Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1907-05-01
PRES. ROOSEVELT
WRITES TO CHILDREN
ON Tree PLANTING

The destruction of forests through
out the civilized world has been going
on at rate that, in a few years, the
world will be short OF lumber More
particularly does this condition OF af-
fairs threaten these islands. On the
mainland, where trees that produce a
lumber of soft grain nature, spring
up from a sapling and are cut down
and converted into lumber in the span
OF very few years, the conditions re-
garding lumber for the future are bad
enough, but here, in Hawaii, where
the timber is none too plentiful, and its
nature so fine a grain, and Of iron-like
strength, many years are required for
the young trees to fill out to proper.
lions that will cut to marketable size
lumber. The future needs of this most
valuable of commodities given by ma
ture to man should be well looked to by
replenishing the supply.
There is hardly an article of COM
merce manufactured today that does
uot contain wood in some form or
shape, and the demands upon the for
ests are growing daily.
President Roosevelt speaks directly
to the rising generation, ON the sub
Ject of replenishment in the following
circular letter which is being sent
throughout the country and is fur
nished for publication by Superinten"
dent Of Public instruction Rabbit:
TO the School Children of the United
States:
Arbor Day (Which means simply
Tree Day'') IS now observed in every
State in our UniOn-and mainly in the
schools. At various times from Jan
uary to December but chiefly in this
month of April, you give a day or part
of day to special exercises and per-
haps to actual tree planting, in recog
milton of the importance of trees to us
as Il Nation, and Of what they yield in
adolnment, comfort, and useful pro-
ducts to the communities in which you
live
1t is well that you should celebrate
your Arbor Day thOughtfully, for with
in your lifetime the Nations need of
trees will become serious. We of an
older generation can get along with
what we have, though with growing
hardship; but in your full manhood
and WOmanhood you will want what
nature once so beautifully supplied and
man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and
because OF that want you will reproach
us, not for what we have used, but for
what we nave wasted
For the nation as for the man or wo-
man and the boy or girl, the road to
success is the right use of what we
have and the improvement of present
opportunity. If you neglect to prepare
yourselves now for the duties and re-
sponsibilities which will fall upon you
later, If you do not learn the things
which you will need to know when
your school days are over, you will
suffer the consequences. So any nation
which in it's youth lives only for the
day, reaps without sowing and con-
sumes without outstanding, must eX-
nect the penalty of the prodigal, whose
labor could with difficulty find him the
bare means of life.
A people without children would
face hopeless future; a country with
out trees is almost as hopeless: forests
which are SO used that they can not
renew themselves will soon vanish and
with them all their benefits. A true
forest is not merely a storehouse full
OF wood, but, as it were, factory of
wood, and at the same time a reservoir
OF water When you help to preserve
our forests or to plant new ones you
are acting the part of good citizens.
The value of forestry deserves, there
fore, to be taught in the schools, which
aim to make good citizens of you If
your Arbor Day exercises help you to
realize what benefits each one of you
receives from the forests, and how by
your assistance these benefits may con-
tlnue, they will serve a good end.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
The White House, April Is, 1907.