ACADIA Man and Nature Sieur de Monts Publications VII

By JAMES BRYCE.

Extract from address delivered when ambassador to this country, urging the importance of creating national parks and forest reservations in the Eastern States before the opportunity was lost.

I have had experience in England in dealing with this question, having been for some years chairman of a society for preserving commons and open spaces and public rights of way, and having also served on the committee of another society for securing to the public places of national and historic interest. Thus I was led often to think of what is our duty to the future, and of the benefits which the preservation of places of natural beauty may confer on the community. That is a problem which presents itself not only in Great Britain but all over Europe, and now you in America are tending to become what Europe already is. Europe is now a populous, and in parts a crowded, continent; you, too, will some day be a populous, and ultimately, except in those regions which the want of rain condemns to sterility, a crowded continent; and it is well to take thought at once, before these days confront you, how you will deal with the difficulties which have met us in Europe. So that you may not find too late that the beauty, the freedom and primitive simplicity of nature have been snatched from you.

Giant Pine-trees in the north

Of all those pleasures the power to enjoy which has been implanted in us, the power of Nature is the very simplest and best. It is the most easily accessible; it is one which can never be perverted; it is one of which you cannot have too much; and it lasts from youth to age. Then, too, there are the literary associations which clothe many a wild or lovely spot with poetry. The farther a people recedes from barbarism, the more refined its tastes, the more gentle its manners, the less sordid its aims, so much the greater is its susceptibility to every form of beauty, so much the more do the charms of Nature appeal to it. Delight in them is a test of civilization.

Now, let us remember that the regions and spots calculated to give enjoyment in the highest form are limited, and are being constantly encroached upon.

Although you have set a wholesome example in creating the National Parks you have, there are still other places where National Parks are wanted. There is a splendid region in the Alleghenies, a region of beautiful forests, where the tulip trees lift their tall, smooth shaft and graceful heads one hundred and fifty feet or more into the air, a mountain land on the borders of North Carolina and East Tennessee, with romantic river valleys and hills clothed with luxuriant woods, primitive forests standing as they stood before the white man drove the Indians away, high lawns filled with flowers and traversed by sparkling brooks, containing everything to delight the heart of the lover of Nature. It would be a fine thing to have a tract of three or four hundred thousand acres set apart there for the benefit of the people of the South and Middle Atlantic States, for whom it is a far cry to the Rockies.

The path to Huguenot Head and a great ocean view; Sieur de Monts national park

Then there are the Northeastern States with their mountains and forests. No other part of Eastern America can compare with this for the varied charms of a wild and romantic nature. And as wealth increases in other parts of the country, as the gigantic cities of the Eastern States grow still vaster, as population thickens in the agricultural and manufacturing parts of Ohio and Pennsylvania, of Indiana and Illinois, the love of nature and the desire for health-giving recreation will draw more and more of the population of those cities and states to seek these spots where Nature shows at her loveliest. Do not suffer, therefore, any of the charms they offer to be lost by want of foresight now.

Save your woods, not only because they are one of your great natural resources but also because they are a source of beauty which once lost can never be recovered.

Preserve the purity of your streams and lakes, not merely for the sake of the angler but also for the sake of those who live on the banks, and of those who come to seek the freshness and delight of an unspoiled nature by the lake or river side.

Keep open the long ridges that lead up to the rocky summits of your mountains; let no man debar you from free access to their tops, or from enjoyment of the broad prospects they afford.

And keep wide woodland spaces open within the reach of cities, where those who seek quiet and the sense of communing with Nature can go and spend whole days enjoying one spot after another where Nature has provided her simple joys—mingled shade and sunlight falling on the long vistas of the forest, the ripple and murmur of a streamlet, the rustling of the leaves, and the birds singing among the branches. No better service can be rendered to the masses of the people than to preserve for their delight wide spaces of fine scenery.

We are trustees for the future; we are not here for ourselves alone. These gifts were not given to us to be used by a single generation, or with the thought of one generation only before our minds. We are the heirs of those who haye gone before and charged with the duty we owe to those who shall come after; and there is no duty which seems more clearly incumbent on us than handing on to others undiminished opportunities and facilities for the enjoyment of some of the best gifts that the Creator has bestowed upon his children.