CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 



OUR FOREST PLAYGROUNDS 



What does he plant who plants a tree? 

 He plants the friend of sun and sky; 

 He plants the flag of breezes free ; 

 The shaft of beauty, towering high ; 

 He plants a home to heaven anigh 

 For song and mother-croon of bird 

 In hushed and happy twilight heard — 

 The treble of heaven's harmony — ■ 

 These things he plants who plants a tree. 



What does he plant who plants a tree? 

 He plants cool shade and tender rain, 

 And seed and bud of days to be, 

 And years that f^de and flush again ; 

 He plants the glory of the plain ; 

 He plants the forest's heritage; 

 The harvest of a coining age ; 

 The joy that unborn eyes shall see — 

 These things he plants who plants a tree. 



What does he plant who plants a tree? 

 He plants, in sap and leaf and wood. 

 In love of home and loyalty 

 And far-cast thought of civic good — 

 His blessing on the neighborhood 

 Who in the hollow of His hand 

 Holds all the growth of all our land — 

 A nation's growth from sea to sea 

 Stirs in his heart who plants a tree. 



H. C. BUNNEE, 



The Heart of the Tree; in Century Magazine, April, 1893 



Our National Parks and Forests form the grandest sum- 

 mer playgrounds that any people have ever had. The 

 National Forests, we have learned, were set aside for the 

 direct purpose of preserving the timber supply and regu- 

 lating the flow of the mountain streams. The National 



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