The Forest Primeval

The Civil War was in many ways the death knell of New England agriculture. Thousands of local lads marched off in Blue; many didn't return. Those that did had seen places where each spring didn't produce a bumper crop of rocks, pushed to the surface of the fields by frost heave.

New England's stone walls are certainly picturesque, but nobody stops to think that they wouldn't exist without a lot of work. A lot of work, driven by necessity.

New England offers many oppor- tunities for walks in the woods, even here close in by Boston. This time of year is particularly nice, what with the leaves turning color. What you find in the woods is a little unexpected: stone walls. Everywhere.

New England today is between 70% and 80% forested. In 1860, it was 20% forested. As a still mostly agricultural society, Antebellum New England land was just about entirely cleared for planting. Fall would have presented vistas of harvest, not foliage. Fields had been wrestled from the forest primeval by backbreaking work.

And so as soon as other opportunities presented themselves - the mills in Lowell and Waltham, or the frontier of Kansas, or Colorado, or Oregon - the enterprising young men sought their fortunes elsewhere. My ancestors among them.

For 150 years, fields have been turning back into forest. I sometimes marvel at how much more wildlife is to be seen today - near the City - than when I was growing up in Maine. But I was growing up a long time ago, and you could still make out the shape of the old fields back then. Too hard to work and providing too little reward, they were disappearing back into forest. Now they're gone.

Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether they will or no.

- Willa Cather