Name all the trees that you know which grow near your home or school.

Bring their leaves into school and tell where the trees are growing: on the hill, beside the water, or in the low land. What is their fruit?

Their seed? Bring specimens of fruit and seed to school. Find out how each tree scatters its seed. In what month and season does each blossom? In what month does each mature its fruit?

All the trees in the picture, and many others, drop their leaves in the fall.

Trees which drop their leaves in the fall

are called DECIDUOUS TREES.

Make a list of the deciduous trees in the picture; learn all you can about each. Add to this list as

many more as

Find out which are the older trees in your neighborhood; which the youngHow do people

know this? What are the differences? Bring to school specimens of wood cut both horizontally and vertically. Find the heart-wood, the cells, and rings of growth, the outer and inner bark.

Find out which is hard and which is soft wood. For what is soft wood best adapted? Hard wood? Why is hard wood used for ship-building?

Leave a twig and the stem end of a leaf in some red ink for a time. Observe the effect. From this experiment you will learn how the sap, or nourishment, gets to the growing part of the tree.

Note carefully the shapes of the leaves, the manner of growth on the tree. Note where they branch, if high or low. Draw their curves or "lines of growth." Find out what kind of roots

the trees have.

All foliage is arranged to allow the greatest amount of air and sunlight to reach every part of the tree.

31

The roots of all trees spread out in the ground about the same distance as their foliage. The little rootlets or

feeders are at the ends of the root branches. When the rain falls the foliage acts as an umbrella and carries the water to the outer leaves, where it falls to the ground just over the little rootlets. These rootlets drink it in, and it is carried up through the tree in the sap to nourish every part as it needs.

On this page is a picture of the rock

or sugar maple from which

maple-sugar is

made.

Very early

in the spring, when our

warm, sunny days come, which are followed by cool, freezing nights, the sugar season begins.

The sugar-maples are tapped, and one or two little spouts are driven into each tree. Under these a bucket is hung. The sap drips or flows through the day. It is gathered in tanks. These tanks are either drawn on sleds to the sugar-house, or they are connected by pipe lines, as in the picture, with the vats in the sugar-house. Here the

for as soon as the buds are out the sap becomes bitter. Most of the maple sugar

32

of the world is made in the northern part northern part of the United States, especially in the northeastern part, and in Canada. From these sections it is sent

to other sections and

tries to be sold.

Find out its price per gallon as syrup or per pound as sugar.

Make a list of all the nut trees. Tell when they blossom; in what month their fruit is ripe; how it is set free.

Make a list of all the fruit trees which you know or can find out about. Tell in what soil they grow; the kind of fruit they bear.

On the

next page is the picture of a cocoanut

palm grove.

The cocoa

nut palm grows in the

hot regions

earth.

It bears

one of the largest

in the

The nut is

and the shell is

it is filled with the

tree depends upon the waves to help disperse its

This husk is nearly always three sided, and the tree usually grows beside water Its shape helne the fruit to float away. It is carried by the waves to other shores, where it plants itself, to begin the work of a mother tree. Birches have peculiar habits of their own. Try to find out

nut and a quantity of WHITE CEDAR milk. This milk is drunk by the natives of the hot countries. The nut is enveloped in a very thick husk, which makes the fruit seem of great size. It is too large for the smaller animals to store or for the wind to carry. "Jack Frost" does not appear, so the

what they

are. Also,

find out the

uses of the birch. They grow in colder regions than other deciduous

differ in shape and position from those of the deciduous trees? you think of any advantage to the tree in winter because of this arrangement? What is the seed of each evergreen which you know? How does the seed get away from its home?

Bring in twigs of each evergreen which grows in your neighborhood. Sketch them, being careful to note their manner of growth. Bring in the fruit, watch its opening and dispersion of seed. Bring in specimens of wood. Observe, smell, and

should find more evergreens than deciduous trees. The wood from some of them is of great value for ship-building. Evergreens are usually found growing with birches.

On the low plains bordering the Atlantic coast, in both America and Europe the

Southern pines

grow. There

are several varieties of them -the

longleaf pine being the

most

abundant.

From these

pines the pine products, or so-called

33

"naval stores," are procured. The naval stores are resin, pitch, tar, turpentine,

The pines are boxed and chipped, as in the

picture. The resin, or crude turpentine, flows into the receptacle made for it. It is then distilled for the oil or "spirits of turpentine." Rosin, the substance left behind after the distillation, is largely used in the making of paper and soap. Tar is

largely manufactured from resin and turpentine. The pure wood-tar is procured, how

GATHERING TURPENTINE

AND RESIN.

ever, by an entirely different

process. Find out from the dictionary

and other

sources the uses of

these prod

ucts. Why

are these

products

called

"naval stores"?

Learn what

you can in regard to their com

mercial value.

Describe

each scene here, rep

resenting the turpentine industry.

barrens. From the picture, can you tell why?

There are many dense forests on the earth.

Thick forests, pathless and with heavy underbrush, are in both the hot and colder temperate countries. They also grow in belts on the sides of high mountains.

In the pictures of mountains in other parts of this book, find the forest belts. Compare the forest in a temperate country with that in the hot country, from the pictures on this page.

If you note the manner of growth of forest trees, and of those in the open fields, you will see that the forest trees have few spreading branches and grow tall and straight, as

if reaching to the sky; while the trees which grow singly in the open field spread their branches and have thicker foli

A FOREST IN A HOT REGION.