ARBOR DAY

Arbor Day, a gardeners favorite holiday. I love looking at trees this time of year because of the variety of colors that are available in our beautiful South Jersey. Here in the Garden of Eden we always add a tree or shrub to the landscape every year. Please visit the arborday.org
site where they have trees available to members for a small fee. You must be willing to watch them grow for a long time. They have ideas to make it fun for children and adults alike. Members of the NAS have planted 8.5 million trees last year alone. Imagine what we could do to improve our planet if we all planted just one a year?

From Wickpedia:

Arbor Day was established by J. Sterling Morton of Nebraska City, Nebraska in 1872.

J. Sterling Morton and his wife moved from Detroit, Michigan to the Nebraska Territory in 1854 , where he was the editor of Nebraska's first newspaper. His influence as a journalist led to his involvement in politics, and he became a promoter of the settlement of Nebraska. The lack of trees, however, was an obstacle.

The Great Plains had been described as the "Great American Desert." The tallgrass prairie that covered much of Nebraska at that time could provide rich farmland, but without wood for building houses or for fuel to heat homes, few found it convenient to settle there. Even the allotment of free land by the Homestead Act failed to entice sufficient numbers of families to relocate to Nebraska.

Morton proposed Arbor Day as a tree planting holiday in 1872 at a meeting of the Nebraska State Board of Agriculture. On the first Arbor Day, prizes were offered to counties and to individuals for properly planting the largest number of trees. It was claimed that more than 1 million trees were planted in Nebraska on that day.

During the course of the 1870s, several other states passed legislation to observe Arbor Day. Schools began to adopt the tradition beginning in 1882. By 1894, Arbor Day was celebrated in each state of the United States.

Morton's home in Nebraska City, Arbor Lodge, is a state historical park, which includes an arboretum and extensive landscaped grounds. Adjacent to the public park, Morton's farm, now called Arbor Day Farm, is run by the National Arbor Day Foundation.