"Tell all the fellows the pears are ripe," called young Sterling Morton one late summer morning. He wanted his friends to join him in gathering pears from pear trees near his home. The pear trees were clustered along the banks of Raisin River near Monroe, Michigan.

The Indians once had a village along Lake Erie where Monroe is located today. Later French settlers came and began to build homes and to cultivate the land. The French planted many pear trees, which seemed to grow well in the area. In time the pear trees became part of the woodlands. Sterling loved the pear trees and all other trees near his home.

Besides wandering in the woods, Sterling liked to watch different things happening in the neighborhood. He liked to watch men building a new railroad through Monroe and steamboats coming across Lake Erie.

Sterling's uncle and grandfather published a newspaper in Monroe. Almost every day Sterling stopped to visit them and to watch them work. He liked to listen as they made up new stories and watch them put the stories into type. Often he retold some of the stories to his friends before the stories were published.

Early in life Morton manifested great interest in education. He attended Wesleyan Seminary at Albion, Michigan, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. At the latter institution, he started the first student paper ever published on the campus.

After Morton graduated from college, he moved to Nebraska Territory, where he became a political leader and editor of The Nebraska City News.He took special interest in settling the Territory, and at the age of thirty was appointed acting governor.

Morton was greatly concerned with the development of agriculture and the planting of trees in Nebraska. In 1872 he proposed that a special day, Arbor Day, be set aside in Nebraska for planting trees. More than a million trees were planted the first year.

In 1893, President Grover Cleveland chose Morton as Secretary of Agriculture in his cabinet. By this time Arbor Day was definitely established across the country as a day for planting trees. Each spring Morton himself planted a tree until his death in 1902.

In writing this book, Clyde B. Moore has told a fascinating story about J. Sterling Morton. He shows how this lover of trees translated his love into action by founding an important day for the school children of America. 

From the dust jacket