67 
flowers should be allowed to go to seed and propagate the plant 
in that way, and a lively time we had of it in lily season; we 
saw that there is some excuse for people who surround their 
places with stone walls and iron gates; grounds bordered by 
imaginary lines connecting boundary-stones deeply hidden in the 
bushes stand little chance of being considered private, and those 
who live all the year in the country do not realize that city 
people find one of the chief delights and refreshments of their 
summer outing to lie in the wild nature surrounding their cottage 
at the shore or in the country, and that they care far more for 
their bunch berries and ferns, their sandpipers and woodchucks 
than for garden roses and heliotrope. Ihave heard an old sea 
captain speak in the most scornful way of a gentleman who had 
erected a sign ‘“‘ Please Do Not Pick the Wild Flowers’’ in the 
midst of the beautiful wild growth which covered his little place. 
Not to let every passer-by break off the creamy viburnum blos- 
soms which overhung the road, pluck the red lilies or tear up 
the pink bindweed seemed to this good old sea captain the acme 
of selfishness, although the owner of the place had shown a very 
unselfish interest in his neighbors and had done much for the 
good of the village. 
Let us then establish letters, talks, classes and societies to 
interest everyone in the life of plants; let us teach them to care 
for the plants as individuals, to be interested in watching them zx 
situ, to study the growth of the shoots, the twining and climbing 
of vines, the way the flowers are fertilized, which insects visit 
which flowers, which the plants guard against, and all curious 
facts about seed-dispersion, and it will soon cease to be an aim 
merely to gather as large a bunch of flowers as possible, and then 
perhaps to tire of it and throw it down, wilting, in the dusty 
highway. 
A useful tract to influence young children is “Grandmother's 
Spring,” by Mrs. J. H. Ewing. I fear it is now out of print, but 
pressure should be brought to bear upon the publishers * for a 
new edition ; it is a small thin picture-book, with chromo-litho- 
* London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York: E. & 
J. B. Young & Co. 
