I am sorry to say that their morality is not always on a par with their religion. In some little matters such as temperance in drink, personal chastity, respect for the revenue laws, and for the command "Thou shalt not swear," they are a little below the standard.

Their absolute lack of curiosity is a point worth noting. If, in conversation, a word or term is used that they do not comprehend, they will not ask its meaning; they will not admit by word or look that you possess knowledge beyond their ken. If a question is asked which they do not understand, they will reply inconsequently. To illustrate this : A mining engineer was awaiting the arrival of his photographic outfit. He asked a native to go to the river with him to help bring the camera across. On the way the man remarked to an acquaintance whom they met, in perfect good faith, that he was going to the river "to help swim a camel over." This was said as if it was the most natural thing in the world that a camel should be expected. There was no curiosity as to why it should be brought, or the use to which it would be put. They are a delightful, simple, ingenuous people - and I love them. Why they should have remained so long so near the centers of civilization, yet unharmed by its degenerating influences, can hardly be understood by one who has not been among them.

But they care absolutely nothing about the great world and its work ; and, until the world discovered that there were things of more material value than men and women among these mountains - such things as timber, and coal, and ores - the world cared nothing about them.

The first of the settlers here were from Virginia and the Carolinas ; some, doubtless, fugitives from justice, others men who followed the chase, and « finding game plentiful, came here and lived amongst it. Such people had no interest in the outside world ; the succeeding generations knew no more of it than they learned from their fathers ; centers of civilization, though so near, were inaccessible except by long and tedious horseback journeys, which there was little motive for undertaking. The " mountain" remained isolated, while the world surged about its feet. But finally rumors of its wealth got abroad, of its timber, and its mines. Railroads and land companies have come, and are coming, to the mountain, and they are despoiling its bloom and freshness, so that they who would see it before it has been marred by the rude hand of civilization, must see it soon.

Agriculture in this region has heretofore been of the most primitive sort, and there has been nothing to encourage its development; ignorance, too, has been the handmaid of indifference.

There is very little level land on the plateau, and very little that the farmer of the Mohawk or the Miami valleys, accustomed to broad, rich bottoms, would term good farming land. There are very few farms of any large cultivated area. Yet there are now evidences of a coming change in the conditions that surround these mountain dwellers, and it will afford good opportunities for the industrious homeseeker. In the past, the soil has been cultivated only to such an extent as the necessities of the settlers made compulsory. As game gradually became scarcer, they were compelled to rely a little more upon the soil for sustenance. A little land would be cleared, or cultivated only with a preliminary girdling of the trees, for there is very little undergrowth in these woods. Corn was almost the only crop, and this was literally both meat and drink. Such necessaries as must be procured by money, or its equivalent, were bought at first with skins and furs, and later by digging the medicinal roots with which the mountain abounds. They cared nothing for wealth or gain beyond the needs of the present, and had they cared for gain, were too remote from markets to make agriculture a productive industry.

Thus no land was cleared beyond that needed to supply their simplest wants; and, as land was plenty, no effort was made to retain its fertility, even had they possessed the requisite skill. The little clearings were tilled until they would produce no longer, then they were allowed to grow up to brush or timber again, and another piece taken for cultivation; the natural result was that the land obtained a worse reputation for fertility than it naturally deserved.

There was also another cause that operated to destroy the fertility of this virgin soil of the forest.

The hunters and the Indians before them had been accustomed to burn the fallen leaves in the woods each year, that the wild grass might be enabled to start earlier, and thus afford good pasturage for the deer. Later, settlers who acquired some stock and pastured it upon the wild land, kept up the same practice. So that year after year that which would have added to the depth and richness of the soil was wantonly destroyed, and with it annually some portion of the acquired humus.

When one comes upon these abandoned clearings they are tempted to ask the old question, •• Why do pine forests grow up where oaks have been removed, and why do oaks follow the pines ?" Here the pine belts, the signs of the poorer land, have been replaced by thickets of young oaks; and the land which has been deemed best, because it was that on which the oaks grew, is being covered with pines.

But not for long now will the forests remain the predominant feature of the plateau. Meadows and fields of grain, flocks, vineyards and orchards all mirror themselves upon my page. Upon these hillsides girls will sing the "song of the vine" as they gather purple clusters for the wine-press; and the land shall be so "full of all blessed conditions," that "flowing with milk and honey" shall be its synonym.

James K. Reeve.