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ARBOR DAY MANUAL. 
with the accumulating leaves of ages, huge sponges from which trickle the 
supplies of streams. To cut the forests recklessly is to dry up the rivers. It 
is a Crime against the whole community, and scholars and statesmen both 
declare that the proper preservation of the forests is' the paramount public 
question. Even in a mercantile sense it is a prodigious question, for the esti¬ 
mated value of our forest products in 1880 was $800,000,000, a value nearly 
double that of the wheat crop, ten times that of gold and silver, and forty times 
that of our iron ore. 
It was high time that we considered the trees. They are among our chief 
benefactors, but they are much better friends to us than ever we have been to- 
them. If as the noble horse passes us, tortured with the overdraw check and 
the close blinders and nagged with the goad, it is impossible not to pity him 
that he has been delivered into the hands of men to be cared for, not less is the 
tree to be pitied. It seems as if we had never forgotten or forgiven that early 
and intimate acquaintance with the birch, and have been revenging ourselves 
ever since. We have waged against trees a war of extermination like that of 
the Old Testament Christians of Massachusetts Bay against the Pequot Indians. 
We have treated the forests as if they were noxious savages or vermin. It was- 
necessary, of course, that the continent should be suitably cleared for settle¬ 
ment and agriculture. But there was no need of shaving it as with a razor. If 
Arbor Day teaches the growing generation of children that in clearing a field 
some trees should be left for shade and for beauty, it will have rendered good 
service. In regions rich with the sugar-maple tree the young maples are saved 
from the general massacre because their sap, turned into sugar, is a marketable 
commodity. But every tree yields some kind of sugar, if it be only shade for 
a cow. 
Let us hope also that Arbor Day will teach the children, under the wise 
guidance of experts, that trees are to be planted with intelligence and care, if 
they are to become both vigorous and beautiful. A sapling is not to be cut into- 
a bean-pole, but carefully trimmed in accordance with its form. A tree which 
has lost its head will never recover it again, and will survive only as a monument 
of the ignorance and folly of its tormentor. Indeed, one of the happiest results- 
of the new holiday will be the increase of knowledge which springs from per¬ 
sonal interest in trees. 
This will be greatly promoted by naming those which are planted on Arbor 
Day. The interest of children in pet animals, in dogs, squirrels, rabbits, cats, 
and ponies, springs largely from their life and their dependence upon, human 
care. When the young tree also is regarded as living and equally dependent 
upon intelligent attention, when it is named by vote of the scholars, and 
planted by them with music and pretty ceremony, it will also become a pet, 
and a human relation will be established. If it be named for a living man or 
woman, it is a living memorial and a perpetual admonition to him whose name 
it bears not to suffer his namesake tree to outstrip him, and to remember that 
a man, like a tree, is known by his fruits. 
Trees will acquire a new charm for intelligent children when they associate 
them with famous persons. Watching to see how Bryant and Longfellow are 
growing, whether Abraham Lincoln wants water, or George Washington 
