The Audubon Societies 119 



There are numberless seeds which are scallered by the trees in places where 

 they are strangled for want of room, and these starvelings might be taken up, 

 without injuring either woodland or roadside. 



How many a country home would be improved and made the richer, if one 

 day a year was set aside for tree-planting or transplanting, for touching hands 

 with spring at some spot about the grounds! 



It would be a glorious thing if each child in all this land might plant at least 

 one tree during his lifetime, on his home grounds, as well as on public school 

 land. 



Arbor Day is a good time to set about putting up a birds' drinking-fountain 

 on the home lawn, and to see that sunflower seeds and other weedy tid-bits 

 for the birds are planted in odd corners of the garden. And why should fences 

 between our garden and our neighbor's run sharp lines of division? The 

 birds, who fly over all obstructions, know no such artificial bounds to 

 freedom. Let us set our trees in our home grounds with reference to the land 

 adjoining, and have a community of interests with our neighbors, in the soil, 

 if nowhere else. Of all days, Arbor and Bird Day ought to bring men and birds 

 and trees into a fellowship that outlasts spring and summer, abiding through 

 autumn days and the chill winter. 



Our Audubon Societies can do a great deal for the homes of this country as 

 w^ell as for its schools. It is not preaching so much as teaching that is needed; 

 not precept, so much as example. To observe Arbor and Bird Day fitly in our 

 own homes is better than making many speeches or writing exhortations. 

 Perhaps a neighbor may catch a glimpse of our simple ceremonies. We might 

 possibly invite him to share in them, and to help us bear the message of spring 

 to others, through school grounds, town and city streets and parks. 



Let us take this beautiful day for our own, for our home, our school, our 

 village or city, and make it not only a day of tree-planting and bird-lore, but 

 also a day of much joy and that gladness which only spring can give. — A. H. W. 



There's a lesson of strength and beauty 



That grows as the days go by, 

 In the trees the children are planting 



Under the springtime sky. 

 May the lives of those who plant them 



Grow strong and fair, to be 

 A blessing to all about them; 



That's the lesson of the tree. 



— Eben E. Rexford, in "The Wisconsin Agriculturist." 



Summer or winter, day or night, 



The woods are an ever new delight; 



They give us peace, and they make us strong, 



Such wonderful balms to them belong. 



— Richard Henry Stoddard. 



