FORESTRY IN NATURE STUDY. 



The development of forestry^ and^i|ture study in this country 

 has been practically contemporaneous. A generation ago little was 

 known of either; to-day the one has come to occupy an important 

 place in national life, the other an essential part in school life. Both, 

 however, are still young in this country but growing rapidly, and are 

 ever stretching out to new and wider fields forestry, that all may 

 realize its importance to the nation's welfare; nature study, in a 

 constant search for suitable material to work upon. As a result 

 of these tendencies forestry and tree study are every year becoming 

 more prominent in nature-study courses, and very properly so, for 

 they are preeminently adapted to such use. 



Dr. Clifton F. Hodge defines nature study as " learning those 

 things in nature that are best worth knowing, to the end of doing 

 those things that make life most worth living." The purpose of 

 nature study is to inculcate a love and an appreciation for the beauti- 

 ful and wonderful in nature and to train the mind to acuteness in 

 observation. Few things fulfill the requirements of these definitions 

 so well or contribute so fully to the accomplishment of these aims as 

 does the forest. In the forest can be found a wealth of material; 

 it is one of the most sublime and useful of nature's institutions; 

 it is replete with myriad forms of vegetable and animal life; the 

 forest itself, as a whole, is living and active; it is full of the won- 

 derful and the beautiful ; it is teeming with interest at every season 

 of the year ; and it is accessible to almost everyone. The forest ofl'ers 

 almost unlimited opportunity for botanical study, and the tree holds 

 the advantage over other plants in that it is never out of season and 

 can sustain the child's interest for an indefinite time. 



While the individual trees furnish excellent material for study, it 

 is the forest as a whole, with its vital influences on the life and well- 

 being of mankind, its effects upon the water, the soil, the rain and 

 the snowfall and the winds, and upon the various forms of animal 

 life in short, it is the relation which the forest bears to all else in 

 nature that should prove especially attractive to the nature-study 

 teacher and the source of greatest delight and most useful knowledge. 

 To interest the child in the forest is an easy task. The mystery and 

 strength of the woods have always appealed most strongly to the 



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