128 WOODLAND IDYLS. 



medicinal virtues of plants, yet not one in 

 twenty has been properly tested and its real use 

 found. After all the true use of any plant is 

 to decorate the crust of this old earth of ours. 

 They were here long before we as humans came 

 to be. Why then should they be used to cure 

 us of those ills which we have drawn upon our 

 selves by living contrary to the laws of nature V 



When for any cause I leave my resting placv 

 and then glance back at the old sheet of oi] 

 cloth spread upon the grass beneath the tulip 

 and the maple, see upon it my note-book and 

 botany and lying alongside of it, ready for in- 

 stant use, my rifle, the love for my life in the 

 open is greatly enhanced, the woods seem more 

 and more my true abiding place. 



Returning to camp I find there the old farm- 

 er with scythe mowing the iron-weeds from the 

 plot about my tent. A sweep of the arm and 

 the stout stems which have been growing since 

 mid- April go down to death before the steel's 

 keen edge. How little did they and I suspect 

 this morn that this was their last day on earth. 



This is another one of those "little jobs" to 

 the farmer's liking. At his age he is not much 

 of a worker on big tasks. A kind of a "jack of 

 all trades" and general standby for the com- 

 munity has he been; able to quarry the rock 

 and lay a stone foundation or a cellar wall; 

 make an ax handle or a wagon axle, and do well 



