A TREE GUESSING CONTEST 



159 



Pulse family, which is a very large one. Nearly all of 

 them bear pea blossoms, such as the Clovers, the Locust 

 trees, beans, and others altogether too numerous to men- 

 tion. They are podbearers, and the Locusts and Red-buds 

 are the principal trees among them in this country. 



Cercis is also represented in Europe and Asia, < some 

 seven or eight species having been described. We also 

 have a Texan species (C. texensis) that sometimes grows 

 to be quite a tree, thirty-five or forty feet in height. The 

 northern tree is distributed pretty well over the United 

 States, and seems to prefer high and dry situations. It 

 is one of the most elegant bloomers of early spring. One 

 day its dark twigs and branches attract no special atten- 

 tion, when, all of a sudden, they are more or less densely 

 covered with beautiful pink or pinkish-magenta blossoms, 

 swinging on little delicate stems. (Fig. 50.) At this 



stage they may be seen for a long distance through the 

 woods, or easily recognized in the open (Fig. 49). After 

 a while, the leaves come ; they are rather large and 

 heart-shaped then, indeed, is the tree a beauty, and it is 

 no wonder that it has been used as an ornamental one in 

 hundreds of instances, being both hardy and handsome. 

 When the flowers go to seed, its pods grow to be of 

 considerable proportions ; they are flat and pretty thin, 

 averaging about three inches in length and one in width. 

 There is a single row of very light-brown seeds in each. 

 The hold of these pods upon the limb from which they 

 hang is very slight, so that a mere breath is sufficient to 

 have them fall to the ground. An especially fine group 

 is here shown in Fig. 51. Imagine these to be a sort 

 of bronzy brown, and you will have the real thing be- 

 fore you. 



A TREE GUESSING CONTEST 



BY J. S. HOLMES 



SECRETARY OF THE NORTH CAROLINA FORESTRY ASSOCIATION 



/^|NE of the most important and often one of the most 

 ^ difficult parts of State Forestry work is interesting 

 the children of the schools in the trees and forests which 

 they see around them ; for only by laying such founda- 

 tions can a permanent State forest policy be secured. 



At the recent annual meeting of the North Carolina 

 Forestry Association in Wilmington, the most successful 

 forestry lesson for children probably ever held in this 

 State was given. Six hundred children gathered in the 

 Hemenway School Auditorium to take part in a guessing 

 contest inaugurated by the Association, but worked up 

 by the Principal and teachers of the city schools. The 

 children were supplied with a list of 16 common North 

 Carolina trees, a blank sheet of paper ruled and numbered 

 one to sixteen, with lines at the bottom for the name, 

 grade and school of the child. 



Lantern slides, illustrating the form and characteristics 

 of each tree were shown. These were supplemented by 

 information concerning the distribution, habits and uses 

 of the different trees given by the State Forester. After 

 each tree had been shown, the lights were turned on for 

 a moment so that the children could write down the name 

 of the tree on their paper. After all the trees had been 

 shown, two motion picture reels, loaned by the Forest 

 Service, the one showing forest fires and the other lum- 

 bering lodgepole pine, were shown, while a number of 

 the teachers went over and marked the papers. 



Four children guessed all sixteen trees correctly. These 

 had to draw for the first four prizes, which were as fol- 

 lows : First, Coker & Totten's "Trees of North Carolina" 

 and $1.00 in cash; second, Coker & Totten's "Trees of 

 North Carolina" and 50 cents in cash; third, Coker & 

 Totten's "Trees of North Carolina," and fourth, 75 

 cents in cash. Four children got fifteen trees right and 

 each got 50 cents in cash. The ninth prize was also 50 



cents, while the tenth to sixteenth were 25 cents in cash 

 each. Six children got fourteen right and two got thir- 

 teen right, so that there was no need for deciding pri- 

 ority by lot. The prizes were offered by the Association. 



The entertainment, which included the reading and en- 

 dorsement of the resolutions proposed by the Association 

 at its afternoon meeting, lasted for more than two hours, 

 yet the interest of the children was sustained at the 

 highest pitch throughout. The Wilmington paper said: 

 "It was hard for them to keep quiet, so enthusiastic were 

 they over the contest that gave so much interest to the 

 event." The Principal has since written as follows : "I 

 want to thank you for the very delightful evening which 

 you gave the children on the occasion of the meeting 

 here last Friday evening. The children who won the 

 prizes are real heroes in town. Please send me the cor- 

 rect list of trees as you showed them on the screen, as I 

 want to place the correct list in every school. Everybody 

 is talking trees now. We all enjoyed greatly your visit 

 and I want you to feel that you have made friends for 

 Forest Conservation of hundreds of children here in 

 the City." 



Such a success could not possibly have been achieved 

 without the hearty co-operation of the school authori- 

 ties. The teachers in the various schools kept the matter 

 before the children for a week or two before the contest, 

 by drawing the different parts of the various trees in the 

 list on the black board and by telling the children about 

 the trees. Every book about trees in the Library had 

 been called for by the children, and nothing had been 

 neglected which would add to the success of the occasion. 

 Contests along this or similar lines might be arranged in 

 other schools where such hearty co-operation could be 

 secured. 



