Supplement to 



Mome IRature = Stub^ Course 



Published by the Collegre of Agriculture of Cornell University, 

 in October, December, February and April and Entered October 

 I, 1904, at Ithaca, New York, as Second-class Matter, under 

 Act of Congress of July 16, 1894. 



ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK, Editor 



New Series. Vol. II. ITHACA, N. Y., DECEMBER-JANUARY, 1905-6 No. 2 



PLANT STUDY 



AH day it snows : the sheeted post 

 Gleams in the dimness like a ghost; 

 All day the blasted oak has stood 

 A muffled wizard of the wood ; 

 Garland and airy cap adorn 

 The sumach and the wayside thorn, 

 The clustering spangles lodge and shine 

 In the dark tresses of the pine. 



The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old, 

 Shrinks like a beggar in the cold ; 

 In surplice white the cedar stands, 

 And blesses him with priestly hands. 



— /. T. Trowbridge. 



E are wont to think of the winter largely as a human 

 problem. It is a time when we are obliged to take 

 greater care of ourselves lest we suffer from cold; 

 and the long months when we can be out-of-doors 

 comparatively little without hardship, are a serious 

 drain upon our vitality. The winter is also a drain 

 upon the purse, for we are obliged to clothe our- 

 selves more warmly and, therefore, more expen- 

 sively ; and the coal bills or the getting of the 

 winter wood is no small itein in the economy of 

 any household in this country of long winters. 

 Few of us realize that to the plants of all this region also winter has 

 proven a problem, which they have been obliged to solve or die. Certain 

 it is that the wild plants have been obliged to adapt themselves to this 

 long period of cold and inaction in order to preserve their species ; their 

 success is measured in one direction by their ability to cope with winter. 

 In general there are two kinds of plant adaptations developed to 

 meet this problem. One where the roots live on safely in the ground unaf- 



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