146 



Conservation Reader 



looking in the familiar places for the flowers they know so 

 well. But there seems to be something wrong, for there are 

 not so many as there used to be. The children have to go 

 farther and search more carefully to get their arms full. 



Still a third spring comes and the children are just as 

 ready for the happy excursions and just as anxious to get 

 the flowers. They hunt the fields over, but in the places 

 where the flowers used to be so thick there are only a few 

 scattering ones. They cannot understand what is wrong, 

 but Nature could tell them if they would ask her. The 

 year before she was short of seed, but this year it is much 

 worse, for she had hardly any to plant in her garden. She 

 is short of bulbs also, and of many other plants that grow 

 from year to year, for the children carelessly pulled these up. 



Wild asters cover the mountain meadows. 



S. W. Fairbanks 



