Rural School Leaflet 951 



sunshine makes. Oh, this is a good old time of year and no one who sits 

 about our fireside is going to grumble about it ! 



There is one thing that I want you all to do this year, that is, all of you 

 who are old enough. Will you read " Snowbound," by the New England 

 poet, John Greenleaf Whittier? You can buy this poem — which will 

 interest every boy and girl over eight years old — for five cents by sending 

 for it to the Owen Publishing Company, Dansville, New York. Perhaps 

 each boy and girl can own a copy. The little book will have a paper 

 cover, but the printing is good and you will like to add it to your own 

 library. I recall a rural school in which, years ago, the boys and girls 

 learned all of " Snowbound," and they liked to recite it better than any- 

 thing else. Whenever the wind blew cold and rattled the schoolhouse 

 windows, and the snow came down in sheets, covering the neighboring 

 meadows, the boys and girls would ask to be allowed 

 to recite " Snowbound," and they had such a good 

 time doing this ! 



There are a number of things that we want you all 

 to do in the coming months, but perhaps the most X!> 



important of all is to have your teacher or your father ^>> 

 send for seed catalogs; because winter is the time to 

 decide what you are going to plant next spring. 

 Almost any good seed house will send a catalog to 

 your teacher or your parents. Merely looking through 

 these catalogs will give you much information about orway spruce 

 growing things, and this year we want every boy and girl in New York 

 State to grow something : to raise vegetables or flowers or a quarter-acre of 

 corn or a quarter-acre of potatoes, to start a fruit garden with the help of 

 father, or to plant some grape vines. Things that you grow yourselves 

 will give you the greatest pleasure. In our next leaflet we shall send you 

 some directions for planting, but we want you to learn all that you can 

 for yourselves by reading during these winter days. When you write to 

 tell Mr. Tuttle that you have bought a copy of " Snowbound," will you 

 tell him also whether you have looked through a seed catalog, and whether 

 you have made up your mind what you would like to grow next spring ? 



Then another thing: I am wondering how many of you are familiar 

 with all the evergreens in your neighborhood. This year you are to study 

 the Norway spruce and the balsam fir. While looking for these for a 

 lesson at school, why not bring in small branches of all the evergreens 

 that you find and see whether you can name them? You may find the 

 pitch pine, with three needles in a bundle, which we studied some time 

 ago, and the white pine, with five needles in a bundle, which you studied 

 last year. It is not so easy to tell the difference between the spruce and 



