ARBORICULTURE[Californians are asking themselves how Joaquin Miller willmake the trees grow which he proposes to plant in the form ofa Maltese cross on Goat Island, in San Francisco Bay.—NewYork Graphic.]You may say they won't grow, and say they'll decay—Say it again till you're sick of the say,Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazooAnd hire a hall to proclaim it; and youMay stand on a stump with a lifted handAs a pine may stand or a redwood stand,And stick to your story and cheek it through.But I point with pride to the far divideWhere the Snake from its groves is seen to glide—To Mariposa's arboreal suit,And the shaggy shoulders of Shasta Butte,And the feathered firs of Siskiyou;And I swear as I sit on my marvelous hair—I roll my marvelous eyes and swear,And sneer, and ask where would your forests beTo-day if it hadn't been for me!Then I rise tip-toe, with a brow of brass,Like a bully boy with an eye of glass;I look at my gum sprouts, red and blue,And I say it loud and I say it low:"They know their man and you bet they'll grow!"
[Californians are asking themselves how Joaquin Miller willmake the trees grow which he proposes to plant in the form ofa Maltese cross on Goat Island, in San Francisco Bay.—NewYork Graphic.]
You may say they won't grow, and say they'll decay—Say it again till you're sick of the say,Get up on your ear, blow your blaring bazooAnd hire a hall to proclaim it; and youMay stand on a stump with a lifted handAs a pine may stand or a redwood stand,And stick to your story and cheek it through.But I point with pride to the far divideWhere the Snake from its groves is seen to glide—To Mariposa's arboreal suit,And the shaggy shoulders of Shasta Butte,And the feathered firs of Siskiyou;And I swear as I sit on my marvelous hair—I roll my marvelous eyes and swear,And sneer, and ask where would your forests beTo-day if it hadn't been for me!Then I rise tip-toe, with a brow of brass,Like a bully boy with an eye of glass;I look at my gum sprouts, red and blue,And I say it loud and I say it low:"They know their man and you bet they'll grow!"