109 



United States and Caaada, where the custom also prevails, return 

 home impressed with its advantages. 



Australia, New Zealand, and to a partial extent South Africa have 

 adopted the Arbor Day custom. Tasmania has not yet felt the 

 necessity for it, but she would do well, possessing as she does, so much 

 virgin iorest, to be wise in time. Italy and Spain have endeavoured 

 to introduce the movement, assisted by royal patronage in each country. 



Except in the Kentish village of Eynsford, the custom has not been 

 celebrated in the British Isles. Arbor celebration was begun in Eyns 

 ford in the Jubilee of 1897, when farmers and cottagers planted Apple- 

 trees and the school children planted a row of trees on the school bank, 

 arranged so that the initial letters of the name of each tree spell a 

 text of Scripture. The successful defence of Kimterly, Ladysmith, 

 and Mafeking was commemorated by the planting of trees in the vil- 

 lage street in 1900, and this year thirty trees have been planted in 

 memory of our beloved Queen Victoria, representing Tennyson's cele- 

 brated line " fthe wrought her people lasting good." 



The origin of Arbor Day custom at Eynsford was due to the gratu- 

 itous offers of Apple-trees for orchard renewal by the late Mr. W. H. 

 Cullingford, of Tunbridge Wells. 



The forces that operated for Arbor Day in the United States are less 

 existent in this country, for there the value of timber annually used 

 and exported exceeds the value of the cereal crop. Here we are so 

 largely dependent on foreign supply that we do not feel the neces- 

 sity for planting, but w 7 e ought to remember that the countries from 

 which we draw our supplies are themselves alarmed at the prospect of 

 forest depletion. There are nevertheless the strongest arguments for 

 extensive planting of timber trees in our land. 



A pathetic instance of memorial planting associates our late beloved 

 Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort with our Society. Near the 

 Mausoleum at Frogmore are two handsome Wellingtonias, originally 

 planted in what were formerly the Society's Gardens at South Ken- 

 sington — one by the Prince Consort, President of the Society, on June 

 5, and the otr er by Queen Victoria on June 24, 1861, the year of the 

 Prince's death. They were removed to Frogmore on December 15, 

 1869, and on the 17th were replanted by Her Majesty near the 

 Prince's Mausoleum. One of the trees died in August 1870, and 

 another was planted in its place by the Queen in December of the same 

 year. 



Ihroughout her whole life our beloved Sovereign was a persistent 

 tree- planter, and there is no more fitting way of keeping her endear- 

 ing memory green than by her people following her royal example, 

 and for ever commemorating the close of her loving reign by an Arbor 

 Day on January 22— the day on which she entered into rest. Shall 

 we not term it rather the day of her Accession ; and say with good 

 George Herbert : — 



" Onely a sweet and vertuous soul, 



Like season'd timber, never gives ; 

 But though the whole world turn to coal, 



Then chiefly lives " ? 



