2 I 8 
ARBOR DA V MANUAL. 
SPARE THE TREES. 
A LAS, in how many places is the forest which once lent us shade, nothing 
more than a memory. The grave and noble circle which adorned the 
mountain is every day contracting. Where you come in hope of seeing life, 
you find but the image of death. O, who will really undertake the defense of 
the trees, and rescue them from senseless destruction ? Who will eloquently 
set forth their manifold mission, and their active and incessant assistance in the 
regulation of the laws which rule our globe ? Without them, it seems delivered 
over to blind destiny, which will involve it again into chaos. The motive- 
powers and purificators of the atmosphere through the respiration oftheir foli¬ 
age, avaricious collectors to the advantage of future ages of the solar heat, it is 
they which pacify the storm and avert its most disastrous consequences. In 
the low-lying plains, which have no outlet for their waters, the trees, long be¬ 
fore the advent of man, drained the soil by their roots, forcing the stagnant 
waters to descend and construct at a lower depth their useful reservoirs. And 
now, on the abrupt declivities, they consolidate the crumbling soil, check and 
break the torrent, control the melting of the snows, and preserve to the 
meadows the fertile humidity which in due time will overspread them with a 
sea of flowers. And is not this enough ? To watch over the life of the plant 
and its general harmony, is it not to watch over the safety of humanity? The 
tree, again, was created for the nurture of man, to assist him in his industries 
and his arts. It is owing to the tree, to its soul, earth buried for so many cen¬ 
turies, and now restored to light, that we have secured the wings of the stearm 
engine. Thank heaven for the trees! With my feeble voice I claim for them 
the gratitude of man. . Madame Michelet. 
SPRING-TIME IS COMING. 
T HE spring-time is coming, the winter is past; 
The flowers are waking at last, at last. 
Awake, little sleepers, from forest and field 
Oh, sweet is the joy that to us you yield. 
The birds sing out from each tree and bush ; 
The violets listen with a sweet fragrant hush. 
Oh, every thing that’s sleeping still awake, awake; 
To life and spring-time awake. 
For when the world was new, the race that broke 
Unfathered, from the soil or opening oak, 
Lived most unlike the men of later times. 
Juvenal. 
