82.WHAT IS FORESTRY?
Anyone who travels across our country sees so many forests everywhere that he might well wonder why we have to worry about protecting them. Don’t we have too many forests with too many trees right now?
Actually, about a third of all the land area in the United States is forest land. That’s more than 250,000,000 hectares. One of the most important things we can do for the future of our country is to see that our forests are properly cared for! This is being done in Britain and elsewhere.
81.WHAT IS BAMBOO?
Bamboo is one of the most phenomenal examples of plant life. It shoots upward at a rate of 41 centimeters a day and can grow to 36 meters. It spreads so rapidly that if there is a road running through a growth of bamboo, that road may disappear completely in a month if it is not kept open!
There are about five hundred kinds of bamboos. They all have smooth, hollow, jointed stems with a strong, watertight partition at each joint, and all grow very rapidly. While most bamboos flower every year, there are some that bloom only three or four times in a century. The flowers are like those of grains and grasses. The fruit is usually like grain, and in some kinds, like nuts.
80.WHAT IS A POMEGRANATE?
The pomegranate is a fruit with a very interesting background in history. According to a legend of the ancient Greeks, the pomegranate was the fruit which Persephone ate while in Hades. Because she swallowed six of the seeds, she was forced to spend six months of each year in the underworld! To the Greeks, the juicy, many-seeded pomegranate always symbolized the powers of darkness.
In China, the pomegranate was a symbol of fertility. King Solomon, according to the Bible, had an orchard of pomegranates. When the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness, they longed for the pomegranates they used to have in Egypt. Mohammed advised his followers, “Eat the pomegranate, for it purges the system of envy and hatred.”
