News Notes 



CALIFORNIA 

 The California Nature-Study League's Story Service to the Libraries of the 

 state is helping the children to learn to "read a roadside as they would a book," 

 by first calling their attention to the roadside and then directing them to the 

 book. Below is a sample of a postcard, recently sent to all the Country 

 Libraries, bearing the material of a newspaper clipping from the Sacramento 

 Bee: 



FINE EXAMPLE OF BUTTON WILLOW NOW IN SEED ON B STREET LEVEE CROSSING 



Where the cross levee leaves the B street levee at Twenty-ninth street, there 

 is in seed this week a fine example of Button Willow. Children who learn to 

 read a roadside as they would a book, give this bush this name because of its 

 willow-like leaves and the button-like fruit. 



It is common along the stream banks in the Sacramento and San Joaquin 

 Valleys. It is not a willow, but a member of the Madder family. It has about 

 4,500 "cousins" mostly in the steaming tropics. One of these cousins is the 

 Chinconcha, from whose bark quinine is obtained. Another is the tree from 

 which we obtain the coffee for our tables. 



A third member of its family is the Madder, a plant of West Asia, which 

 furnishes the dye called "Turkey Red." 



BEDSTRAW ALSO COMMON 



For centuries in India, before the English mills learned to copy the designs, 

 bandana handkerchiefs were colored with this dye. Still another member of 

 the family is the Bedstraw, a common plant in California, so named because the 

 French peasants believed this was the plant that was used to fill the manger 

 wherein the Christ-child lay. 



Children wishing to know more about the Button Willow or the Bedstraw 

 can obtain Miss Parson's books, Wild Flowers of California, also other nature 

 study books from almost any branch of the various County Libraries through- 

 out California. 



RHODE ISLAND 



Arbor Day as celebrated last spring by the Rhode Island Normal School in 

 Providence must have been a delight. Their program of Field Day in Lincoln 

 Woods reads like one glorious frolic with a nature-study basis. 



Preliminary talks had been given on The Class Tree, and The Class Flower, 

 on the History and the Geology of Lincoln Woods, and each pupil had been 

 presented with a map of the Woods with full directions regarding street cars 

 and lunch. 



The exercises were in the form of an Interclass Meet with events which were 

 so full of nature-study that we print the whole outline : 



INTERCLASS MEET, DESIGNED FOR ARBOR DAY 



I. The Hidden Trail. Starter, Mr. Brown. Open to five delegates from 

 each class. Party will leave base of operations by a zigzag route. Groups 



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