Semi-weekly herald., 1911-01-26
LIFE OR DEATH7
~ BY John Davey)
A4h sse, 1910.

MS s sAan we are In one of the
mode efh25ss touring the globe.
We haveVS6.0A heautiful forests OF
the contineIis and of Great
Britain. With~ ny we view
the marvellous coizt the noun
tains and hills OF Ne England; the
Palisades" of the Hudson fill us with
amazement! At sight of the Catskill
mountains we stand in awe and learn
how little We are, Before the broad
expense OF New York. and the mon
archs of those forests. we uncover our
headsl Onward we go, down the Sus.
quehanna, up the Juniatta, over the
Alleghenies-ablaze with thu glory OF
the rhododendron and mountain laurel
amid and beneath the deciduous trees
and shrubs. Across the broad, un.
ulating expanse of what is now known
as Ohio, Kentuck and Indiana we now
sail. almost breathless at the thought
of no figures to describe the numbers
of arboreal monarchs! Northerly we
swing over the great pineries of Mich
! igan, Wisconsin and Minnesota, and
we exclaim: Here the trees are in
Vulnerable; lumber that is utterly in.
exhaustible!"
We take our flight to the gulf states
and, behold: pineries without end!
To the west we speed our way, and
as we gaze upon the great redwoods
of the Pacific slope and try to con
template the majesty of the trees that
crown the hills and glorify these val
leys, we find our souls lost in wonder,
love and praise of Him who has mani
tested Himself to us all in these-His
wondrous~ Everywhere, on our
charming trip, the woodland resound
ed with the notes of untold millions
of joyous songsters. In all the rivers
lakes, bays and brooklets, fishes gam
boiled in number of which the mind is
incapable of computing, and forest and
plain were alive with the merry hum
of the wild bee. This is life. But,
hushi horror!
Two hundred years have elapsed
Here we are at Augusta. Me. Now for
another western trip. IAN aboard"
over the mountains once graced by
the beauteous hues. of pine, spruce,
hemlock, etc, are seen only bare rocks
and stumps Of the trees of long ago
The hills, valleys and plains of the
eastern and middle states have been
stripped of their forests, the trees shin
ped aboard, floated away In the
streams, burned up! The lands have
been plundered. exhausted, robbed
The pineries of the north are gone;
those of the south will have disappear
ed In twenty years, and those of the
great Pacific coast in fifty years, SO
say conservative, thoughtful men. The
spongy floor of the sloping forest
which once received and held the wa
ter and fed the springs, are now bare
and hard and, like the roof of house,
pitches the water into the hollowsi
washing the humus and best soil be
fore it to the river, and from the river
streams which once graced the ma
tive forests and in which sported and
played the fishes so well remembered
by the pioneers, no water flows but
are gravel beds in summer-and the
highway of the torrental floods in
thunderstorms, to destroy the banks,
sweep away the crops of valleys, and
inundate towns once considered high
and dry.
The main rivers are being poisoned
by acids or filth from the factories"
We have entered the bowels OF the
earth and extracted the coal. the gas
and ores. Man has plundered the sur
face of the earth, but replaced moth.
ing! 1t looks as II the powers of
hell had been let loose to send hither
the hordes of all nations to cut down,
destroy, burn up and annihilate every
thing on the surface, and under the
surface OF that once beautiful land ly'
the Atlantic and the peaceful surface
of the Pacific.
With such proceedings, the exhaust
ed land will soon fail to respond to
the hand Of toll; soon there will be
neither fish nor game. Trees are the
most noble creatures on this mum
dane sphere. They are absolutely "in'
dependent" They plunge their roots
down among the inanimate materials
slowly dissolve the rocks and min
erals and carry this to the factories
(the leaves) where 1t is converted into
the substance with which 1t builds
itself. Oh, wondrous benefactors! But
we, about whom we prate and preach
and pray, murder some other creature
and appropriate its life, to build our
own carcass and construct our diminu-