ething more than lumber
ranches, to be despoiled by the axe, and finally revert to the State
for "taxes" in the shape of bare and desolate wastes. Nor can the most
practical legislator charge those, who wish to preserve the Adirondack
woods, with idle sentiment; as it is now an established scientific
fact that the rainfall of a country is largely dependent upon its
forest land. If the water supply of the north were cut off, to any
perceptible degree, the Hudson, during the months of July and August,
would be a mere sluice of salt water from New York to Albany; and the
northern canals, dependent on this supply, would become empty and
useless ditches. Our age is intensely practical, but we are fortunate
in this, that so far as the preservation of the Adirondacks is
concerned, utility, common sense, and the appreciation of the
beautiful are inseparably blended.

* * *

Wild umbrage far around me clings
To breezy knoll and hushed ravine,
And o'er each rocky headland flings
Its mantle of refreshing green.

_Henry T. Tuckerman_.

* * *

To those persons who do not desire long mountain jaunts, who simply
need some quiet place for rest and recuperation, I would suggest this:
Select some place near the base of these clustered mountains, like the
tasty Adirondack Lodge at Clear Pond, only seven miles from the summit
of Tahawas, or Beede's pleasant hotel, high and dry above Keene Flats,
near to the Ausable Ponds, or some pleasant hotel or quiet farm-house
in the more open country near Lake Placid and the Saranacs. But
I prophesy that the spirit of adventure will come with increased
strength, and men and women alike will be found wandering off on
long excursions, sitting about great camp-fires, ay, listening like
children to tales which have not gathered truth with age. If you have
control of your time you will find no pleasanter months than July,
August and September, and when you return to your firesides with
new vigor to fight the battle of life, you will feel, I think, like
thanking the writer for having advised you to go thither.

* * *

To shut up a glen or a waterfall for one man's exclusive
enjoying; to fence out a genial eye from any
corner of the earth which nature has lovingly touched;
to lock up trees and glades shady paths and haunts
along rivulets, would be an embezzlement by one man
of God's gifts to all.

_N. P. Willis._

* * *