COLTSFOOT 



FEBRUARY 



COLTSFOOT 



ONE of the earliest of flowers and the first to make 

 a brave attempt to heal the ugly earth scars inflicted 

 by man, is the beautiful coltsfoot. 



Inside our garden ground he is a trouble- 

 some fellow with deep roots enabling him to 

 persist most aggravatingly, but the readiness 

 with which he establishes himself in the un- 

 congenial barren soil exposed in the cutting 

 and embankment, or on the spoil-bank, is 

 marvellous. 



Man, not content with scarring the earth, 

 often commits the further crime of burying the 

 priceless top-soil, a heritage handed to him which 

 he has no right to destroy nor in any way injure 

 for future generations; never his own, he is but its 

 tenant, it is his but to till, to enjoy and to pass on. 



Planting itself in unproductive subsoil, the colts- 

 foot begins Nature's task of reclaiming and beautify- 

 ing. The big-flaked snowstorm of February has 

 hardly melted when the lovely fringed yellow flowers 

 star the bank, mere specks asleep on ' fill-dyke ' days, 



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