HISTORY OF ARBOR DAY
(From the Department.)
We are told that the custom of tree planting is an old one among the Germans, who in the rural districts practice a commendable habit of having each member of the family plant a tree at Whitsuntide, which comes forty days after Easter.
The old Mexican Indians also plant trees on certain days of the year when the moon is full, naming them after their children; and the ancient Aztecs are said to have planted a tree every time a child was born, giving it the name of the child .
But to the Hon. J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, Secretary of Agriculture in the Cleveland cabinet, belongs the honor of instituting our American Arbor Day. It was at an annual meeting of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, held in the city of Lincoln, January 4, 1872, that Mr. Morton introduced the following resolution:
Resolved, That Wednesday the 10th day of April, 1572, be and the same is hereby especially set apart and consecrated for tree planting in the state of Nebraska, and the State Board of Agriculture hereby name it Arbor Day, and to urge upon the people of the state the vital importance of tree planting, hereby offer a special premium of one hundred dollars to the agricultural society of that county in Nebraska which shall upon that day plant properly the largest number of trees; and a farm library of twenty-five dollars worth of books to that person, who on that day, shall plant properly, in Nebraska, the greatest number of trees
After a little debate as to the name, some preferring Silvan instead of Arbor, the resolution was unanimously adopted. A second resolution was likewise adopted, asking the newspapers of the state to keep the matter constantly before the people until the appointed day; and the result was the planting of over a million trees in Nebraska on April 10, 1872.
From this beginning on that western prairie the movement has spread in an ever widening circle whose circumference today sweeps from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while all appreciate the poet’s thought:
“What does he plant who plants a tree?
He plants in sap and leaf and wood,
In love of home and loyalty,
And far-cast thought of civic good,
His blessings of the neighborhood,—
Who in the hollow of his hand
Holds all the growth of all our land:
A Nation’s growth from sea to sea
Stirs in his heart who plants a tree.”
WHICH TREE IS BEST.
Which is the best of all the trees?
Answer me, children all, if you please.
That for a hundred years has stood,
The graceful elm or the stately ash,
Or the aspen, whose leaflets shimmer and flash?
Is it the solemn and gloomy pine,
With its million needles so sharp and fine?
Ah no! The tree that I love best,
It buds and blossoms not with the rest;
No summer sun on its fruit has smiled,
But the ice and snow are around it piled;
But still it will bloom and bear fruit for me—
My winter bloomer! My Christmas tree!
—Youths’ Companion.
