ARBOR DAY. 



41 



branches will make good manual exercises for the school children, but it 

 would also be well for everyone to be able to perform them. 



The life of the tree is closely associated with the smallest roots which 

 absorb moisture and the need for preserving these when transplanting 

 should be emphasized. The moisture the tree must have, its use of 

 manure (leaf -mould and humus), how it grows and bears its fruit are 

 elementary to the fundamental truths of the relation of the forest to the 

 happiness and progress of our people. 



Next to the very soil itself, which in North Carolina was originally 

 nearly all forest covered, the forest has been the chief source of livelihood 

 for our people. If it at one time temporarily barred the progress of the 

 farm, it yielded at the same time a revenue in furnishing both warmth 

 and shelter. When the farming land became worn and thin or gullied, 

 the thickets of pine again covered the soil, restoring its fertility and mak- 

 ing it productive. The relation of the forest to the farm is paramount. It 

 is so intimate as to be almost inseparable. On the farm the uses of wood 

 are manifold, for fuel, fencing, building tools and barrels and crates for 

 shipping. 



Within itself, moreover, the forest sustains a vast industry, employing 

 more than 20,000 of our men in handling and sawing and reconverting 

 its lumber and other products. 



But even this is not the limit of the direct usefulness of the forest. The 

 value of the many rivers of North Carolina for manufacturing depends 

 largely upon the uniformity of their flow, upon the absence of gTeat floods, 

 and the shortness of the period of low water, and upon how small a quan- 

 tity of sand and eai'th is washed from the soil of our hills and mountains. 

 Great unevenness in the flow of the streams makes it diflicult to use the 

 power. Large amounts of earth in the water fill up the ponds and reser- 

 voirs and prevent the water being stored. The forest is very important in 

 adding to the usefulness of the, rivers. The more forest there is on the 

 streams and the thicker the sponge of leaves and litter on the ground 

 beneath the trees the more uniform is the stream flow and the freer the 

 water from sand and earth. And this is true not only of the big rivers- 

 but the small streams as well. The bottoms along many of them, at one 

 time cultivated in corn, are now covered with sand bars or have been 

 washed into deep gullies by the floods as the influence of the forest has 

 been lessened by burning and destroying its humus in addition to clearing 

 the land. 



It is from these thoughts that the real lesson of Arbor Day can be 

 drawn. The forest is one of our greatest and most valuable natural gifts 

 and one which, when destroyed, lessens our jjrosiperity, reduces our sources 



