36 PUBLIC PARKS OF IOWA 



GOD'S GREAT OUT-OF-DOORS 

 By Frederick J. Lazell, Author. 



It is indeed a pleasure thus to open the gate while my friend leads 

 us away from the din and rush of the city into "God's great out-of- 

 doors." Having walked with him on "Some \Vinter Days," one is 

 all the more eager to follow him in the gentler months of spring 

 that mother season, with its brooding pathos, and its seeds stirring 

 in their sleep as if they dreamed of flowers. 



Our guide is at once an expert and a friend, a man of science and 

 a poet. If he should sleep a year, like dear "Old Rip," he would 

 know, by the calendar of the flowers, what day of the month he 

 awoke. He knows the story of the trees, the arts of insects, the 

 habits of birds and their parts of speech. His wealth of detail is 

 amazing, but never wearying, and he is happily allusive to the na- 

 ture-lore of the poets, and to the legends and myths of the woodland. 

 -"Some Spring Days in Iowa." 



The majority of Iowa people still find pleasure in the simple life, 

 still have the love for that which nature so freely bestows. They 

 find time to look upon the beauty of the world. Many a busy man 

 finds his best recreation in the woods and fields. It may be only a 

 few hours each week, but it is enough to keep the music of the 

 flowing ever in his ears and the light of the sunshine in his eyes. 

 It is enough to give the men and the women of the state wholesome 

 views of life, happy hearts and broad sympathies. Some few find 

 in the woods and fields thoughts and feelings which are, to them, 

 almost akin to religion. If this little book helps such lovers of the 

 out-of-doors ever so little; if it shall help others to see for their 

 selves the beauty and the joy and the goodness of this world i 

 which we live, the author will feel that it has been worth while. 

 "Some Summer Days in Iowa," p. 8. 



But one need not go to Concord to find Walden woods and ponds. 

 Had Thoreau lived in Iowa he could have written just as richly, 

 and had Bryant's home been on the hither side of the Father of 

 Waters he would have sung just as sweetly. By and by some writer 

 with the learning of a naturalist and the soul of a poet shall tell of 

 the beauties in this great garden of Eden which is embraced by two 

 mighty rivers and is filled with the color and perfume of the rarest 

 flowers and the music of the sweetest of the singing birds. Well 

 might the Indians call this state "loway, loway, beautiful land." 

 "Some Autumn Days in Iowa," pp. 5-6. 



Humanity has ahvavs turned to nature for relief from toil and 



