FORESTRY AND CONSERVATION 421 



out his lawn shade trees on a hot summer's day -when he is resting 

 at the noon hour? What farmer will not pay more for a home that 

 is supplied with shade and ornament? Such a home appeals to his 

 esthetic sense in such a way that he considers it worth hundreds of 

 dollars more. He knows too that it is worth more on the market. 



BIRDS IN RELATION TO THE FARM. 



The benefits the farmer derives from birds far outweigh the 

 occasional damage they do. Notwithstanding this, as a rule, he is 

 much more alive to the depredations of birds than to the benefits 

 that accrue from them. Nor is this surprising, since the disastrous 

 effects of a raid on sprouting corn by crows, or upon ripening cher- 

 ries by robins and cedar birds, are too apparent to be overlooked, 

 and the resulting loss can be estimated in dollars and cents. Not so 

 the benefits. Occasionally, it is true, the effects of a combined at- 

 tack of birds upon caterpillars, cankerworms, or other insects which 

 are present in unusual numbers or have played havoc with the 

 foliage, are too evident wholly to escape attention; but more often 

 birds work unnoticed, and the good they do is not at once obvious 

 to the busy farmer. There are few visible tokens of the process 

 by which the crop of hay or green feed has been saved from the 

 cutworms by crows, or the potato crop rescued from the Colorado 

 beetle by the grosbeaks. The birds have done their work quietly 

 but none the less effectively. They have saved, or greatly assisted 

 in saving, the farmer's crop, and nobody is the wiser, save the few 

 who make it the business of their lives to study the habits of birds. 

 Few wild birds can exist without the forest or the woodlot upon 

 which they depend largely for their homes, for water, and for sus- 

 tenance. (Y. B. 1907.) 



ARBOR DAY. 



It is eminently fitting that the "treeless" State of Nebraska 

 should have the honor of originating the pleasant custom of Arbor 

 Day. At the instance of the State Horticultural Society, about the 

 year 1874, a day in the spring was set aside for tree planting. The 

 feature met with such general support that the State Legislature, 

 at its next session, took action favoring the annual observance of 

 such a day. Over twelve thousand trees were planted in that State 

 on its first Arbor Day. This happy beginning enlisted such general 

 and widespread favor that other States soon followed with similar 

 action. The peculiar fitness of the custom soon led to its adoption 

 as a holiday feature of our public schools. The sentiments and 

 emotions aroused on Arbor Day pass only too ^quickly ; the important 

 thing is that permanent results be .left lasting impressions in the 

 minds of the children, and, flourishing in the earth, an object lesson 

 in a tree plantation of use or beauty, or both combined. 



The tree that is significant in the life of the Nation is, of course, 

 the forest tree. Isolated trees, along the roadside, in the city streets, 

 or in the school yard, please the eye and cool the air with their re- 

 freshing shade. But the forest of trees, where wood is growing to 

 supply material for homes, for fuel, for a hundred industries ; where 

 the forest litter is storing the waters for streams to quench men's 



