THE LITTLE TOWN ON THE HILL 183 



we are already a little enlightened, and as I tramp our 

 hills and see the young spruce creeping back; as I note 

 some patriarch pine spared by a miracle and bravely 

 setting to work, with the aid of the wind and a near-by 

 cleared field, to reforest the land with its seedlings, I 

 often wonder if that is not the solution of our hill-town 

 problem. We need the lumber, in all conscience, and 

 as state forests the areas of these hill townships could 

 be vastly more productive economically than they are 

 to-day; they could, in many cases if not in most, give 

 profitable employment to as many, if not more men 

 than are at present registered on the voting lists; and, 

 finally, there would be thus created; out of what to-day 

 amounts to waste land, great public parks and game 

 preserves which could be opened for vacation play- 

 grounds, as the national forests of the West are opened. 

 The hilltop villages need not die; indeed, they would 

 not die. They would be at the heart of the forest life, 

 human centres in the busy wilderness, and each in 

 time, no doubt, as trails were laid out and forest vaca- 

 tion tramps or horseback trips became popular, would 

 boast its inn, high above the plains, in true mountain 

 air scented by spruce and hemlock and the fragrant 

 odour of newly cut pine. Germany has (or had) its 

 Black Forest a national resource and a national 

 playground. Our western Massachusetts hill country 

 is neither a resource to-day nor even a playground, 

 save in a few scattered cases. It might so easily be 



