DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR, 

 FORESTRY BRANCH 



THE TALKING TREES 







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By James Lawler, B.A. 



It was a wintry night and as the teacher and 

 pupils of a school in one of the Prairie Provinces of 

 Canada had long gone home the school-room began to 

 feel lonely. The teacher had been telling how many 

 persons near and far worked to provide what the 

 pupils would find on the supper table when they 

 went home; how the tea came from China, or India, 

 the sugar from Cuba, and so on; and this had awak- 

 ened in the school-house a desire to know more about 

 its members. The Stove which stood in the middle 

 of the school-room being made of metal out of a 

 mine was curious to know the story of the different 

 trees from which the fittings and furniture of the 

 school-room were made. So, first, it addressed the 

 White Pine in the door and aSked it to tell the story 

 of its life. The White Pine, proud of coming from 

 one of the finest tree families, was not slow to respond. 



"I was born on the north shore of the lake of the 

 Woods near the boundary line between the provinces 

 of Manitoba and Ontario. This is the western 

 boundary of the White Pine country, which stretches 

 eastward and southward from the lake of the Woods. 

 We have, however, many cousins growing in British 

 Columbia. I grew near the beautiful lake and 

 when I was a little thing, not taller than a man, I 



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