Roughly speaking, thirty-three hundred
square miles of heath confronted Dalgas in 1866. Just about a
thousand remain for those who come after to wrestle with; but
already voices are raised pleading that some of it be preserved
untouched for its natural beauty, while yet it is time.
Meanwhile the plow goes over fresh acres every year--once, twice,
then a deeper plowing, this time to break the stony crust, and the
heath is ready for its human mission. From the Society's nurseries
that are scattered through the country come thousands of tiny
trees, and are set out in the furrows, two of the spruce for each
dwarf pine till the nurse has done her work. Then she is turned into
charcoal, into tar, and a score of other things of use. The men who
do the planting in summer find chopping to do in winter in the older
plantations, at good wages. Money is flowing into the moor in the
wake of the water and the marl. Roads are being made, and every day
the mail-carrier comes. In the olden time a stranger straying into
the heath often brought the first news of the world without for
weeks together. Game is coming, too,--roebuck and deer,--in the
young forests. The climate itself is changing; more rain falls in
midsummer, when it is needed.
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