PROCEEDINGS FOR 1895 XCVII 
Three important recommendations to working members of the club : 
1. Phenology. 
Tn all good common schools, and especially in every high and county 
academy, there could be compiled from year to year and carefully pre- 
served for comparison, with very great advantage to the stimulation of 
the observing instinct of pupils and even of more mature students, and to 
the general development of the scientific habit and culture in the com- 
munity, local lists of the times of flowering, etc., of plants, to be per- 
manently kept in the archives of the school. From year to year these 
might also be reported to county or provincial centres, with much addition 
of interest to the local work. Summaries of these local observations might 
be published annually in the transactions of local societies or in the local 
newspapers. Provincial summaries might in like manner be published in 
the transactions of provincial societies or in the provincial newspapers. 
Local and provincial statistics could then at any time be collated and 
compiled for dominion or continental range. 
All schools making observations should most punctiliously receive 
credit for their contribution to the provincial summaries based on them, 
when these summaries or generalizations are published. In this way a 
great deal of valuable information could be gathered, practically without 
cost, and positively to the advantage of scientific training in the schools 
of the whole of Canada. 
There is often a very great difference in the times of flowering of 
plants even in the same small circumscribed locality, according as the 
place is a specially sheltered one or otherwise. In a spot abnormally 
situated with respect to the heating of the sun’s rays and to protection 
from cold winds or even cold air in some cases, a solitary plant may bloom 
in January, and a butterfly burst from its chrysalis in February. To 
count such sports as indicating the date of the first normal appearance of 
flowers, etc., for a given locality, would be very misleading. The uniform 
adhesion to the practice of recording two dates when necessary is recom- 
mended. First, the date of the sport, if one should be observed, inclosing 
it within brackets ; second, the date of the first flowering which is im- 
mediately followed by the rest of the same species in the particular 
locality. The latter date is the one which is of the greater importance, 
perhaps the only one of very much importance from a general point of 
view. The first or abnormal appearance is often, however, of great local 
interest, and by inclosing it within brackets, the two dates may be recorded 
on the same line; but, for section, district, or province averages (botanical 
sections, districts and provinces), the normal first appearance would alone 
be utilized. 
The recording and publishing of phenological observations in as many 
localities as possible in the manner suggested above is one of the objects of 
Proc. 1895. a. 
