THE MEMORIAL TREES OF THE UNITED STATES 
PERCIVAL SHELDON RIDSDALE 
Secretary, American Forestry Association 
Woven by the Great Avenues of These Living Monuments Which Stretch Across 
Our Land, the Web of a Common Devotion Binds Us into Closer Unity of 
Which Arbor Day Is the Annual Reminder and Renewal 
HE planting of 
memorial trees is 
of course an idea 
as old as the idea 
of memorials at all, as we 
were reminded when the 
Prince of Wales set out a 
small Cedar last autumn 
in front of the tomb of 
Washington at Mount 
Vernon, near the spot 
where his grandfather had 
planted a Magnolia some 
sixty years earlier. But 
with the adoption of tree 
memorials generally for 
the dead of the Great 
War, under the system of 
registration inaugurated 
by the American Forestry 
Association in their Honor 
Roll, we come to perhaps 
the finest as well as the 
most extensive application 
of it that has ever been 
made. And many unique 
ideas have been evolved, 
ranging from the Roads 
of Remembrance and 
country-wide Cross of 
Living Trees to the sim- 
ple school memorials of 
many kinds. 
Of the latter, one of the 
most interesting and ap- 
pealing is the Lieut. Quen- 
tin Roosevelt Memorial 
Tree at the Force School 
in Washington, where, as 
a lad living at the White 
House, he attended. The 
pupils of the School have 
planted a tree in memory 
of the former pupil — the 
only one to lose his life 
in the World War — and 
Miss Janet McWilliam has appointed one member from each 
class on a committee to care for it. Each one of these twelve 
pupils, upon graduating from his class, appoints his successor 
in the incoming class. Thus there will be at Force School forever 
a Quentin Roosevelt Memorial Tree Committee to care for this 
living memorial of the son of the former president. 
Armistice Day was celebrated in Washington by the planting 
of memorial trees in Lafayette Park directly across Pennsylvania 
Avenue from the White House Grounds. Special exercises were 
held, with music and speeches, two Redwoods from Humboldt 
County, California, being the trees planted. The “civic” 
Redwood was placed on the east side of the Park, and the 
“military” Redwood on the west side. Gen. Pershing turned 
THE OLDEST LIVING THING IN THE WORLD— A TREE! 
The famous “General Sherman ” of Sequoia National Park which was already a goodly 
specimen when Moses led the Children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and was two 
thousand years old when Jesus of Nazareth was born. When last measured this great 
Sequoia gigantea was 279.9 feet high, 102.8 feet in circumference, and 36.5 feet in diameter 
the first spadeful of earth 
for planting each of the 
trees — and earth was sent 
from Maine, Florida, 
Texas, and the shores of 
Puget Sound in which to 
set them, so that each 
tree stands in soil from 
the four corners of the 
United States. 
A list of the women’s 
clubs which have defi- 
nitely included the plant- 
ing and care of memorial 
trees in their activities 
reads almost like a list 
of the women’s clubs of 
the United States; for 
every one, practically, is 
engaged, in one way or 
another, in promoting the 
idea, and the ideal for 
which it stands. And at 
the Biennial Convention 
which is to assemble in 
Des Moines, Iowa, in 
June, a large part of the 
conservation programme 
will be given over to for- 
estry, as a result of the 
stimulus supplied by a 
consideration of trees as 
memorials. 
This is precisely as it 
should be. For it has been 
truly said that “our forests 
are like a bank, and we 
must deposit in them if 
we hope to draw out.” 
Only by intelligent and 
sympathetic interest in 
trees, and planting them, 
will nation-wide apprecia- 
tion of them, be developed. 
It is no exaggeraton to 
say that in each of the 
many phases which it has taken, the intrinsic value of property is 
being increased, whether this be a school yard or a highway. A 
properly planted road means a better road, invariably; and a 
better road means better transportation between towns. That all 
means more business, better living conditions, and a better coun- 
try. And Chambers of Commerce and similar bodies have been 
quick to see this. In many places fruit and nut-bearing trees are 
being used for the memorial groves and along the memorial 
highways. The state of Michigan, for example, will plant its 
Victory Highway from Port Huron to Chicago with Apple trees. 
One can easily picture what such a highway will look like when 
those trees are in bloom. 
“But,” say the pessimists, “tourists will pick the apples.” 
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