22 ARBOR DAY. 



although such pigmy work as the actual tree planting on 

 Arbor Day cannot be considered for a moment as in any 

 way repairing the enormous yearly inroads into our nat- 

 ural forest supplies, by which nearly twice as much wood 

 is removed every year as can possibly grow annually on 

 our forest area of half a billion acres. 



For one who, like myself, has been accustomed to see a 

 forest worked as methodically as a farm, the crop being 

 replaced as it is utilized there is in little Germany 

 expended yearly a round $2,500,000 for replanting say 

 500,000 acres it is difficult to persuade himself that we 

 must even begin with such humble means as a popular 

 festival to bring about the great economical reform which 

 we need, in the utilization of our forest resources and their 

 recuperation. Yet, with the true resignation of a forester, 

 who plants the trees which his children may cut, I recog- 

 nize the truth of the adage " De minimis maxima" which 

 Everett has translated so neatly : 



" Large streams from little fountains flow ; 

 Tall oaks from little acorns grow." 



The minds of the first settlers of the wooded shores of 

 this continent were educated by dire necessity to the need 

 of destroying the forests, that the fields might bloom ; the 

 minds of their descendants must be educated to the need 

 of conserving, in proper proportion, the forests, that the 

 fields may not cease to bloom. We are fortunate that this 



