Home › The Winds and the Woods: March › The Winds and the Woods: March

The Winds and the Woods: March

I wonder, sometimes, if it's because the trees do so much for us that we're so apt to fall into the habit of doing little or nothing for them! In September we saw how trees not only "pay their board and keep" but so enrich the soil, beyond their own needs, that they convert barren lands into fields capable of producing good crops. In October, in connection with our talk about seeds and seeding, we learned another remarkable thing; namely, that, if you work it right, you can go on cutting down trees for lumber and fuel and yet not put your wood-lot or your lumber forest out of business. All you have to do, when you're cutting your timber, is to leave good healthy stumps to grow sprouts or good healthy trees to bear seed. But we saw that in growing trees from sprouts there were quite a number of "kinks" to be looked after; and so it is in the matter of seed-trees. For example, in the lumber regions of Minnesota they left White Pine "mother-trees," as such seed-trees are called, scattered here and there, at considerable distances from each other, but the high gales toppled them over or broke off the branches. Then the lumber people tried leaving the mother-trees in groups and all went well; for they were of mutual service -- they presented a united front to the winds.

Yet, in their seeding work, as in other vital services to the world, the trees couldn't get along without the winds. Indeed a great many of them couldn't make any seeds, in the first place, if the winds should stop calling on them; and where, without the aid of the winds, would they get any rain to help them grow -- or exercise to develop their muscles?

All this, and such, I thought we'd keep for looking into in March, the traditional windy month.

I. IN THE GYMNASIUM OF THE WINDS: