258 North American Forests and Forestry 



attempted to make clear that the forest was a com- 

 plicated organism in which every part sustained 

 definite relations to every other part, a natural 

 community, which had its history, its internal strug- 

 gles and outward battles, like the communities of 

 men. To trace the processes of this organic life, 

 to learn its determining factors, and discover the 

 causal connections of the multitude of phenomena, 

 is the first duty and one of the most important of 

 the forester. It is a task full of difficulty but also 

 of charm, a task to which only the deep and wide 

 knowledge, the quick observation, the patient care 

 of the trained intellect is equal, but which bears in 

 itself its greatest reward. 



Next we proceeded to show how the life of the 

 white man on American soil was from the first de- 

 termined in no small degree by the existence of the 

 forest. To that ever-present fact the whole life of 

 the nascent American people had to accommodate 

 itself. We had to resist the temptation to dwell 

 too long on the heroic age of American history', 

 which in the dark shades of the eastern forest un- 

 rolled the spectacle of civilized man being thrown 

 back on primeval conditions, having to fight for his 

 life with the uncontrolled forces of nature, while 

 struggling for mastery against the red Indian, the 

 Frenchman, and the Spaniard. Upon the age of 

 the backwoodsman and the fur-trader followed the 

 age of the lumberman. While in the preceding 

 period the small host of white invaders came under 

 the influence of the forest in which they dwelt so 



