ARBOR DAY. 129 



FROM WARREN HIGLEY. 



NEW YORK, April 19, 1888. 



MY DEAR SIR Your esteemed favor of nearly one 

 month ago came in my absence, and has been neglected 

 until I fear it is too late for word from me to reach you. 



It gives me great pleasure to add my testimony to the 

 value of a life that has been instrumental in conferring 

 so vast a blessing on mankind as that of the Hon. J. 

 Sterling Morton of your state. 



The institution of Arbor Day has given an intense 

 interest throughout the land to the value of trees and 

 the necessity for forests. It has fired the youth with a 

 love for nature and for the study of her laws. It has 

 stimulated the aesthetic sense of the people, taught the 

 lesson that a landscape without the everchanging beauty 

 of tree and grove is but a desert; and that without a fair 

 proportion of forest growth, a country, however fertile at 

 first, is sure to become a barren waste a perpetual rebuke 

 to the ignorance and greed of ungrateful man. 



Arbor Day, publicly instituted and established by Gov. 

 Morton, has spread gloriously among Nebraska's sister 

 states, until a large proportion of them has engrafted it 

 in their laws; and with the Arbor Day teachings our 

 country is bound to increase the efforts toward preserving 

 and conserving her forest domain. 

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