ime. The swamps, indeed, became known
as shingle mines, and it was a good description of them. An important
trade was developed in hogshead staves, hoops, shingles, boards, and
planks, much of which went into the West Indian trade to be exchanged
for rum, sugar, molasses, and negroes. *

* Between the years 1740 and '50, the Cedar Swamps of the county
[Cape May] were mostly located; and the amount of lumber since taken
from them is incalculable, not only as an article of trade, but to
supply the home demand for fencing and building material in the county.
Large portions of these swamps have been worked a second and some a
third time, since located. At the present time [1857] there is not an
acre of original growth of swamp standing, having all passed away
before the resistless sway of the speculator or the consumer. "Beesley's
"Sketch of Cape May" p. 197.

The great forest has long since been lumbered to death. The pines were
worked for tar, pitch, resin, and turpentine until for lack of material
the industry passed southward through the Carolinas to Florida,
exhausting the trees as it went. The Christmas demand for holly has
almost stripped the Jersey woods of these trees once so numerous.
Destructive fires and frequent cutting keep the pine and oak lands
stunted. Thousands of dollars' worth of cedar springing up in the swamps
are sometimes destroyed in a day. But efforts to control the fires so
destructive not only to this standing timber but to the fertility of
the soil, and attempts to reforest this country not only for the sake
of timber but as an attraction to those who resort there in search of
health or natural beauty, have not been vigorously pushed. The great
forest has now, to be sure, been partially cultivated in spots, and the
sand used for large glass-making industries. Small fruits and grapes
flourish in some places. At the northern end of this forest tract the
health resort known as Lakewood was established to take advantage of the
pine air. A little to the southward is the secluded Brown's Mills, once
so appealing to lovers of the simple life. Checked on the east by the
great forest, the West Jersey Quakers spread southward from Salem until
they came to the Cohansey, a large and beautiful stream flowing out of
the forest and wandering through green meadows and marshes to the bay.
So numerous were the wild geese along its shores and along the Maurice
River farther south that the first settlers a