I$2 LIBERTY AND A LIVING. 



every man, woman, and child. And about once 

 a year the papers contain articles warning the 

 people that our forests are disappearing, never 

 to grow again. This sort of talk is rather lost 

 upon any one who lives down on Long Island 

 anywhere beyond Babylon, for here there are 

 tracts of country where one can walk for miles 

 and miles without meeting a soul or seeing 

 a house, and yet covered with a growth of 

 excellent firewood, untouched almost from 

 generation to generation. Yet we are with- 

 in seventy-five miles of the greatest city on 

 the continent. If New York City should ever 

 take to wood fires, Long Island can grow 

 wood just as well as cabbages. Even now, 

 when our Long Island woods have been shame- 

 fully neglected for generations, no one ever 

 thinking of replanting a forest that has been 

 cut down or burned up, good firewood, of 

 pine or oak, can be bought for three dollars a 

 cord, cut and delivered. A cord of wood will 

 give a roaring blaze every night for a month. 

 If you cut the wood yourself, as I do, you can 

 have it almost for nothing. There may come 

 a time when wood will become scarce in this 

 neighborhood, but it will not be in my day or 



