Rural School Leaflet. 939 



of a child; but when we realize the spiritual development that can come 

 through the love of growing plants, we find our responsibility in 

 putting this development into as many lives as possible. In my 

 garden I do not know which hour of the day is most rich and developing, 

 the hour in early morning, at high noon, at twilight, or by moonlight. 

 Poppies you will find there by hundreds — Shirley poppies — in all their 

 marvelous coloring of pink and white; California poppies with the rich 

 yellow and green; hundreds of sprays of gypsophila, the spirit flower 

 of the gardens; very much crimson phlox, pansies, forget-me-nots, nas- 

 turtiums, bachelor's buttons, petunias, deep, rich purple petunias; love- 

 in-the-mist, and many many others. Having grown these plants and 

 watched them with real response to their individuality and beauty, one 

 hungers for the time to come each year when they will again blossom. 

 Encourage every little child you know to have a garden and to grow both 

 vegetables and flowers, shrubs and trees, wayside and wood plants. 

 Teach the children the following lines from which they may learn 

 some things a poet found in a harvest: 



" For I planted these orchard trees myself 

 On hillside slopes that belong to me; 

 Where visions are wide and winds are free 

 That all the round year might come to my shelf. 



And there on my shelves the white winter through 



Pippin and Pearmain, Rambo, and Spy, 



Greening and Swaar and Spitzenburghs lie 

 With memories tense of sun and dew. 



They bring the great fields and the fence-rows here, 



The ground-bird's nest and the cow-bell's stroke, 



The tent- worm's web and the night-fire's smoke. 

 And smell of the smartweed through all the year. 



They bring me the days when the ground was turned, 

 When the trees were pruned and tilled and sprayed. 

 When the sprouts were cut and grafts were made. 



When fields were cleaned and the brush-wood piles burned." 



— L. H. Bailey 



