CHAPTER FIVE 



THE LAND OF THE POOR PEOPLE 



My squandered forests, hacked and hewed, 



Are gone ; my rivers fail ; 

 My stricken hillsides, stark and nude, 



Stand shivering in the gale. 

 Down to the sea my teeming soil 



In yellow torrents goes ; 

 The guerdon of the farmer's toil 



With each year lesser grows. 



Robert M. Reese, The Spendthrift; quoted in 

 American Forestry, XIV. 269 



This is the story of a land of plenty that became almost 

 a desert. Long ago there dwelt in this land a people wise 

 in all the things that concerned their home. Through many 

 hard years of toil and struggle they had learned to take the 

 very best care of what Nature had given them. Although 

 Nature seemed to them to be wasteful, she punished waste 

 in her children. As long as they obeyed, they had comfort- 

 able homes, fertile fields, and sleek herds. 



The country of which we are speaking was very beauti- 

 ful. There were lofty mountains and broad, fertile valleys. 

 Many streams, fed by clear, cool springs, flowed through 

 the land. There were also green meadows and deep, dark 

 forests. 



The forests contained many wild animals, for in the for- 

 ests the animals found both food and protection. Birds 

 of every sort abounded, and their music filled the air. Trees 

 overhung the streams, shading them from the hot sun, so 

 that they did not dry up in the summer. The springs never 

 failed, for the carpet of leaves and decaying vegetation 

 underneath the trees of the forests held much of the rain- 



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