EVERY one of us loves the sight of green things growing. natural that trees, which are greatest in all the plant kingdom, should inspire in us the highest admiration. Their terms of life so far outrun the puny human span! They stand so high, and spread so far their sheltering arms! We bless them for the gifts they bring to supply our bodily needs, and for their beauty, which feeds our souls! To love trees intelligently we must learn to know them. We must be able to call them by name, whenever and wherever we meet them. This is fundamental to any friendship. It is a fund of knowledge that starts with little, but grows more rapidly, year by year.
Turned loose in a forest, we are first confused and discouraged by the number of different kinds of trees, all unknown to us. Next, we notice similarities of leaf or flower or fruit that show a number of individual trees to be of the same kind, or species. Perhaps these differ but slightly from others, which we decide must be near relatives of the first kind. Be fore long we have discovered for ourselves the following interesting facts: 1. Each distinct species of trees in the woods has as many individuals as possible. Seedlings of all sorts compete for standing-room. Each year a new crop of seed is sown by parent trees.
2. The individual species are closely related to other species, forming what the botanists call genera. Fifty different species of trees are distin guished by bearing acorns. They form a single genus, the oaks.
3. Several related genera compose a family. The nut trees form such a family. The group includes the oaks, hickories, etc.
The one characteristic by which an oak can be recognized is its acorn.
This introduces the beginner, without further study, to all the members of one of the largest and most valuable of the tree families. The cone dis tinguishes the family of the narrow-leaved evergreens. One peculiarity of its leaf arrangement sets the pines in a genus by themselves. Spruces are a genus distinguished by a few traits.
To tell one oak from another is to compare differences in bark, leaf.
acorn, and in general form and expression of the trees. Here a pocket manual of trees will prove a great help, for the specific differences are stated in detail, and supplemented by a picture. Directly the student comes to a decision. The tree before him is, or is not, the one described and pictured on the page. The book is a friend that knows all the trees, and answers questions; that introduces the newcomer to all his tree neighbors.
This little TREE GUIDE groups together in families the trees one commonly meets in the eastern half of the country. This includes Canada, and the United States that lie east of the Rocky Mountains. With the native species will be found the most important cultivated species brought from other countries, and now quite as familiar to us as our own forest trees.
To aid the beginner, and to show how few are the traits to learn, when he sets out to make the acquaintance of the tree families, a group of simple keys are presented here. By them, he can quickly distinguish members of the principal groups. Not only to recognize a tree, but to be able to say how we know it, is the help offered first in the keys, then in the succeed ing pages.