LITERARY AND BIOGRAPHICAL. 



183 



Who does not enjoy sauntering 

 through a pathway where chicory 

 spreads its blue? Even though this 

 name be among those of intruders on 

 farm-lands, where it is indeed a most 

 unwelcome guest, a purer blue is not 

 to be found along the ranks of the flow- 

 ers, and seems the more enjoyable be- 

 cause of bringing to the roadside a 

 color not always present among the 

 flowers. 



The chicory is not valued for its 

 beauty alone, but from ancient times, 

 when the Egyptians used it lavishly as 

 an article of diet, until the present its 

 name is among the valued forms of 

 vegetation in some districts. Not only 

 the leaves have been used as food, but 

 as we all know, its roots are roasted 

 and ground for use as a substitute for 

 coffee, both in this country and abroad. 



If August has her sturdy weeds, 

 flaunting rich coloring in reds and yel- 

 lows, it also has its frail, fair blooms, 

 delicate as any spring-time flower. 

 Among these one would not forget the 

 hare-bell (Campanula-rotundifolia), 

 sometimes given erroneously as hair- 

 bell, whose thread-like stems might 

 seem to indicate the appropriateness of 

 the latter title. 



From July to latest autumn its 

 bright, airy bells decorate the delicate 

 stems, drooping over rocks or stones 

 and vibrate with every breath of air, 

 even the leaves being almost as thread- 

 like as the stem. When one sits under 

 a tent or roof and dreams over wild life 

 outside, while torrents beat and mad 

 winds rush by, how impossible it seems 



for such a fragile flower to live, yet 

 go to it when the sun shines out and all 

 the storm is hushed, and you will see 

 how soon the victor buds hang out 

 their azure bells. 



Last November, in the wild garden 

 of the writer, the harebells were 

 fresh and blue though looking through 

 a veil of melting snow. But the hand 

 of the flower-gatherer is robbing this 

 country of these forms of beauty, which 

 through their agency annually grows 

 less, however able they may be to hold 

 their own through beating storms. 



For stateliness and beauty perhaps 

 no flower of the wild can take prece- 

 dence of the lobelias — the great lobelia 

 (Lobelia syphilitica), of purest blue, 

 and Lobelia Cardinalis, the cardinal 

 flower, of richest crimson. Only the 

 remnants of these fair spirits now 

 haunt deep woods and brooksides with 

 their rich foliage and racemes of na- 

 ture's most brilliant coloring; they, like 

 the vast array of exterminated wood- 

 land flowers are passing, through the 

 hand of the flower gatherer, from na- 

 ture's pageant. The humblest weeds 

 are agents of usefulness and sources of 

 joy to those who accept, in loving spirit, 

 their lowly ministry. 



Unconsciously the influence of the 

 wayside flower lightens the shadows of 

 the days, even for those who never 

 pause to speak its name, or to consider 

 its wondrous beauty. With such 

 wealth on every side, few of us, per- 

 haps ever wait to consider what this 

 world would be without the ministry of 

 the flowers. 



In the article by R. C. Caskey in the July issue of The Guide to Nature, the date of seeing a 

 yellow warbler should have read April 21st and not April 1st. 



IlTERARY 



BIOGRAPHICAL 



One Hundred Experiments in Elementary 

 Agriculture for California Schools. By 



Riley O. Johnson, Head of Department 

 of Biology and Nature-Study, State Nor- 

 mal School, Chico, California. 



"In this bulletin the writer has attempted 

 to give to teachers in connected form a full 

 and suggestive series of experiments in ele- 

 mentary agriculture, dealing as fully as pos- 

 sible with the physics, chemistry and bi- 

 ology of the subject." 



