Oklahoma Arbor and Bird Day, Friday, March Twelfth, 1909/Part One: Arbor Day/History of Arbor Day

HISTORY OF ARBOR DAY.

We are taught to value the blessings of life by antithesis. When we are sick we learn to value health; when blind we long to experience the delightful sense of sight; when deaf, we yearn for the music we loved to hear; when in impoverished circumstances physically, we hope for the good things of this world and a comfortable existence. So

Blue Hole, in the Choctaw Nation.

Courtesy Sturm's Oklahoma Magazine.

the utter treelessness of these vast plains three or four score years ago created a longing in the hearts of the pioneers for the grand forests whence they had emerged and taught them, by contrast, the beauty and utility of woodlands. Thus, out from a realizing sense of the total lack of trees came the inspiration for an anniversary devoted to the planting of trees on these monotonous plains, until today Nebraska stands among the foremost in practical forestry of all the states in the Union.

The denudation of the woodlands of the United States was the cause of such concern and discussion among forestry associations and practical foresters for some time prior to the year 1872, but on January 4 of that year the first suggestion was made for the establishment of an Arbor Day anniversary. On that day, Mr. J Sterling Morton, a member of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, introduced in that body of the following resolution which was unanimously adopted, after some debate as to the name, some of the members contending for the word "Sylvan" instead of "Arbor":

"Resolved, That Wednesday, the 10th day of April, 1872, be and the same is hereby especially set apart and consecrated for tree planting in the state of Nebraska, and the State Board of Agriculture hereby name it Arbor Day; and to urge upon the people of the state the vital importance of tree-planting, hereby offer a special premium of one hundred dollars to the agricultural society of that county in Nebraska which shall, upon that day, plant properly the largest number of trees; and a farm library of twenty-five dollars worth of books to that person, who, on that day, shall plant properly, in Nebraska, the greatest number of trees."

As a result of this resolution over a million trees were planted in Nebraska on that first Arbor Day. Three years later its celebration had attained such favor that the Governor set apart by proclamation, the third Wednesday in April as Arbor Day. The first proclamation, I believe, was issued by Governor Robert W. Furnas, who now resides at Brownville, Neb. Since then a similar proclamation has been issued annually by the governors of Nebraska, and in 1885 an act was passed by the legislature designating the 22nd of April, Mr. Morton's birthday, as the date for Arbor Day and making it one of the legal holidays of the state.

Since the establishment of Arbor Day, more than thirty years ago, billions of trees have been planted in Nebraska alone. Its observance has extended not only to nearly every state and territory in our Union, but has reached France, Japan and other countries beyond the seas.

The Arbor Day Memorial Association of Nebraska will soon erect a beautiful monument of bronze and granite to the memory of Mr. Morton, but I like to think of him as having for his greatest monument the trees which he loved, and in the light by which he regarded the epitaph on the statue of Sir Christopher Wren. Concerning the epitaph, Mr. Morton, in a discourse of Arbor Day, delivered in the year 1887, said:

"On the 10th day of July, 1886, from the crowded, hurrying streets of London, I loitered into the solemn aisles of St. Paul's Cathedral. Around on every side were the statues of England's heroes. Upon tablets of brass and marble were enscribed their eulogisms. In fierce warfare on wave and field they had exalted English courage and won renown for England's arms. Melson and Wellington, victors by sea and land, were there, and hundreds more whose epitaphs were written in blood which, as it poured from the ghastly wounds, had borne other mortals to the unknown world. Few men who won distinction in civil life are entombed in St, Paul's, but among them is the gifted architect, Sir Christopher Wren, in whose brain the concept of St. Paul's Cathedral had a mental existence before it materialized in massive marble. His epitaph is plain, brief, truthful, impressive; it is one which each honorable man in all the world may humbly strive for and become the better for the striving; it is one which every faithful disciple of horticulture, of forestry, will deserve from his friends, his family and his country: vast orchards which he has planted and the great arms of towering elms, spreading their soothing shade like a benediction over the weary wayfarer who rests at her feet, and all the fluttering foliage whispering to the wanton winds shall tell the story of his benediction to humanity, arborphoning that epitaph with perennial fidelity—'Si quaeris monumentum, circumspice.—If you seek my monument, look around you."—John Nordhouse, Nebraska City, Neb.