Our Children and 
Their Flowers 
great educational value. First and 
foremost because they learn to 
love the bit of their native land 
where they have been pottering 
about. They learn to love the 
fields where, from their infancy, 
they have watched father and 
mother work, in order to reclaim 
and beautify ground, where they 
have been digging and planting 
all together. Then, also, they learn 
the wonderful growth of plants, and 
their very manner ol adapting themselves to iresh soil. playhouse. 
And thus they learn to love flowers instead of carelessly 
trampling them under foot, or picking them only to throw 
them away the next moment. 
Moreover, they become quite deft and handy in trans- 
planting, weeding, and many other things. As for watering 
their gardens, there is never any need to remind them of that. 
It is too delicious to splash about and get just a bit soiled and 
muddy — there is no joy like that of watering in the garden. 
I have tried to teach our children to love flowers as 
much as I do. Hence they have each their own little plot at 
Sofiero, as I have already mentioned elsewhere. When the 
eldest boy was seven, we gave the children a tiny cottage for 
their own tools and their toys, etc. And round the cottage a 
one of the Princes plot was dug out for them and partially prepared. A paling 
among the White Wil- r ? l it - 1 . 1 ° 
B°auam e by th^Bro^k"' was P ut U P 111 orc *er to keep the rabbits away. Incidentally, 
the rabbits in Sofiero 
seem to prefer the 
choicest of plants 
and the most cher- 
ished of one’s flowers. 
What our Children 
Chose for their 
Gardens. 
Then the 
was divided into 
