82 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



MY NATURE STUDIES. 

 Miss Bernice Watson, Gardiner. 



The word uneventful is often applied to the life of the coun- 

 try girl, and uneventful it certainly would seem if she did not 

 observe and study the beautiful things of Nature which are all 

 about her. The country is the home of countless villages of 

 little people who carry on their business and private affairs in 

 much the same manner as they are carried on by their human 

 superiors. It was in the green fields and woods near my coun- 

 try home that I first began to study and love these little people. 



]\Iy first study of Nature outside my observations at home 

 began at Gardiner High School in 1902, under the able instruc- 

 tion of Prof. Powers. The fall and winter terms were devoted 

 to zoology and consisted mostly of dissecting and drawing, out- 

 side of book study. Our first dissection was on the grasshopper. 

 We separated the body into its three parts, head, thorax and 

 abdomen, and again dissected the parts and mounted them on 

 paper with the names of each, ^^'hen done the mounts were 

 very attractive. 



During the fall term we studied the habits of some of the 

 insects, and in the winter term again took up dissection, which 

 was mostly on the crayfish, lobster, clam and other salt water 

 animals that were obtained the previous summer by Prof. 

 Powers. In the spring w^e took up the study of botany. 



We had large books in which we mounted our specimens and 

 fully described the parts and habits of each. Below each mount 

 we drew some characteristic of the specimen. 



At the meeting of State Grange in 1903, a prize was offered 

 the different Granges of the State for the best collection of 

 injurious weeds, and during the summer. Miss Thompson, a 

 member of Chelsea Grange, and I devoted the most of our time 

 to collecting. Our collection numbered 296 specimens and 

 drew first prize for our Grange. The prize was offered the 

 next year and w^e got a new collection and first prize again. 

 At the State Grange meeting in Lewiston in 1904, we met 

 Prof. Hitchings and at his suggestion we made a small collec- 

 tion of insects during the summer of 1905. Last winter the 



