Michigan Department of Education

“ We are told that the custom of tree planting is an old one among the Germans, who in the rural districts practice a commendable habit of having each member of the family plant a tree at Whitsuntide, which comes forty days after Easter. ”

“ A second resolution was likewise adopted, asking the newspapers of the state to keep the matter constantly before the people until the appointed day; and the result was the planting of over a million trees in Nebraska on April 10, 1872.
From this beginning on that western prairie the movement has spread in an ever widening circle whose circumference today sweeps from the Atlantic to the Pacific, while all appreciate the poet’s thought:
“What does he plant who plants a tree? ”