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FORESTRY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS 



BY BRISTOW ADAMS 



"IN THE PLACE WHERE THE TREE FALLETH" 



NE meets all sorts of 

 folks who are inter- 

 ested in trees. At 

 one end of the line 

 there is the man 

 who cuts, burns, 

 and wastes the 

 woods with no 

 thought of any one 

 but himself, or of 

 anything but the 

 money he may 

 make, even if he 

 makes it by des- 

 troying all hope for any future returns 

 from the same piece of woods. At the 

 other end is the man or woman who can- 

 not bear to see a tree cut for any purpose, 

 and thinks that any use of an ax is wicked. 

 We think that a middle place is better, 

 and that both of the extreme views are 

 wrong. There is this difference, how- 

 ever: the man who cuts and wastes is 

 sinful; the one who cannot stand the 

 wise harvesting of the wood crop is only 

 foolish. Sometimes this foolishness 

 makes us laugh, sometimes it makes us 

 mad, and sometimes it makes us sad. 

 Then, again, it may cause all three of 

 these feelings. 



The children frequently ask me to tell 

 about an old man I once knew, who loved 

 the trees, but not wisely. The youngest 

 thinks the story is funny, and the oldest 

 girl finds it sad; those in between seem 

 to think that it is a curious sort of yarn, 

 and don't know just how to take it. I 

 wonder how it will seem to you! 



THIS old man used to write to me 

 about the trees, and finally he 

 asked whether I would come and 

 talk about them before some of the 

 schools near where he lived. He said he 

 would arrange for all the meetings, and 

 that all I would have to do would be to 

 bring along some lantern slides and my 

 voice, and they could do the rest. 



My own children will not let me leave 

 out any part of the trip or of what hap- 



pened; if I try to skip, or if I forget even 

 the smallest thing they " call me down " 

 and make me put it all in- about the boy 

 who met me at the station and drove me 

 out to the man's house in a rickety old 

 rig like the wonderful one-hoss shay, the 

 horse being very small and very thin, and 

 all shaggy with long matted hair, which 

 looked as if it had been whitewashed in 

 spots. 



" Mr. Emanon sent me," said the boy, 

 " because he was sick and could not 

 come." (Emanon is just no name, 

 spelled backward, because I would not 

 hurt the feelings of this old man for all 

 the world.) 



" But I should not go if he is sick ; it 

 will make a great deal of trouble for him." 



"That don't make no difference," 

 replied the boy. " He always gets sick- 

 like when he's excited about folks 

 coming." 



So I climbed into the old shay that was 

 wired together and reinforced in places 

 with umbrella-ribs, and we set off behind 

 the little horse that had all its feathers 

 rubbed the wrong way. The boy said 

 " they had another horse but it was dan- 

 gersome to drive " ; this one, he said, had 

 only one bad habit " it would lie down 

 and go to sleep jest anywheres ! " But it 

 stayed awake and on its feet until we got 

 to the house a little dark house in a 

 little dark woods. 



THERE was a dim light in one of the 

 lower rooms and the boy told me to 

 go in while he put the horse up. I 

 found myself in a dim-lighted hall ; there 

 were stuffed birds, old books, pictures, 

 and dead flowers in vases and dying ones 

 in pots. These things I could see from 

 the flames of an open fire in the next 

 room, where there were four dogs an 

 old blind mastiff, a young setter, a white 

 bull-terrier, and a shaggy Airedale that 

 growled from beneath the piano but did 

 not offer to come out. 



Stretched fan-wise out over the floor, 

 with their ends in the fire, were huge 



