26 Common Trees 



WHERE TO STUDY TREES 



THE BEST PLACE to study trees is right where you are — 

 if a tree happens to be near. If you are in a city and it is 

 not convenient for you to go out into the woods, you can 

 study the trees on the home grounds, along the streets, or in 

 the parks. Do not forget to get acquainted with the tree 

 that may stand near your front door. Other satisfactory 

 places are fence rows, stream banks, waste places, abandoned 

 fields and woodlots. But the best place of all to get an 

 acquaintance with trees is out in the great forest stretches on 

 the mountain tops and in mountain valleys. Out there the 

 trees are so plentiful and look so natural. 



HOW TO STUDY TREES 



THE FIRST THING one usually wants to know about a tree 

 is its name. Each tree has two kinds of names — the 

 common name and the scientific name. One of our best known 

 trees has the common name of WHITE OAK. Its scientific 

 name is Quetcus alba. Some trees have five to ten or more 

 common names. Whoever knows the common and scien- 

 tific names of a tree has mastered the first step in tree iden- 

 tification. 



There are a number of common ways to get acquainted 

 with trees. Some students are fortunate enough to have good 

 teachers who know the trees. When this is true, tree identi- 

 fication is very easy. But there are other less fortunate ones 

 who must study them from books. The study of trees is 

 one of the purest delights of outdoor life. It is so pleasant 

 so fascinating, and so stimulating that it becomes a pastime 

 of rare delight. To know trees is to love and protect them. 

 In teaching our boys and girls about trees we will place in 

 their possession an unafraid attitude towards the out-of- 

 doors and thus instill into them the duty of preserving tree 

 homes for our cheery bird friends "Whose habitations in the 

 treetops e'en are half-way houses on the road to Heaven." 



Fortunate are the boys and the girls who can tell the names 

 of trees, know the quality of their fruit, the fragrance of their 

 flowers, the form of their leaves, the flavor of their twigs, 

 the color of the bark, and the properties of their wood; 

 especially whether the wood is tough or brittle, easy or hard 

 to chop and split into firewood. 



