N.H. Egleston - Arbor Day Leaves
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N.H. Egleston >> Arbor Day Leaves
"I can think of no more pleasant way of being remembered than by the
planting of a tree. Like whatever things are perennially good, it will
be growing while we are sleeping, and will survive us to make others
happier. Birds will rest in it and fly thence with messages of good
cheer. I should be glad to think that any word or deed of mine could
be such a perennial presence of beauty, or show so benign a destiny."
[Illustration]
THE OAK.
What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his?
There needs no crown to mark the forest's king;
How in his leaves outshines full summer's bliss!
Sun, storm, rain, dew, to him their tribute bring,
Which he, with such benignant royalty
Accepts, as overpayeth what is lent;
All nature seems his vassal proud to be,
And cunning only for his ornament.
How towers he, too, amid the billowed snows,
An unquelled exile from the summer's throne,
Whose plain, uncintured front more kingly shows,
Now that the obscuring courtier leaves are flown.
His boughs make music of the winter air,
Jewelled with sleet, like some cathedral front
Where clinging snow-flakes with quaint art repair
The dents and furrows of Time's envious brunt.
How doth his patient strength the rude March wind
Persuade to seem glad breaths of summer breeze,
And win the soil that fain would be unkind,
To swell his revenues with proud increase!
He is the gem; and all the landscape wide
(So doth his grandeur isolate the sense)
Seems but the setting, worthless all beside,
An empty socket, were he fallen thence.
So, from oft converse with life's wintry gales,
Should man learn how to clasp with tougher roots
The inspiring earth;--how otherwise avails
The leaf-creating sap that sunward shoots?
So every year that falls with noiseless flake
Should fill old scars up on the stormward side,
And make hoar age revered for age's sake,
Not for traditions of youth's leafy pride.
So, from the pinched soil of a churlish fate,
True hearts compel the sap of sturdier growth,
So between earth and heaven stand simply great,
That these shall seem but their attendants both;
For nature's forces, with obedient zeal
Wait on the rooted faith and oaken will,
As quickly the pretender's cheat they feel,
And turn mad Pucks to flout and mock him still.
Lord! all Thy works are lessons,--each contains
Some emblem of man's all-containing soul;
Shall he make fruitless all Thy glorious pains,
Delving within Thy grace an eyeless mole?
Make me the least of Thy Dodona-grove,
Cause me some message of Thy truth to bring,
Speak but a word through me, nor let Thy love
Among my boughs disdain to perch and sing.
--JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.
WHAT ONE TREE IS WORTH.
It will help us, perhaps, to appreciate properly, the value and
manifold uses of trees if we consider the uses to which a single one
of the many species is put. A Chinese gives us the following account
of the Bamboo.
"The bamboo plant is cultivated almost everywhere; it is remarkable
for its shade and beauty. There are about sixty varieties, different
in size according to its genus; ranging from that of a switch to a big
pole measuring from four to five inches in diameter. It is reared from
shoots and suckers, and, after the root once clings to the ground, it
thrives and spreads without further care or labor. Of these sixty
varieties, each thrives best in a certain locality, and throughout the
whole empire of China the bamboo groves not only embellish the gardens
of the poor, but the vast parks of the princes and wealthy. The use to
which this stately grass is put is truly wonderful. The tender shoots
are cultivated for food like the asparagus; the roots are carved into
fantastic images of men, birds, and monkeys. The tapering culms are
used for all purposes that poles can be applied to, in carrying,
supporting, propelling, and measuring; by the porter, the carpenter,
and the boatman; for the joists of houses and the ribs of sails; the
shafts of spears and the wattles of hurdles, the tubes of aqueducts
and the handles and ribs of umbrellas and fans. The leaves are sewed
upon cords to make rain-cloaks for farmers and boatmen, for sails to
boats as well as junks, swept into heaps to form manure, and matted
into thatches to cover houses. The bamboo wood is cut into splints and
slivers of various sizes to make into baskets and trays of every form
and fancy, twisted into cables, plaited into awnings, and woven into
mats for the bed and floor, for the sceneries of the theatre, for the
roofs of boats, and the casing of goods. The shavings are picked into
oakum to be stuffed into mattresses. The bamboo furnishes the bed for
sleeping and the couch for reclining, the chair for sitting, the
chop-sticks for eating, the pipe for smoking, the flute for
entertaining; a curtain to hang before the door, and a broom to sweep
around it. The ferrule to govern the scholar, the book he studies and
the paper he writes upon, all originated from this wonderful grass.
The tapering barrels of the organ and the dreadful instrument of the
lictor--one to strike harmony, and the other to strike dread; the rule
to measure lengths, the cup to gauge quantities, and the bucket to
draw water; the bellows to blow the fire and the box to retain the
match; the bird-cage and crab-net, the fish-pole, and the water-wheel
and eaveduct, wheelbarrow, and hand-cart, and a host of other things,
are the utilities to which this magnificent grass is converted."
ENDURING CHARACTER OF THE FORESTS.
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 gray earth, the woods preserved 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.
THE POPULAR POPLAR TREE.
When the great wind sets things whirling
And rattles the window panes,
And blows the dust in giants
And dragons tossing their manes;
When the willows have waves like water,
And children are shouting with glee;
When the pines are alive and the larches,--
Then hurrah for you and me,
In the tip o' the top o' the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!
Don't talk about Jack and the Beanstalk--
He did not climb half so high!
And Alice in all her travels
Was never so near the sky!
Only the swallow, a-skimming
The storm-cloud over the lea,
Knows how it feels to be flying--
When the gusts come strong and free--
In the tip o' the top o' the top o' the tip of
the popular poplar tree!
--BLANCH WILLIS HOWARD.
FORESTRY AND THE NEED OF IT.
"Experience as well as common sense teaches us that the selecting of
the species and the mere planting of the same is not a guarantee of
successful forestry."
In this country we have heretofore not made any distinction between
forests and woodlands, while in Europe, and more especially in those
countries in which forestry has reached a high state of development,
the distinction is clearly defined. Prof. Rossmaessler, in speaking of
the difference between forest and woodland (Forst und Wald), says:
"Every forest is also a woodland, but not every woodland, be it ever
so large, is a forest. It is the regular cultivation and economical
management which turns a woodland into a forest."
This difference between forests and woodland is also indicated by the
terms _forester_ and _woodman_; the former term being applied to the
man who advocates the perpetuation of woodland in accordance with the
teachings and principles of forestry, and the latter to the man whose
profession is that of felling trees.
In this meaning of the term, we, in this country, have really no
forests, but woodlands only. To turn these woodlands into forests, and
to plant forests, where for climatic and other considerations they are
needed, is the aim and object of the advocates of forestry.
The forester, it will be seen, has a distinct mission, which is to
perpetuate the forests so indispensable to civilized life, and to
produce at a minimum expense, from a given piece of ground, the
greatest amount of forest products.
As our forests decrease in extent and deteriorate in quality, and as,
with the increase of our population, the demands upon forest products
of all kinds become greater, the necessity of a rational system of
forestry, and the need of educated foresters becomes more apparent
every day. We should, moreover, constantly bear in mind that, while
there are trees, as the catalpa, the ash and the hickory, which will
attain merchantable size in forty or fifty years from the seed, there
are others such as the pine and the tulip-poplar, which require for
reaching the necessary dimensions a period of from sixty to eighty
years; and still others, such as the oaks and the black walnut, for
the full development of which about a hundred and fifty years are
required. Can we, in view of this, still be in doubt as to whether or
not the time has come when we should earnestly consider the question?
Hon. ADOLPH LENE,
Secretary of Ohio State Forestry Bureau.
TREE WEATHER PROVERBS.
If the Oak is out before the Ash,
T'will be a summer of wet and splash;
But if the Ash is out before the Oak,
T'will be a summer of fire and smoke.
When the Hawthorne bloom too early shows,
We shall have still many snows.
When the Oak puts on his goslings gray,
'Tis time to sow barley, night or day.
When Elm leaves are big as a shilling,
Plant kidney beans if you are willing;
When Elm leaves are as big as a penny,
You _must_ plant kidney beans if you wish to have any.
FLOWERS.
Spake full well, in language quaint and olden,
One who dwelleth by the castled Rhine,
When he called the flowers, so blue and golden,
Stars, that in earth's firmament do shine.
Stars they are, wherein we read our history,
As astrologers and seers of eld;
Yet not wrapped about with awful mystery,
Like the burning stars which they beheld.
Wondrous truths, and manifold as wondrous,
God hath written in those stars above;
But not less in the bright flowerets under us
Stands the revelation of His love.
Bright and glorious is that revelation,
Writ all over this great world of ours--
Making evident our own creation,
In these stars of earth, these golden flowers.
--LONGFELLOW.
Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity;
children love them; tender, contented, ordinary people love
them. They are the cottager's treasure; and in the crowded
town mark, as with a little fragment of rainbow, the windows
of the workers in whose heart rests the covenant of peace.
RUSKIN.
Arbor Day Celebrations.
[Illustration]
GROWING OBSERVANCE OF ARBOR DAY.
It adds to the pleasure attending the observance of Arbor Day when we
think how many are uniting with us in its celebration. It is but a few
years since the day was first known and its observance was limited to
a single one of our States. Now the day is known and observed from
Maine to Oregon and from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. Not only is
this true, but this our tree-festival so commends itself to all that
its observance has spread more rapidly and more widely than any other
public observance in the world's history. It is already established in
portions of England, France, and Italy, in far-away South Africa and
Australia, and we shall probably hear before long of its adoption in
China and Japan.
And so, as we come together to have pleasant talks about the trees and
to march out with songs and banners to plant them in school grounds,
in parks, by the road-side or elsewhere, it will be pleasant to
remember that so many others are engaged in similar services. It
should make the day a happier one for us to think that so many will
enjoy it as we do, as it should always increase our happiness to know
that others are sharing with us anything that is good.
As it will, doubtless, be interesting to all engaging in the
celebration of the day, we give on the next page a list of the States
in which Arbor Day is observed.
STATES AND TERRITORIES OBSERVING ARBOR DAY.
YEAR OF
FIRST
STATES. OBSERVANCE TIME OF OBSERVANCE.
Alabama 1887 22nd February.
Arizona 1890-91 First Friday after first of February.
California 1886
Colorado 1885 Third Friday in April.
Connecticut 1887 In Spring, at appointment of Governor.
Florida 1886 January 8.
Georgia 1887 First Friday in December.
Idaho 1887 Last Monday in April.
Illinois 1888 Date fixed by Governor and Supt. of Public
Instruction.
Indiana 1884 " " Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Iowa 1887 " " " "
Kansas 1875 Option of Governor, usually in April.
Kentucky 1886 " "
Louisiana 1888-9 " Parish Boards.
Maine 1887 " Governor.
Maryland 1889 " " in April.
Massachusetts 1886 Last Saturday in April.
Michigan 1885 Option of Governor.
Minnesota 1876 " "
Mississippi 1892 " Board of Education.
Missouri 1886 First Friday after first Tuesday of April.
Montana 1887 Third Tuesday of April.
Nebraska 1872 22nd of April.
Nevada 1887 Option of Governor.
New Hampshire 1886 " "
New Jersey 1884 " " in April.
New Mexico 1890 Second Friday in March.
New York 1889 First Friday after May 1.
North Carolina 1893
North Dakota 1884 Sixth of May, by proclamation of Governor.
Ohio 1882 In April " "
Oregon 1882 Second Friday in April.
Pennsylvania 1887 Option of Governor.
Rhode Island 1887 " "
South Carolina Uncertain Variable.
South Dakota 1884 Option of Governor.
Tennessee 1875 November, at designation of County
Superintendents.
Texas 1800 22nd of February.
Vermont 1885 Option of Governor.
Virginia 1892
West Virginia 1883 Fall and Spring, at designation of Supt.
of Schools.
Wisconsin 1889 Option of Governor.
Wyoming 1888 " "
Washington 1892
Only the following five states or territories fail to observe Arbor
Day--Arkansas, Delaware, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, and Utah.
ENCOURAGING WORDS.
The Governors of our States and the Superintendents of our schools
have generally entered heartily into the observance of Arbor Day and
spoken earnest words of encouragement in its behalf. The following are
specimens of what they have said.
=New Hampshire.=--Governor Currier, in his Arbor Day Proclamation: "I
especially desire that our children may be taught to observe and
reverence the divine energies which are unfolding themselves in every
leaf and flower that sheds a perfume in spring or ripens into a robe
of beauty in autumn, so that the aspirations of childhood, led by
beautiful surroundings, may form higher and broader conceptions of
life and humanity; for the teachings of nature lead up from the
material and finite to the infinite and eternal."
=Illinois.=--Governor Fifer: "Let the children in our schools, the
young men and women in our colleges, seminaries, and universities,
with their instructors, co-operate in the proper observance of the day
by planting shrubs, vines, and trees that will beautify the home,
adorn the public grounds, add wealth to the State, and thereby
increase the comfort and happiness of our people."
=Missouri.=--From the Superintendent of Public Schools, in his annual
report: "Let this love for planting trees, shrubs, vines, and flowers
be encouraged and stimulated in the school-room and not only will the
school-yards profit thereby, but the now barren farm-yards and
pastures will remain the recipients of your instruction."
=California.=--From Superintendent of Public Instruction: "Our schools
cannot protect the forests, but they can raise up a generation which
will not leave their hillsides and mountains treeless; a generation
which will frown upon and rebuke the wanton destruction of our forest
trees. There is no spot on earth that may not be made more beautiful
by the help of trees and flowers."
=Nebraska.=--From the State Superintendent of Public Instruction: "On
this day, above all others, the pupils of our public schools should be
educated to care for the material prosperity of the country and to
foster the growth of trees. Let the child understand that he is
especially interested in the tree he plants: that it is his; that upon
him devolves the responsibility of protecting and cultivating it in
coming years."
=New York.=--Hon. A.S. Draper, ex-Superintendent of Public
Instruction: "The primary purpose of the Legislature in establishing
Arbor Day was to develop and stimulate in the children of the
commonwealth a love and reverence for Nature, as revealed in trees and
shrubs and flowers."
THE BEST USE OF ARBOR DAY.
Arbor Day, to be most useful as well as most pleasant, should not
stand by itself, alone, but be connected with much study and talk of
trees and kindred subjects beforehand and afterward. It should rather
be the focal or culminating point of the year's observation of trees
and other natural objects with which they are closely connected. The
wise teacher will seek to cultivate the observing faculties of the
pupils by calling their attention to the interesting things with which
the natural world abounds. It is not necessary to this that there
should be formal classes in botany or any natural science, though we
think no school should be without its botanical class or classes, nor
should anyone be eligible to the place of a teacher in our public
schools who is not competent to give efficient instruction in botany
at least.
But much may be done in this direction informally, by brief, familiar
talks in the intervals between the regular recitations of the
school-room, or during the walks to and from school. A tree by the
road-side will furnish an object lesson for pleasant and profitable
discourse for many days and at all seasons. A few flowers, which
teacher or pupil may bring to the school-room, will easily be made the
means of interesting the oldest and the youngest and of imparting the
most profitable instruction. How easy also to plant a few seeds in a
vase in the school-room window and to encourage the pupils to watch
their sprouting and subsequent growth.
Then it should not be difficult to have a portion of the school
grounds set apart, where the pupils might, with the teacher's
guidance, plant flower and tree seeds and thus be able to observe the
ways and characteristics of plants in all periods of their growth.
They could thus provide themselves with trees for planting on future
Arbor Days, and at the time of planting there would be increased
enjoyment from the fact that they had grown the trees for that very
purpose.
Why might not every school-house ground be made also an arboretum,
where the pupils might have under their eyes, continually, specimens
of all the trees that grow in the town or in the State where the
school is situated? It would require but a little incitement from the
teacher to make the pupils enthusiastic with the desire to find out
the different species indigenous to the region and to gather them, by
sowing seeds or planting the young trees, around their place of study.
And if the school premises are now too small in extent to admit of
such a use, let the pupils make an earnest plea for additional ground.
As a general fact our school-grounds have been shamefully limited in
extent and neglected as to their use and keeping. The school-house, in
itself and in its surroundings, ought to be one of the most beautiful
and attractive objects to be seen in any community. The approach from
the street should be like that to any dwelling house, over well kept
walks bordered by green turf, with trees and shrubs and flowers
offering their adornment. Everything should speak of neatness and
order. The playground should be ample, but it should be in another
direction and by itself.
Europeans are in advance of us in school management. The Austrian
public school law reads: "In every school a gymnastic ground, a garden
for the teacher, according to the circumstances of the community, and
a place for the purposes of agricultural experiment are to be
created." There are now nearly 8,000 school gardens in Austria, not
including Hungary. In France, also, gardening is taught in the primary
and elementary schools. There are nearly 30,000 of these schools, each
of which has a garden attached to it, and the Minister of Public
Instruction has resolved to increase the number of school gardens and
that no one shall be appointed master of an elementary school unless
he can prove himself capable of giving practical instruction in the
culture of Mother Earth. In Sweden, in 1871, there were 22,000
children in the common schools receiving instruction in horticulture
and tree-planting. Each of more than 2,000 schools had for cultivation
from one to twelve acres of ground.
Why should we be behind the Old World in caring for the schools? By
the munificence of one of her citizens, New York has twice offered
premiums for the best-kept school-grounds. Why may we not have Arbor
Day premiums in all of our States and in every town for the most
tasteful arrangement of school-house and grounds? These places of
education should be the pride of every community instead of being, as
they so often are, a reproach and shame.
TREES IN THEIR LEAFLESS STATE.
As the season for Arbor Day and tree-planting comes on, just before
the buds begin to swell and are getting ready to cover the trees with
a fresh mantle of leaves, it is well--as it is also when the leaves
have fallen from the trees in autumn--to give attention to the bare
trees and notice the characteristic forms of the various species, the
manner in which their branches are developed and arranged among
themselves, for a knowledge of these things will often enable one to
distinguish the different kinds of trees more readily and certainly
than by any other means. The foliage often serves as an obscuring
veil, concealing, in part at least, the individuality and the
peculiarities of the trees. But if one is familiar with their forms of
growth, their skeleton anatomy, so to speak, he will recognize common
trees at once with only a partial view of them.
Some trees, as the oak, throw their limbs out from the trunk
horizontally. As Dr. Holmes says: "The others shirk the work of
resisting gravity, the oak defies it. It chooses the horizontal
direction for its limbs so that their whole weight may tell, and then
stretches them out fifty or sixty feet so that the strain may be
mighty enough to be worth resisting." Some trees have limbs which
droop toward the ground, while those of most, perhaps, have an upward
tendency, and others still have an upward direction at first and later
in their growth a downward inclination, as in the case of the elm, the
birch, and the willows. Some, like the oak, have comparatively few but
large and strong branches, while others have many and slender limbs,
like many of the birches and poplars.
The teacher should call attention to these and other characteristics
of tree-structure, drawing the various forms of trees on the
blackboard and encouraging the pupils to do the same, allowing them
also to correct each other's drawings. This will greatly increase
their knowledge of trees and their interest in them as well as in
Arbor Day and its appropriate observance.
[Illustration]
Programme for Arbor Day.
We give in this part of our manual a programme for Arbor Day
observance. It is presented not so much in the expectation that it
will be exactly copied as that it may serve as suggestion of what may
be done. We have added various selections from poets and prose writers
which may help those who are preparing for the proper observance of
Arbor Day. But these are only a few specimens from the great stores of
our literature. A little care and painstaking beforehand will furnish
an ample supply of the desired material, for our literature abounds in
such. Not the least of the benefits of the observance of Arbor Day is
the opportunity it gives for making the young familiar with the best
thoughts of the best writers and thus giving them a literary culture
in the pleasantest manner. Thus while preparing to plant trees we may
be planting in the young mind and heart growths more precious and
lasting than they.