SPARE THE TREES 



years if not always. Some swamps at 

 great expense may be brought into till- 

 age and meadow, but nine times out of 

 ten, when cleared of the lusty growth of 

 woods, they bear nothing but wild grass, 

 and the streams that trickled from them 

 all the summer long in their days of wild- 

 ness show in August only the parched 

 trail of the spring course. 



Our natives have inherited their an- 

 cestors' hatred of trees, which to them 

 were only cumberers of the ground, to 

 be got rid of by the speediest means ; 

 and our foreign-born landholders, being 

 unused to so much woodland, think there 

 can be no end to it, let them slash away 

 as they will. 



Ledges and steep slopes that can bear 

 nothing but wood to any profit, are shorn 

 of their last tree, and the margins of 

 streams to the very edge robbed of the 

 willows and water-maples that shaded 

 the water and with their roots protected 

 the banks from washing. Who has not 

 known a little alder swamp, in which he 

 was sure to find a dozen woodcock, when 

 he visited it on the first day of the sea- 

 son each year ? Some year the first day 

 282 



