48 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



them formed his initials, and he was ver}- happy when his autograph 

 appeared in small green leaves. The personality of the little plot 

 was lost, however, in the summer growth, but tliere was abundant 

 compensation in the numlwr and variety of the flowers. 



It is but a step from tlie garden to the fields. Children like to 

 go with older friends to the woods in spring, and bring home ferns 

 and wild flowers for shady places about the house. The}' are thus 

 unconsciously cultivating an accuracy of observation upon which the 

 telling of the truth greatly depends. The}' are learning to name 

 and classify objects, to have many thoughts instead of few, to love 

 Nature and reverence a Creator. 



The little gaidener soon becomes a little botanist. In his rambles 

 he becomes interested in birds and insects, and so begins the study 

 of natural history. Pebbles, bowlders and river-terraces have their 

 stories to tell, and in listening to them he becomes a geologist. Sit- 

 ting in winter before the blazing coals, he likes to hear something of 

 the wonderful coal forests, and if no fossils are at hand, to see pic- 

 tures of the fern-impressions, the sculptured lepidodendrons and 

 sigillarids, and strange animals of those gloomy tropical swamps. A 

 bit of marble possesses new interest to him when he knows it was 

 once alive. He laughs to hear the long names that scientists have 

 given to the great sea-monsters of the fifth day of creation, and has 

 no difficulty in remembering them. 



''I wish I had brought my microscope," said a little boy, looking 

 at a flower one day last week. He knew there was a great deal in a 

 flower that his eyes could not see. The same far-looking instinct 

 may lead us awa}^ from living flowers to the fields of history, art and 

 literature in which they have had their pai^. Kings have alwa3's 

 surrounded their palaces with gaidens, and heroes and poets have 

 been crowned with myrtle and laurel. There was never a banquet 

 without flowers. The}' have always been a social necessity. In 

 battle they have marked contending armies. When Napoleon re- 

 turned from Elba, all France wore violets. The Irishman loves the 

 shamrock, the Scotchman the thistle, and proud is the story of the 

 fleur-de-lis, the white lily of France, presented by an angel to 

 Clovis at his baptism. A line of English monarchs is said to have 

 derived its name from the broom plant, xjlanta genista^ used in pen- 

 ance by an ancestor. 



Fascinating to the flower-loving child — who is usually himself a 

 tasteful builder — is architecture, with its order, symmetry, its mani- 



