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SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 
 
 VII 
 
 Man and Nature 
 
 ISSUED BY 
 
 THE WILD GARDENS OF ACADIA 
 BAR HARBOR, MAINE 
 
D. of D. 
 NOV 30 1917 
 
SIEUR DE MONTS PUBLICATIONS 
 
 VII 
 
 Man and Nature 
 
 George B. Doke 
 A paper tvritten in 1913. when plans now realized for the 
 cZtion of a national parh upon Mount Desert Island 
 were first brought forward. 
 
 The question of Public Eeservations is of paramount 
 i Jpo^tanee in the eastern portion of our country wl>ere 
 we have already got a dense population swiftly cieated 
 and swiftlv growing denser without apparent hmit. 
 
 Magnificent reservations have been created in the 
 West with wise prevision; nothing similar save the re- 
 l:t first establishment of -tional forests in the North^ 
 ern and the Southern Appalachians, has yet been 
 Undertaken in the Bast, with its far greater huraan need, 
 Us beautiful scenery, ready accessibility and perma- 
 
 "te'rit^intoTn^w phase of human life where 
 ine^I arrconVe/ating in vast multitncles "us^^^^^^^ 
 nm-Doses for trade and intercourse; the population oi 
 fhe futare must inevitably be many times the popula- 
 the t"Jiire m ^^^^ ^^ eonservmg now, 
 
 t;:?,etr isCtpleasant, wholesome Wliin.plac. 
 
 f .. ilnp^P oomma: mnltitudes is great. How gieai, y 
 
 "an wm rfficulty realize in our country yet so newty 
 
 occupied and in a period so new of growth and vast 
 
industrial change, but what sncli open spaces in the form 
 of commons have meant to England in the past, the long- 
 struggle to prevent their enclosure by the few shows 
 strikingly, and what is lost by tlieir absence in densely 
 peopled regions of China, where every rod of ground is 
 given u]3 to the material struggle for existence, the ac- 
 counts of all returning travellers tell. 
 
 But it is not a question of breathing-spaces and physi- 
 cal well-being only ; it goes far beyond that and is deeply 
 concerned with the inner life of men. With Nature in 
 lier beauty and freedom shut out fi-om so many lives in 
 these industrial and city-dwelling times, it is going to 
 become — has, indeed, become already — a matter of su- 
 preme importance to preserve in their openness, in their 
 unspoiled beauty and the charm of their wild life, their 
 native trees and j^lants, their birds and animals, the 
 places where the wealth or significance of these things 
 is greatest, the places where the influence of Nature will 
 be felt the most or where the life with which she has 
 peopled the world, and man or chance has not destroyed, 
 may be enjoyed and studied at its fullest. 
 
 The times are moving fast in the destruction of beau- 
 tiful and interesting things. The lost opportunit}^ 
 of one year becomes the bitter regret of thinking 
 people in a few years more. Valuable and inter- 
 esting species of birds, that were still familiar a genera- 
 tion since and that might have added to the delight or 
 wealth of the world forever, have now become extinct — 
 as hopeless of resurrection as if we had known them 
 only in fossil forms. Many a landscape and forest-land 
 that should have remained forever unspoilt and public 
 in the crowded eastern regions of the future has been 
 ruined needlessly or locked up in private ownership. 
 
 In nothing is conservation needed more than in saving 
 all that is economically possible of the pleasantness and 
 freedom of Nature in regions accessible, even by travel, 
 
Giant tulip trees: North Carolina, on 
 
 the left; Virginia, on the right 
 
to the vast, town-dwelling populations of the future; in 
 preserving- the features of scientific interest or land- 
 scape beauty that widen men's horizon or quicken their 
 imagination. City parks and playgrounds, valuable and 
 necessary as they are, cannot do this, nor can cultivated 
 fields and motor-traversed roads. The bold hilltops and 
 mountain-heights which the ancient Hebrews felt were 
 God-inhabited; the clear springs in Syria over which the 
 Greeks built temples through whose ruined stones the 
 cr,ystal water still comes gushing; the sacred groves of 
 Italy and Druid oaks of Northern Europe, tell a story 
 of the deep influence of such things upon the hearts and 
 lives of men, an influence we cannot afford to lose today 
 in our mechanism-shrunken modern world of immeas- 
 urably growing population. 
 
 By taking thought in season, little need be sacrificed 
 to secure incalculable benefits in Nature's wilder near-by 
 regions, in her grander landscapes that lie within the 
 reach of busy men; in refreshing forests, not too lim- 
 ited; in picturesque and open downs beside the sea; or 
 along the pleasant, wooded side of streams with unpol- 
 luted water. When coal becomes exhausted, water-power 
 or other form of energy will take its place, but nothing 
 will ever compensate for natural beauty permanently 
 ruined within the narrowing bounds of modern life. 
 
 Life will always be a compromise between conflicting 
 needs, but its needs are not material only. Man's future 
 is deeply concerned with recognition of its spiritual side, 
 and if there be anything in the world, next to the oppor- 
 tunity to gain the necessities of life, to meet disease or 
 find the means of education, that should be kept open to 
 right use by all, it is the wholesome freedom of Nature 
 and oi:)portunity for contact with her l)eauty and many- 
 sided interest in appropriate tracts. The day will ulti- 
 mately come when to provide such will be felt to be one of 
 the most essential duties of the state or greatest privileges 
 of wealthy citizens. For wiser and better gifts than 
 
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these, to be public heritages forever, it were hard to find. 
 Permanent as few others can be, they will only gain with 
 time, in beauty often and in richness of association 
 always. Changes in science or social organization, al- 
 tered standards of artistic interest or change in char- 
 itable method will not destroy their value. 
 
 There are landscapes and tracts of land which for their 
 beauty and exceptional interest — or their close relation 
 to important centers — should be inalienably public, for- 
 ever free to all. Our metropolitan parks and reserva- 
 tions are a first step in this direction, as are the national 
 parks out West, but with increasing private ownership 
 and rapidly increasing population, the movement is one 
 that will need to go far eventually. 
 
 The earth is our common heritage. It is both right and 
 needful that it should be kept widely free in the portions 
 that the homes of men, industry and agriculture do not 
 claim. Personal possession reaches out at widest but a 
 little wa}^, and passes quickly in the present day, gath- 
 ering about itself little of that greater charm which time 
 alone can give. If men of wealth would spend but a 
 fraction of what they do for themselves alone, with brief 
 result, in making the landscape about them beautiful for 
 the benefit of all in permanent and simple ways, the 
 result would be to give extraordinary interest — ^of a 
 steadily accumulative kind — to every residential section 
 of the laud; and it would tend, besides, to give all uu^i 
 living in or passing through it a sense of personal pos- 
 session in the landsca])e instead of injury at exclusion 
 from it, and to give them, too, a freedom of wandering 
 and a beauty by the way which do not lie within the reach 
 of anyone today. 
 
 And with such gifts would also go the pleasant sense 
 of sharing, of j^articipation in a wholesome joy which 
 each recurrent year would bring afresh. No monument 
 could be a better one to leave behind, no memorial pleas- 
 anter- — whether for one's self or others — than gifts like 
 
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these that make the earth a happier, a more interesting or 
 delightful place for other men to live upon. 
 
 That this movement must grow, no one who has thought 
 upon the matter can doubt — the movement for public 
 parks and open spaces, near or far, not as playgrounds 
 simply but as opportunities for Nature in her deep appeal 
 and various beauty to remain an influence in human 
 life; for places, too, where such features of wild life 
 as may coexist with man can be preserved, and where 
 plant life, whether in forest growths or the infinite detail 
 of flowering plants and lowly forms, may still continue a 
 source of health and happiness in man's environment. 
 
 The movement will grow, as all great movements do, 
 because a great truth — man's need for Nature ^ — ^ lies 
 behind it. The essentially important thing is to save 
 now what opportunity we can for its expansion later. 
 
 Our Duty to the Future 
 
 James Bkyce 
 
 Extract from address delivered ivJien 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 com- 
 mittee 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 
 
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Giant Pine-trees m the north 
 
become what Europe already is. Europe is now a popu- 
 lous, 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 
 tlie 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. 
 
 Of all those pleasures the power to enjoy which has 
 been implanted in us, the love of Nature is the very 
 simplest and best. It is the most easily accessible; it is 
 one which can never be jDerverted ; it is one of which you 
 cannot liave too much; and it lasts from youth to age. 
 Tlien, too, tliere are the literary associations which clothe 
 many a wild or lovely spot witli 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 mucli the more do the charms of 
 Nature appeal to it. Delight in them is a test of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, let us remember that the regions and spots cal- 
 culated to give enjoyment in the highest form are lim- 
 ited, and are being constantly encroached upon. 
 
 Although you have set a wholesome example in creat- 
 ing tlie 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 shafts 
 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 val- 
 leys 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 
 
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and traversed by sparkling brooks, containing every- 
 thing 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 Eockies. 
 
 Then there are the Northeastern States with their 
 mountains and forests. No other part of Eastern Amer- 
 ica 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 sliows 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 
 •^^erely 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 pro- 
 vided her simple joys — mingled shade and sunlight 
 falling on the long vistas of the forest, the ripple and 
 
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miirmiir 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 ha^'e 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. 
 
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