STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 55 



tery. And yet we need to go back to our flower over and over again. 

 We have not learned it all. We have known the buttercup from 

 the time we first held it under our playfellow's chin to ascertain if 

 he loved butter. But do we know it? Its perfection of color that 

 no dyer's art has equalled ; its shiny petals, its folded flower, its 

 rounded bud so delicately poised, its symmetry and grace, this uni- 

 versal flower, growing in all lands? It might be profitable to ques- 

 tion ourselves in regard to man}' other flowers. Perhaps none are 

 so little studied by us as the flrstlings that spring hangs out from her 

 willows, alders, maples and elms. Where do these blossoms come 

 from ? How is it possible for some of the elms and maples to ripen 

 their fruit apparently without the aid of the leaves? As we examine 

 the swelling bud of the horse chestnut, removing first its waterproof 

 coating, then its outer wraps, till we reach the woolly packing, we 

 can form some idea of the care bestowed upon the flower so closel}' 

 folded in its very centre. This we can seem to fathom, but these 

 earlier buds and blossoms seem to defy us, bursting into bloom as if 

 uncalled and uncared for. Lowell must have studied them, or he 

 never could have written, 



'' 'Fore long the trees beg'n to show relief — 

 The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, 

 Then saffron swarms swing off from all the willers, 

 So plump they look like yeller caterpillars. 

 Then grey horse-chestnuts' leetle hands unfold, 

 Softer'n a baby's be at three days old." 



And when Mother Nature removes her white coverlid, and wakes 

 up her teeming milUons of blossoms, each bristling with interroga- 

 tion points, then it is that we should find a little leisure for the anetn- 

 ones, the violets, the arbutus, the bloodroots and orchids. She 

 sows with bountiful hand, and yet some of her more delicate plants 

 will not stand a crowd, and should be preserved against extermina- 

 tion. Handfuls, not armfuls, ought to satisfy the most untiring 

 investigation. Nearly all of these early wild flowers are susceptible 

 of cultivation, and we may watch them unfolding beneath our win- 

 dows, even before the snow banks have disappeared from our dwell- 

 ings. We are greatly helped in our observations by reading those 

 who have learned to see more than we. Ruskin's description of a 

 blade of grass gives every bit of feeble green beneath our feet a 

 new meaning. "Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a 

 minute, quietly, its narrow, sword-shaped strip of fluted green. 

 Nothing as it seems there of notable goodness or beauty. A very 



