Art Out-of-Doors 



one will be able to identify all the plants 

 in the neighborhood of his home, except 

 grasses and mosses and such small fry. 



I know that what I say is true, because it 

 is not long since I made the experiment 

 myself. I did not want to make it, for I 

 was very busy in other ways ; and, while I 

 never was so foolish as to think that I 

 should enjoy less by learning more, I did 

 not even dimly imagine how much more I 

 should enjoy by learning a very little. 

 Compelled by a wisely insistent friend to 

 open my botany, I was amazed to fmd that 

 the identifying of plants was quite as amus- 

 ing and a great deal easier than the reading 

 of verbal puzzles ; that when one was iden- 

 tified it became like a personal possession, 

 doubly beautiful, doubly interesting; and 

 that as soon as I had identified a few, the 

 whole aspect of the summer world was 

 changed for me. It was as though all my 

 life I had gone with veiled eyes among peo- 

 ple whose language I could not speak, and 

 now the veil had been lifted and the lan- 

 guage explained. I really saw the things 

 that were before me — the little as well as 



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