1 14 THE story of the oak tree 
Knowing the beauty and usefulness of our forests, 
should we not do all we can to keep them? Yet we do 
just the opposite. Our lumber dealers cut down mil¬ 
lions of trees every year, never bothering to plant new 
ones in their stead, so that our America is fast losing 
her beautiful mantle of trees,—those same trees our 
pioneer fathers called enemies, but which we now know 
as our best friends. 
But beside the man with the axe, our forests have 
other and worse enemies. Fires destroy miles upon 
miles of trees every year; have you ever caught the keen 
scent of pine smoke? It carries on the wind for miles; 
k native of Wisconsin told me he smelt burning pine in 
his city home, miles from the forest. 
There is a greedy army which night and day seeks to 
lay waste the forests—the army of insects. One thou¬ 
sand different kinds of insects live upon the oak trees of 
our country. Some eat the roots, some burrow into the 
trunk, others, called “leaf rollers” and “leaf runners” 
devour the leaves. There are back-boring beetles, flat¬ 
headed borers, and caterpillars by the million ready to 
pounce on the luscious green. One, a big shiny black 
and red fellow called the forest-tent caterpillar, does 
more harm to oak forests than all other kinds of cater¬ 
pillars put together. 
