PLANT is the first life to hear the sun’s summon from the dark womb of earth. Life without plants is impossible. Plants are the form of life on which all other living beings depend — the earth's basic foodstuff. In praise of trees. Rabindranath Tagore salutes and bows to them:

O, profound

Silent Im S restraining valour With patience. vou mealed creative Pincer in its peaceful form.

Why so much praise for the tree' Because the tree is the life founder. Trees can reduce the lieat of summer day. quiet a highway noise, feed hungry . provide shelter from the wind and give w armth in the w inter. And the forests are the sanctuaries not only oi wildlife, but life as a whole, humans included.

Primeval forests have a peculiar and unique value that transcends economics. Men can replant trees, and they have done so by billions. But they c an never re create one of these forests. W alking through a re planted forest lias all the mystique of walking through a sugarcane field or maize field. The trees grow straight and true, all die same age. all the same size Ik-rtw and imdcrgrowth are min inti!

W alking through a natural forest is a transcendental experience. Giant umbrellas, centuries old and often over 100 feet tall, reach for heavens. ( ut an old natural forest and more than aesthetk-s is kist. Birds, animals, insects. and plants that thrive in the richness simply go away or die. Destroy too much of their habitat and they become extinct. Natural trees, as a consequence. are very important part ot nun s environment. They have always supplied many of nun s bask needs - material, aes theta and spiritual From the dawn of civilisation, trees have been very closely associated with man s bfokig kal and cukural envin ximnx

I rets have mi many interesting facts. figures and stories. let us now meigkin some otthem.

11 George Bernard shaw says:

Except during die nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

21 President Theodore Roosevelt annments: A people w ithout children w ould face a hopeless future: a country w ithout trees is almost as hopeless.

3) There are more species of trees in three acres of a Malaysian rainforest (880 sps) than in all of the I nited states (850 species).

4) A ES Thames, a utility company in New England. has helped pay for the planting of 52 million trees in Guatemala — exactly the quantity-needed to absorb die carbon-dioxide that is produced annually at its Iincosvile. Conn, generating plant

5) It takes one 100-foot-tall tree to provide the wood and paper products consumed annually by the average American.

6) A full grown deciduous tree can pull one ton of water from the soil each year.

7) Planting three trees around each American house would save 10 to 50 per cent of air-conditioning bills or as muc h as four billkin dollars annually.

81 Trees are nature s air-condi-tioning units. In one year an average tree inhales 26 pounds of carbon-dioxide — the amount emitted by an aiaomobiie during an 11300 mile trip — and exhales enough oxygen to keep a family of four breathing for a year.

9) A full grown mango tree offers 16 lakhs Indian rupees worth of contribution during its lifetime. These contributions come primarily from purificatkin of carbon-dioxide. manufacturing oxygen, control of soil erosion, cooling effects, soil fertility, harbouring birds, animals and insects.

10) The most iMilated tree in the world is Norwegian spruce growing in the wasteland of Campbell Island. Antarctica. Its nearest arboreal neighbour is in the Auckland Islands. 120 miles away.

11) frees are the largest living things The world's biggest specimen.

a California Sequoia (Red Wood) named General Sherman. stands Z74.9 feet tall and measures 82.3 feet in circumference (about 6,000 tons). It grewfrom a seed that weighs only one six thousandth of an ounce.

12) World's tallest tree, another California Sequoia. Harry Cole. measures 371 feet from the base to crown — the height of a 37-story building.

13) The fattest tree ever reported. a c hestnut known as the Tree of One Hundred Horses, grew on Sicily's Mount Etna and measured 190 feet in circumference.

14) The longest-branched tree ba 550year-old banyan near Gutibayaiu. India, and its canopy covers 5.2 acres.

15) Trees are also the longest living things: a bristlecone pine named Methuselah is over 4,600 year old. Recently a tree older than this is dis covered in China.

16) In 1,500,000 BC: Early man learns to make a fire with kindling.

17) In 120.000 BC: Man builds covered shelter with roof supported by wood beams.

18) In 50.000 — 30.000 BC: First rafts and boats are crafted from large togi.

19) In 3500 BC: The wheel is in vented, and right with it comes the cart both of w ood.

20) In 105 AD: Paper is invented in China by Ts ai Lun. an official of the imperial court using bark of muL berry tree.

From the beginning of civilisaiion man has a deep relationship with trees. Like may sages in India and China. Gautama Buddha in about 5th century BC, lived six years under the Bodhi Tree — Asvattha. Ficus reli-giosa. From his experience and wis dom he left a valuable sermon on trees:

The tree is a peculiar organism of unlimited kindness and benevolence that makes no demands for its sustenance and extends generously the products of its life activity: it affords protection to all beings, offering shade even to the axeman who destroys ft.'