up and the proportion of 

 birch and maple lumber used is constantly increasing. 



A generation ago another important change came in the 

 lumber industry — the introduction of the portable steam saw- 

 mill. Up to this time many small tracts back in the mountains 

 had escaped cutting. Now it was possible to take a mill into the 

 farthest of these lots and transport only the finished lumber. 

 Hundreds of these Httle mills have been at work throughout the 

 region and virgin tracts are now rare. While they have in the 

 past done much damage there is no reason why in the future they 

 should not be an instrument for the improvement of our forests. 



From the foregoing brief sketch of the early industries of New 

 England it will be realized how intimately the hfe of the people 

 was connected with the forest. It is interesting to note the 

 change of feeling toward the forest which has taken place during 

 the three centuries of our history. As has been said, the earliest 

 settlers from England showed an appreciation of the forest 

 wealth of their new country. But the difficulty of clearing away 

 the woods and making the land tillable, the loneliness of the long 

 forest trails, and, more than all, the dread of the forest as a hiding 

 place of Indian war parties, gradually changed the feeling of 

 respect to one of enmity if not actual hate. To children reared 

 on the New England frontier the forest was probably as dark and 

 foreboding as were those of the early German legends. Not until 

 well into the nineteenth century was the forest visited by pleasure 

 seekers. Thoreau wrote much about the forests and their ways 

 and was bitter against their destruction. Other writers took up 

 the part of the forest in a more or less sentimental way, and this 

 gave rise to the woodman-spare-that-tree type of conservationist 

 who was long the laughing stock of the lumberman, and with 

 whom the forester was at first confused to the detriment of the 

 forestry cause. After the railroads had reached into Maine and 

 New Hampshire, big hotels were built which were more or less 

 dependent on the forest for their patronage, and during the last 

 generation most of the large forested watercourses have become 



