988 Rural School Leaflet. 



It is pleasant to think, just under the snow, 

 That stretches so bleak and blank and cold. 



Are beauty and warmth that we cannot know, 

 Green fields and leaves and blossoms of gold. 



— Fay Hempstead 



Over my window the ivy climbs, 



Its roots are in homely jars; 

 But all the day it looks at the sun, 



And at night looks out at the stars. 



— Mary Mapes Dodge 



From out the white and pulsing storm 



I hear the snow-birds calling; 

 The sheeted winds stalk o'er the hills, 



And fast the snow is falling. 



Like children laughing at their play 



I hear the birds a-twitter, 

 What care they that the skies are dim 



Or that the cold is bitter? 



* * * * 



O cheery bird of winter cold, 



I bless thy every feather; 

 Thy voice brings back dear boyhood days 



When we were gay together. 



— From Bird and Bough by John Burroughs 



One advantage in our yard is that it gives access to the shrillest, coldest winds 

 of winter. And though it is a mournful music, it is likewise of a brave, romantic 

 kind. True comfort of indoors is complete only with a gale brattling at the 

 windows. — Nature in a City Yard by Charles M. Skinner 



Vegetation wants but a kindly hour to bring it up. On a February mornitig, 

 in a calm between two blizzards, although it was by no means sultry, clover was 

 found half an inch out of the earth ; and three days later, in another mild spell, 

 the warm warble of a bird was heard across the roofs. (Pity me that I don't know 

 what kind of a bird it was!) In mid-January, after a longish spell of cold, I 

 have found fresh leaves of buttercup and bellis and dandelion under the mulch. 



— Charles M. Skinner 



CAPILLARY MOVEMENT OF WATER AND SOIL MULCHES 



E. O. FIPPIN 



The soil is able to pump up water from below or at one side as well 

 as hold that which passes down from above. The water moves upward 

 from particle to particle of soil until it either reaches the surface and 

 |s evaporated, passes into a plant root or is stopped by the great height 



