THE FARM MOTHER AND HER FLOWERS. 46 1 



God made us His messengers, these words to tell : 

 After night the morning comes — His ways are well. 

 So in great faith we grow, doing just one part, 

 Feeling sure God knows the time to tell us when to start. 



In spring nature is very bountiful in her supply to the farm 

 child. He finds the delicate anemones, the pure white blood-roots, 

 waxy trilliums and velvety violets hidden in a fairy land of feathery 

 ferns and early spring foliage. But each flower has its season and 

 too quickly fades and is lost in the fast growing plants of the wood- 

 la'nd. Now is the time for the cultivated garden to give a summer 

 time of flowers that may be to the child a part of his own effort, a 

 part of his own possession. "It is mine," gives the same satisfac- 

 tion to the child as to us of older growth. 



The mother can co-operate with the child and give him valuable 

 training through a simple flower garden, as in a systematic arrange- 

 ment of the flower beds, the careful preparation of the soil, watching 

 for the seed leaves and keeping the bed free from weeds. 



He can learn the different ways plants grow and can discover 

 new things at almost every advanc'e of growth. He finds the sweet 

 pea has a woody, angular stem ; that the nasturtium has a round, 

 smooth and climbing stem ; that the leaves of the geranium grow 

 alternate and have a wavy margin ; that other plants have opposite 

 sessile leaves, as the gillyflower ; that some flowers grow singly 

 from the axil of the leaf, as the chrisanthemum, while others are 

 terminal and grow in a raceme, as the heliotrope and forget-me-not. 

 The mother can so direct the child's observations that he will be de- 

 lighted to find the number and colors of the petals, the yellow pollen 

 on the stamens and that the pistil contains the seed. He is charmed 

 to find that there are family relations among the floWers, that the 

 apple blossom, the rose, the geum and spirea all belong to the rose 

 family. He notices that the morning glories open when he rises, 

 and that they fold or shut up by noon; that the four o'clock does 

 not open until four o'clock in the afternoon, and that the tulip does 

 not open its cup if it is likely to rain. 



Direct the child's attention to the fact that some flowers shut 

 up at night as if in sleep ; one kind of oxalis, with very small com- 

 pound leaves, lifts its leaf up all in a bunch to go to sleep ; the mari- 

 gold and dandelion curl up into a ball. These tricks of the plants 

 stir up an interest in the child that leads him to observe and investi- 

 gate, not only along the paths. of botany, but in other walks of life. 

 The mother must be the guide in giving this flower interest. 



Some children botanical names would scare worse than a ghost 

 story, but most children would gain a lesson in profit and loss by 



