It has already been disclosed that Yellowstone Park has served the nation as an experimental unit in certain fields of conservation. While this is true, it would not be correct to regard the Park as the single place of origin for such a complex and salutary movement. Today the conservation of natural resources is one of America’s most popular and cherished causes, but it was not always so. A brief review of the conservation issue will provide a background for a correct appraisal of the position of the National Park System in relation to the nation’s over-all conservation program. When the first colonies were established along the Atlantic seaboard America was a land of trees. This profusion of flora constituted an obstacle counted more serious than hostile Indians.[258] The natives had already fully cleared limited areas from the ravages of ancient fires, but the great forest stood almost limitless, and it was dense. Ambitious farmers yearned for the sight of bare ground; all trees irritated their eyes and caused them to reach for their axes. They wanted soil as rich as a barnyard, level as a floor, stone free, cleared clean of trees, without cost.[259] Except for the absence of trees, these amazing requirements were largely possible of fulfillment because never before had “heaven and earth agreed better to frame a place for man’s habitation.”[260] Here, indeed, was another Eden once it was redeemed from the leafy wilderness. Colonials rallied to the challenge of a conquest over nature. They “drove” whole groves by partially felling each in a series and then touching off a chain reaction with the downfall of a ponderous giant. Thus did settlers cleave their way into the forests, rejecting in nature all that was not of immediate practical value. A little poem published in 1692 depicts their philosophy: In such a wilderness ... When we began to clear the land ... Then with ax, with Might and Strength, The trees so thick and strong ... [These] we with Fire, most furiously To ashes did confound.[261]