A gift to the future: walnut trees evoke the value of planting, longevity, and good solid wood. (Tree Stories).

Did you ever have a part-time job as a kid? I had one that really made an impression on me. From the time I was 12 years old until I was about 16, I worked at the Amana Furniture Shop, in Amana, Iowa, where fine furniture was handmade by craftsmen. I remember the crisp fragrance of wood chips on the floor and the concentration of the woodworkers. But one thing that has really stayed with me was my love of walnut wood.

It didn't take long for even a boy of my age to realize how prized walnut wood was. Beautiful things made from it would last for hundreds of years. That was fitting because the second thing I learned about walnuts was that it took 70 to 100 years to grow a suitable tree.

In fact, that was a joke around some parts of Amana. Walnut trees were worth so much money that one neighbor said he had three in his backyard to secure his future.

The first autumn we lived there, my Uncle Buddy and I did a mysterious thing. We traversed the entire backyard, picking up five or six hundred large walnut seeds and stuffing them into gunnysacks. Then we hauled them into the dark basement and left them there.

We moved to Middle Amana the year I turned 12 to live next door to my grandparents. In our front yard were three mature walnut trees planted by my Great-uncle Bill 50 years earlier. They were majestic. He had also planted four in the back yard; one dropped black walnuts the size of baseballs.

The next spring, Uncle Buddy and I headed back downstairs for our walnut stash. We loaded them into his pickup and headed four miles north to Homestead, Iowa. We spent the day planting all 500 of those seeds up and down the banks of the Iowa River. We didn't own the land, we were simply being neighborly, doing a good deed--planting a shadier future for whoever wanted to enjoy it.

Back in 1973, lightning hit one of the large walnut trees in front of our house and killed it. We cut down the tree, had the wood kiln-dried, and had some handsome furniture made that will be passed down through generations. It's fitting the walnut tree's wood has become part of our family legacy.

There are many great reasons to plant trees: to help the environment, to commemorate life events, to improve your landscaping. For me, the most wonderful reason to plant a tree is simply to invest in the future. What Uncle Buddy taught me that day by the river was how to be a contributing member of the human race. Tree planters make a statement: They believe in the future. They care about the quality of the earth and the quality of life for generations they will never meet.

My Uncle Buddy was also a Scoutmaster, and under his guidance we Scouts spent full days planting trees. So I was especially touched when I was told that back in 1932, to celebrate the bicentennial of George Washington's birth, a Boy Scout troop collected hundreds of walnut seeds from Mount Vernon, Washington's home. They then planted them throughout the United States as living memorials to the soldiers who gave their lives in the first World War. I can't think of a finer honor, can you?

It's a wonderful thing to plant a tree in your own backyard. But you know what? I challenge you to do a secret act of kindness. To plant a free--or dozens of trees--somewhere that it or they will enrich the lives of people you will never know. The legacy you leave will be a living one.

Jeff Meyers "TreeStories" can be seen on public television stations nationwide. He directs AMERICAN FORESTS' Historic Thee Nursery.