forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a
great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted.
The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning it
seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens
of the globe. To prepare the ground, it was rolled and sifted in
seas with infinite loving deliberation and fore-thought, lifted
into the light, submerged and warmed over and over again,
pressed and crumpled into folds and ridges, mountains, and
hills, subsoiled with heaving volcanic fires, ploughed and
ground and sculptured into scenery and soil with glaciers and
rivers,--every feature growing and changing from beauty to
beauty, higher and higher. And in the fullness of time it was
planted in groves, and belts, and broad, exuberant, mantling
forests, with the largest, most varied, most fruitful, and most
beautiful trees in the world. Bright seas made its border, with
wave embroidery and icebergs; gray deserts were outspread in the
middle of it, mossy tundras on the