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A curious fact about this great affair of our nation's trees is that, in many of the places where you'd think they would give the most attention to tree-growing, they don't do a thing. In the majority of country schools, for example. And our Uncle Sam, wise old uncle that he is, is having a good deal to say about it. Among other things--just listen now--he says: "In cities, unless the space available is so small that planting is out of the question, it is not uncommon to find school grounds carefully laid out, with a good arrangement of grass-plots, flower-beds, and shade-trees, and in towns and villages are many examples, but in the country an improved school ground is rare. And this is almost as true of wealthy as of less prosperous communities." Then he goes on to tell how, during winter gales, even with the fire kept roaring hot, the best the teacher can do is to keep shifting the pupils about so that they can take turns at the most endurable spots in the rooms. With a temperature hovering around zero and a howling blizzard--just imagine! Why, do you suppose, is this sort of thing allowed to go on? Because many people think if trees were set out to protect the building and make the grounds attractive, the children would be constantly breaking them, in their play or in mere wantonness, and tramping the ground around them so that they wouldn't live! "You're wrong," says Uncle Sam. "Wouldn't it be strange, now, if children in the country who are used to trees and grass and flowers at home, wouldn't, if given the opportunity, find the same pleasure in protecting and beautifying the school grounds that children do in towns and villages? Experience in the comparatively few country schools where such as opportunity has been given amply demonstrates that they do." Moreover, since the wood-lot, as we saw in January, can be made such an important part of the farm, the value of the practical application, under the teacher's guidance, of such things as we have been learning in this book, can hardly be overestimated. It won't do simply to sing songs and recite pieces about trees on Arbor Day. Uncle Sam has been looking into that, too, and this is what he says: "Much more attention is given to these matters than to having the trees in the best condition and to planting them just right. Trees planted with ceremonious dignity in April die of neglect before September, and those that survive are left to fight unaided their battle for existence. So little attention has been paid to the choice of trees that those entirely unfit for the situation are often used and planted in places where they could not receive protection while young or serve any useful purpose when grown. Arbor Day often comes on dry, windy days or clear out of season for planting. Trees should be planted at the right time and the public exercises held on some other day, if necessary." To begin with, as in the case of introducing the idea of co-operative marketing with its tremendous advantages, it is often necessary to wake up public sentiment, and then you live boys and girls and the most progressive grown folks, including, of course, the school-board members, the teachers, the preachers, and the newspaper editors, will be the first to set things going. "Starting something", in this sense, isn't nearly so difficult as you might think; its really a good deal like the planting of a seed; you do your part and you'll be surprised to see how the thing will grow. You'll find, in talking the project over with the people of the neighborhood, including the best farmers and the mothers who have nice flower-beds and shrubs and trees around home, a lot of good, practical ideas will be collected. Then, with the help of such ideas, you and the teacher can work out a plan, to be shown on a map of the school grounds, with the schoolhouse, outbuildings, and places for planting the trees accurately located. (If you can't make such a map, among you, I'd like to know what your geography is for!) Put this plan on the blackboard and, at a community meeting in the schoolhouse, have it discussed, and by vote, just as if you were the Congress of the United States, decide what all is to be done. The ploughing and preparation of the ground and the planting should be done under the direction of some experienced person. This will cost a little something, to be sure--you could hardly expect a man to do it for nothing--but it will be well worth the cost, and with small contributions from parents and, perhaps, the scholars themselves, and the help of the school board, funds raised by entertainments, etc., this cost can be easily met. There will be plenty left for the Wood Scouts to do, never fear! And, as in case of other work under a scout-master, it will be all the more fun because you will accomplish so much more than is usually done when the work is carried on--if it is carried on at all after the Arbor Day proceedings--by mere rule of thumb. And the more you learn about trees and tree culture from books and elsewhere the more useful you will be. In the early days of medicine men learned a great deal from experience, without the use of books, but they killed a great many people while learning; and it is the same way in raising trees. Among other things both the soil and the subsoil of the school grounds should be carefully examined and a list made of the trees that are found thriving on soils of the same character. This will afford opportunity for most interesting field excursions, and numerous species will be found adapted to each kind of soil. In selecting, the aim should be to give the plantation as much variety as possible, since one of its purposes is to serve as a little school of forestry. In many places trees can be obtained from the neighboring forest, from the banks of streams, or even from open fields. They may be gathered either in the fall or spring, but unless they are carefully heeled in and protected over winter the better time is early spring. In collecting forest seedlings only those that have grown in the light should be taken, as these are more vigorous than those grown in the shade. Dig them up carefully, preserving as much of the root as possible. As each tree is dug it should be placed in a barrel containing water until all are collected, when they should be heeled in until the time comes to plant them. Or, as suggested in the October chapter, you can, under direction of your "chief forester," raise your own seedlings, or part of them, and that will be another interesting and profitable experience. Seeds should be tested before planting. Cut or break open a number of seeds and examine the kernels. If they are withered, the seeds are unfit for planting. Some tree seeds with thick, hard shells, such as the acorns and the nuts, will germinate freely only when they have been buried in sand out-of-doors through the winter, as directed in the October chapter, and planted as soon as they are taken from the sand. Early spring is the best time to plant tree seeds, except those of species such as the Silver Maple and White Elm, which mature in May or June. These should be planted as soon as they ripen. So with the Cottonwood (although more easily grown from cuttings), Slippery-Elm, Red Maple, and Russian Mulberry. Generally speaking, tree seeds should be planted as soon as the soil and weather conditions become suitable for the planting of early vegetables. Nuts and acorns should be planted two or three inches apart in rows, while the seeds of Ashes, Maples, Catalpas, Elms, and Hack-berries, in which the average of germination is not high, should be spaced from one-half inch to one and one-half inches apart. Seeds of still lower germinating average, such as the Basswood and Yellow Poplar, should be sown three or four seeds deep in the rows. The depth of planting should never be greater than twice the average diameter of the seeds. If rains don't furnish enough moisture, the beds should be watered once or twice each week sufficiently to saturate the earth to a depth of at least six inches. Mere sprinkling is no good. An excellent practice is to pour water into shallow furrows hollowed out between the rows and allow it to soak down. To prevent evaporation, watering should be done in the early morning or toward sundown. In regions where winters are mild it will be sufficient to hill up the rows to a depth of four to six inches, but be careful not to bury them! Where winters are severe there should be, in addition, a covering of straw, leaves, or moss from six inches to a foot in depth, held in place by branches or poles. And schools that have begun doing things along this line have found that they can sell trees from their nurseries for planting in wood-lots, or near-by cities or towns may want them for streets, parks, or homes, and so make the whole enterprise not only pay for itself, but earn a tidy sum for the little school "community chest" besides! Of course I need hardly add that it will not do to leave the young trees which were planted during the spring term to take care of themselves through the hot months of July and August and until school opens again in September; for there must be hoeing and weeding once or twice each month, or oftener, during the summer, and they must, as a rule, be watered from time to time. The best plan is to organize a little company of volunteer "forest-rangers" to look after the trees, just as the government officers look after the trees of the national forests. Indeed, your whole enterprise will actually be a part of the National Forest Service. And don't think for a minute that Uncle Sam won't recognize this. These forest-rangers of the schools whenever, in connection with the planting or care of their trees, they run up against problems they can't solve, write to The Chief Forester, Washington, D. C., and, promptly as the mails can bring it, they get a reply telling them just what to do. |
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