26 
ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
WORDS FROM THE TREE. 
I T is a great pleasure to think of the young people assembling to celebrate 
the planting of trees, and connecting them with the names of authors 
whose works are the farther and higher products of our dear old Mother Nature. 
An Oriental poet says of his hero: 
Sunshine was he in a Wintry place, 
And in midsummer coolness and shade. 
Such are all true thinkers, and no truer monuments of them can exist than 
beautiful trees. Our word book is from the beech tablets on which men used 
to write. Our word Bible is from the Greek for bark of a tree. Our word 
paper is from the tree papyrus — the tree which Emerson found the most inter¬ 
esting thing he saw in Sicily. Our word library is from the Latin liber, bark of 
a tree. Thus literature is traceable in the growth of trees, and was originally 
written on leaves and wooden tablets. The West responds to the East in asso¬ 
ciating great writers with groups of trees, and a grateful posterity will appre¬ 
ciate the poetry of this idea as well while it enjoys the shade and beauty which 
the schools are securing for it. 
Moncure D. Conway, Extract from Letter. 
Under the reign of the Moorish caliphs the Iberian peninsula resembled a 
vast garden, yielding grain and fruit of every known variety, in the most per¬ 
fect quality, and in endless abundance. But then the Sierras and the mountain 
slopes were covered with a luxuriant growth of timber, which was afterward 
wantonly destroyed under the rule of kings. Now nearly all the plateau lands 
of Spain are desert-like and unfit for agriculture, because of the scarcity of rain 
and the want of water. The once delicious climate has become changeable and 
rough. The average depth of the rivers is greatly diminished. The political 
decadence of Spain has even been attributed to the destruction of the forests. 
Of the infinite variety of fruits which spring from the bosom of the earth,, 
the trees of the wood are greatest in dignity. Of all the works of the creation 
which know the changes of life and death, the trees of the forest have the 
longest existence. Of all the objects which crown the grajr earth, the woods 
preserve unchanged, throughout the greatest reach of time, their native 
character. The works of man are ever varying their aspect; his towns and 
his fields alike reflect the unstable opinions, the fickle wills and fancies of each 
passing generation; but the forests on his borders remain to-day the same as they 
were ages of years since. Old as the everlasting hills, during thousands of 
seasons they have put forth and laid down their verdure in calm obedience to. 
the decree which first bade them cover the ruins of the Deluge. 
Susan Fenimore Cooper. Rural Hours^ 
