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The Winds and the Woods: March: Arbor

How are the trees that have been set out on Arbor Day around your school getting on? Not at all? What is the trouble?

How would you like to go to school in a building on some bleak spot in the country with no trees around it to protect it from the winds, and where you'd have to take turn about with the other pupils, shivering through the long day, in the coldest parts of the room?

If you went to such a school or any other school that hadn't trees around it and where there was plenty of space for them, how would you go about it to wake up public sentiment to secure such trees?

How would the knowledge of map-drawing, which you learn in your geography work, be just the thing for drawing up your plans for use in this connection? How could the "scout-master" idea be applied in improving such grounds? (Remember that planting, setting out, and caring for young trees requires quite a little knowledge and experience.) How would a knowledge of the kind of soil different trees grow best in, such as we have obtained in previous chapters and in our field excursions in connection with them, be useful in this school enterprise? If you collected seedlings to be set out on the school grounds, which would you select, those that have grown in the shade of larger trees or those that have had more light in the course of their lives? Why? After digging up your seedlings, how would you take care of them until ready to be set out?

Suppose, however, you were going to raise your own seedlings from seeds collected last fall, how would you test them before planting? Who took care, during the hot, dry vacation days, of the trees you all helped plant with songs and enthusiasm on Arbor Day? Nobody? Well, never mind! Let bygone saplings be bygones and let's start over again. How would you go about it to create a new condition of things? (Incidentally, we shall see how good a business man and organizer you are going to be when you grow up. And that's rather important, too, don't you think?)