420 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the grateful shade the babe in the cradle, fanned by the cooling 

 breezes, sleeps on, while the contents of mother's mending basket are 

 gradually reduced. Father catches a restful nap after the mid-day 

 meal or reads his last farm journal. Kittie plays at housekeeping 

 with her dolls. Jack mends his cart or swings in the hammock, while 

 the future club woman perched in the branches or wide old crotch 

 of the maple wanders with "Alice in Wonderland." 



If it be a winter scene, the picture is scarce less attractive or less 

 indebted to the forest contribution, for the snapping and crackling, 

 and pungent and resinous fragrance and rosy glow from the wide 

 mouthed fireplace are all furnished by the birch, beech, maple, 

 hickory and pine knots from the home woodlot. The very thought 

 of such inviting warmth makes one's olfactory nerves repudiate the 

 heat blend of coal tar and laundry suds many of our steam and hot 

 water plants furnish us poor denizens of the town. Finally — as I 

 have said, the text preaches its own sermon — there should be no 

 farm without its woodlot. 



THE BLUE JAY. 



- MRS. EMMA F. BENSON, LAKE CITY. 



"You call them thieves and pillagers, but know 

 They are the winged warders of your farms. 

 Who from the corn-fields drive the insidious foe. 

 And from your harvest keep a hundred harms." 



— Lx)ngfellow. 



Next to the Robin, the Blue Jay is probably the best known of 

 our common birds. His large size, showy plumage, alert, fear- 

 less manner and harsh voice uttering his frequent calls, make 

 him conspicuous wherever he may be. The Jays are quite aristo- 

 crats among birds, as they belong to that large and important 

 family which includes also the Ravens, Rooks, Magpies and Crows. 

 This family has always been noted for possessing unusual intelli- 

 gence — so much so that "some systematists would place them at 

 the top of the Avian tree, and if their mental development be 

 taken into consideration they have undoubted claims to this high 

 rank" (Chapman). 



Jays are widely distributed, being found in nearly every part 

 of the world, but our own American Blue Jay, the most beautiful 

 of them all, makes his home only in the eastern part of the United 

 States. From the Atlantic to the Great Plains, from Florida to 

 Newfoundland he may be found, and he is said to be so good an 

 American that he never visits a foreign country. Blue Jays are 



