I have been astonished that farmers, 

 like myself, do not have similar little 

 bodies of water and study nature. It is 

 certainly a dull life for a man to live on 

 a farm and be ignorant of the things 

 about him. Yet the mass of farmers are 

 in just that predicament. My homestead 

 has only 240 acres, yet I do not miss 

 the ground occupied by the pond, nor 

 the labor which made it. I went fishing 

 in a little river not long agO' and did 

 not get a nibble the entire day. A good 

 pond beats that a good deal. But the 



channel cat will not live in a pond and 

 so we have to go to the streams for 

 them, the noblest of our western fish. 

 But the catfish in a pond are not to be 

 despised by any prairie epicure. 



Take it all in all and such a pond as 

 mine is very well adapted to study 

 nature both in the water and out of it. 

 And when one is free from the grind 

 of debt, with a farm of 240 acres he 

 cannot do better than have such a pond 

 and enjoy it as I do mine, 



Edward Bam ford Heaton. 



THE ART OF WINTER. 



Now that the trees are leafless, what 

 an opportunity is offered for studying 

 beauty of outline! What a diversity of 

 form meets our eyes ! Here stand two 

 great poplars, like giant sentinels, sleep- 

 ing at their posts ; and there a tall, dark 

 pine, visibly embodying hardihood, and 

 defiance of cold and storm. Farther on, 

 we catch a glimpse of a slender, young 

 silver birch, whose look of tender, shrink- 

 ing modesty somehow reminds us of the 

 lovely figure of ''Life" in George Fred- 

 erick Watts' painting called ''Love and 

 Life." There is something almost pa- 

 thetic in its naked loveliness. 



Look at yonder massive elm ! Does 

 not every branch springing from that 

 great trunk speak some word from the 

 heart of nature? With what Gothic 

 curves its branches spread at the top ! 

 How full of expressive and dormant life 

 they are ! 



And the soft maple. Her glory is but 

 dim beside the gorgeousness of her more 

 regal sisters in the summertime. But 

 winter brings out all her charms. Above 

 the rough and scaly bark of the trunk, 

 the pale, grey-clad branches hold up 

 their lovely arms to the wintry sun, and 

 gleam like silver against the clear blue 

 sky. 



This gnarled old appletree, twisted and 



bent with age and many a season's storm, 

 what stories it could tell ! How sugges- 

 tive it is of the sorrows and joys of 

 human creatures ! How patient and brave 

 it looks, though its best days are over 

 now, and its vitality grows less and less 

 each year! Its long proximity to the 

 home has given it a human look, and we 

 almost fancy it can sympathize with our 

 pleasure and pain. 



Can there be a fairer sight than the 

 gleam of a sycamore through the tangled 

 thicket? It is as though we caught a 

 glimpse of some beautiful wood-nymph, 

 gliding through the forest aisles. Here 

 on the thicket's edge we see a hackberry 

 with its strange, knotted fingers, and 

 witch-like appearance. 



Across the road, a group of stalwart 

 oaks stand, rustling their brown robes, 

 from which they seem so loth to part. 

 Near the frozen stream, the willows add 

 a pleasant touch of color to our "half- 

 tone" landscape. 



We might go on indefinitely, enumer- 

 ating the beauties winter offers, and the 

 artistic value they afford. But it is better 

 to read the trees themselves than to read 

 about them. Each one will speak with 

 a poet's voice to him whose heart beats 

 responsively to the great heart of Nature. 

 Anne Wakely Jackson. 



121 



