WALKS IN THE WOODS 



855 



this year in anticipation of floods next spring — an owl 

 has been tearing away the dead grass of a meadow 

 mouse's nest, looking for his supper. Did he get him, 

 we wonder. There are tunnels under the snow, new 

 made. So probably Bubo 

 was disappointed. 



There is color enough 

 about the swamp, even in 

 winter time, to delight the 

 eye of an artist. The thin 

 willowy shoots of the cor- 

 nel, the red-osier dogwood, 

 are turning blood red ; the 

 willows are brown and yel- 

 low ; the sassafras bark 

 is paint-green, the color 

 country folks used to paint 

 their house blinds ; the ben- 

 zoin, or spice bushes, are 

 black with yellow buds 

 ready to break open before 

 the leaves come in the 

 spririg ; the climbing bitter- 

 sweet with its scarlet seeds 

 in orange pods ; the crim- 

 son and rose pink fruit 

 of the burning-bush — did 

 Moses see its cousin in the desert? — drooping on long 

 peduncles ; and the drooping cymes of orange and scarlet 

 berries of the woody nightshade, Solanum dulcamara, 

 give a glory and a vividness to the tangled masses of 



CAT-O NINE TAILS WITH DKIKU STALKS UF MARSH-MALLOW 

 BEHIND, THEIR SEED PONDS RATTLING IN THE WIND 



vines and shrubbery that advertises the swamp for what 

 it is, one of Dame Nature's own banquet halls for the 

 winter birds which we will not be able to entice to our 

 feeding stations in the gardens until they have exhausted 



the bounteous feast here. 

 As we go homeward, the 

 cobwebs of the week's v, ork 

 cleared from our brains, 

 we wonder again that any 

 inventor of theological sys- 

 tem should have guessed 

 that this beautiful world 

 was made solely for man- 

 kind : witness that while 

 we in America may be 

 skimping our food to hu- 

 manely send it to starv- 

 ing Europe, this nice old 

 lady, Mother Nature, whose 

 realm we have been explor- 

 ing this winter day, has laid 

 a banquet in every swamp 

 and bog and woodland tan- 

 gle clear across America, 

 that her wild, joyous little 

 animated airplanes and con- 

 cert givers may have plenty 

 to eat through the long sleep-time of plants and insects. 

 And were it not for her birds and her insects, notably 

 the bees, we'd have no crops to send to starving Europe. 

 So we conclude the dear old lady must love us, too. 



A NATIONAL PARK TO HONOR ROOSEVELT 



'T'HE suggestion made by Charles Lathrop Pack, 

 ■*■ President of the American Forestry Association, 

 that a great national highway be named in honor of 

 Theodore Roosevelt, has met with popular approval from 

 coast to coast as evidenced by cordial expressions and 

 endorsements in the press. This is closely followed by 

 a sentiment in favor of naming one of the National Parks 

 in honor of Mr. Roosevelt also and Senator Phelan, of 

 California, makes this definite by the introduction of a 

 bill to create a national park on the western slope of 

 the Sierra mountains "to be dedicated as a national 

 memorial to Theodore Roosevelt." 



This is a departure from the principle hitherto main- 

 tained in the matter of naming national parks, but senti- 

 ment favoring it is strong. Robert Sterling Yard, chief 

 of the educational division of the national park service, 

 is an earnest advocate of the proposal. He says : 



"Senator Phelan's selection of a national memorial to 

 Roosevelt is remarkably appropriate in many ways. 

 California's memorial to John Muir, her own naturalist, 

 author and prophet of the out-of-doors, was a trail over 

 the crest of the Sierra from Yosemite valley to the sum- 

 mit of Mount Whitney, the loftiest peak in the United 

 States. 



"The nation's memorial to Roosevelt may well be the 

 1,600 square miles which inclose America's greatest 



grouping of stupendous rugged mountains, her most ex- 

 uberant valleys, her most luxuriant forests, and a mil- 

 lion trunks of the giant sequoia tree, including the Gen- 

 eral Sherman tree, biggest, oldest and lustiest living 

 thing in the world. 



"This proposed national park, which slopes westward 

 from the crest of the Sierras eighty miles or so south of 

 Yosemite, is regarded by the Department of the Interior 

 as the greatest in some respects that America can pro- 

 duce. No name has yet been chosen for this park ; it was 

 difficult to find one which carried the idea of its superla- 

 tive ruggedness and vigor. The name of Roosevelt 

 seems to epitomize and express these characteristics." 



■p MMETT D. GALLION, law partner with the late< 

 ■"-^ Senator Daniel, of Virginia, and for many years 

 connected with the Interior Department, left a will be- 

 queathing his entire estate, consisting of 750 acres of 

 valuable timber land at Green Bay, Virginia, to the State 

 forest service of Virginia. 



All of testator's property, real and personal, is given 

 to the State of Virginia for the benefit of its State forest 

 reserve, his possessions to be used as a forestry reserva- 

 tion under the management of the State Forestry com- 

 mission. 



