VII—SCHOOLS OF FORESTRY
There is a definite plan to have forestry taught in every State, and short courses have been added to the curriculum of the State universities. Yale and Cornell have forestry schools, and Harvard a forestry course. At Biltmore, North Carolina, there is an excellent school with exceptional forest advantages. Clubs can send for catalogues of these schools.
VIII—THE RETURNS
Forestry does not aim to produce immediate commercial returns; indeed, from that standpoint the returns are slow; yet in the end these are greater than when the science is disregarded. Trees must be regarded as a crop to be cut only in small sections rather than as a whole. But the system once thoroughly established, the returns are steady and sure. Timber is cut exactly at the right time instead of at haphazard, and so is of the right size and age. Fuel is gathered from trees meant for that purpose, and timber for building purposes from trees meant for that alone.
In addition to the commercial results there are also others. Parks are set aside for recreation and beauty, and game is preserved rather than destroyed. Hillsides are renewed; winds are kept off; our watersheds are protected, and rivers and streams kept full, and the land fertile.
IX—FAMOUS TREES
Add to this study program two more meetings. Have one on Famous Trees and Forests, naming among others: The Cedars of Lebanon, the historic King's Oak which sheltered Charles I., the Charter Oak, and others; note also the famous redwoods of California; the Burnham Beeches; the historic Sherwood Forest; the New Forest and Dean Forest of England; the Black Forest of Baden and the forests of the Vosges Mountains of France.
X—TREES AND FORESTS IN LITERATURE
The last program of the year may be on the general subject of trees and forests in literature. Read or recite from such poems as: A Forest Hymn and the Planting of the Apple Tree, by William Cullen Bryant; Christmas in the Woods, by Harrison Weir; Forest Pictures, by Paul Hamilton Hayne; the Summer Woods, by William Henry Burleigh; The Primeval Forest, from Evangeline, by Longfellow; The Holly Tree, by Robert Southey, and The Trees and the Master, by Sidney Lanier. Read from The Quest of John Chapman, by Newell Dwight Hillis, and also from The Forest, by Stewart Edward White.