100 HOW TO MAKE A COUNTRY PLACE 



A Double Barreled Plant. 



"When one shot missed, the other hit," was the verdict over 

 Lysimachia terrestris as it grew both tubers and seeds on its 

 branches. In a dry season it propagated by seeds, in a wet one the 

 bulbs which dropped to the ground grew as the seeds rotted. 



Preachers edged the bog, and their red fruit brightened minia- 

 ture shaded glades. Scant plant food in the soil meant larger tubers 

 and in some plants enlarged branch and rootlet stood for stored up 

 sunshine, a sort of plant-reserve-bank, from which to draw sustenance 

 in a measure absent from the sphagnum mossy peat which abounded 

 in our bog. Arrowheads, walking ferns which really walked on 

 land, cow lilies, smooth stemmed and leaved plants and sedge and 

 bur-reeds glistened 'mid watery surroundings. Brakes spelled aban- 

 donment, as attested by luxurious bracken growths in meadows left 

 untouched by the ploughshare and death-dealing scythe. 



Batrachians. 



Here we took our first observation lesson of the tailless and 

 tailed4>atrachians, from the near tadpole gill breathing stage to lung 

 breathing four legged salamanders. The green frogs of the lily pads 

 greened still brighter when herons essayed to "lift them," and the 

 brown frog of the woods grew more woodsy still when avoiding 

 its enemies the boy that kept and studied turtles and bees took keen 

 pleasure in testing the powers of the changing color frog from Bog- 

 land. 



A real floral Jack-and-a-bean-stalk was the Polygonum Sacha- 

 liense. Longfellow's first boy poem about Mr. Finney's turnip aptly 

 applied to it, as it "grew and grew and grew behind the barn." 

 Planted to screen a stercorary, perennial, spreading, and unkillable, 

 the yard stick proved that from frost time to May fifth it had 

 stalked upward exactly seven feet and tried its best, ere the summer 

 waned, to punctuate the soil for a good square rod. Blooming in 

 August, its white lacy blossoms embowered banqueting corridors 

 and halls for the bees wave disdainfully above its lowly mission. 

 Spreading roots are its greatest drawback. The historical camel that, 

 pushed its head within the tent flap was but a novice usurper beside 

 Mr. Polygonum Sachaliense, late of Japan. 



Snakes. 



Snakes? Very few, and harmless at that. In twenty years we 

 saw but one puff adder. Garter and milk snakes were often found, 

 even in the boys' trousers pockets, and an occasional black snake scur- 

 ried across our path. I recall abruptly halting one assassin red- 

 handed who was gulping down a nestful of young robins. In 

 throwing over a stone wall we once found their eggs a half dozen 



