SPARE THE TREES 



comes and he seeks it as usual, to find 

 its place marked only by brush heaps, 

 stubs, and sedges ; and for the brook 

 that wimpled through it in the days of 

 yore, only stagnant pools. The worst of 

 it is, the owners can seldom give any 

 reason for this slaughter but that their 

 victims were trees and bushes. 



The Yankee, with his proverbial thrift- 

 mess and forecast, appears entirely to 

 lose these gifts when it comes to the 

 proper and sensible management of 

 woodlands. Can he not understand that 

 it is more profitable to keep a lean or 

 thin soil that will grow nothing well but 

 wood, growing wood instead of worthless 

 weeds ? The crop is one which is slow 

 in coming to the harvest, but it is a sure 

 one, and is every year becoming a more 

 valuable one. It breaks the fierceness 

 of the winds, and keeps the springs from 

 drying up, and is a comfort to the eye, 

 whether in the greenness of the leaf or 

 the barrenness of the bough, and under 

 its protecting arms live and breed the 

 grouse, the quail and the hare, and in its 

 shadowed rills swim the trout. 

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