The Tiffin tribune. (Tiffin, Ohio) 1868-1887, 1873-10-09
CurIOsities of Tree Planting.

A proverb of Northwest India de-
elares that three things make man
to be truly man-to have q son born
to him, to dig a well, and to plant
tree. 1t is impossible for the untray-
eled EnglIshman to realize the misery
of a treeless country. Enrope has its
natural deficiency OF trees; hence
bridge building took the place oil the
old Aryan tree planting as an act OF
piety to God, and of duty 20 the
future, in the cOunsels OF early Chrls-
tian teachers of the European nations.
Both in the east and west trees were
no doubt the first temples, and the
planting of groves was the primitive
form of church building. Abraham,
we are told, planted 8 grove IN Beer
sheba, to commemorate his solemn
covenant, but among his descendants
il became in time the mark OF pious
ruler to t'cut down the groves" as the
seats of pagan worship; the marx OF a
careless ruler to leave it untouched;
and the mark of an impious ruler to
plant and dedicate new groves. It's
not hard to find reasons why the
grove naturally became the hrst tenn
Die, Men were no doubt impressed
by the hoary age of trees compared
with the short life Of man. A tree
was often the center around which
each succeeding generation deposited
its traditions-a visible bond uniting
the departed with the living and the
living with the unborn. The cool,
grateful shade of trees was natural
type Of the graciousness the worship
Eers sought for from the power they
enthusiastically in eastern lands
where shadow is so precious and so
exceptional. The yearly new birth
and death of their foliage was a
national symbol of human life. The
darkness and density of the grove, we
must add, hid the Obscenities and
cruelties which belong to the darker
developments of heathen worship.
When an Englishman who has
been long absent from his fatherland
again catches his first glimpse of its
roadsides and fields through the win
dows of a railway carriage, perhaps
nothing strikes him so forcibly as the
picturesqueness and sparseness of the
trees. He has seen trees in level lands
stretching for miles like thin dia-
phanous wall in dull uniformity; now
he sees them merely dotted here and
there upon the landscape, but each
tree.is more or less picture in itself.
Or he has seen in mountain lands
every spot of available earth seized
upon to supply life to cherry tree, a
walnut tree, a pear tree; he has seen
fruit trees everywhere lining the roads
and fields instead of hedges, and
probably wondered if English lads
could pass too and fro and leave them
untasted; now he sees nothing but
solitary trees, or scattered groups,
which look as if they had planted
themselves out of whim or playful
ness Just where they pleased, not one
of which can bring any money to its
proprietor except by its destruction
Give a German or Swiss Rauer the
tenancy of an English farm, and he
would at once begin to arrange him
self an orchard out of theimere un-
used corners and slices of land he
would most certainly find in its fields
and along its boundary lines. ] must
leave it to adopts to determine wheth'
er he would show himself q good ol
bad agricultLralist by his activity.
Tree planting, has in fact, retained
in Germany longer than elsewhere
something of its cult character, bind
ing together religion, nation and fam
lily. In the Vosgesen, the old German
farmers were not allowed to marry
until they had done something for tht
future good of the tribe by planting {
stated number of walnut trees. WheI
the amiable and liberal Oberlin was
pastor of Walbach, in the Steinthal
he set forward this old custom of tre'
planting as a Christian duty.
Tree planting is as necessary par
in many German rejoicings as it ha!
been of French rejoicings during eacf
revolution epoch. The trees Of liberty
however, were often planted to die
actually as well as metaphorically.
have seen trees of this kind, stripped
of all but a crown of leaves, planted
in German Switzerland TO mark ;
local festival. The poor people of tht
village of Cleversulzb gathered to
gether, ON the 10th of November
1859, round the grave of Schiller
mother, and marked the birthday o
her son by planting a lime tree ..'iT
the soil that covers the heart tina
loved him best. Chambers Journal