e man or Indian, but civilized man.
Although man has more need for forest trees than has any other animal,
he is at the same time more ruthless in his treatment of them. Man
destroys more trees every year, as a result of fires which he sets and
of his wasteful methods of lumbering, than all the other enemies of the
trees put together.

The forest area of the world is constantly growing smaller, and we must
soon learn to treat the trees with more care or they may, like many of
the wild creatures, nearly disappear from parts of the earth where they
are most needed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

HOW THE FORESTS ARE WASTED

O forest home in which the songbirds dwell!
The squirrel and the stag shall miss the spell
Of thy cool depths when summer's sun assails,
Nor more find shelter in thy shadowed vales.

* * * * *

All will be silent; echo will be dead;
A field will lie where shifting shadows fled
Across the ground. The mattock and the plow
Will take the place of Pan and Satyr now.
The timid deer, the spotted fawns at play,
From thy retreats will all be driven away.

Farewell, old forest; sacred crowns, farewell!
Revered in letters and in art as well;
Thy place becomes the scorn of every one,
Doomed now to burn beneath the summer sun.
All cry out insults as they pass thee by,
Upon the men who caused thee thus to die!

Farewell, old oaks that once were wont to crown
Our deeds of valor and of great renown!
O trees of Jupiter, Dordona's grove,
How ingrate man repays thy treasure trove
That first gave food that humankind might eat,
And furnished shelter from the storm and heat.

PIERRE DE RONSARD, translated by BRISTOW ADAMS; _American Forestry_,
XVI. 244

When our grandfathers came to America they found the country so covered
with forests that they had to cut and burn the trees in order to obtain
the ground on which to raise their crops. The Eastern states could not
have been settled without clearing the land, and we cannot blame the
pioneers for doing under those circumstances that which today would be
very wrong.

[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
The farmer wastes the trees by girdling them and then allowing them to
rot.]

There is now enough land so that it is no longer necessary to destroy
the trees in order to raise our food supplies. The forests constitute
one of the great natural resources of our country and men should n