) The tree
question will soon become a grave one. Although the Atlantic slope,
the Rocky mountain region, and the southern portion of the Mississippi
valley, are well wooded, there are here stretches of hundreds and
thousands of miles where either not a tree grows, or often useless
destruction has prevail'd; and the matter of the cultivation and
spread of forests may well be press'd upon thinkers who look to the
coming generations of the prairie States.
MISSISSIPPI VALLEY LITERATURE
Lying by one rainy day in Missouri to rest after quite a long
exploration--first trying a big volume I found there of "Milton,
Young, Gray, Beattie and Collins," but giving it up for a bad
job--enjoying however for awhile, as often before, the reading of
Walter Scott's poems, "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Marmion," and so
on--I stopp'd and laid down the book, and ponder'd the thought of a
poetry that should in due time express and supply the teeming region I
was in the midst of, and have briefly touch'd upon. One's mind needs
but a moment's deliberation anywhere in the United States to see
clearly enough that all the prevalent book and library poets, either
as imported from Great Britain, or follow'd and _doppel-gang'd_ here,
are foreign to our States, copiously as they are read by us all. But
to fully understand not only how absolutely in opposition to our times
and lands, and how little and cramp'd, and what anachronisms and
absurdities many of their pages are, for American purposes, one must
dwell or travel awhile in Missouri, Kansas and Colorado, and get
rapport with their people and country.
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