320 ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 



sweet and generous nature to have this strong relish, for the beauties of vegetation, and 

 this friendship for the hardy and glorious sons of the forest. There is a grandeur of 

 thought connected with this part of rural economy. It is worthy of liberal and free-born 

 and aspiring men. He who plants an oak looks forward to future ages, and plants for 

 posterity. Nothing can be less selfish than this. He cannot expect to sit in its shade 

 nor enjoy its shelter ; but he exults in the idea that the acorn which he has buried in the 

 earth shall grow up into a lofty pile, and shall keep on flourishing and increasing and 

 benefiting mankind long after he shall have ceased to tread his paternal fields." 



White Oak. We will hear what O. W. Holmes says on this subject. 



Tamarack (Elias). Dr. O. W. Holmes says: " I have written many verses, but the 

 best poems I have produced are the trees I planted on the hill-side which overlooks the 

 broad meadows, scalloped and rounded at their edges by loops of t!je sinuous Housa- 

 tonic. Nature finds rhymes for them in the recurring measures of the seasons. Winter 

 strips them of their ornaments and gives them, as it were, in prose translation, and sum- 

 mer reclothes them in all the splendid phrases of their leafy language. 



"What are these maples and beeches and birches but odes and idyls and madrigals? 

 What are these pines and firs and spruces but holy rhymes, too solemn for the many-hued 

 raiment of their gay deciduous neighbors? 



"As you drop the seed, as you plant the sapling, your left hand hardly knows what 

 your-right hand is doing. But nature knows, and in due time the power that sees and 

 works in secret will reward you openly." 



White Oak. This concludes what we had on the program for this convention. 



Hemlock. I move we have some more music and then adjourn. 



White Oak. If there be no objections we shall have the music. 



White Oak. This convention stands adjourned until again convened by the proper 

 authorities. 



Written for the " ARBOR DAY MANUAL." 



PLANT THE OAK. 



COME plant the Oak, the grand old Oak, Her flag is known in every land, 

 England's ancestral tree ! Her ships plow every sea ; 



They call her sailors " hearts of oak," She pays no tribute, holds no slaves, 

 For bravery on the sea. Her children all are free. 



America, the rebel child, Then plant the Oak, the brave young Oak! 



Outgrown the Mother's hand, 'Twill thrive in freedom's clime 



May call her soldiers "hearts of oak," And spread its greenest banners out 



For bravery on the land. To the breeze in glad spring-time. 



South Sodus, N. Y. MRS. ADDIE V. McMui.u:x. 



FORGET-ME-NOT. 



WHEN to the flowers so beautiful It said, in low and trembling tones: 

 The Father gave a name, " Dear God, the name thou gavest me, 



Back came a little blue-eyed one Alas ! I have forgot," 



(All timidly it came;) Kindly the Father looked him do\vn 



And standing at its Father's feet And said : " Forget-tne-not." 

 And gazing in His face 



I know not which I love the most, The pansy ift her purple dress, 



Nor which the comeliesi shows, The pink with cheek of red, 



The timid, bashful violet, Or the faint fair heliotrope, who hangs, 



Or the royal hearted rose : Like a bashful maid, her head; 



For I love and prize you one and all, 



From the least low bloom of spring 

 To the lily fair, whose clothes outshine 



The raiment of a king. PHCEBE GARY. 



