192 NEBRASKA Sl'ATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



mate relation that there has existed between man and the tree from 

 the dawn of time onward. " 



For the tree has been man's mainstay from time immemorial. It 

 was his first shelter, his tower of refuge, his fortress in time of strife. 

 It gave him his first weapons — his club, his spear shaft, his bow. Its 

 bark and its branches went to make his first house. And today, though 

 he thinks he has gone far beyond the stage when the tree is essential 

 to his well being, he is still dependent upon the tree for much that goes 

 to make life worth living. If every tree on earth were to be withered 

 to the roots tomorrow, it would not be long before man would wither, too. 

 For a world without trees would be utterly uninhabitable. 



Thus we have grown to love trees for what they have been to us 

 and thus it is that they are beautiful to us. 



Strangely enough, though the tree has been so much to man, man 

 has ever been to the tree but a destroyer. If one could see the pro- 

 cession of the centuries in panorama it would doubtless seem to him that 

 man's sole mission in life, outside his occasional fits of man killing, was 

 to devastate the forests of the earth. Only within the past one hundred 

 years has he begun to wake to his folly in this regard. 



It's high time we were waking. Henceforth we must feel something 

 more than a mere sentimental regard for trees — we must cherish and 

 foster them as the very guardians of the flame of human life. For they 

 are just that. The happiness, even the very existence, of the human 

 race of the future hangs upon the perpetuation of the forests of the earth. 

 — Sioux City Tribune. 



MAN A CREATOR. 

 C. S. Harrison, York. 



"I said ye are Gods." 



Wlien you go into a primeval forest where massive trees lift their 

 great crowns into the air, and the emerald of their foliage seems to 

 blend with the sapphire of the sky, you are filled with awe. You are 

 a devout worshiper in God's great cathedral and the spirit of Bryant's 

 forest hymn is upon you. "The groves were God's first temples." Yet 

 the thought will come to you amid all this impressive awe and grandeur 

 that you can produce all this. Blessings on the man whO' covered the 

 drifting sand dunes of France with forest beauty and built stately tem- 

 ples amid the desolation. 



Even today a man can lay the foundations of a sequoia cathedral if 

 he chooses a congenial location. You say "it takes such a long time." 

 Yes it took hundreds of years to build the cathedral of Milan which would 

 look funny if dropped down in Yosemite. How long it took to build St. 

 Peters. You, too, can build for the ages. 



Suppose out on a western prairie you plan for a magnificent temple 

 to cover forty acres. Grander in conception than many an imposing 

 structure. The man who plans for the future is himself immortal. Don't 



