of the proprietors; nay, I grieved when it
was cut down by the proprietors themselves. I would that our farmers
when they cut down a forest felt some of that awe which the old Romans
did when they came to thin, or let in the light to, a consecrated grove
(lucum conlucare), that is, would believe that it is sacred to some
god. The Roman made an expiatory offering, and prayed, Whatever god or
goddess thou art to whom this grove is sacred, be propitious to me, my
family, and children, etc.

It is remarkable what a value is still put upon wood even in this age
and in this new country, a value more permanent and universal than that
of gold. After all our discoveries and inventions no man will go by a
pile of wood. It is as precious to us as it was to our Saxon and Norman
ancestors. If they made their bows of it, we make our gun-stocks of it.
Michaux, more than thirty years ago, says that the price of wood for
fuel in New York and Philadelphia "nearly equals, and sometimes exceeds,
that of the best wood in Paris, though this immense capital annually
requires more than three hundred thousand cords, and is surrounded to
the distance of three hundred miles by cultivated plains." In this town
the price of wood rises almost steadily, and the only question is, how
much higher it is to be this year than it was the last. Mechanics and
tradesmen who come in person to the forest on no other errand, are sure
to attend the wood auction, and even pay a high price for the privilege
of gleaning after the woodchopper. It is now many years that men have
resorted to the forest for fuel and the materials of the arts: the New
Englander and the New Hollander, the Parisian and the Celt, the farmer
and Robin Hood, Goody Blake and Harry Gill; in most parts of the world
the prince and the peasant, the scholar and the savage, equally require
still a few sticks from the forest to warm them and cook their food.
Neither could I do without them.

Every man looks at his wood-pile with a kind of affection. I love to
have mine before my window, and the more chips the better to remind me
of my pleasing work. I had an old axe which nobody claimed, with which
by spells in winter days, on the sunny side of the house, I played about
the stumps which I had got out of my bean-field. As my driver prophesied
when I was plowing, they warmed me twice--once while I was splitting
them, and again when they were on the fire, so that no fuel could
give out more heat. As f