ARBOR DAY LETTER 

 OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT, 



TO THE 

 SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES 



ARBOR DAY ( which means simply " Tree Day " ) 

 is now observed in every state in our Union and 

 mainly in the schools. At various times, from Jan- 

 uary to December, but chiefly in this month of 

 April, you give a day or part of a day to special 

 exercises and perhaps to actual tree planting, in recog- 

 nition of the importance of trees to us as a Nation, and 

 of what they yield in adornment, comfort, and useful 

 products to the communities in which you live. 



It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor 

 Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetime the 

 Nation's need of trees will become serious. We of 

 an older generation can get along with what we 

 have, though with growing hardship ; but in your 

 full manhood and womanhood you will want what 

 nature once so bountifully supplied, and man so 

 thoughtlessly destroyed ; and because of that want 

 you will reproach us, not for what we have used, 

 but for what we have wasted. 



For the nation, as for the man or woman or boy 

 or girl, the road to success is the right use of what 



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