MEN OF THE TREES 



Within six months of the time of sowing, these seed- 

 Hngs were ready to be planted out, but I had not the 

 funds available for completing this work. Every time the 

 up-country train stopped at Kikuyu there were interested 

 visitors to my nurseries and keen interest was shown in 

 the results of my experiment, but now I feared that owing 

 to shortage of labor and lack of departmental funds, 

 many of these valuable seedlings would be wasted unless 

 they were planted out before the end of the season. When 

 these young warriors came to my camp wanting to fulfil 

 their tree-planting obligations, it occurred to me that 

 here was the answer and the solution of my problem, so 

 I suggested that those who really wanted to do something 

 to help might plant out fifty of these seedlings in a box. 



It was the nursery practice to prick out the seedlings 

 in boxes and grow them on for two or three months and 

 as soon as suitable days for planting occurred, the young 

 trees were taken up to the planting site in the boxes, so 

 that their roots should not be disturbed or subjected to 

 drying winds. Gladly, then, did these young warriors 

 respond, and day after day, when they could not think 

 of anything better to do, they would turn up in the late 

 afternoon to carry out their self-imposed task. 



The very simplicity of a good deed, just a simple serv- 

 ice rendered to someone else, was too much for the im- 

 mediate understanding of a warlike race who could more 

 easily have fathomed the "good" of destroying a man- 

 eating lion or performing some doughty deed like that of 

 St. George and the Dragon. 



46 



