wherein to revel. The swamp lies in north-eastern Indiana,
nearly one hundred miles south of the Michigan line and ten
west of the Ohio. In its day it covered a large area. When
I arrived; there were miles of unbroken forest, lakes provided
with boats for navigation, streams of running water, the roads
around the edges corduroy, made by felling and sinking large trees
in the muck. Then the Winter Swamp had all the lacy exquisite
beauty of such locations when snow and frost draped, while from
May until October it was practically tropical jungle. From it I
have sent to scientists flowers and vines not then classified
and illustrated in our botanies.

It was a piece of forethought to work unceasingly at that time,
for soon commerce attacked the swamp and began its usual process of
devastation. Canadian lumbermen came seeking tall straight
timber for ship masts and tough heavy trees for beams. Grand
Rapids followed and stripped the forest of hard wood for fine
furniture, and through my experience with the lumber men "Freckles"'
story was written. Afterward hoop and stave men and local mills
took the best of the soft wood. Then a ditch, in reality a canal,
was dredged across the north end through, my best territory, and
that carried the water to the Wabash River until oil men could
enter the swamp. From that time the wealth they drew to the
surface constantly materialized in macadamized roads, cosy homes,
and big farms of unsurpassed richness, suitable for growing onions,
celery, sugar beets, corn and potatoes, as repeatedly has been
explained in everything I have written of the place. Now, the
Limberlost exists only in ragged spots and patches, but so rich
was it in the beginning that there is yet a wealth of work for
a lifetime remaining to me in these, and river thickets. I ask