Arbor Day, Its History, Observation, Spirit and Significance;

ARBOR DAY EM>^CATlgN OIV. or AGrt'% Main Lib. AgrU.oept* LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class DBPT. OF Aa.îCJL.rUflE Due ametican ôHDapst ARBOR DAY Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2007 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/arbordayitsliistoOOscliaricli jflbur dtneitcan i[ôltlia|f0 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY, OBSERVANCE, SPIRIT AND SIGNIFICANCE ; WITH PRACTICAL SELEC- TIONS ON TREE-PLANTING AND CONSER- VATION, AND A NATURE ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUFFLER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1909 Cofyright, r()og, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY New York Puhliihed, October, igog of ARBOR DAY LETTER OF THEODORE ROOSEVELT, PRESIDENT, TO THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES " " Arbor Day ( which means simply Tree Day ) is now observed in every state in our Union — and mainly in the schools. At various times, from Jan- uary to December, but chiefly in this month of April, you give a day or part of a day to special exercises and perhaps to actual tree planting, in recog- nition of the importance of trees to us as a Nation, and of what they yield in adornment, comfort, and useful products to the communities in which you live. It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for within your lifetime the Nation's need of trees will become serious. We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship ; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied, and man so thoughtlessly destroyed ; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted. For the nation, as for the man or woman or boy or girl, the road to success is the right use of what V 201929 vi ARBOR DAY we have and the improvement of present opportu- nity. If you neglect to prepare yourselves now for the duties and responsibilities which will fall upon you later, if you do not learn the things which you will need to know when your school days are over, you will suffer the consequences. So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal, whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life. A people without children would face a hopeless future ; a country without trees is almost as hopeless ; forests which are so used that they cannot renew themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their benefits. A true forest is not merely a storehouse full of wood, but, as it were, a factory of wood, and at the same time a reservoir of water. When you help to preserve our forests or plant new ones you are acting the part of good citizens. The value of forestry deserves, therefore, to be taught in the schools, which aim to make good citizens of you. If your Arbor Day exercises help you to realize what benefits each one of you receives from the forests, and how by your assistance these benefits may continue, they will serve a good end. Theodore Roosevelt. The White House, April 15, 1907. PREFACE The recent awakening of a national interest in the movement toward the conservation of our natural resources has emphasized the need for a collection of literature on all phases of Arbor Day more modem than the excellent Manual published by New York in 1889 and more comprehensive than the many small Arbor Day annuals brought out by the various states. The editor has aimed to include in the present volume the most practical as well as the most beautiful essays, articles, letters, stories, exercises, and poems that have been written about Arbor Day, its history, observance, spirit, and significance, as well as those on Spring, trees, flowers, and ''green things growing." The section on Conservation is of especial timeliness. vH INTRODUCTION Although Arbor Day is one of the newest of our American holidays, its institution is merely the revival of an ancient custom. It is said that the Aztecs always planted a tree when an infant came into the world, and gave it the child's own name. And the old Mexican Indians plant trees on certain days of the year, under the full moon, naming them after their children. There is a similar custom of long standing in certain parts of rural Germany, where each member of each family plants a tree with appropriate cere- monies at Whitsuntide, forty days after Easter. Some unknown seeker after truth once discovered in a Swiss chronicle of the fifth century an account of an early and curious institution of Arbor Day. It seems that the people of a little Swiss town called Brugg assembled in council and resolved to plant a forest of oak trees on the common. The first rainy day thereafter the citizens began their work. They dug holes in the ground with canes and sticks, and dropped an acorn into each hole, tramping the dirt over it. More than twelve sacks were sown in this way, and after the work was done each citizen received a wheaten roll as a reward. ix X ARBOR DAY For some reason the work was all in vain, for the seed never came up. Perhaps the acorns were laid too deep, or it might have been that the tramping of so many feet had packed the earth too firmly. Whatever the cause, the acorns refused to sprout, and the townspeople sowed the same ground with rye and oats, and after the harvest they tried the acorn planting again — this time in anothlai^way — by plowing the soil and sowing the acorns in the furrows. But again the ''great oaks" refused to grow; grass came up instead, and the people were disappointed. But an oak grove they were deter- mined to have, so after this second failure a few wise men put their heads together and decided to gain the desired result by tr*isplanting. A day was appointed in October, and the whole community, men, women, and children, marched to the woods, dug up oak saplings, and transplanted them on the common. At the close of the exercises each girl and boy was presented with a roll, and in the evening the grown people had a merry feast in the town hall. This time the trees grew. The people of Brugg were pleased and satisfied, and instituted the day of tree-planting as a yearly holiday. Every year as the day came around the children formed in line and marched to the oak grove, bringing back twigs or switches, thus proving that the oaks were thriving, and every year at the close of the parade the rolls were distributed to be eaten in INTRODUCTION xi remembrance of the day. This festival still exists and is known as '^The Switch Parade." - "The first to call attention in this country, in an impressive way, to the value and absolute need of trees," writes Egleston,* "was that eminent scholar and wise observer, Mr. George P. Marsh, for many years our worthy representative at the courts of Italy and Turkey. His residence in those older countries was calculated to draw his attention to the subject as it would not have been drawn had he always lived in his native land. "In Europe Mr. Marsh found the governments of Italy and Germany, as well as those of other countries, making active endeavors ^nd at great expense to rehabilitate their forests, which had been depleted centuries before, to guard them from depredation, and, instead of leaving them to be consumed at the bidding of personal greed or recklessness, cherishing them as among their most precious possessions. He found schools, of a grade corresponding to our colleges, established for the special purpose of train- ing men for the successful planting and cultivation of forests. He found the growth of trees in masses and their maintenance reduced to a science, and the management of the woodlands constituting one of the most important departments of state. " Such discoveries were well calculated to fix his attention upon the very different condition of the * "Arbor Day: Its History and Observance," by N. H- Egleston. xii ARBOR DAY forests in his own country, and to convince him that the reckless destruction of them then going on here, if not checked, would bring upon this land the same calamities which had befallen countries of the Old World in past centuries, and from which only the most enlightened nations of Europe are now recov- ering, through the arduous efforts of many decades, and at great pecuniary cost. The result of Mr. Marsh's observations was the publication of a volume entitled *The Earth and Man,' and to the admirable chapter on *The Woods,' more than to any other source, perhaps, we are indebted for the awakening of attention here to our destructive treatment of the forests and the necessity of adopt- ing a different course if we would avert most serious consequences, threatening, possibly, more than anything else our material welfare." The cause of our American trees was taken up and zealously advocated by a number of public- spirited men, prominent among whom was B. G. Northrup who, in the pages to follow, has written so eloquently of Arbor Day's spirit and significance. But the official father of the movement was J. Sterling Morton, afterward Secretary of Agricul- ture during President Cleveland's second term.

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