THE HEART OF THE TREE* BY HENRY CUYLER BUNNER WHAT does he plant who plants a tree? What does he plant who plants a tree, He plants cool shade and tender rain, And years that fade and flush again; He plants the forest's heritage; The joy that unborn eyes shall see - What does he plant who plants a tree? He plants, in sap and leaf and wood, *From "The Poems of H. C. Bunner," copyright 1884, 1892, 1896, 1899, by Charles Scribner's Sons. In love of home and loyalty And far-cast thought of civic good- A nation's growth from sea to sea THE SPIRIT OF ARBOR DAY BY FRANK A. HILL THE spirit of Arbor Day is that of a deep love for trees a love that includes their beauty on the one hand and their service on the other. This love has a thousand aspects and a thousand degrees, for the beauty and the service that call it forth are as varied as the trees that grow and the needs of earth and man to which they so admirably minister. There is the beauty of the stately pine, the rugged oak, the graceful elm. There is the service of the fragrant eucalyptus that brings health to the deadly Campagna, of the versatile palm that makes habitable the waste places of the tropical belt, of the humid forest that holds back the waters of the rainy season to bless the dry that follows after. The problems of the trees are also without number. There is the problem of the East - - to save its forests where now they abound. There is the problem of the West – to make forests abound where now they are unknown. A forest murderously ruined by the lumberman's axe is like a field of battle when the fighting is over a sight to make humanity weep. Not so the forest that springs into life from the treeless plain. And so the mission of Arbor Day varies as the trees themselves. One blessed thing, however, is common to all the Arbor Days of the land we love, and that is the spirit to make the most of God's useful and beautiful trees. ARBOR DAY ASPIRATION BY JOHN RUSKIN We will try to make some small piece of ground beautiful, peaceful, and fruitful. We will have no untended or unthought-of creatures upon it. We will have flowers and vegetables in our gardens, plenty of corn and grass in our fields. We will have some music and poetry; the children shall learn to dance and sing it; perhaps some of the old people, in time, may also. We will have some art; and little by little some higher art and imagination may manifest themselves among us - nay even perhaps an uncalculating and uncovetous wisdom, as of rude Magi, presenting gifts of gold and frankincense. THE VIOLETS BY AMANDA B. HARRIS HAS any one, I wonder, ever classed and enumerated the blues of violets? I am sure it must have taken all the words that ever represent blue. They are turquoise, they are amethystine, they are sapphire, azure, cerulean. They are like the blue ether, like blue precious stones; like eyes of blue. They pale into lavender; they darken to purple. There are varieties in sky-blue with purple streaks; in deep violet striped with a lighter tint; in palest blue, with heavy shadings; and some that lack but little of being red. THE DISCIPLINE OF GARDENING BY JOHN WILLIAM COLE THERE is such a close affinity between a proper cultivation of a flower-garden, and a right discipline of the mind, that it is almost impossible for any thoughtful person that has made any proficiency in the one, to avoid paying a due attention to the other. That industry and care which are so requisite to cleanse a garden from all sorts of weeds will naturally suggest to him how much more expedient it would be to exert the same diligence in eradicating all sorts of prejudices, follies, and vices from the mind, where they will be as sure to prevail, without a great deal of care and correction, as common weeds, in a neglected piece of ground. And as it requires more pains to extirpate some weeds than others, according as they are more firmly fixed, more numerous, or more naturalized to the soil; so those faults will be found the most difficult to be suppressed which have been of the longest growth, and taken the deepest root; which are more predominant in number, and most congenial to the constitution. FOR POSTERITY BY ALEXANDER SMITH A MAN does not plant a tree for himself, he plants it for posterity. And, sitting idly in the sunshine, I think at times of the unborn people who will, to some small extent, be indebted to me. Remember me kindly, ye future men and women! ARBOR DAY BY PROF. B. PICKMAN MANN, SON OF HORACE MANN (Extract from Letter) THE project of connecting the planting of trees with the names of authors is a beautiful one, and one certain to exert a beneficial influence upon the children who participate in these exercises. The |