Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-03-02
GOVERNOR URGES
TREE PLANTING
A Treeless State Is Cherries
State Says Governor Brum-
baugh to People

Arbor Day proclamation. The Gov
ernor says: "A treeless state is n cheer
less state" and urges that not only
should waste lands be replanted, but
that trees be placed along the high
ways, in the school yards, about the
public buildings and wherever one will
grow and be of value either for shade
or water supply.
The proclamation fixes April 13 and
27 as the spring Arbor Days,
The Governor says in his proclama-
ton:
Whereas, Pennsylvania was oncethe
home of vast forests of deciduous and
evergreen trees, whose values to our
people can never be fully reckoned,
and, whereas our people now have set
aside above one million, two hundred
thousand acres of land as a State for
est preserve and are steadily adding to
this vast public domain and are giving
increased attention to the conservation
of her depleted natural resources and
are making commendable efforts to re-
store, as far as possible, these gifts of
God to our people;
Now, therefore, that we may wisely
promote in the minds and hearts of
our people a knowledge and love for
trees and in order that the generations
| to follow may enjoy the blessings OF
forests and the good of trees, l hereby
designate and set aside Friday, April
IS, and Friday, April q. 1917, as Ar
Dor Days.
Our people have been prodigal,
even wasteful, of the great forests
hOlic Instead
wondrous woods rich In green and ST.
lence we have the fire-swept wastes
that add to the menace of our people
and industries. Where once we had
the sylvan streams, beautiful and en-
trancing, we now have the destructive
flood and the famished land. To face
the task of restoring these forests is a
duty both imminent and practical. We
must plant where God once planted
the native trees of our State and by
careful and conserving concern restore
to our mountains and remote valleys
the essential good that trees secure
to a people. A treeless state is cheer
less state. A sylvan scene Is an in
spiration and blessing. We need not
| fear the future if we do our part in
our day wisely and well. The restora-
| ton of our forest Businesses and all the
attendant good is the task not of a
| day but of centuries. But centuries
are as years in the span of a continu-
| ing commonwealth. Ours is the duty
of giving to our children a more Valu-
able, a more beautiful, a more health
full Pennsylvania than we possess.
"One needs to have a sincere love
for the great out-of-doors, and rev.
erent regard for the great forests
where in profusion and splendor grow
| the carpeted MOSES and the fronded
ferns, where flourish the wild flowers
and the trailing vines, where bird and
beast find shelter and rear their young
unscared, where summer showers are
refined into splendor and flow in
health and blessing to the populous
cities, where the wonderful machinery
of sun and storm produce scene so
rich, so varied, so enhancing that the
vision enthralls the spirit and inspires
the soul of him who by chance walks
this way. We shall have increasing
need of these great reaches OF shade
and service as the years come and go.
wish it might be possible to have
every child of our cities as we'll as
those of our countrysides spend entire
days in our Pennsylvania forests.
"If you want your children to love
| the beautiful and reverence the good,
plant trees. If you want to add to the
health and security of our people,
plant trees. If you want to give large
gifts of good to our Commonwealth,
plant trees. If you want to see in the
budding beauty of spring time an ear
nest of the gorgeous autumnal color
ing, plant trees. If you want to add
many songs to the bird chorus so
sweet, so comforting, so welcome,
plant trees. If you want to shower the
earth with fruits and nuts, plant trees.
If you want Pennsylvania to be the
finest, fairest land in all the world,
plant trees.
PLANT trees for shade and for food
upon our fertile arabic acres, about
our schools and other public buildings,
along our great and rapidly developing
highways, and out in the great pre-
serves where in time they will be the
pride and glory of our State. AS we
increase our forest areas we shall in
crease our wild life in Pennsylvania
and by natural distillation provide the
greatest gift of our loving Father to
his children-pure, wholesome, life
bearing water.
Teach the meaning of trees. Study
| their habits. Observe their yearly
transformations. Learn to know an
oak, a locust, a poplar, a hemlock, a
chestnut, a dogwood quite as fully by
| it's outline, it's bark, its habitat as by
| its leaf or blossom. Consider what
trees do for man in his home and in
dustrial life, what rich shelter they
provide for our song birds, what rich
gifts of food and health they bear for
mankind. Impress upon all children
the humane treatment of animals, an
unafraid attitude to the out-of-doors
and the duty of preserving our beauti-
fully throated songsters,
Whose habitations in the treetops
cen
Are halfway houses on the road to
heaven"
Gather on these days your own
children about you in the home and
teach them to love trees and all that
attend them. In every pulpit may q
lofty plea be made for the fragrant
forests and the beautiful birds. IN
every school let the exercises of the
day include such reference to the day
as will quicken in the tender spirits
of children a reverent regard for the
things that God in his wisdom set upon
the earth and that we should forever
cherish and conserve. Then in the
open air crown the exercises by plant
ing trees.
Thus shall blessings flow to us,
good to those that succeed us, honor
to the great Commonwealth we de-
voutly call our home"