Arbor Day

       Our modern institution - Arbor Day - is a public acknowledgement of our dependence upon the soil of the earth for our daily, our annual, bread. In recognition of the same fact the Emperor of China annually plows a furrow with his own hand, and in the same significance are the provisions in the ancient law of Moses, to give the land its seven-year Sabbath, as well as to man his seventh day for  rest and recreation. Our observance is a better one, because it calls on all, and especially on the impressible learners in the schools to join in the duty which we owe to the earth and to all mankind,  of doing what each of us can to preserve the soil's fertility, and to prevent, as long as possible, the  earth, from which we have our being, from becoming worn out and wholly bald and bare. And we  do this by planting of any sort, if only by making two blades of grass grow where but one grew before, and by learning to preserve vegetation. We give solemnity to this observance by joining in it on an appointed day, high and low, old and young, together.