Son of Vermont’s Forests, Reflections After Reading: When the Trees Came Back. The Great Battle to Save Vermont’s Forests. Robert Mello. Vermont Historical Society, 2026. I am a son of Vermont’s forests. This book tells of the denuding and reforestation of Vermont. The people, places and decisions described in it created a landscape and experience which has had profound effects on me This essay reflects on this impact and adds just one of the many necessarily-missing biographies which could have appeared in When the Trees Came Back. My father, Jim Wilkinson, was hired by Perry Merrill (head of Vermont forestry from 1930 to 1966) soon after his return from flying 32 B-17 bomber missions out of England. A native of New Jersey and graduate of Penn State forestry school, before enlisting Jim had worked loading logs at a company town lumber operation in the hills of West Virginia. Merrill hired him via the Postal Service to supervise the fire lookout stations in the south...