Republican news item. [volume] (Laport, Pa.) 1896-19??, 1902-09-18
Forestry as it Effects Ea.!les Mere Es-
pecially and Sullivan County Generally.

The Lake at this place is beyond
question its principal drawing card.
No one believes for a moment that
its popularity would continue if the
Lake would spring leak in the bot
tom and so the water disappear.
That this contingency might happen
in the course of few hundred years
is discussed with considerable equan-
unity nor has the discussion per-
ceptably reduced the price of build
ing lots nor delayed the march of
Improvement.
Tie other proposition that Eagles
Mere would lose very large share
of i'll attractivcness if it was sur
rounded with cultivated fields or
burnt over barrenS is Il proposition
much nearer possibility to the pres
rnt gene ration in the latter contin-
yrncy. When thick clouds of black
smoke rolled up in the west and
were carried by the winds over the
village, pretty clearly indicating the
path of the fire if it gained serious
headway, the more thoughtful of
our people looked grave and began
to figure on how the fight could be
maintained if the contest with the
fire tiend should come on. Twenty
four to forty-eight hours would be
quite sufficient to end the story so
that it would never be heard again
except as we now talk of Pelee, Sou
friere and Martinique.
We wonder ut the people of the
doomed island not taking thought
enough to anticipate the horror even
when it was at their doors. Are we
any more prudent than they? Our
prevailing winds are from the west
and the tinder box is there all ready
for some reckless or wicked human
being to touch it off. This is not
the only section of the country in
which these conditions exist, and
are to continue for some years, and
it has no thought or consideration
either from business men, county
officials or any one else. We are all
simply taking the chances. Mean
while all the Forestry science and
investments of the state are going to
other localities. Neither of the po-
litical parties gives it thought enough
to put it into their platforms as a
plank that any Legislator or Senator
either state or national, that gets the
vote of Sullivan county shall pledge
himself to see that we shall receive
the active consideration of that De-
partment. A grand Forest Reserve
is to be created and Il State School of
Forestry instituted in the counties
close along the southern boundary of
the state where no streams head that
either water or destroy any part of
Pennsylvania, while our region that
sends every drop of its water into
the great water highway of the state,
the Susquehanna River, receives no
consideration whatever.
Has any voter in the county ever
heard of any man elected to the State
Legislature or to either house of
Congress ever doing anything for
Sullivan County? With the wealth
of the county being carried away
year after year, with constantly
increasing county debt, we are ne
glecting the riches that the Creator
offers us in the rugged mountains
that have once been stripped of the
glorious garments that it has taken
centuries to produce and that would
give us a never ceasing tide of busi-
ness and income in the thousands of
seekers after health and pleasure
that would come to us if we will
only do our share towards perpetu-
ating and protecting this source of
wealth. Perhaps it sounds little
foolish to so designate the thousands
of acres of wilderness that have been
left behind by the Tannery and the
Sawmill but nature is kind and
seems to hurry to heal up the wounds
that civilization has made.
Why not make it imperative that
no officer either National, State or
County shall get our votes that will
not, both in pledge and action, urge
on and sustain continued effort in
measures that shall turn all the
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