I04 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



(Illustration a stone mansion.) There are homes of this kind, 

 where wealth creates a grand marble mansion, where money buys 

 beautiful ornaments for the interior, but there is no stamp of the 

 nature lover on that home ; there is no mark of the man who loves 

 the things that are in God's out-of-doors, the most beautiful in 

 all the universe. It is simply a creation of man and no man can 

 ever make things as beautiful as nature. He only imitates. 



Taking a trip through western New York a few years ago, I 

 stopped at a cross-roads because I was attracted by this little hut 

 on a piece of public property. The thing that really caught my 

 eye was the way in which it was garnished by a covering of 

 vines and growth of the natural creeper which abounds so freely 

 there. I talked with the old man who told me that he had lived 

 alone for thirty-six years in that hut after coming to this country 

 from Scotland, and in quavering tones he told me how he had 

 planted these vines, and that they were the things that now as he 

 approached the parting hour he did not like to leave, — the things 

 that grew up around him, that sheltered and covered him. So 

 that no matter how humble the cottage, we may by getting a little 

 closer to nature make it much more homelike, more restful, and 

 thus impress the children with a love of those things that we wish 

 them to carry through life, and those things which will enable 

 them to feel that they are not alone in any part of the world. 

 Nature study then should begin in the home and should begin as 

 early as we can inculcate the first thought of the bud or the plant 

 or the stone or the star, or anything which makes up the great 

 universe. 



Illustration : "Making garden." 



Here is one of our Cornell students who graduated, and then 

 did the next best thing, got married. He sent me a picture a 

 month or so afterwards and showed me how he was beginning 

 nature study on his farm. His wife was helping, and they were 

 starting off in the proper attitude towards their life work. 



Illustration : Children among animals and plants on the farm. 



I need not pause for a moment to elaborate the wealth of mate- 

 rial which those who wish to take up nature study have about 

 them. Just looking at these three slides will bring that point 

 out more forcibly than I am able to. The flowers furnish an 

 inexhaustible wealth of material, and there are so many inter- 

 esting things about them. We farmers who grow apples have 



