THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



EDWARD F. BIGELOW, Editor 



Published monthly by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut, 



Subscription, $1.00 a year Single copy, 10 cents 



Entered as Second-Class Matter June 12. 1909, at Sound Beach Post Office, under Act of March 3, 1897. 



Vol 



IX 



DECEMBER, 1916 



Number 7 



From Plates, Puddings and Pies to Plants. 



By Edward F. Bigelow, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Connecticut. 



Every one of the many frequenters 

 of the Stamford Lunch in Stamford, 

 Connecticut, has admired not only the 

 excellent service but the decorations 

 of the room. It needs only a glance to 

 observe that the properietor, Mr. Fred 

 McDermant, is at heart a lover of na- 

 ture. The entire upper part of the 

 walls is decorated by that master artist 

 and naturalist, Mr. R. Emmett Owen, 

 whom we have previously gladly com- 

 mended in our pages. When first the 

 restaurant was opened to the public, I 

 inquired about the artist, sought his 

 acquaintance and told the public of his 

 wonderful talent. I knew, however, 

 that more is involved than the talent 

 of the artist. I knew that the proprie- 

 tor must have desired to have such 

 decorations, and that that desire must 

 have emanated from his love of the 

 great out of doors. Later I inquired 

 of Mr, McDermant and found that his 

 entire recreational resource and relief 

 from the nerve racking details demand- 

 ed by the managing of a popular restau- 

 rant are to get near to plants, to love 

 them and care for them. Mr. McDer- 

 mant has a beautiful home in the wil- 

 derness north of Stamford, surrounded 

 on every hand by innumerable forms of 

 the beautiful flowers that he loves. 

 One sees in the daintily furnished ver- 



anda and in every room in the house 

 evidence of care and good taste The 

 plant decorations, beautifully arranged 

 by a man, an unmarried man, show 

 none of the ordinary bachelor's awk- 

 ward touch and the absence of femi- 

 nine skill. The work has been done in 

 a charming way by the bachelor, Mr. 

 McDermant ; he has done it for the 

 love of it and done it skillfully. 



His home is on a sunny hillside, 

 where tall, sentinel cedars stand in the 

 mellow sunshine like weird ghosts in 

 the moonlight, with geraniums, glad- 

 ioli and innumerable other plants cov- 

 ering the ground at their feet. 



Perhaps in no one thing does Mr. 

 McDermant show his love of the 

 "truly rural," united with his affection 

 for the plant world, better than in his 

 novel decoration of buckwheat sow- 

 ing Almost apologetically he said, 

 "Some persons would not have cared 

 for it, but I wish you could have seen 

 it when it was blooming in the fields. 

 I sowed buckwheat because I love its 

 flowers." There is "really truly rural" 

 taste. When one turns to all the culti- 

 vated flowers, they seem to have en- 

 gaged the artistic skill of an expert 

 landscape architect, and the magnifi- 

 cent growth of the plants appears to 

 show that they have been under the 



Copyright 1916 by The Agassiz Association, ArcAdiA: Sound Beach, Conn. 



