The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-05-13

vision Of the pioneer as a great lesson
to teach him, by contrast with the
grand forests whence he had just
emerged, the Independently of wood
lands and their economical use. AL
most rainless. only habitable by bring
ing forest products from other lands,
these prairies. by object teaching, in
culcated tree planting as a necessity
and the conservation of the few fire.
SCARED forests along their streams as
an individual and public duty. Hence
out OF our physical environments have
grown this anniversary and the intelli-
gent zeal of Nebraskans in establish
ing woodlands where they found only
the monotony of plain, until to-day this
state stands foremost in practical for
estry among all the members OF the
American union.
The cottonwood can never become
an oak, but IL can pass the oak in the
race for maturity. 1t can even aid the
oak to become more stately in form, to
grow and taller than when left to it
self, without the competition of more
swiftly shooting trees. A row of acorns
planted between two lines of infant
cottonwoods will come up and make an
effort to reach sunlight, up beyond the
shadows of their soft-wood COMPETE
tors, which oaks never make when
planted by themselves. Thus in the
arboretum the loss is made to act as a
nurse and guardian to more valuable
timber. At Arbor Lodge (Mr Mortons
country home in Nebraska), some
years since, in 1865, i planted a long
row Of black walnuts between two
ranks of swiftly growing soft-wood
trees-maple on one side and cotton
wood on the other. During these 20
years I have watched the walnuts
growing symmetrically and beautifully
to a great height, in their struggle to
reach the light up beyond the shade of
their less valuable contemporaries and
co-tenants. They are higher, better
trees than they would have been with
out the rivalry of their neighbors-
their classmates.
THE almost infinite possibilities of
a tree germ came to my mind last sum-
mer when, travelling in a railway car
riage amid the beautifully cultivated
fields of Belgium, a cottonwood seed on
its wings of down drifted into my COM
partment 1t came like a materialized
whisper from home. Catching it in my
hand ! forgot the present and wander
ed into the past to a floating mote like
that, which had years and years before
been planted by the winds and currents
on the banks of the Missouri. That
mote had taken life and root and grow
ing to splendid proportions until 1854
the axe OF the pioneers had vanquished
1t, and the saw, seizing 1t with relent-
less, whirling teeth, had reduced IL to
lumber. From its treehood evolved a
human habitation, a home-my home
wherein a mothers love had blossomed
and fruited with sweetness surprising
the lovelinesS of the rose and the honey
suckle. Thus from that former feath-
cry fioater in midair grew a home and
all the endearing contentment and in
finite satisfaction which that blessed
word conveys-that one
word which means all that is worth
living for and for which alone all good
men and women are living.
Here are a few acorns to-day; to-
morrow, a century hence, they are
sturdy oaks. then ships, railroads, car
riages, and everything useful, and parts
of homes which are all-in both poetry
and reality-that is lovable, beautiful,
and supremely tender in the career of
humanity from birth to death The
real OF to-day was the ideal OF yester-
day; the ideal of to-day will be the
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