Questions and Answers 



35 



What is Arbor Day and how did it 

 originate? 



It is a day set aside by law in most 

 States for encouraging the planting of 

 shade and forest trees, shrubs, and 

 vines about homes, along highways, 

 and about public grounds of the State, 

 thus contributing to the wealth and 

 comforts of the people. In some States, 

 the law specifies the date on which 

 Arbor Day will be observed, while in 

 others the date is specified by the Gov- 

 ernor or another official. The observ- 

 ance of Arbor Day by schools, civic 

 organizations, and clubs usually in- 

 cludes programs designed to stress the 

 importance of trees and their effect in 

 improving the appearance of school 

 grounds, streets, parks, and highways 

 and to encourage the planting, protec- 

 tion, and preservation of the trees and 

 shrubs and an acquaintance with the 

 best methods for the conservation and 

 use of our natural resources. 



Arbor Day was first observed, as 

 such, in Nebraska in 1872. The plan 

 was conceived and the name "Arbor 

 Day" proposed by J. Sterling Morton, 

 then a member of the State Board of 

 Agriculture, and later United States 

 Secretary of Agriculture. At a meeting 

 of the State Board of Agriculture of 

 Nebraska, held at Lincoln, January 4, 

 1872, he introduced a resolution to the 

 effect that Wednesday, the 10th day 

 of April 1872, be especially set apart 

 and consecrated to tree planting in the 

 State of Nebraska and named Arbor 

 Day. The resolution was adopted. 

 Wide publicity was given to the plan, 

 and more than a million trees were 

 planted on the first Arbor Day. 



Who was Paul Bunyan? 



Paul Bunyan was a legendary lum- 

 berjack of early American logging 

 days. In the North Woods men still 

 embellish the stories about this boss 

 logger, a fabulous giant who invented 

 the lumber industry, dug Puget Sound, 

 and built Niagara Falls so he could 

 have a shower bath. One account says 

 that Bunyan was born near the head- 

 waters of the St. Lawrence River. 



Some say his parents were French- 

 Canadians. Others say they were Scan- 

 dinavians. When he was 2 weeks old 

 he caught a full-grown grizzly with his 

 bare hands. He fell into a river one day 

 and caught 17 beaver in his beard, 

 which he had from birth. At 3 months 

 he had outgrown his parents' cabin 

 and, because of damage he was doing 

 to fences and barns as he played among 

 the neighboring farms, said good-by to 

 his parents and betook himself to a 

 cave in the hills. There, as he grew up, 

 he invented hunting and fishing. 



In the Winter of the Blue Snow, 

 Paul Bunyan found Babe, the Blue 

 Ox, an animal that grew so big in his 

 care that the distance between his eyes 

 was measured by 1 7 ax handles, 3 cans 

 of tomatoes, and a plug of chewing to- 

 bacco laid end to end. Among the 

 many who have set down the lumber- 

 jack's mighty tales of Paul and Babe 

 are James Stevens, R. D. Handy, and 

 Glen Rounds. So big was Paul Bun- 

 yan's logging camp and so hearty his 

 men that batter for their flapjacks was 

 mixed in cement mixers and the grid- 

 dles were greased by men who skated 

 on them with slabs of bacon tied to 

 their feet. Paul made Pike's Peak by 

 piling rocks around a pike pole. He 

 sharpened his ax on boulders rolling 

 down mountainsides. He moved his 

 camp 3,000 miles in a day by hitching 

 Babe to it. When he was deepening the 

 Mississippi, he built the Rocky Moun- 

 tains with the dirt he threw to one 

 side. In a few hours he logged off the 

 Upside Down Mountain and, in a ter- 

 rific fight with Hels Helsen, his fore- 

 man, so changed it that it became the 

 Black Hills of South Dakota. He and 

 his men and Babe cleared off whole 

 townships between sunup and sunset. 

 He cut down miles of trees to make a 

 desert. He used young pine trees for 

 toothpicks. He logged off the Dakotas 

 with an axhead tied to a rope. He 

 made a good start toward logging off 

 Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. 



The only one to get the better of 

 Paul Bunyan, according to another leg- 

 end, was an Indian chief. Grant Utley, 



