STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 65 



they will have enough good wholesome food and clean, comfort- 

 able clothes, although they may not have so many tucks and 

 ruffles as many others. In future years, I had rather my chil- 

 dren had the memories of our walks and studies together than to 

 say "my mother was an immaculate housekeeper." 



Now the next question some woman will ask is "How can 

 they teach what they do not know themselves?'' That is more 

 easily answered. There are books, books, wonderful books ! 

 With illustrations upon every branch of study you may desire. 



Can't afford them ? Oh, yes, you can, you spent many a dime 

 and quarter which you might save and fifty cents, yes there are 

 many nice books for even a quarter. After you once get chil- 

 dren interested, they will bring things to you and hunt them up 

 in the books. It doesn't take very much time after all and how 

 could it be better spent than keeping in touch with the children ? 

 Why, there are books on flowers in which a child six years old 

 can find almost every specimen in this town. 



There is a dear little bird book for only sixty cents so arranged 

 that you can learn the name and habits of almost any bird you 

 may see in New England. A two cent leaflet gives a table con- 

 cerning the foods of different kinds of birds. There are books 

 on insects which tell of all the wriggly things a boy finds in the 

 brook, of the beetles under the rocks, of the caterpillars eating 

 our plants and trees and the miracles of their transformations 

 into beautiful moths and butterflies. Books that will open our 

 eyes to see many wonderful things about us of which we never 

 dreamed. 



One day last summer I was showing an old man some butter- 

 flies and telling him the life histories of some of them. He 

 pointed to a large yellow one, with black bands, which the chil- 

 dren call Deacon Turnus with his swallow-tail coat, and said, '1 

 saw one like that yaller one. once, just as it hatched out. I 

 remember it was in the year '6i. I was settin' under an apple 

 tree when sumthin' dropped on to the ground and I picked it up. 

 It was one of them yaller and black butterflies, all wrinkled and 

 soft, jest as it hatched. I carried it into the house and watched 

 it awhile. Before night he could fly all around. 



Think of it ! A m.an nearly seventy years old, so interested in 

 that one butterfly he could remember even the year, almost forty 

 years ago, "in '6i," and that was the only one he had ever seen 



