Afield with Ranger Mac - The Children's Choice - Sept 27, 1948

Program 2

September 27, 1948

THE CHILDREN'S CHOICE

The great White Pine of Newald speaks: I stood here among my companions When Indians roamed and bear walked free; When loggers came and took my companions, And fire ravaged the ground.

I stood here when a settler came to clear space And raise a cabin for his little flock.

Why -they left me, I do not know; Maybe I was crooked then,

But now I stand a proud relic of bye-gone days.

We Get Ready Last Spring 279,847 school children voted for a State Tree.

This is the result of the vote:

Sugar Maple 87,253; White pine 71,310; Canoe Birch 41,896; Amer ican Elm 37,431; Norway pine 22,597; Shagbark Hickory 8,712; Hem lock 7,693; Scattered 2,955

Select the leaves of these trees, press them between newspapers and mount

on a piece of cardboard for a schoolroom exhibit.

We Listen

Ranger Mac will discuss these seven trees and point out their utility and

beauty. Do you think the choice a good one?

Why would the White pine have been a good choice, also?

How many needles has a White pine cluster? A Norway pine?

How did the Norway pine get its name?

Do the edges of leaves help in identifying the trees?

What causes the fall coloration in leaves? What colors does the sugar

maple take on?

Name some of the important uses of the trees voted on.

We Follow Up

Write a story of the sugar maple for English composition.

How many kinds of maples are native to Wisconsin? Learn the differences between the hard and soft maples.

Your encyclopedia has an account of the making of maple sugar and syrup.

Look it up for oral English composition.

Note: The Great White pine referred to above grows near Newald in lorest County. It is 5 ft. Ain. in diameter breast high. It is the largest Pinus strobus in the country. Its estimated age is 400 years.

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WISCONSIN SCHOOL OP THE AIR

Afield With Ranger Mac September 27, 1948 THE CHILDREN'S CHOICE

HELLO, BOYS AND GIRLS: This is your day—Let's he up and awayt

Now that it is late September, it is time to stand on a hilltop

and see October coming.

in a haae, of leaf color.

You can see it creeping down from hilltops

It is walking across the meadows in a

display of final blossonw You can hear it in the rush of wings of birds in the southward journey, or from the throat of the white

throated sparrow that is passing through just now; you can feel it in

the cool nip of air; and smell it in decaying vegetation. Autumn is

a lovely time to be up and away. Look at the Big Dip er in the early evening and you will find it low in tne horizon as if it were dipping down to the earth to get a dipper-full of this autumnal beauty. stand on the hilltop and see October coming, you will enjoy the

experience.

He is a great friend who can help us to see the beauties,

the divine things about us.

Some of you 'i'railhitters are only 10 and

11 years old, but you are not too young to enjoy the year's last, lovliest smile.

Ranger Aiac hopes you have such a friend who will help

you to see it.

Last Spring, before the close of school, almost lwo hundred eigl# thousand school children voted for a state tree.

The tree they

selected - the Sugar iviaple, is now changing its green robe of summer to one of yellow and rea, ana it seems to say," I hope you are proud of your choice."

When the explorers came to America, they

found the Indians making sugar xrom the sap of ttiis maple tree.

Some of the tribes made sugar-making a festr.ve occasion, and the first

sugar made in the early Spring was sacrificed by the medicine-men to

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the Great Spirit.

So maple sugar and syrup are gifts from the Red

Man, just one of the many the Indians left us. *heir methods of reducing the sap to syrup and sugar were crude, but white man with iron kettles and later on the evaporating pan improved on these methods. So the maple tree figured in the early history of our

country; earlier than the White Pine did. Now we plant it on lawns and along our streets where it grows into a wide-spreading, shapely tree, with beauty of color and usefulness for shade. In the forest, among its companions, It grows 70 to 100 feet in height, with a straight, clean trunk with a dark gray bark that has shaggy scales which peel backward. The wood is hard, heavy, and closed-grained, so th=t it tRkes a very fine polish.

You look about you at school

an at home and you will find the wood of our state tree used in

many ways for furniture, interior finish, floors, athletic equipment, shoe-lasts, kitchen utensils. Yes, I guess you made a good choice.

If you look closely at leaves of trees, you will find that many of them have teeth along -their edges. dibes not.

The leaf of our state tree

The le t is divided into five lobes where the veins branch

out from the main middle vein.

It would be interesting and helpful

for you to make an exhibit of the leaf, fruit, bark and wood of this tree for your school Museum Corner.

If you keep a Scrapbook,

of course, you will enter a n cely pressed leaf specimen, protected by a sheet of celophane.

The Sugar Maple received 87,253 votes. second choice with 71,310.

The White Pine wn.s the monarch of

Wisconsin's original forests.

A specimenv of these original forests

is still growing at Newald in Forest County. in diameter breast high.

The White Pine was the

It is 5 feet 4 inches

The White Pine is the most useful and

beautiful of all the pines.

The wood is light, clear, easy to work,

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enduring against the weather.

most prized building material.

It has always been and still is the

Because it is so light, it could be

floated downstream to the sawmills, so it is th* tree that began the

great lumber industry in our state. That was in the days when Paul Bunyun was the hero of the lumberjack.

How we wish today that we had

some of the white'pine wasted by reckless cutting in those days.

3fc8tree is easy to identify because it is the only native pine that has five needles to a cluster.

The cones are from five to eight

inches long, curved somewhat like a banana.

It is not surpris.ng that the children placed the canoe birch third in the list of favorite trees.

It is the queen of the woods.

The women's clubs of America gave it the name of the tfOTHER TREE,

and urged planting it on lawns on Mother's Day. There is no tree that has i.-:ors romance connected with i t than the white birch.

Probably no tree served the Indian, the plone-r, the trappers and

boyageurs L.ore bountifully than did this tree.

It was a source of

food, drink, transportation, and lodging to those who dwelt in the forest.

Its sap yielded a delicious syrup; its inner bark was dried

in ianrfne time and powdered to a flour that was quite nourishing; its wood furnished the rims for snow shoes;

the frills and fuzzes of

the outer bark furnished kindling for fire even in rainy weafcher, and the wood of the trunk can be burned whether green or dry, which is niost unus.;al.

Its bark made the roof of the settler's shack and the

forest Indian's wigwam ana wick-i-up.

It was the "tin" of the woods

anct supplied pails, baskets, cups, pan? and other utensils. xhe bark, split into thin sheets supplied a flat, smooth, tinted and scented writing paper.

But the crowning glory of the birch was the bark canoe,

raaking oÂŁ this canoe is the highest art of the Indian.

J-t is

'^he

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graceful, e-.sy to"repair, and *as used from the Atlantic to the Pacific across the northern region of America.

It will be

remembered and treasured as long as men travel the little waters of our land. Today the wood of the Canoe Birch is used for spools, toothpicks, shoe pegs, shoe lasts, broom handles anu other useful articles.

•Lhe iruit of the birch is a er.tkin.

Uirds break these

catkins apart in the winter to get the seeds, -h.-e are the favorite food of the ruffed grouse, as are the bu-:S of this tree.

So you can

see tlat the canoe birch is probably the greatest provider of all cur trees.

The fourth tree in the children's choice is the American Elm. H is a popular tree for shade and for planting along cur streets..

It is a j-aceful tree with a feather-duster shape that you cannot mistake.

But as a forest tree it is not popular.

Its wood is

tough, coarse-gra-ned, and very difficult to split. *»ut it is easy to transplant and grows rabidly, end this coupled with its graceful outline hr.s mace for it a host of friends.

uses, as well.

It has seme important

The wood is used, for cheese boxes, strawberry boxes,

hubs for wheels, barrels, and cr.iting.

Orioles like to build on the

ends of the slender branches, away irom danger.

ihe Norway Pine was the fifth ch.ice.

You must not be mislead

by the name "Norway." It is a native tree, growing nowhere in Europe, and was named after a little lumbering town in Elaine, called Norway.

I heard a man say that it is his favorite tree because it

stands so tall and stuiuy ai^ong its companions in the forest, just as a man should be in ids lire.

It is the most popular of all trees

grown in the state nurseries for forest planting because it is easy to plant, grows ra_;idly, and has few enemies. i'he cones for seeds have been hard to get the last few years and that is why the

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conservation Deiartoent is paying boys and girls such a high price

per Utshel for cor, s ttir, y-.r.r. If there' are Trailhltters interested in gathering the cones or HoW Pine , hanger fee sill tell you hot tc ao it upui request. But the cones arc opening fast-, and the work of collecting tbem villi have to be done sconv If you ermine the needles of the Hot-Kay* you will find them lon^ and course and t -o in a cluster.

'ihe Shagbark History is next on the list, n is a tree of the southern half of the state. Its leaves are made up of many leaflets, called a compound leaf, arid its bark is shaggy because long strips of bark bend outward from --he trunk giving it this shaggy look.

The buds in winter are largo and interesting to study. 'Aie nuts

are iiard to crack, but the meat found within is worthy the labor, squirrels like woods witn the shagbark hickory, and there is always toood squirrel hunting where the sh-gbark grows. The wood is extremely strong, guod-ior bows anil arrows, axe handles, baseball bats, and agricultural implements.

'ihe last on the list is t*te iieulock, once a discarded tree,

novj very valuable for paper pulp. In the early days, before chemicals were used for tanning leather, the bark of the hemlock was used, frees were cut oo\vn, the bark removed, and the logs left to rot in the woods* Ho* we "is& v'e had those logs t0flav* The iiemlock has very short fiat needles, that look' something like the needles of the bals-m fir.

Lut on the underside the leaves are a

silver-gray. If you make a coi ectlcn of the leaves of these seven treos that have cade such a contribution tc the development of our

country .nu aro still servin& us in many new ways, you will lenrn tnat the needles of the hemlock fall off upon drying.

the.. ^Th^WIev^ i^xi^%%i^r^^^^n^Cea

hfio.an.qft of their usefulness and beauty.