The paths and driveway to the school were just rock masses.  The first thing was to clear out all the rock.  Then loads of ashes were brought from the houses of the different children.  All the parents were glad to get rid of the ash-dumps in the backyards.  All kinds of carts were brought into use.  For a week no boy dared appear without a load of ashes.

All these ashes were dumped into the drive and paths.  Then the whole ash layer was rolled and rolled.  It finally made a good solid kind of walk.

It was the business of the tree-planting committee to have two saplings ready by Arbor Day and to know themselves just how to plant.  In the start of this work, committees had been formed.  Now these committees were supposed to know exactly how to do the work and to procure the necessary material for it.  It was not the duty of the committee to do all the work; by no means, or the others would not have known how to work.

Two trees were to be planted, one little maple near the building; another, a buttonball tree, down on the lower grade.  A maple was chosen because it was easy to get from the woods and also because the maple is such a good all-round tree.  Then later, because of a cold wind exposure on one side of the schoolhouse it was decided to plant a screen of little poplar trees.  This was to shut off an unsightly view which could not be remedied in any other way.

One of the girls on the tree committee suggested a poplar in place of the maple.  She was voted down.  Now if quick results had been wished, of course the poplar would have been the tree to have chosen.  That was why the poplars were chosen for screening purposes.  But for permanence the maple, the oak, the buttonball are all better.  The poplar shoots up quickly, to be sure, but again it sheds its leaves early in the season.  Its life is not as long as the oak’s.  There are more reasons, too.  But if you must have quick results, here is a trick.  Plant first a poplar then a maple or some other tree and so on.  Later the poplars may be cut out and you have left the fine sturdy, long-lived trees.  At the same time the poplars have tided over that in-between period.  We sometimes weary of waiting for an oak to grow sizable.

The tree planting was left until May because of the state Arbor Day.  The maple and buttonball or plane-tree were dug up by the boys in the woods the morning of Arbor Day.  The trees were chosen from a rather open part of the wood.  It is better to choose trees from the open places than from the denser woods.  Trees thus selected are far more likely to grow on being transplanted into a place similar to that from which they came.  The boys chose trees about five feet tall.  The smaller the tree the better.  The following directions were the ones agreed upon: 

(1) Dig a hole large enough and deep enough to accommodate the roots without cramping.  Allow so that the tree shall sit one inch lower than it did before.