News and Notes 



CALIFORNIA 



Fom California Xature-Study League, care of C. M. Goethe, 720 Capital 

 National Bank Bldg., Sacramento. 



{Reprint from Sacramento Bee) 



The pussy willows, the first harbingers of spring, are here. Numbers of 

 children are to be seen returning from the places where the willows grow, 

 carrying the branches which they enjoy placing in sunny windows, so as to 

 watch the catkins burst into bloom. 



The willow was to the California Indian what the bamboo is to the primitive 

 Japanese and the cocoanut palm to the natives of the Spice Islands. Just as 

 the bamboo thatch is used in Japan and cocoanut palm thatch in the huts in 

 the jungles, so the Indians used the willow branches as a thatch for their sum- 

 mer houses. The willow twigs were used in basket making. A part of the 

 wood was utilized for tinder, for the Indians, of course, had no matches. The 

 wood was used for arrows, also for fishnets. The inner bark was woven into 

 rope and into cloth. It was also made into a kind of tobacco. The leaves, 

 also the bark, were utilized medicinally. 



The whites, too, have not been indifferent to the willow's value. Along the 

 canals of Holland, willow twigs are harvested for basket making as regularly 

 each year as is the grain that is ground by the broad-armed Dutch windmills. 



All California children should look forward to the blooming of the willow 

 catkins. They should learn to know the willow pine-cone gall, and other galls 

 made by insects, who also find use for the willow. There are three very well 

 known varieties of willow trees through California, and several others not quite 

 so common. Those who love the storm blown Sierran Peaks are always happy 

 when they find the tiny Arctic willow, that has crept down the snowclad range 

 from the land of polar bears and Eskimo. This tiny willow, evolved to survive 

 in the most severe climates, is hardly taller than the length of a man's finger. 

 Yet it bears catkins just as perfect as the trees of the warm California valleys. 



Parents and teachers interested in instructing children how to read a road- 

 side as they would a book can find a simple way of distinguishing between the 

 willows in "Trees of California," by Dr. Jepson, of the University of California. 

 This book can be had through most of the 2141 branches of the County Libra- 

 ries of California. 



ILLINOIS 



Miss Alice Jean Patterson of Normal, gives the following cheering item: 

 You may be interested to know that our Children's Garden Club did better 

 work than ever this year. We had at the close of the year 337 members, who 

 brought displays, either flowers, vegetables, or canned goods, for the exhibit 

 on Garden Day. Sixty-three handed in itemized reports of expenditures, 

 receipts, and profits. The profits netted $592.93. 



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