Labor Day & Counting Trees

A new study finds this old planet of ours has a lot more trees than originally thought. It took a team of 38 scientists to discover the earth is home to some 3.04 trillion trees. The former estimate was only about 400 billion. But even though that may sound good according to the scientists that's still about 46% of the trees that were here before we humans came along and started our deforestation process. Want to make a difference this Labor Day? Plant a tree.

Speaking of Labor Day, it's a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country. The first state bill was introduced into the New York legislature, but the first to become law was passed by Oregon on February 21, 1887. To take advantage of large numbers of potential customers free to shop, Labor Day has become an important sale weekend for many retailers in the United States. Some buyers retailers claim it is one of the largest sale dates of the year, second only to the Christmas season's Black Friday. Ironically, because of the importance of the sale weekend, some of those who are employed in the retail sector not only work on Labor Day, but work longer hours.

That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.