60 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



With many persons a tree is a tree, and peculiarities of nature or 

 habit of growth are taken little account of. It is enough also with 

 many, in planting, if a hole is made in the ground and the roots of the 

 tree, many or few, are thrust into it and hastily covered with earth 

 again. One of the most difficult things to do is to get a tree properly 

 planted, and yet tree planting is a very simple thing. It consists in 

 taking a tree out of the ground without injury and placing it in the 

 ground again in another place also without injury, and with a corre- 

 sponding connection with the soil such as it had before. This simply 

 requires time, patience, and care. Yet in planting a single tree a boy 

 may learn a lesson of lifelong value to him. 



The life of a tree depends upon its roots. Through them it gets its 

 nourishment. But it is not through those which are large and most 

 visible. It is through the finest roots, and still more the scarcely vis- 

 ible root hairs which are most abundant on the fibrous rootlets. The 

 large roots serve as braces to hold the tree in erect position and keep 

 it from being swayed and overthrown by the winds, and also as conduits 

 through which the water and nourishment gathered by the rootlets are 

 conveyed to the stem and thence to the branches and leaves. The large 

 roots are of no use in securing the life of the newly planted tree or pro- 

 moting its growth, if the rootlets are broken off or left behind when the 

 tree is taken from its original place. 



Hence the need of time and care in undertaking this removal. The 

 roots, even in a young tree, will have spread to a considerable distance 

 from the stem and to follow them and detach them from the soil adher- 

 ing to them without breaking the tender threads is not easy. It is 

 necessarily a slow though a simple process, and we are apt to be impatient 

 and wish to do the work quickly. But the old proverb, " Haste makes 

 waste," is as true here as anywhere. So is another that "What is 

 worth doing is worth doing well." To plant a tree properly, so that it 

 shall go on to grow vigorously and as though nothing had happened to 

 impair its vitality, instead of barely making a feeble show of life for a 

 while only to have a lingering death, is to give the pupils of a school 

 an object lesson to last them and be of use to them for a lifetime. To 

 make the lesson the more obvious and impressive, let them, under the 

 guidance of the teacher or some one accustomed to handle trees, plant 

 one properly, first preparing the ground where it is to have its new 

 home, by excavating a sufficiently large hole to receive all the roots of 

 the tree with space enough beyond to allow their unimpeded growth 

 for years to come, carefully reducing the earth to such a fine condi- 

 tioji that it can be brought into close contact with the smallest roots. 

 Then, having selected the tree beforehand, let it be so taken from the 

 ground as to preserve all the thread-like roots and replaced as soon as 

 possible in the ground prepared for it, the roots being carefully spread out 

 and the fine, soft soil everywhere brought into close contact with them. 



Now, to make more clear the ad vantage of such a planting, it may be 

 well to plant another tree in the way that trees are so commonly planted. 



