CONSEQUENCES OF FOREST DESTRUCTION. 7 
Congress the importance of saving our forests. Failing 
in this, he begged the government to at least reserve 
tracts of woodland around the head-waters of the prin- 
cipal streams, as a means of preventing their diminu- 
tion. The wise doctor was poohed at, and thought a 
little cracked. Well, some of the streams he proposed to 
save are almost valueless, and in a half-century more will 
be entirely useless for purposes of navigation. Probably 
the doctor did not anticipate that the time would come 
when these reserves would become important as a source 
of timber supply ; and if he had proposed such a thing 
he would have been laughed at outright. It is needless 
to say that Congress disregarded Dr. Drake’s advice, and 
to-day the children of the very men who poohed at 
the doctor are suffering for the follies of their fathers. 
Maine, New York, and Pennsylvania are practically 
ruined as timber states, and their streams are gradually 
drying up. In twenty-five years more the Northwestern 
States will be as bad, or even worse off for timber than 
the Eastern States are, and in twenty-five years more the 
timber famine in the United States will begin. Good, 
say the Congressmen and timber vandals of to-day, we 
shall be dead by that time, and why should we. care 
what happens then? Americans owe more than any 
other people on earth to the toils, sacrifices, and fore- 
thought of their forefathers, and it is their duty—every 
man’s duty—to transmit the inheritance they received 
from them to their descendants unimpaired by waste or 
neglect. Says Bryant: “The length of time required for 
the growth of timber from the seed to maturity shows 
conclusively that it was never destined in the order of 
nature for the exclusive use of a single generation.” 
Nor is this all. The man who wantonly destroys that 
which he cannot reproduce in his lifetime is not only 
a coward and a fool, but he commits a flagrant crime 
against nature and nature’s God. I never see a man 
cutting down a fine tree but I feel like crying out, 
