Excerpt from An Address: Delivered at the Centennial Celebration, in Peterborough, N. H. Oct; 24, 1839 A hundred years ago this whole valley, from mountain to mountain, from the extreme north to the extreme southern limit, was one unbroken forest. The light soil upon the banks of the Contoocook was covered with huge and lofty pines, while the rocky hills and rich loamy lands were shaded with maple, beech and birch, interspersed with ash, elm, hemlock, fir, oak, cherry, bass, and other kinds of wood. Bogs and swamps were far more extensive then than now; and the Woods in many parts, on account of the fallen timber and thick underbrush, were almost impassable. The deer and the moose roamed at large the wolf and bear prowled about the hills the turkey and partridge whirred with heavy flight from tree to tree, while the duck swam undisturbed Upon the lonely, silent waters. The beaver and the freshet made the only dam that impeded the streams in their whole course from the highlands to the Merrimack; the trout, pickerel and salmon moved through them unmolested, while the old Monadnoc, looking down in every direction upon almost interminable forests, saw in the hazy distance the first feeble encroachments upon the dominion which he had retained over his Wild subjects for more than a thousand years. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.