THE PLANT WORLD 85 



but if they canuot practice self-command now, liow are they to learn it 

 when they grow np ?" 



Children thus brought up will be welcome visitors everywhere ; they 

 will not gather the single spike of fringed orchis that we have been en- 

 joying for a week on the hill-path, nor the clump of black-eyed Susans 

 that nodded to us every time we stepped out onto the piazza, nor the 

 starry campion that sowed itself in the oval ; and still less will they 

 maraud over the place, plucking every one of the field lilies that are so 

 handsome standing erect and stately, with the sun streaming through 

 the red petals, against a background of grass and bushes, and look so 

 common-place in a great crowded bunch. When we first established 

 ourselves at Cape Ann we heard that these lilies had been nearly exter- 

 minated by people digging up the bulbs for sale, and we resolved that 

 not only should our bulbs be protected, but the flowers should be allowed 

 to go to seed and propagate the plant in that way, and a lively time we 

 had of it in lily season ; we saw that there is some excuse for people who 

 surround their places with stone walls and iron gates ; grounds bordered 

 by imaginary lines conecting boundary-stones deeply hidden in the 

 bushes stand little chance of being considered private, and those who 

 live all the year in the countrj^ do not realize that city people find one 

 of the chief delights and refreshments of their summer outing to lie in 

 the wild nature surrounding their cottage at the shore or in the coun- 

 try, and that they care far more for their bunch berries and ferns, their 

 sandpipers and woodchucks than for garden roses and heliotrope. I have 

 heard an old sea captain speak in the most scornful way of a gentleman 

 who had erected a sign " Please Do Not Pick the Wild Flowers" in the 

 midst of the beautiful wild growth which covered his little place. Not 

 to let every passer-by break off the creamy viburnum blossoms which 

 overhung the road, and pluck the red lilies or tear up pink bindweed 

 seemed to this good old sea captain the acme of selfishness, although 

 the owner of the place had shown a very unselfish interest in his neigh- 

 bors and had done much for the good of the village. 



Let us then establish letters, talks, classes and societies to interest 

 every one in the life of plants ; let us teach them to care for the plants 

 as individuals, to be interested in watching them in situ, to study the 

 growth of the shoots the twining and climbing of vines, the way the 

 flowers are fertilized, which insects \dsit which flowers, which the plants 

 guard against, and all curious facts about seed-dispersion, and it will 

 soon cease to be an aim merely to gather as large a bunch of flowers as 

 possible, and then perhaf)S to tire of it and throw it down, wilting, in the 

 the dusty highway. 



A useful tract to influence young children is "Grandmother's 

 S])ring," by Mrs. J. H. E^^'ing. I fear it is now out of print, but pres- 



