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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



What is Nature Study? 



Although I have been editing, for a- 

 bout a quarter of a century, magazines 

 that I supposed were devoted to nature 

 study, and have been a contributor, to 

 various periodicals, of articles that 

 seemed to me to be devoted to the 

 study of nature, yet more and more am 

 I puzzled to know what is meant by 

 the term as used by most persons. I 

 recently submitted some photographs 

 to "The Garden Magazine," published 

 by Doubleday, Page & Company, 

 whom I have always supposed to be 

 preeminent in nature study publica- 

 tions. Imagine my astonishment, not 

 at the rejection of the photographs, bu: 

 at this statement from the editor : 



"We are not interested in nature 

 study of any sort, our magazine being 

 devoted to practical gardening." 



Will some one please explain what 

 is gardening, practical or otherwise, it 

 it is not an effort to study certain of 

 nature's products, and to induce old 

 Mother Nature to yield us her best? 



A few years ago, nature study was 

 popular throughout all sections of the 

 middle west, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 

 Iowa. Now we hear that the term has 

 been discarded and agriculture sub- 

 stituted, yet the teachers are giving 

 instructions in regard to birds, trees, 

 plants, insects, soil and rocks. What 

 is this but the study of nature? When 

 nature study becomes intense and en- 

 thusiastic, and is applied to the pro- 

 ducing of plants in garden or field, is it 

 no longer nature study? Is astronomy 

 nature study when one gazes aloft with 

 opera glass or the unaided eyes? Is 

 it no longer nature study if an almanac 

 is produced with the help of the same 

 science? We have many friends who 

 urge nature study in seeing things with 

 a pocket lens, but the minute we ad- 

 vocate the making of that seeing per- 

 manent by the aid of a camera, they 

 allege that that is no longer nature. 

 It appears to be, in the estimation of 

 certain persons, nature study when 

 they take a pail, a net and a strainer, 

 and go to a pond for micro-organisms, 

 but the moment that a magazine de- 

 scribes a hardware store that deals in 

 all these supplies, some one is sure to 

 say, "Why, that is nothing but com- 

 mercialism." There is one thing I espe- 

 cially like about Professor Schmucker's 



definition of nature study. He says in 

 the first sentence of his text-book, "Na- 

 ture study is the study of nature." Can 

 anything be simpler than that? it 

 seems to me that digging with a hoe, 

 or punching the ground in the garden 

 with a dibble is nature study unless 

 the one that does it is only a brainless 

 machine. It seems to me that telling 

 the boys and girls in farming districts 

 about raising corn and potatoes and 

 cabbage, and about the insects that 

 prey on them, is plain and simple na- 

 ture study. It seems to me that to go 

 to a scientific house and get a micro- 

 scope, or a collecting case, or a net, 

 is the implemental stage of real nature, 

 and likewise it seems to me that one 

 has exactly the same motive when he 

 goes to a hardware store for pails, 

 hoes or shovels. 



The whole trouble in the popular 

 estimation of nature study, as this mag- 

 azine has so often reiterated, is that we 

 put a little mental shell around it, and 

 peisist in regarding the naturalist as 

 in a little, isolated, queer class by him- 

 self, that he is an impractical fanatic, 

 and that his uncanny and musty col- 

 lections should be rigidly circumscrib- 

 ed. Away with such nonsense ; let 

 us come back to the simple, fundamen- 

 tal basis, "Nature study is the study 

 of nature," and it makes no difference 

 how you do it. Do it in your own way, 

 but do it with heart and head, whether 

 you are pressing a plant or trying to 

 grow a better one ; whether you are 

 temporarily seeing a thing, or trying 

 to get its image on to a permanent 

 plate ; whether you are germinating a 

 few grains of corn between sheets of 

 moist blotting paper, or holding the 

 plow behind a fine pair of horses in 

 a ten acre field. Let us clear away 

 those restricted, antiquated fence lines. 

 O you editor of "The Garden Maga- 

 zine," practical gardening is nothing 

 under the sun but applied nature study, 

 and it is not always even applied, but 

 still it is nature study even if only in 

 the realm of the theoretical. To pro- 

 duce a more gorgeous chrysanthemum 

 requires more real study of nature and 

 her principles, than to pin a grasshop- 

 per to a sheet of cork. O you agri- 

 cultural educators of the middle west, 

 do not forget that to use even a hoe to 



