PREFACE 



WHEN my father and his Southern bride came back 

 from the Ozark country to his boyhood home in 

 Southeastern Iowa and purchased a claim, their first 

 thought was not of the crops their land could be forced to 

 produce and the money they might make. When a site 

 was selected for the new house it was located on the 

 southern edge of a woodlot, ten acres of which were set 

 aside as a playground. Possibly it would be more accurate 

 to say that this woodlot was selected as a playground, and 

 the house was located so as to be convenient. Be this as 

 it may, because of their natural taste and pioneer training, 

 great importance was attached to this plot, selected because 

 of its location as well as the large variety of trees and 

 plants that grew on it. Specimens of every additional wild 

 plant and flower they could obtain were transplanted to 

 this grove. It was fenced and the underbrush retained, 

 except that here and there a specimen clump was removed, 

 while only such stock as would do no harm were allowed to 

 pasture there. Even those were kept out most of the year. 

 Like most pioneers, father was a great hunter, but in 

 this grove nothing was ever allowed to be disturbed by the 

 crack of a gun. There we children went to find the first 

 bloodroot or anemone in the spring, and there we gathered 

 the last black haws and wild grapes in the fall. Nowhere 

 else were the wild gooseberries so large, the crabapples so 

 yellow and fragrant, or the plums so red. Much of every 

 Sabbath, when it was not raining, and every spare houy 



xi 



