The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-05-18

to the present trees have exercised power full influence on the mind of manS They have inspired some of the noblest passages in literature. They are the theme about which the minstrels of old sang, whose successors put into immortal verse and prose the thoughts voiced by the bards long before man learned to inscribe on tablets of stone, on papyrus and on parchment the crudest of written characters.
 Statisticians of the lumber trade, given c pencil and a piece of paper, can show in a very astonishing way the part trees play in the lives of mankind how the products of our forests are used in making countless articles, from a sheet of news print or a paper cup, to the houses we live in, but we are not just now concerned with this view of trees. Their usefulness to the world in a material sense is freely conceded. It is as spiritual factors that they are celebrated in song and story. The bard who first wove a lay about the oak, which tree has, perhaps, engaged the attention of singers more than any other of the forest, was not inspired primarily by the thought that it sheltered him from storms, or provided him with fuel and weapons of of- fense and defense. He thought of it as true monarch of the forest" whose mighty girth, spacious spread of bough and sinewy tough ness in all weathers have for ages made 1t a symbol of rugged character in man. "A heart of oak' expresses to the most liberal mind that its possessor sturdily opposes the storms of life, and no assault that may be encountered can shake his resolve or deprive him of that fortitude which is his chief re- liance in diversity. For, if we have not fortitude, which is another name for cour- age, we shall be inevitably lost.
 Ak. sA- SfxaAa d Ia rA to the bard with wrinkled brow and his eye "in fine frenzy. rolling" a vast output of naval stores-turpentine and rosin; nor sug- gest the infinite variety of uses to which the pine tree is put in commerce and industry. To him the pine is a sentinel of the hills and the mountain slopes where it flourishes, rear ing it's head toward the stars and re-creating, with the winds aid; the mournful murmur of the sea- That wanderer through our Southern forests, whose steps are leisurely and whose purpose is merely to wander, has no poetry in soul if he is unmoved by the signing of the pines, and passes on his way, unmindful of those billowing areas of green on the mountain sides, turning blue in the distance, which denote a pine forest It IS good to walk over a carpet of pine needles, covering the ground when winter comes; to l lie supine and look up at the sky through the foliage of the pines and it is good to inhaie their fragrance, which brings healing to the minds as well as the bodies of men. Gods first temples were the trees, and they have been temples ever since. Possibly, it is a surviving sentiment from ancient time that leads to the decoration of our modern temples with the spoils of the forest on festal occasions Man.reared cathedrals awe the beholder by their beauty, or their size and magnificence, but beneath the trees we go back to elemental things and establish kinship with nature that is denied us in the cities that dot the plains. In comparison with a mighty forest the most stately edifices are seen to- be artificial and perishable things that may, with good fortune, endure only few centuries. Trees are as old as the world
 There are trees for all minds and all moods, differing, as men do, in their outward ap- pearance and their characteristics, but he who loves one tree can love them all rev erencinE them for their loveliness, admirlng their strength and graceful attitudes and grateful to them always as the cheerful com rades of his leisure hours. Joyce Kilmer has expressed something of this feeling in his Ivric entitled: ..