Most national parks give in to the clamor of complaint and sell to sawmills the trees they have felled and removed from the forest to combat bark beetle infestations. This is a grave mistake. For the dead spruce and pines are midwives to the new deciduous forest. They store water in their dead trunks, which help cool the hot summer air to a bearable temperature. When they fall over, the impenetrable barricade of trunks acts as a natural fence through which no deer can pass. Protected in this way, the small oaks, bird cherries, and beeches can grow up unbrowsed. And when one day the dead
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