Canadian Forestry Journal, August, ipij. 



171 



The Children's Excuses. 



They replied that they had been 

 so busy at the front of the estate 

 that they really did had not taken 

 time to find how large it was, or 

 how much was woodland, pasture- 

 land and farmland. They always 

 supposed there was plenty and so 

 they did not bother. Latterly, how- 

 ever, they ha-d begun to wish they 

 had done so for the previous spring, 

 when they tried to make a new 

 wheat field in the place where the 

 nearest woodland used to be, they 

 found it was just a mass of sand 

 which would grow nothing, that is 

 nothing but trees. And all the trees 

 had been burned off by a fire started 

 to clear out a corner of the back 

 pasture. They might have stopped 

 the fire but as they thought it would 

 clear the land they let it run. Now 

 the trees were all gone from that 

 part and the soil was fit for nothing. 



'T noticed," said the godmother, 

 "that the mill dam above the mill is 

 broken and that you run the mills 

 with steam instead of water. How 

 is that?" 



The Abandoned Mill Dam. 



"When we burned off the wood- 

 land and there had been more fires 

 in the forest land back of that." they 

 said, "we found the little river that 

 ran the mill rose in a torrent every 

 spring and thep dried away to a rill 

 all the rest of the year, so that we 

 had great difficulty in running the 

 mill. Then one spring the flood was 

 so great that it carried away the 

 mill-dam. So we thought it better 

 to put in a steam engine and not re- 

 pair the water-power." 



"And do you burn wood to make 

 steam?" 



"No. Wood has to be brought too 

 far, so we burn coal, which we bring 

 in from the next country." 



"I noticed too," she continued. 

 *'that high winds and insects seem 

 to have destroyed a great part of 

 the crops. It was not so in the old 

 days." 



"You see." they replied, "since the 



forest was cleared away there has 

 been nothing to stop the high winds. 

 Thus the grain is blown down, and 

 the fruit is blown from the trees, 

 and also there is no longer cover for 

 the bird that used to eat the bad in- 

 sects and now they every year take 

 a good part of our crop. We have 

 tried to induce the birds to come 

 back but they fly away to make their 

 nests in distant forests." 



"Where is Andrew?" asked their 

 godmother suddenly for she had 

 been carefully counting all the chil- 

 dren. 



"Andrew," they said, "is a lumber- 

 man now and since we burned the 

 forest behind the back pasture it 

 takes him two years to get his logs 

 to the mill. One year he cuts them 

 and gets them into the upper streams 

 and it takes all the next season ta 

 float them down the river to the 

 mill. This is the year he is away 

 from home." 



"And did you never," asked the 

 good godmother, "try to find out 

 whether there was farm land near 

 the forest where Andrew cuts his 

 timber, or how much timberland 

 there is on the farm?" 



Then Came the "Stranger." 



"A stranger walked over the 

 place once," they replied and he said 

 that more than half the farm was fit 

 only to grow trees. We did not be- 

 lieve him but since the near wood- 

 land w?? burned we think there is 

 something in what he said." 



"Is timber so useless that you are 

 ashamed that more than half the 

 farm will grow nothing else?" 



"On the contrary." they said, "the 

 timber is very valuable and grows 

 more valuable every year. Next ta 

 our crops and cattle the forest is the 

 best paying part of the estate. Since 

 we learned that we have wished the 

 fires had not burned so much." 



"What trades and professions did 

 your children take up?" was the 

 next question. 



"Alexander is a farmer; Benja- 

 min, is a blacksmith; Charles is a 



