to find fault with her brother because he 

 was planting flowers, but he said that the 

 flowers were just as nice now as they 

 were before the war began, and I think he 

 is right. I am planting trees and shrubs 

 as well as vegetables. The hedge-row 

 flowers of England bloom untrampled to- 

 day because some little girls' fathers and 

 brothers are in the blood and mire at the 

 front. 



INDEED, it seems to me that the war 

 should not make those at home do 

 any less the things that they always 

 should do ; and I am almost sorry that it 

 took a war to make us see that every one 

 should do his part to help serve the world 

 with food and clothing, and other products 

 of the soil. There is nothing that we are 

 doing now in the great gardening cam- 

 paign that we ought not to have been 

 doing for the past ten years, and that we 

 ought not to keep on doing, with improve- 

 ments, for the next ten years and more to 

 come. 



For example, there is more reason why 

 we should plant and care for trees, and 

 protect them from all sorts of harm, than 

 there ever was. We have seen the pic- 

 tures of the forests of Europe burned and 

 shattered by shell-fire, cut away to make 

 room for cannon, destroyed to go into 

 trenches and stockades, and roadways 

 and bridges, built into barbed-wire en- 

 tanglements, even supporting that real 

 ring of steel, the barbed fence charged 

 with a death-dealing electric current, that 

 surrounds poor Belgium. If there were 

 truly " tongues in trees," as Shakespeare 

 says, they would be crying out in horror 

 at being put to such inhuman uses. 



OUR own trees will have to help make 

 up for those which have been so 

 badly used. Maybe some of ours will be 

 put to the same kinds of purposes. Trees 

 are more important in war than they ever 



have been before, even counting the time 

 when the spongy palmetto logs of Fort 

 Moultrie formed such a sure defense 

 against the cannon of the British vessels. 



In former times, when the eyes of an 

 army were formed by cavaliy, which 

 scouted ahead and brought back word as 

 to where the enemy might be, it was pos- 

 sible to hide whole regiments in deep 

 valleys or ravines, or behind hills and 

 thick woods. Nowadays, with airplanes 

 taking the place of cavalry, all these hid- 

 ing places can be easily seen from above, 

 except those which have a screen of trees 

 over them. On the battlefields of France 

 today the great batteries are hidden from 

 the scouts of the air by being placed in 

 groves or forests, and where no trees are 

 growing great branches are set up to 

 cloak the batteries. 



This is a serious time. It is no time for 

 being nervous and panic-stricken ; it is no 

 time for ill-considered action, or for start- 

 ing new and untried activities or new 

 ways to do things. The great conserva- 

 tion movement, which started with for- 

 estry, was never so important as it is now; 

 and if we had seriously heeded its call 

 eight years ago we would now be about 

 eight times as well off as we are today. 

 Its program is as good now as it was then, 

 and its program ever looks to the future, 

 as we must all look to the future. The 

 home gardening of today should not be 

 for this year, but for all years to come, and 

 Uttle that we can do will bring quick re- 

 sults now. Next year there will be even 

 more need for thrift, more need for plant- 

 ing and plaiming. Let us each do our 

 part as we see it to do, with all our hearts 

 and with all our strength. We must win 

 the fight. Then our forests will be put to 

 good and peaceful uses, and then no little 

 girls should ever have to pray that even a 

 cross father might not have to go away to 

 be killed. 



m 



