43 



productive lands. In such situations, forests will yield a large 

 percentage of profit. This is a duty we owe to ourselves and 

 to our children. 



George Peabody, who did so much to encourage schools and 

 learning, originated the motto, so happily illustrated by his 

 own munificent gifts to promote education: "Education the 

 debt of the present to future generations." We owe it to our 

 children to leave our lands and towns the better for our tillage, 

 and we wrong both ourselves and them if our fields are impov- 

 erished by our improvidence. But much as foresight is ad- 

 mired when its predictions are realized and its achievements 

 made, all history too plainly tells that the mass of men are not 

 easily persuaded to provide for exigencies far in the future. 



Though the profit from tree-planting is remote, the pleasure 

 is immediate. The sour and selfish soul may say, " Posterity 

 has done nothing for me, and I will do nothing for posterity." 

 But every effort to start agencies whose benign influence shall 

 long endure, gives a glad inspiration and a conscious elevation 

 of character. 



15. The improvement of the surroundings of railway stations 

 may well enlist the efforts of these associations. The railroad 

 depots in America are often made repulsive by neglect or by 

 the accumulation of discarded and decaying sleepers and other 

 unsightly rubbish, while those in Switzerland, France, Ger- 

 many and England are always neatly kept and usually adorned 

 with shrubs, flowers, or their beautiful English or German ivy, 

 sometimes covering the station-house with its dense garniture 

 of foliage. The Pennsylvania Central Railroad, at the stations 

 west of Philadelphia, is following this worthy European exam- 

 ple. The beautiful little parks at Pornfret and Stonington 

 depots in Connecticut, and those at Kingston, Ehode Island, 

 and at North Con way and Plymouth, New Hampshire, show 

 how simply and inexpensively our railroad stations may be 

 made attractive. Parks and gardens are a proof and product 

 of civilization, and are an index of the wealth and culture of 

 any community. In the European countries above named, the 

 Railway managers make it a part of the regular duty of the 

 station-masters to adorn the surrounding grounds. There is a 

 generous rivalry among these agents, who become justly proud 



