76 DAVET'S PRIMER 



" What a funny looking top ! " 

 No, Annie; it is curious, but not " funny." 

 (Don't forget that words have different shades of 

 meaning). If you had been the owner of this lovely 

 " Weeping elm," you would have seen no " fun " when 

 one-half was broken off in a wind storm : that is just 

 what happened. This is the remainder of the beautiful 

 tree, the lower part of which was shown in the last 

 photograph. Does it not seem to you that the portion 

 that is yet standing is truly " weeping? " 



" Why do people neglect their trees and allow them 

 to be ruined in this way? " 



Well, Edith, people certainly do not purposely 

 allow such things to happen. It came about in this 

 way. 



After the discovery of America, people came from 

 all parts of the world (you know something of the his- 

 tory) and found about all of America, except the 

 prairies, covered with forests. But they needed farms, 

 and so they commenced to cut, slash, burn, any way to 

 clear the land and raise crops. Then as towns and 

 cities were built up, trees were planted, making lawns, 

 parks, orchards, and the like. People were so busy in 

 building homes and getting rich or trying to that 

 they forgot to think of one thing the one thing that 

 we are now trying to get you to understand, namely : 

 that the tree is a LIVING CREATURE, just as much 

 as you are. While, as before stated, all people will say, 

 " Yes, we know that the tree is alive," yet they seem 



