American Fori;st Congress 23 



to improve or impair them, to kill them or to make 

 them live. As to which of these fates is in store for 

 American forests your presence here supplies a suf- 

 ficient answer. 



But is there need to do anything, or have we plenty 

 of time to think of it? The country is immense, its 

 resources prodigious. The nation is a young one; 

 should not something be allowed to youth ? Certainly, 

 anything, except what might maim and cramp a splen- 

 did future. 



That something is allowed, especially in the matter 

 of forests, cannot be doubted. One of the first things 

 which struck me, coming over to America, was how 

 much was allowed. Going north, west or south, sights 

 of the same sort met my eyes and my French eyes 

 opened with surprise. Going to Saint Louis last year, 

 I noticed large spaces where big trees had been cut, 

 the stumps remaining as high as a man's shoulder. So 

 much wood lost, I thought; so much land untillable 

 because of those stumps remaining in place ! Coming 

 from Canada on another occasion the train was fol- 

 lowing a succession of what should have been beautiful 

 valleys. But they were valleys of the shadow of death. 

 The view was saddened by the corpses of innumerable 

 trees which had been cut, for what cause I do not 

 know; was it for their bark, or for something else? 

 I could not surmise. But the fact was that they were 

 there, crumbling to pieces, rotten and unavailable, 

 spoiling the landscape, and making the soil useless by 

 their thousands of dead bodies. Going to Louisiana, 

 in another case, my heart bled truly at seeing the blue 

 sky blackened by the smoke of forests in flames. This 

 terrible mode of clearing the ground seems to be still 

 in use; and I noticed places where the fire, being not 

 violent enough, had not cleared the ground, but had 



