The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1907-04-19
LESSONS OF AReoR DAY.

this bulletin many excellent suggeS'
lions for the planting and care Of
trees and suggestions, too, for the
channels into which the mind of the
child may be turned profitably by
the things about us.
Most articles in common use, cloth.
ing excepted, are made of wood
| alone or in combination with metal,
Here is an excellent subject for an
Arbor Day composition. Let n but
| think of the poverty and backward
ness of life without the material that
is supplied only by the forest. No
| single one of natures gifts, after air
and water, is more freely offered or
readily enjoyed than wood. We live
chiefly in wooden houses and burn
wood to keep warm. Tables and other
furniture, carriages and garden i'm
plements, matches and paper are
taken in whole or in part from the
forest. Wood is easy to procure and
to work. How simple a matter to
cut a sapling for a fishing rod; how
hard to smelt and cast a fishing rod
from iron ore. Boys who have
grumbled over having to split a
tough stick to feed the kitchen fire
would have better cause to grumble
if wood had to be painfully mined
from the rock. Nails and screws,
saw and plane and chisel, suffice for
a multitude of smaller repairs which
anyone can make; to cut or rivet
metal is no such easy affair.
The flowers and seeds of trees r
interesting subjects of investigation.
The bursting of the blossoms on elm
and red. maple, the tassle-like cat
kins of cottonwood, willow and alder
are among the earliest signs of
spring. Some of the most fascinating
facts of botany are easily studied in
tree flowers. Black locust, basswoods
and yellow poplar, for instance, carry
perfect flowers that pollenize their
own pistils; chestnut, beech, pines
and spruces, on the other hand, have
their staminate and pistillate flowers
distinct, though on the same tree,
while such species as the cottonwood,
the willows, alders and ashes, the
persimmon, and the boxelder, bear
only the staminate or only the pis-
tillate flowers on a single tree. The
ingenious and often intricate devices
of nature to secure cross fertilization
are we'll worth inquiring into.
Many of the early Towering trees
mature their seeds before the school
year ends. The adaptations by which
forest trees secure the distribution
of their seeds are diverse. Some
seeds, such as the nuts and hickories
and chestnuts, r distributed by
squirrels, foxes, bears and coyotes,
and by birds, others by the wind, and
yet others by floods OF running
waters. Hedge-rows of locust trees
commonly spring up where the seeds,
after falling on the frozen snow, are
driven by the winter gusts to lodge
among the brush and roots along the
fences. Rows of juniper and cherry
are just as often grown from seeds
dropped by birds. Willows are main
ly found along streams and oozy
: ground, not because they always pre-
fer so wet a soil, but because the
fresh, fine mud beside the water
| gives the seedbed most favorable tc
the termination of the seed.
What child has not seen a muddy
freshet? Yet this sight, SO common
in the spring, is full of suggestion
for a forest lesson. The stream is
discolored by the earth which it has
gathered from the soil. This carries
us back to the streams source, in
the forest springs. Again, it shows
us with what force the water has
rushed over the exposed ground
where there was no forest to shield
and bind it. In this way the Mis-
sissippi tears down and filings into
it's bed, each summer, more soil than
will be dredged with years of costly
labor to make the Panama canal.
An experiment with fine and coarse
soils, stirred quickly in a tumbler OF
water and then allowed to settle ex-
plains how the stream continues
muddy while it runs swiftly, andthow
it clears again as it slackens or more
level stretches, dropping the soil to
the bottom. On any steep. plowed
hillside, or on any railroad or trolly
embankment, exposed soil may be
seen washing with the rain. "A for
est on a mountain slope may be pic
tured by a cloth upon a tilted table;