ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



53 



mother earth. In Sweden, iu 1871, there were 22,000 children in the 

 common schools receiving instruction in horticulture and tree planting. 

 Each of more than 2,000 schools had for cultivation from one to twelve 

 acres of ground. 



Why should we be behind the Old World in caring for the schools? 

 By the munificence of one of her citizens ]STew York has twice offered 

 premiums for the best-kept school grounds. Why may we not have 

 Arbor Day premiums in all of our States and in every town for the 

 most tasteful arrangement of schoolhouse and grounds'? These places 

 of education should be the pride of every community instead of being, 

 as they so often are, a reproach and shame. 



TREE PLANTING. 



In considering tree planting in connection 

 with Arbor Day, the first question to arise is, 

 Where shall we plant? It is obvious that the 

 practical work of Arbor Day can not include 

 forest planting. That is a work so large and 

 special in its nature as to require the com- 

 bined effort of persons in an organized capac- 

 ity, such as a town, county, or State, which 

 shall either do the work outright or give such 



encouragement and help as will stimulate individual effort to the 

 requisite degree. Arbor Day observances, to be sure, should not lose 

 sight of the fact that we need something besides planting trees by the 

 roadside or on the lawn, or here and there one in memory of some dis- 

 tinguished person; something more than the landscape gardener's art 

 in planting appropriately public parks. 1 



These w r orks of minor importance should lead to such a knowledge 

 of the uses of trees in masses the extensive forests in connection with 

 climate, with the flow of streams and consequently with agricultural 

 operations and with manufactures, in short, with the general interests 

 of household arid business life, that in due time there will be developed 

 a sentiment that will be powerful to arrest the wasteful and unneces- 

 sary destruction of our forests and insure the planting of them in 

 places from which they have been removed or where they are specially 

 needed. One thing is to be remembered and it is calculated to lend 

 effectiveness to the work of Arbor Day. It is that trees are living and 

 self propagating things; that it i^ their nature to grow, and that they 

 will grow and extend themselves on every hand if not interfered with 

 tuid thwarted by man. As an illustration of this we see the abandoned 

 farms on our hillsides soon filling up with a wood growth. It may not 



The Department of A^ri culture has treated the subject; of forest planting in 

 Bulletin No. 5, " Forestry for Farmers," recently published. 



