"They haven't all been destroyed," protested Lew.

"No, but the greater part of them have been."

"You don't mean really destroyed, do you?" asked Lew.

"Yes, sir. Absolutely destroyed. You came up this valley, didn't you?"

"Sure," said Charley.

"Would you call the forest there destroyed?"

"If it isn't, I don't know how you would describe it," said Lew.

"All right, then. There are some 45,000 square miles in this state.
Originally practically all of that area was dense forests. The early
settlers thought the timber would last forever and they cut and destroyed
it recklessly. The lumbermen that followed were just as wasteful. It was
all right to clear the land that was good for farming. But there are more
than 20,000 square miles in this state just like these mountains--land
that is fit for nothing but the production of timber. None of that land is
producing as much timber as it should. Much of it yields very little. And
more than 6,400 square miles are absolutely desert, as bare and hideous as
the burned valley below us. That's one acre in every seven in
Pennsylvania. Think of it! Six thousand, four hundred square miles, an
area larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island put together,
that is absolute desert! Every foot of that land ought to be producing
timber for us. Then we should have lumber at a fraction of its present
cost. You see the freight charges alone on the lumber used in this state