CARE OF PLANTS. 



53 



Polish, oil, or varnish, being careful not to varnish the 

 bark. When dry, fasten with small screws, from the 

 back, to the centre of the boards previously described. 



For most of the excellent advice regarding the care 

 of plants, which is presented in this chapter, we are 

 indebted to Prof. W. Whitman Bailey, who gave it 

 first in The Swiss Cross. In closing, we commend to 

 our readers the following hints contained in a letter 

 from Mr. Herbert M. Ellis to the Selborne Society of 

 England : 



" It seems most curious, and yet I think there can 

 be no doubt of the fact, that the chief culprits as re- 



SPECIMEN OF WOOD. 



gards the destruction of wild flowers and ferns, and 

 birds and insects, are those who in their hearts have 

 most sympathy and love for them. One of those be- 

 nighted beings, though I suppose they form the ma- 

 jority of our fellow-creatures, on whom the quiet beauty 

 and serene loveliness of the country is lost, to whom a 

 growing field in June is but a field of grass, to whom 

 the loveliest dell in Devonshire is only worthy of notice 

 if he wants a quiet smoke, whose only manner of dis- 

 tinction among birds is large or small, to whom all 

 sea-birds are gulls, all water-birds dabchicks, and all 

 wild flowers simply as the grass under his feet such 



