284 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



Poems are made by fools like me, 

 But only God can make a tree. 



This may be true, but we can considerably aid the 

 Deity, who, indeed, cannot make some trees at all 

 without assistance in germinating the seed. He 

 could not have continued to make the sugar-maple 

 at the corner of my house, even, if I had not dis- 

 covered and removed the borer which was beginning 

 to ring it. But, above all, we can assist by replant- 

 ing trees where some previous generation has re- 

 moved them, or by taking some thought of the 

 generations to come and planting arboreal delights 

 for eyes' unborn. America for a century has been a 

 land of the ruthless ax. We are paying the price 

 now in the cost of our lumber as well as the loss of 

 our landscape charm. Isn't it time to turn to the 

 spade and, for every tree we cut, plant another in 

 its place? I am beginning the spring by planting 

 five hundred. They are tiny things, and I shall 

 never live to see them reach maturity. But I like 

 to feel, as I set their roots in the earth, that I am 

 at least of some slight assistance to the Deity in 

 making the fairest of all His creations. 



