HUMAN INTEREST IN TREES 



By DR. RUTH MARSHALL, Rockford College, Rockford, 111. 



Our present clay interest in trees is more than just a phase of 

 the general conservation movement ; it reaches back to something 

 deep and fundamental in the experience of the race. Back in the 

 beginnings, we find that trees were held sacred, either as gods or 

 as their temples. In the art of Egypt and Assyria appears a sac- 

 red tree from which came superhuman strength. A Scandinavi- 

 an myth tells that man and woman were made from trees, the 

 man from the ash and the woman from an elder bough. The 

 oak was Jove's tree, and it was sacred also to Thor. The Druids 

 performed their rites in the forests, and we have the story of the 

 tree of knowledge in Genesis. The Christmas festival is rich 

 in memories of the Yule log and the Christmas tree. Read the 

 tales of King Arthur, or English history down through the days 

 of the Edwards, even to the present time, and see the place that 

 trees have held in the life of the poeple. 



There are certain stages in the interest in trees which will 

 be found in the history of all of the nations of the North. They 

 are repeated in our own land. First, in pioneer days, trees were 

 regarded as enemies, harboring Indians and wild beasts ; more- 

 over, there was need that they be cut down and destroyed as 

 fast as possible to make clearings for the homes and farms. But 

 as the settlements grew, lumber became necessary for the various 

 developing industries. This period naturally led to the period of 

 exploitation, when trees came to be recognized as valuable assets 

 to the country, and they were no longer cut down merely to be 

 gotten rid of. The forest receded rapidly, but the railroads 

 opened up, and coal supplanted wood as fuel. 



This wasteful use of forests quickly brought on a shortage 

 of timber which led to a tardy realization of their value. How 

 to save the forests from rapid destruction, rather than how to 

 cut them down as soon as possible, now became the problem, a 

 problem no longer a local one but national in scope and raising 

 the question of the power of the federal government. And last 

 is the constructive period, the period which we have now entered, 

 the period of systematic forestry. The trees are a crop, to be 

 treated as other crops are treated, to be conserved and used, a 

 source of national wealth and a necessity in national life. For- 

 estry is no new subject, though this country is just learning its 

 first lessons in it. It has been discussed for two thousand years. 

 Every nation must come to it sooner or later. Forestry has been 



