i68 Second Conference 



II. All the Year Round 



In the first place, I wish to point out that trees 

 supply us with material upon which we can work all 

 the year round, and they are almost as accessible in 

 towns as in the country. This is an important con- 

 sideration. Indeed the study of trees is no less 

 interesting in winter than it is in summer, for the 

 "bare boughs show us the true inwardness of the 

 tree as the naked twigs stand silhouetted delicately 

 in nature's etching against the pale gray-blue back- 

 ground ". 



Thus in winter we can study best the endless 

 diversity of architecture — the ground-plan, 

 as it were, of our forest denizens. 

 In spring and summer we have buds^ leaves^ and 



flowers. 

 And when the autumn comes we have the fruit, 

 and our eyes are feasted by the glorious 

 display of tints as the leaves fade and fall 

 ofif one by one at the north wind's touch. 



III. OUT-OF-DoOR 



The kind of Nature-study that we would advocate 

 is mainly the "out-of-door", in the pure air, in the 

 healthy breezes, untrammelled and unconfined, be- 

 neath the blue vault of heaven. 



Trees will compel us to go out of our class- 

 rooms into the parks and open spaces; they will 

 compel us to go out of our towns and villages into 

 the lanes and meadows, to wend our paths through 

 the woods, by the river-side, or along the pine-clad 

 slopes of hills and mountains. 



