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having each member of the family plant a tree at Whitsuntide, which 

 comes forty days after Easter. The old Mexican Indians also plant 

 trees on certain days of the years when the rnoon is full, naming them 

 after their children ; and the ancient Aztecs are said to have planted 

 a tree every time a child was born, giving it the name of the child. 



But to the Hon. J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, Secretary of Agri- 

 culture in President Cleveland's cabinet, belongs the honor of institu- 

 ting our American Arbor Day. Julius Sterling Morton was born in Jef- 

 ferson County, New York, April 22, 1832. He was of Puritan stock, his 

 ancestors having come from England on the Little Ann, the first ship 

 after the Mayflower. His parents removed to Michigan when the son 

 was still a baby. He was sent to good private schools and seminaries, 

 and later to Michigan University, but was graduated at Union College, 

 New York, in 1854. Immediately after completing his college course 

 he married and removed to Nebraska, and in the following year chose 

 Nebraska City as his permanent home, locating upon a claim half a 

 mile square, adjacent to the town. This estate grew into the beautiful 

 Arbor Lodge, so familiar to all lovers of the holiday founded by Mr. 

 Morton. It was home for the remainder of his life. 



It was at an annual meeting of the Nebraska State Board of Agri- 

 culture, held in the city of Lincoln, January 4, 1872, that Mr. Morton 

 introduced the following resolution: 



Resolved, That Wednesday, the 10th day of April, 1872, be and the same is hereby 

 especially set apart and consecrated for tree planting in the state of Nebraska, and the 

 State Board of Agriculture hereby name it Arbor Day, and to urge upon the people of 

 the state the vital importance of tree planting, hereby offer a special premium of one 

 hundred dollars to the agricultural society of that county in Nebraska which shall 

 upon that day plant properly the largest number of trees; and a farm library of twenty- 

 five dollars worth of books to that person who on that day shall plant properly in 

 Nebraska the greatest number of trees. 



The resolution was unanimously adopted. A second 

 resolution was likewise adopted, asking the newspapers 

 of the state to keep the matter constantly before the 

 people until the appointed day; and the result was the 

 planting of over a million trees in Nebraska on this 

 first Arbor Day. 



From this beginning on that western prairie the 

 movement has spread in an ever widening circle, whose 

 circumference to-day sweeps from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific. 



