56 



NATURE'S CALENDAR 



y^pj-il 2 into the soil with the rains for their 



nourishment, and the farmer's cattle and 



nature's more timid grazers are feeding 

 with content and joy on every meadow 

 and hill-side ; and day by day we find in 

 the woods more and more of those 

 sweetest of the botanist's treasures, the 

 early wild flowers of spring. Their first 

 leaves, rolled into a close cone (the 

 adder's tongue is a good example), easily 

 push through the moistened soil, and in 

 a breath of the south wind, as it were, 

 they suddenly burst into bloom. 



It is interesting to note that April's 

 flowers are usually frail, certain species 

 which later grow tall and stout blooming 

 at this early season close to the ground. 

 White, or white flushed with pink, or 

 honey-color deepening in some flowers 

 into buttercup-yellow, as in marsh mari- 

 gold, seem to be the prevailing colors 

 now. It is as if the plants had been 

 differently afi'ected by their waiting under 

 the snow — some bleached and others yel- 

 lowed. 



A few violets, blooming cautiously near 

 the end of the month, bring in a new 

 color tone ; the vivid green, purple, and 

 crimson of the skunk cabbage remain as 

 a relic of March; while the great red- 

 purple, evil - smelling triangles of the 

 purple trillium make jarring notes in this 

 color scheme. The trailing arbutus, well 

 fortified by its woody structure to with- 

 stand the snow, opens its chalices of per- 



