OUR BROTHERS, THE TREES 



part of his books, magazines, newspapers, 

 and sometimes his stationery, were all gifts 

 of the trees. 



The timber of his boats, ships, and of 

 thousands of machines and hand-tools for 

 every trade, and the wooden parts of pianos, 

 organs, violins, and other musical instru- 

 ments, came from the munificence of the 

 forest. Not only its body did the tree sur- 

 render to man, but all its choice ichors, 

 known to the commercial world as turpen- 

 tine, tar, resin, tung oil, varnish, rubber, cane 

 and maple sugar, and medicinal contribu- 

 tions like those of the eucalyptus tree. Even 

 with the end of man's life, the services of the 

 tree did not end. Protecting him still with 

 its wooden cloak, and thereby dulling the 

 edge of the mourner's grief, it went down 

 with his body into the earth to share its reso- 

 lution into dust. 



Yet all these gifts did not exhaust the 

 benefactions of the forest. To the materially 

 minded it could give only material gifts, yet 

 it stood almost wistfully ready, one might 

 fancy, to give, O, so much more and better 



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