CHESUNCOOK. 
155 
sand to fill hollows with, being apparently cheaper than 
dirt. 
I got my first clear view of Ktaadn, on this excursion, 
from a hill about two miles northwest of Bangor, whither 
I went for this purpose. After this I was ready to re¬ 
turn to Massachusetts. • 
Humboldt has written an interesting chapter on the 
primitive forest, but no one has yet described for me the 
difference between that wild forest which once occupied 
our oldest townships, and the tame one which I find there 
to-day. It is a difference which would be worth attend¬ 
ing to. The civilized man not only clears the land per¬ 
manently to a great extent, and cultivates open fields, 
but he tames and cultivates to a certain extent the forest 
itself. By his mere presence, almost, he changes the 
nature of the trees as no other creature does. The sun 
and air, and perhaps fire, have been introduced, and grain 
raised where it stands. It has lost its wild, damp, and 
shaggy look, the countless fallen and decaying trees are 
gone, and consequently that thick coat of moss which 
lived on them is gone too. The earth is comparatively 
bare and smooth and dry. The most primitive places 
left with us are the swamps, where the spruce still grows 
shaggy with usnea. The surface of the ground in the 
Maine woods is everywhere spongy and saturated with 
moisture. I noticed that the plants which cover the for¬ 
est floor there are such as are commonly confined to 
swamps with us,—the Clintonia borealis , orchises, creep¬ 
ing snowberry, and others; and the prevailing aster 
there is the Aster acuminatus , which with us grows in 
damp and shady woods. The asters cordifolius and 
macrophyllus also are common, asters of little or no 
