Trees 
national and individual welfare. Lately the Speaker 
of the House has done little less than violate his oath 
of office by interfering with measures beneficial to all 
of us. Perhaps if legislators were under bond to do 
what they are paid to do, there would be less shirking, 
less language, and more rejoicing among the people 
who pay for what they do not receive. If the man in 
business is under bond to perform faithfully the duties 
which appertain solely to merchandise or money, 
why would it not be just and proper to hold under 
bond—a good big one—the men with whom are 
intrusted the administration ot affairs both ethical and 
physical which have to do with the comfort and 
happiness of eighty millions of us .? Perhaps if our 
citizens were compelled to consider the greatness of 
the honor and responsibility conferred upon them in 
being chosen a public servant and had to further 
reflect that the maintenance of that honor as well 
as their continuance in office depended entirely upon 
their honesty and skill in serving their constituents 
(is the term used correctly ?), perhaps then we should 
be represented in a measure to correspond with our 
taxation; and would it not be better still if our official 
representatives were chosen for a short term from 
among our many intelligent citizens who could afford 
to volunteer their services on the basis of no salary ? 
There would surely be fewer public offices and they 
would be better filled. 
It would be a great and lasting blessing to future 
generations and a large relief to the present one if we 
could have immediately, a law compelling every one 
who cuts a tree to plant at least two or more—the 
more the better; even then, granting that every one 
planted would thrive, it would be several decades 
before there could be trees of any considerable size; 
my own experience in the study of trees leads me to 
say that the big fellows of the more common species, 
the birch, oak, beech and others are already extremely 
rare; what will be the result in ten years if the large 
ones continue to go down and no young trees are 
planted After that time no one in the next genera¬ 
tion will know what a tree three feet in diameter 
looks like! It must be realized, too, that while steps 
toward the conservation of the present forest resources 
are highly important, yet they are nowhere to be 
compared to the necessity of planting now and keep¬ 
ing on planting, the trees which are to be the forests 
of a few years hence. Once upon a time we thought 
there would always be the Big Woods and that we 
could enjoy the luxury of glowing coals indefinitely; 
but now the great fireplace with its smoking backlog 
is only a memory, and its more modern cobblestone 
cousin with its little heap of smouldering rent receipts 
a mocking travesty upon the times of roasting nuts 
and popping corn in the ashes. Once—and not so 
very long ago, half a century, to be exact —we thought 
the forests would last forever, and now we are figuring 
on how long it will take to grow them! In fact a 
forest in strictest sense is already a thing of the past, 
and yet the very thing we should do to protect our 
immediately available wood supply is the one thing 
we are not doing; everyone should make it a point 
to use no wood where other material would do better; 
there is now as much wood misused and wasted as 
used; one might mention hundreds of ways in which 
thousands of feet of good material could be saved 
every day; for instance, the packing case problem is a 
big one and extravagantly wasteful; why are not 
such commodities of every day commerce made so 
that they may be opened without destroying and thus 
used repeatedlyit would be a saving in many 
directions. Then fancy being buried in a mahogany 
coffin that will turn soon to dust along with our bones, 
when in a few years to come the living will have to 
take their comfort in chairs made of structural iron 
and their piano cases will be made of tin with pressed 
flower ornamentation. This paper is not a lesson in 
mental arithmetic, but anyone interested in knowing 
how much good perishable material we senselessly put 
in the ground each year may find out by ascertaining 
the average death rate and multiplying by the number 
of feet of lumber to each box in which neither soul 
nor flesh may rest. Both our trees and our dead 
would last longer and be more honored if we used 
better judgment and more cement in the proper 
place. Again; to huild a boardwalk a mile long at 
the present time when lumber is at a premium- - knots 
thirty-five dollars per thousand feet—and needed 
elsewhere, is a crime. I have in mind a case where 
fifty thousand feet of boards and sills, enough to build 
several comfortable cottages, went to rot. It may 
seem like privation to do without wood, for so many 
things as we have heretofore been accustomed, but it 
is better far to have it only when we need it absolutely 
than to do without altogether, as we shall have to, 
soon. 
Manual training teachers have the opportunity to 
exert a great influence in the direction of economy by 
impressing upon their pupils, not only the importance 
of the careful use of tools to create a minimum of 
waste, but also the significance of the very slow pro¬ 
cess of growing timber and its relation to the very 
rapidly increasing demand. Careless workmen in 
the building trades could save many thousand feet of 
lumber by learning how to read drawings correctly and 
not cut into precious material without having a com¬ 
plete drawing to start; in such case a man who had 
not learned his work as a trade would be less likely to 
spend two thirds of his time correcting the mistakes 
he makes the other third. Also, where coal can be 
had for fuel, wood should most certainly not be used; 
it is both more expensive and scarcer than coal. All 
this effects a saving, and saving is next to creating, 
which is better than legislation—and a lot quicker. 
Trees, as well as land, air and water, are common 
property; they are only a part of the furnishings of 
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