THE ATLANTIC FOREST REGION 371 



II 



The natural condition of eastern North America is that of a forest- 

 covered land. Wherever the primeval woodland has been cleared there 

 springs up, unless thwarted by persistent tillage, a sturdy "second 

 growth " which in time, and if allowed to spread, would restore the 

 face of the country to something of its former appearance. We 

 are familiar enough with such tracts, abandoned by men as unprofitable 

 for cultivation and left to the genial influence of birds and winds and 

 the chemistry of humus soils — nature's way of getting back to original 

 conditions. These delectable places are the "woods," scattered in 

 patches of greater or less extent throughout the farming districts, cov- 

 ering the slopes of hills and the windings of valley streams — places of 

 little value in the economic eye save for a few cords of firewood or as a 

 trifling source of timber, but rich withal in youthful associations. 



The primitive Atlantic forest was, for a space of three hundred 

 years after the discovery, a dominant feature in the history of the 

 country. For a long period its impenetrable solitudes limited the 

 spread of settlement to a narrow seaboard margin; only the more in- 

 trepid of the newcomers plunged into its depths to meet with strange 

 adventures. The valleys of the larger rivers formed natural highways 

 into the interior of this forest region and the broad tracts of rich 

 bottom-land gradually became, in favorable situations, the sites of 

 settlement, widely scattered at first, but advancing farther and farther 

 inland as population increased. 



It is hard for us, dwelling in the long-settled land, to appreciate 

 the attitude of the early colonists toward the forest. Fear mingled 

 with curiosity was undoubtedly the chief state of mind of the first 

 comers. Clearing the land had a twofold purpose — for planting 

 (" plantation " was the word used in all early writings concerning the 

 colonies) and to satisfy a feeling of domesticity that was ingrained 

 in the European mind — an inherited instinct to civilize. To these 

 people the forest was a dreadful reality (some early writers speak of 

 it as a "Desert"), full of unknown terrors, and, especially to the 

 Puritan and Jesuit, a haunt of the Powers of Darkness. On the 

 whole the French settlers took more kindly to the forest than did the 

 Anglo-Saxon peoples, who from the outset evinced a ruthless determina- 

 tion to clear the land. The ancient wood steadily receded, slowly at 

 first, then rapidly as the planted country widened its borders, forest 

 everywhere giving way to field, and with it vanished much that was 

 aboriginal. 



Ill 



" Pine-tree State " and " Pine-tree Shilling " were terms of no 

 empty meaning in the region where they originated. In northern 

 New England the white pine is still the most characteristic tree over 

 wide areas of unimproved land, and a well-defined " pine belt " reaches 



