140 IRature Stucnee in Berkshire. 



mer. That is the way we are enriching ourselves. 

 We are paying dividends at the sawmill, and putting 

 mortgages on the farms. We are burying our fields 

 at the same time that we are destroying .our forests. 

 Nay, more, we are sapping the sources of the very 

 water-power which runs the sawmill which cuts up 

 the trees. 



There are factory towns in New Hampshire and 

 Massachusetts whose prosperity is seriously affected 

 by the lowness of the rivers and streams in midsum- 

 mer. The reason is to be found back upon the 

 mountainsides, where the fast-thinning ranks of the 

 forest-trees show why it is that the floods in April 

 and the droughts in August make such havoc with 

 the profits in the factory counting-rooms. It is be- 

 coming a very vital question to the American people 

 whether they will suffer themselves to be exposed 

 alike to drought and to flood through the reckless 

 robbery of the mountains and the pillage of the great 

 forests of the land. The time is coming when the 

 safety and the preservation of the lordly river which 

 debouches past New York to the sea will have to be 

 decided by the most vigilant care of the Adirondack 

 forests and the most unremitting warfare upon their 

 foes. Ignorance and greed always stand, axe in 

 hand, ready to transform the trees into logs, and coin 

 a dollar to-day, though it cost ten for damages 

 to-morrow. 



This fact about the trees teaches us a lesson which 

 is always timely. These bare crags where once were 



