ARBOR DAY. 1 .">7 



He has tossed them about and shorn the tops, 

 When the storm has roused his might, 



Of the forest trees, as a strong man doth 

 The heads of his foes in fight." 



Scarlet Oak (Otto) : The poem which Red Oak quoted 

 reminded me of an old saying of Dr. Holmes. He says: 

 U I wonder if you ever thought of a single mark of 

 supremacy which distinguishes this tree from those 

 around it? The others shirk the work of resisting 

 gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal direc- 

 tion for its limbs, so that their whole weight may tell, 

 and then stretches them out fifty or sixty feet, so that the 

 strain may be mighty enough to be worth resisting. You 

 will find that in passing from the extreme downward 

 droop of the branches of the weeping willow to the 

 extreme upward inclination of those of the poplar, they 

 sweep nearly half a circle. At ninety degrees the oak 

 stops short ; to slant upward another degree would mark 

 infirmity of purpose ; to bend downward, weakness of 

 organization." 



Black Oak (Ruby) : What the Oak says sounds scien- 

 tific. I want to tell you something that begins with 

 "once upon a time." Once upon a time the Evil One 

 agreed with a man that he should have the letter's soul 

 at the time when the oak leaves fell ; but when he came to 

 look at the oak in the autumn he found it still in leaf, nor 



