What Graceful Plant is This? 
BY HERBERT W. FAULKNER. WASHINGTON, 
CONNECTICUT. 
Many of us have seen the flowerlike 
snow crystals, but who has ever found 
a specimen of this strange and beauti- 
ful plant discovered in the wintertime? 
My nephew brought it in to me from 
a winter’s walk along the railway, and 
I at first mistook it for seaweed dried 
under pressure, and was much sur- 
prised to discover that the beautiful 
and delicate spray is made of steel. 
My nephew found many of these 
“ plants ” on the snow close beside the 
rails, where the wheels of heavy loco- 
motives had shaved off thin scales of 
steel which had curved and twisted 
into exquisite forms strangely imitat- 
ing mosses or seaweeds with all their 
beauty and charm. Of course these 
steel shavings are frequently forming 
unobserved and soon dissolve in rust, 
but in winter they are easily seen upon 
the white snow. 
The chalice of the early spring, 
Is full to running o’er ; 
Of color, beauty, fragrance, song. 
It holds a precious store : 
And when ’tis lifted to our lips, 
All parched with winter’s dearth, 
We take deep draughts of pure delight, 
And bless our Mother Earth. 
— Emma Peirce. 
I find that one has only to overcome 
a little of his obtuseness and indiffer- 
ence and look a little more closely upon 
the play of wild life about him to 
realize how much interesting natural 
history is being enacted every day 
before his very eyes — in his own gar- 
den and dooryard and apple-orchard 
and vineyard. If one’s mind were only 
alert and sensitive enough to take it 
all in ! Whether one rides or walks or 
sits under the trees, or loiters about 
the fields or woods, the play of wild 
life is going on about him, and, if he 
happens to be blessed with the seeing 
eye and the hearing ear, is available 
for his instruction and entertainment. 
On every farm in the land a volume 
of live natural history goes to waste 
every year because there is no his- 
torian to note the happenings. — John 
Burroughs in “Under the Maples.” 
When one of our poets writes, “wild 
carrot blooms nod around his quiet 
bed,” he makes better use of this weed 
than the farmers can. — John Bur- 
roughs in “Under the Maples.” 
