tell you. There are 109 different kinds. Some of these are found all 

 over the State, and some are found only in a few places. Some are 

 very large, and their wood very valuable, while others are small, and 

 their wood of no particular use. It is only the plentiful and useful 

 kinds that I am going to talk about. The forests in Indiana are nearly 

 always mixed. That is, if you go into any forest or grove you will 

 find a great many different kinds of trees. That is not always the 

 case. If you were to go with me down into the mountains of Tennes- 

 see I could show you some forests covering thousands of acres, in 

 which almost all of the trees were chestnuts, and other forests equally 

 large in wliicli nearly all of them were pines. But it is not so in 

 Indiana, and for this reasun Indiana is a good place to study trci's. 



A^ow, let us go out into the school yard, or to the nearest woods and 

 see how many different kinds of trees we can find. In most cases, 

 unless you live in the southern counties of the State, you will find 

 that ver}- many of the trees are oaks. If you live in the southern 

 counties perhaps the beech tree will outnumber the oaks. Do you 

 know an oak tree when you see it? 



The trees are usually quite thick and tall. The hark is quite rough, 

 being broken up into irregular shapes liy cracks of coiKiderable depth. 

 In some cases the bark is light colored, in others it is dark in color. 

 See if you can find oak trees with light-colored bark and dark-colored 

 bark. Do most of the oak trees where you live have light-colored bark 

 or dark-colored bark? Sometimes we think the bark of a tree is 

 worthless, but this is not always true. The bark of oak trees was once 

 \ ei-y largely used in making leather, and all the corks that we use are 

 made from the bark of the cork oak. Look at the leaf. Do you see 

 how the leaf f-talk liolds a single green part? ^^'hen this is the case 

 the leaf is said to be a simple leaf. All oaks have simple leaves. If 

 you look at the leaf stalk you will see that it seems to run right 

 through the center of the leaf to its tip, dividing the green part into 

 two parts, which are almost exactly alike. Do you see how branches 

 seem to go from this mid-vein, as you may call it, to different parts of 

 the leaf? See if these branches or \'einlets come from the same point 

 on the mid-vein or if they start from different points. Do these vein- 

 lets run clear to the edge of the leaf? Look carefully and see just how 

 they end. 



If WQ look at the edge of the leaf we find it is always notched or 

 lobed, sometimes \ery deeply, at other times only slightly, but the 

 margin of an oak leaf is never entire. Xow look carefully and see if 

 the veinlets, which we have just examined, have anything to do with 



