1908 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 139 



Among tlie cherished recollections of such a one will be the Wood Lot, 

 with its stately trees, its pleasant glades, its cool retreats. 



He will think of its hazel copses, its blackberry tangles, its furred and 

 feathered denizens, its wealth of flowers. 



He can call to mind its appearance in the early summer, when all the 

 trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, when the delicate green of the 

 young foliage was relieved by the yellow catkins of the birches and the 

 darker hues of the pines. 



The glories 'of its autumnal tints will also present themselves to his fond 

 remembrance — the splendid crimson and gold of its maples, the Indian 

 yellow of its beeches, the rich rosy bronze of its oaks. 



It will seem to him as if the woodland were wont to don its richest 

 robes, to bid adieu to summer with befitting state. 



Amid such scenes he received his first lessons in wood-craft, and learned 

 to call the trees by their names, and to distinguish each kind by its peculiar- 

 ities, and to know the timber of each by its grain, and to tell the uses for 

 which it was adapted. 



There he learned to admire the inexhaustible resources of the Divine 

 Creator revealed on every hand, and the marvellous — to speak paradoxi- 

 cally — diversity in uniformity under which no two leaves of one tree exactly 

 agree in all points of outline and venation. 



Then, it may be his thought will revert to his early companions, and 

 their frolics in the woods and sugar-house. He can recall the names, the 

 features, the characteristics of his early friends ; and he may wonder whither 

 their several paths in life have led them. 



But dearest to his fond recollection — dear and yet sorrowful — will be 

 the remembrance of the home circle. He will think of his parents now laid 

 to rest, it may be, in a selected spot of their own land; and he will perhaps 

 view, with shame and regret, his conduct in leaving the old folk to carry 

 on the farm, in their declining' years, without the aid of his youthful energy 

 and strong right arm. 



"It is true," our friend may say to himself, "that the farm was less 

 productive than it had been, that the prices of produce were low, and the 

 geiLeral outlook somewhat gloomy ; but observation has since taught me, 

 that, as the population has increased, the prices of produce have risen, that 

 new railways have given access to better markets, that such noble institu- 

 tions as the Ontario Agricultural College at Guelph, and the Macdonald 

 College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue, have made known that more can be done 

 with, and made from, the land than our fathers were aware of. If I could 

 have had the advantage of a training, such as these colleges afford, my 

 ambition would have been aroused, and I would have staid by the land and 

 made it profitable. And what nobler business can a man undertake ! The 

 cultivation of the soil was the work appointed for Adam by his Maker. The 

 occupations of the farmer have not unfitted men for high endeavours. Stock- 

 raising was the business of Abraham, the father of the faithful, the friend 

 of God : the prophet Amos was a herdsman ; it was from the sheep-fold that 

 God took His servant David away, that he might feed Jacob His people, and 

 Israel His inheritance. It was from the plough that Cincinnatus was called 

 to the Dictatorship; and the poet, Horace, delighted in his Sabine farm." 



But, leaving our city man to his cogitations, let us now make some 

 observations on the wood lot for ourselves. 



I do not in this article refer to the White Birch allotments that may 

 be seen on the French Canadian farms around Montreal, nor to the Spruce 

 growth on many of our northern farms ; though these have their interesting 

 features. I have in mind the mixed growth, remains of the old forest that 



