of New York 121 



INSPIRATION IN TREES 



By Charles Lathrop Pack, 

 President, American Tree Association 



TO the trees the poet and the orator have turned all through 

 the ages for some of their finest word settings. One that 

 has great appeal is that of the Rev. Francis E. Clark, founder 

 of the Christian Endeavor Societies of the world, who refers 

 to "the Creator as the Great Tree Maker." 



THEN, TOO, there is the sentiment the Father of Arbor 

 Day, J. Sterling Morton, left in the wonderful memorial 

 grove he planted in Nebraska when he arranged for a tablet, 

 among the trees he loved, which says: "If ye seek my monu- 

 ment look around you." 



TREES, man's best friend, the friend without whom exist- 

 ence is impossible, picture life in all its variety. Look 

 at the wind-swept coast and there you will find struggling 

 for existence among the rocks the trees. Thus does man, 

 buffetted by the winds of fortune, struggle. You will find 

 the trees clinging to river banks in their endeavor to hold 

 those barriers in place against the flood time. Again you will 

 find the trees mothering the springs and protecting them from 

 the ravages of the sun that they may feed first the rivulet, 

 then the stream that at last becomes the mighty river of com- 

 merce. 



WE can look back through the ages and find that when 

 the trees have gone, civilizations have disappeared. 

 Nature is the great teacher, and when man violates her laws 

 he must pay a terrible penalty. Nature works slowly, but 

 her decisions and ends are sure as the coming and going of 

 the sun. To Nature's laws man must give heed if he con- 

 tinues to inhabit the earth, for all life is bound up in her 

 mandates. 



WE see this enthralling mystery of life everywhere; in the 

 seed that becomes the apple blossom; the flower that 

 gives its nectar to the honey maker; in the roots of the tree 

 that, buried, nevertheless gives back ever renewing life as a 

 reward to those who plant. Kilmer pen-pictured this in 

 that immortal verse about the "tree that looks at God all day 

 and lifts its leafy arms to pray." 



