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We are told that the custom of tree planting is an old one among the Germans, who in the rural districts practice a commendable habit of having each member of the family plant a tree at Whitsuntide, which comes forty days after Easter.

The old Mexican Indians also plant trees on certain days of the year when the moon is full, naming them after their children; and the ancient Aztecs are said to have planted a tree every time a child was born, giving it the name of the child.

But to the Hon. J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska, Secretary of Agriculture in the Cleveland cabinet, belongs the honor of instituting our American Arbor Day. It was at an annual meeting of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture, held in the city of Lincoln, January 4, 1872, that Mr. Morton introduced the following resolution:

Resolved, That Wednesday the 10th day of April, 1572, 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

After a little debate as to the name, some preferring Silvan instead of Arbor, the resolution was unanimously adopted. A second resolution was likewise adopted, asking the newspapers of the state to keep the matter constantly before the people until the appointed day; and the result was the planting of over a million trees in Nebraska on April 10, 1872.

From this beginning on that western prairie the movement has spread in an ever widening circle whose circumference today sweeps from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while all appreciate the poet&rsquo;s thought:

 

