A COMPARATIVELY untouched phase of the question of forest destruction is brought out in a book called "North American Forests and Forestry," by Ernest Bruncken, a prominent western forester. The author incidentally discusses the part which our forests have had in shaping American character and our national history. This phase of the matter is interesting both as a historical study and as a suggestion of the moral as well as economic loss which must come with the denudation of our forest areas.

All thinking Americans know that the forests are an important factor in our commercial life, and Mr. Bruncken makes an impressive statement of the way in which the lumber industry permeates all the nation's activities. But the part played by the vast primeval forests in creating American character is not so generally realized. From the earliest colonial times the forests have had a moral and political effect in shaping our history. In the seventeenth century England was dependent upon Norway and the Baltic provinces for its timber for ships. This was in various ways disadvantageous for England, so the American colonists were encouraged with bounties to cut ship timbers, masts and other lumber for European export. This trade, however, was found to be unprofitable on account of the long ocean voyage, so the American lumbermen began to develop a profitable market in the West Indies. This was straightway interdicted by the short-sighted British government, and the bitter and violent opposition of the colonists against this tyrannical policy ceased only with the end of British dominion.

From that time to the present the forests of America have exercised a most important influence upon the nation, especially in creating the self-reliance which is the chief trait of the American character. The trappers, hunters, explorers and backwoods settlers who went forth alone into the dense forests received a schooling such as nothing else could give. As the forest closed behind the settler he knew his future and that of his family must henceforth depend upon himself, his ax, his rifle, and the few simple utensils he had brought with him. It was a school that did not teach the graces, but it made men past masters in courage, pertinacity, and resourcefulness. It bred a new, simple, and forceful type of man. Out of the midst of that backwoods life came Abraham Lincoln, the greatest example of American statesmanship the nation has produced. In him was embodied all the inherent greatness of his early wilderness surroundings, with scarcely a trace of its coarser characteristics.

As Mr. Bruncken says, mere remembrance of what the forests have given us in the past should be enough to inspire a wish to preserve them as long as possible, to stop wanton waste by forest fires, and even to repair our losses by planting new forests, as they do in Europe. The time has gone when the silence and dangers of the forest were our chief molders of sturdy character, but it is undeniable that the pioneer blood that still runs so richly in American veins has much to do with causing the idea of Philippine expansion to appeal so powerfully to the popular imagination. The prophets who see in the expansion idea the downfall of the nation forget that the same spirit subdued the American wilderness and created the freest government and some of the finest specimens of manhood the world has ever seen.