54 TREE PLANTER'S MANUAL. 



the birds and squirrels have planted the forests of the world, and by right 

 they are theirs to live in. With a view to save them for food, no doubt, 

 like the dog that buries his bone of meat, crows have been known to dig 

 holes in the ground with their beaks and there deposit acorns which sprout 

 and grow into great oaks. No birds, perhaps, have done more to carry 

 seeds from one part of the world to another, taking root where they can, 

 than the wild geese, which are fast learning to leave us for other regions 

 to escape from utter extinction. 



INSTRUCT THE BOYS AND GIRLS. 



Considering the inestimable value of the mammals and birds herein 

 mentioned, also of other insectivorous birds, such as the wood-pecker, the 

 robin, the thrush, the wren, the swallow, the meadow-lark, the rose-breasted 

 grosbeak and yellow-billed cuckoo (scarce in our state), that feed upon 

 caterpillars and potato bugs; considering, too, the value of our fishes, 

 whose best qualities always obtain in our cool woodland waters, it does 

 seem that, aside from more efficient laws, our educational curriculum 

 should include forestry and forest zoology, applicable to all our graded 

 schools. As we love our country and aspire to make it better for our living 

 in it, the very best we can do is to so instruct the boys and girls that they 

 will devoutly care for and perpetuate the natural bounties we all inherit. 



ECONOMIC. 



WILD CONDITIONS. 



In its wild state the prairie cannot reforest itself. Long before the 

 white man came, the nomadic Indians scourged it with fires for centuries; 

 buffaloes and grasshoppers devoured every sprouting tree; and ever after 

 this desolation it has been beaten and "ovened" by dry winds, forestalling 

 the needed precipitation. Hence our hard struggle to make a beginning 

 of reforestation. After several years of soil culture, we are safe to venture 

 with pioneer trees. In one sense "the forest creates its owh favorable 

 conditions of growth." But we must first comply with the conditions of 

 starting the forest. Scattered trees cannot stand the strain. "It is the 

 effective shading of the ground that the changed conditions under the 

 forest cover will be brought about; it is by masses of trees that the sun"s 

 power is broken, and it is by large areas distributed over the vast expanses 

 that ultimately the force of the winds will be broken." 



