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A Brief History 



Trees give peace to the souls of men — Nora Wain, Reaching For The Stars, 7939. 



TO SEEK LONE PLACES for purposes of meditation or diversion is for the 

 most part a civilized idea. The idea does not generally occur to most people 

 of races and nations in the primitive stages of their development, and the 

 idealistic religious significance which many tribes and races have attached to 

 trees does not as a rule attend the very first struggling stages of human 

 history. 



Only when life has become more settled, more complex, more ritualized; 

 only as civilizations ripen do we find record of Confucius writing of China's 

 spiritual commentaries in the friendly solitude of sacred groves of trees, or of 

 Una guarding the woods of the Pharaohs and finding solace there. 



Primitive man was as much a part of the forest as the trees and grass and 

 wild animals. He fought the wolf and bear for his life. He captured game 

 and fish that he might live. From the trees he wrested shelter and fuel. Storms, 

 flood, and fire threatened his life. He lived precariously in the forest because 

 he had to. 



To medieval and to early modern men of the western world, even after 

 cities had grown great, the forest was still an unfriendly, threatening back- 

 ground, an enemy. Deep woods were something to be ventured into, not 

 enjoyed. Outcasts from society fled to the forest and lived as part of it, as had 

 primitive man. On the wilderness early mankind depended for necessary 

 game, fish, and vegetable products. It was mainly a source of primitive sur- 

 vival to be conquered, not of civilized pleasure, to be conserved. 



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