Once the appreciation of nature was largely a leisure pursuit, devoted to the sheer enjoyment of nature's beauty.
Circumstances now call for a different sort of appreciation.
Because of the ever growing burdens we have so long placed upon the environment in terms of altering habitats, the extraction of natural resources, and the ravages of pollution and land abuse, we are forced to understand our world biosphere on a grand scale so that it may continue to sustain the abundance of life. To reach this understanding, we must look beyond the beauty of nature and carefully investigate the complex and delicate mechanisms which combine to form forests, streams, deserts, oceans, and prairies. The purpose of this brochure is to provide a sense of nature's complexity as represented by a nine-thousand acre area of rolling woodlands located within the Angelina National Forest of East Texas. In illustrating nature's complexity, it is impossible not to expose the thread of beauty which runs throughout all of nature's systems. This beauty can be in terpreted simply as the deep enjoyment one feels watching the leaping flag of a white-tailed deer bounding through the woods, or listening to a moonlit serenade produced by a symphony of tree frogs, crickets, and owls on a warm summer evening.