STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. I23 



know what was the matter till some one told him they were all 

 staminate blossoms. 



Some people wonder why more of the cucumber and squash 

 blossoms do not set, because they do not see there are two kinds 

 of blossoms. Take the children into the garden with you, show 

 them the importance of the corn tassel as it sheds its pollen 

 down upon the silk of the ear, and explain that not a single 

 kernel of corn will grow without the pollen. Explain how the 

 beets and turnips, etc., are storing up food in their roots for 

 another year's growth which we appropriate for ourselves. 



How many people know that we would be overrun with plant 

 lice, if it were not for a dainty little green-winged insect called 

 the lace winged fly, whose larvae are called aphis-lions, and they 

 are truly lions among the aphids. 



We are all the time talking about how to destroy the insect 

 pests. And yet very little is said about our insect friends which 

 we have by the thousands. If bees never gave us a drop of 

 hone}^ they would be of inestimable value in pollination. Even 

 Grandsire Longlegs and Miss Lady Bug are valuable friends. 

 Nature seems to have so arranged matters that whenever any 

 species of insects threatens to overrun the country, some parasite 

 or disease increases in like proportion for their subjection. 



Now we can't expect the school teachers to teach our children 

 all these things and it wouldn't do them much good if they did. 

 The object is to once get the children interested and to form the 

 habits of observation and investigation and then furnish them 

 with proper reference books to help them out. A few choice 

 books of good authority are of untold value. Then we must 

 take time to go out to play with them once in a while ourselves. 



Let the men eat a cold lunch once in a while, while mother 

 goes on a picnic down to the brook or off in the woods. It will 

 do her as much good as the little ones. Every boy and girl 

 brought up in a farm home, who experiences a happy childhood 

 will have a full appreciation of what the word home means. 

 There is a feeling of peace, security and ownership which the 

 majority of city children know nothing about who live in rented 

 houses, flats and family hotels. It is a feeling which I cannot 

 describe in words and which children think little about until 

 grown up, when they begin to have hopes and aspirations for 

 homes of their own. I once heard a sweet little woman who 



