2 I 2 ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



with the accumulating leaves of ages, huge sponges from which trickle the 

 supplies of streams. To cut the forests recklessly is to dry up the rivers. It 

 is a crime against the whole community, and scholars and statesmen both 

 declare that the' proper preservation of the forests is the paramount public 

 question. Even in a mercantile sense it is a prodigious question, for the esti- 

 mated value of our forest products in 1880 was $800,000.000, a value nearly 

 double that of the wheat crop, ten times that of gold and silver, and forty times 

 that of our iron ore. 



It was high time that we considered the trees. They are among our chief 

 benefactors, but they are much better friends to us than ever we have been to 

 them. If as the noble horse passes us, tortured with the overdraw check and 

 the close blinders and nagged with the goad, it is impossible not to pity him 

 that he has been delivered into the hands of men to be cared for, not less is the 

 tree to be pitied. It seems as if we had never forgotten or forgiven that early 

 and intimate acquaintance with the birch, and have been revenging ourselves 

 ever since. We have waged against trees a war of extermination like that of 

 the Old Testament Christians of Massachusetts Bay against the Pequot Indians. 

 We have treated the forests as if they were noxious savages or vermin. It was 

 necessary, of course, that the continent should be suitably cleared for settle- 

 ment and agriculture. But there was no need of shaving it as with a razor. If 

 Arbor Day teaches the growing generation of children that in clearing a field 

 some trees should be left for shade and for beauty, it will have rendered good 

 service. In regions rich with the sugar-maple tree the young maples are saved 

 from the general massacre because their sap, turned into sugar, is a marketable 

 commodity. But every tree yields some kind of sugar, if it be only shade for 

 a cow. 



Let us hope also that Arbor Day will teach the children, under the wise 

 guidance of experts, that trees are to be planted with intelligence and care, if 

 they are to become both vigorous and beautiful. A sapling is not to be cut into 

 a bean-pole, but carefully trimmed in accordance with its form. A tree which 

 has lost its head will never recover it again, and will survive only as a monument 

 of the ignorance and folly of its tormentor. Indeed, one of the happiest results 

 of the new holiday will be the increase of knowledge which springs from per- 

 sonal interest in trees. 



This will be greatly promoted by naming those which are planted on Arbor 

 Day. The interest of children in pet animals, in dogs, squirrels, rabbits, cats, 

 and ponies, springs largely from their life and their dependence upon human 

 care. When the young tree also is regarded as living and equally dependent 

 upon intelligent attention, when it is named by vote of the scholars, and 

 planted by them with music and pretty ceremony, it will also become a pet, 

 and a human relation will be established. If it be named for a living man or 

 woman," it is a living memorial and a perpetual admonition to him whose name 

 it bears not to suffer his namesake tree to outstrip him, and to remember that 

 a man, like a tree, is known by his fruits. 



Trees will acquire a new charm for intelligent children when the}- ass<x i.ite 

 them with famous persons. Watching to see how Bryant and Longfellow are 

 growing, whether Abraham Lincoln wants water, or George Washington 



