A.B. Brooks was among the greatest of West Virginia’s naturalists, and our first chief game protector. The Brooks Bird Club is named in his honor. "A.B." is named in the West Virginia Agriculture and Forestry Hall of Fame, "devoted to honoring those who have made outstanding contributions to the agriculture and forestry industries in West Virginia and the nation." This is a passage from his book Forestry and Wood Industries, written in 1911.

"As long as the beauty and grandeur of primitive forest scenery is preserved, it will have a powerful influence in shaping the character of people. All men are imitators to a certain degree, whether or not they are conscious of it or desire it, and become more or less like the persons or even the inanimate things with which they associate or are surrounded. The great forest, which surrounded the homes of the pioneers, left an indelible mark on their characters. It affected every act of their lives. Its influence was manifested in their manners and customs and conversation. It made men more thoughtful and less talkative and superficial; it furnished the inspiration for many of their great works of prose and poetry; and it breathed into them a spirit of freedom and independence.

Every city has its parks, which were made and kept up largely for their artistic beauty. No one should underestimate the value of woodlands, which are maintained for their aesthetic effects. Those whose lives must be spent largely on paved streets between walls of buildings find a complete and refreshing change in the shaded parks and are benefited to the extent of their power to appreciate such surroundings. Natural Forests, where there is no touch of the artificial, have a greater effect upon character; and what parks are in a small way the .[natural wilderness].. Forests are in a much larger way. Upon some, the forest has a fascinating effect, an influence that cannot be expressed in words, but which is capable of driving out every frivolous thought and stirring every deep emotion. Those persons will know what this inexpressible influence is who have sat alone upon some mossy boulder or fallen tree trunk in a remote forest... There are those who feel that our forests are more than a "business proposition" and who deplore their destruction as much for their influence as for their economic value."

-- Contributed by Dave Saville