128 AKBOE DAY. 



Hon. J. Sterling Morton, to whom not only is Nebraska, 

 but the whole country, indebted for the origination of a 

 day which promises to become a national holiday of the 

 highest and most useful character, and to perpetuate the 

 memory of Mr. Morton as no monument of marble or 

 brass could do. If our country was not so vast in extent, 

 and our climate in consequence so varied, if Florida and 

 Nebraska, if Maine and California were enough alike in 

 climate to allow of tree planting at the same time, and 

 that time could be the 22d of April, surely we should 

 all adopt that day. But whatever day may be designated 

 in any state as most fit for simultaneous and united tree 

 planting, we cannot fail to remember the man whose 

 happy thought and full appreciation of the value of trees 

 to man, led to the suggestion of this tre planting festival. 

 Now that our schools have become so largely enlisted in 

 the observance of Arbor Day, it has become one of our 

 best educational appliances, and I hope that on this ac- 

 count the next generation will be as eminently one of 

 tree lovers and tree protectors as the present has been of 

 tree destroyers. 



Arbor Day is full of good influences. May you have 

 a happy celebration of it in Nebraska. 



Yours for the trees, 



N. H. EGLESTON. 



