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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 



Specimen Programs. Port Henry, N. Y. Co iiti lined. 



[From Benson J. Lossing, an American Historian.] 



THE RIDGE, DOVER PLAINS, N. Y., April 22, 1889. 



MY DEAR SIR Impressing on the minds of the young the importance of performing 

 certain duties is sure to bear abundant fruit in the future. 



Among the duties which every generation owes to posterity, that of tree-planting, 

 whether for the production of fruit, or for shade, or for timber, is very conspicuous. It 

 is a beneficent and patriotic service, for it redounds to the comfort of man and the good 

 of one's country. 



Bryant wrote, long ago : 



" The groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned Might not resist the sacred influences 



To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave, Which, from the stilly twilight of the place, 



And spread the roof above them ere he framed And from the gray old trunks that high in heaven 



The lofty vault, to gather and roll back Mingled their mossy boughs, and from the sound 



The sound of anthems ; in the darkling wood, Of the invisible breath that swayed at once 



Amid the cool and silence, he knelt down. All their green tops, stole over him, and bowed 



And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks His spirit with the thought of boundless power 



And supplication. For his simple heart And inaccessible majesty." 



Thus were trees spontaneously dedicated to the worship of the Almighty. 



Trees have stood for generations, living witnesses of notable deeds of men. Many in 

 our own country have been so made memorable. I will allude to a few of them. 



On the banks of the Genesee river stood an oak believed to have been a thousand 

 years old, called "The Big Tree." Under it the Seneca Nation of Indians held coun- 

 cils ; and it gave the title, " Big Tree," to one of the eminent chiefs of that nation, at the 

 period of our Revolution. I measured it in the summer of 1857. It was twenty-six feet 

 in circumference. It was swept away by a flood in the autumn of that year. 



The Elm tree at Philadelphia, under which William Penn made a treat} 1 with the 

 Indians in 1682, stood until March, 1810, when it was prostrated by a gale. 



A pear-tree that stood on the corner of Thirteenth street and Third avenue, in New 

 York city, bore fruit until 1860, when it perished. It was planted in his garden by Peter 

 Stuyvesant, the last Dutch Governor of New Netherlands (now New York), in 1667. 



In Cambridge, Mass., near Boston, there yet stands, though in a decaying condition, 

 the huge Elm tree under which Washington {ook command of the Continental Army in 

 July, 1775. The holder of the pen with which this letter is written is a piece of that tree. 



There stood, until 1840, near Charleston, S. C., a magnificent magnolia tree, under 

 which Gen. Lincoln signed the capitulation of that city in 1789. I saw it lying prostrate, 

 felled by an axe. 



The Charter Oak, in Hartford, Ct., which was prostrated by a September gale in 1848, 

 when it measured twenty-five feet in circumference, was estimated to be six hundred 

 years old, when the first emigrants, under Hooker, from Boston to the Connecticut Valley, 

 looked upon it with wonder. 



The " Fox Oak," at Flushing, Long Island, under which George Fox, the founder of 

 the Society of Friends, or Quakers, preached in 1676, perished only a few years ago. It, 

 and another like it, stood near the house of John Browne, who had espoused the religious 

 tenets of Fox, and who entertained him on the occasion of his visit. 



This list might be greatly enlarged. My letter is already too long, and I will close by 

 expressing a hope that the )'oung people under your charge who may engage in tree- 

 planting on Arbor Day will appreciate the importance and value of their pleasant task. 



Please present to the young workers my kindest salutations, and accept the same for 

 yourself. Yours very truly, 



BENSON J, LOOSING. 



[From Will Carleton, an American Poet.] 



420 GREEN AYE., BROOKLYN, N. Y., April 26, 1889 



DEAR SIR Yours of the 6th is received. I appreciate deeply the honor conferred by 

 you and your school, in dedicating a tree to me, and hope to stand, sometime, with you 

 and them, beneath its shade. 



Trees are silent sentinels, that never desert their post, till death or violence calls or 

 drives them away. They are friends, protectors and teachers ; they lead us naturally by 

 their innocent, lofty beauty, to " look through Nature up to Nature's God." 



With kind regards to all, I remain Yours sincerely, 



WILL CARLETON. 



