Chapter XVII: Introduction: By L. H. Bailey (10)

The seedling beet pushes out roots and begins early to take food from the soil. One may even see the root-hairs through which the liquids enter the plant. Inquire if the plant growing from a beet root has put out new roots. Have not its old ones dried long ago in the cellar? It is a good idea to have more than one plant, so that investigation of a matter like this may go on without disturbing all. Where, if not from the soil through roots, does the food come from which nourishes those thick-ribbed leaves? From the stored-up material in the root, does it not? Is this not the plant's way of providing for the second half of its life, after a long resting period in the "beet" stage? When the "plant" or top has grown quite large, how does the old beet look?

We may read in the botany that certain plants are biennials, taking two seasons to pass through all the phases from seed to seed; but we shall not know the joy of gaining knowledge from original sources nor experience the mental training that comes with this "finding out" process until we have actually planted the beets or other things and watched them grow.

The following questions relate to the study of a beet plant. Any other available plant may be reported on. The important thing is that a minute study be made of some particular plant.

What plant are you making this special study of this month?

What care do you give it?

What conditions of temperature and moisture do you find most beneficial to its growth?

What other plants are related to it? (Mention a wild and a cultivated plant.)

What leads you to think them related? (Make this clear and definite.)

How do the plants which come from beet roots differ from those which come from the seed?

Of what utility to the plant is the fleshy root of beet, turnip, or carrot? When is this root made use of by the plant?

What becomes of the old beet as the plant grows larger and stronger?

What is the natural length of life of an individual beet plant?

Through how many changes of form does it pass? Which of these are "resting" stages?

Give the events in the life history of a beet in chronological order by seasons, beginning with a seed in the spring of 1903, and ending with the first crop of ripened seed.

LEAFLET XLVI.

PRUNING.[63]

BY MARY ROGERS MILLER.

[63] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. IV, No. 20, February, 1902.

You should know how the trees in your school yard have been pruned. Who did the work, nature or a man with a saw? Some people hold to the idea that pruning is unnatural, and therefore should not be practiced. Let us see if this is true. Have you ever gone into the deep woods after a storm? Who has been there, tearing and wrenching at the big limbs, twisting the small branches until the ground is strewn with wreckage? Nature has been pruning a few trees and she works with a fury which is awe-inspiring. But the trees are much the worse for their encounter with the forces they must obey without question. Their branches are broken; mere stubs are left. With the melting snow and the April rains germs of decay are likely to enter at every break in the bark. In a few years the trunk may be weakened and the monarch of the woods lie prone upon the forest floor.

We may learn the lesson of how not to prune by looking at this great pine tree torn by the storm (Fig. 281).

"But why do we prune?" one asks. Let the horticulturist answer. In a Farmers' Reading-Course lesson on The Care of Trees, Professor Craig says: "Fruit trees must be pruned. If a tree in an open field is allowed to go unpruned, the crown soon becomes a dense mass of twigs and interlacing branches. Such a tree may produce as large a number of apples as a well-pruned, open-headed tree, but will there be the same percentage of merchantable fruit? The chief effort of every plant under natural conditions is expended in ensuring its own reproduction. This is chiefly effected by means of seeds. A small apple may contain as many seeds as a large one and even more. The orchardist wants big fruits, and if they are nearly seedless so much the better."

In a tree top there is a sharp struggle for existence. But few of the twigs which started from last year's buds will reach any considerable size. One needs only to count the dead and the dormant buds on a branch, and the weak, stubby, or decayed side shoots to appreciate this fact. If part of the branches are cut out, this struggle is reduced and energy is saved. By judicious pruning the tree may be shaped to suit the needs of the owner. If a low tree is desired to make fruit-gathering easy pruning keeps the head down. An open, spreading habit may be encouraged by cutting out such branches as tend to grow close to the main trunk. A careful orchardist has an ideal in his mind and knows how to prune to bring the tree up to his standard. He knows the habits of trees of different varieties. He will not prune all alike. He must prune some every year, or the trees will not carry out his plans.

The pruner should not only know why he prunes, but how the work should be done. He should be able to tell why he removes one limb and leaves another. When I look at the trees in parks and along the streets I wonder at the careless pruning. Judging from the way they are treated one would think that a tree could be produced in "a year or two or three at most."

Pruning should not be confined to fruit trees. It may be practiced with profit on all kinds of plants from shade trees to house plants. Pinching off the terminal bud of a young geranium makes the plant branch. Cutting the lower limbs of a young elm makes the tree more stately. Nature may do this, but broken branches leave wounds which the tree cannot heal. Small branches may be cut close with a sharp knife or pruning shears. The tree readily heals these places. It is little short of a crime to break or tear limbs from trees. The injury done to the trees is bad enough; but does not such heedless treatment of living things also have a baneful influence on the mutilator?

For larger branches, if these must come off, no tool is better than a sharp saw. The cut should be smooth and clean. No ragged edges of bark should be left. The branch should all be cut off, and care should be taken not to tear the bark about the wound. If a stub six or eight inches long, or even one inch, be left, the tree is likely to suffer. The branch started years ago from a bud on the side of the main trunk, then but a twig itself. The fibers of the branch are continuous with those of the trunk. In the air are the germs of decay. These take hold of the bare stub and soon make their way to the center of the tree itself. Try as it may, the tree cannot quickly heal a wound so far from the main paths traveled by the sap in the trunk.

The two illustrations (Figs. 282, 283) show the right and the wrong way to remove a limb. When the branch is cut close, new growth takes place all around the cut surface and in a few years the wound is healed.

Bad pruning is worse than no pruning. Do you not think that nature students should use their influence to protect the trees in the school grounds, in the door yards, and along the streets? Trees have insect and fungous enemies enough without having to contend against carelessness and neglect.

QUESTIONS ON PRUNING.

1. Describe the results of some of the natural forces you have seen pruning trees. Observe willows after a storm.

2. Are all sorts of trees affected alike by wind, ice, and snow?

3. From your observations which kinds suffer most? Give your opinion as to why.

4. Nature does not always prune in this boisterous fashion. Silent forces are at work pruning out the weak buds and shoots, giving the strong ones a better chance. Select a very young tree, or a shrub like the lilac. Examine the tips of the branches. You will find healthy buds on last season's growth. See if you can find any dormant buds. Are there any weak-looking or dead twigs?

5. Compare the number of strong healthy shoots with the number which the plant started to make. How many of each?

6. Mention several good effects which may result from pruning.

7. What are some of the bad results of over-pruning? Of insufficient pruning?

8. Consult some orchard-owner concerning this subject. When does he prune to increase the production of fruit? When to increase the growth of the woody part of the tree?

9. If the lower branches of a tree are not removed, what is the effect on the shape of the tree?

10. For what kinds of trees is this form desirable?

11. What is your opinion as to the shearing of evergreens into fantastic shapes?

12. If a tree has a tendency to grow crooked, how should one prune to correct the habit?

13. Would you prune an elm tree just as you would an apple tree? Why?

14. Why does pinching off the terminal bud of a geranium produce a more bushy plant?

15. Discuss in full the reasons for cutting a limb off smoothly and close to the main trunk or larger branch. Look at every tree you pass to see whether it has been pruned well. Has it been able to cover its wounds by the healing process?

16. Is it correct to suppose that "anybody" can prune a tree?

17. The cut surfaces made by pruning large limbs from trees are often covered with thick paint, tar, or Bordeaux mixture. What is the purpose of this?

18. Why is it better to prune a little every year than a great deal once in five years?

19. When is the best time to prune shade trees? Why?

20. Does a tree carry the bases of its branches upward as it grows higher, or does the base of every branch remain at the level from which it started originally? Observe many trees in different situations before making up your mind on this point.

LEAFLET XLVII.

A STUDY OF A TREE.[64]

BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK.

[64] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. V, No. 2, November, 1903.

THE SUGAR MAPLE.

The maple puts her corals on in May,
While loitering frosts about the lowlands cling,
To be in tune with what the robins sing,
Plastering new log-huts 'mid her branches gray;
But when the autumn southward turns away,
Then in her veins burns most the blood of Spring,
And every leaf, intensely blossoming,
Makes the year's sunset pale the set of day.

--LOWELL.

Like a friend is a tree, in that it needs to be known season after season and year after year in order to be truly appreciated. A person who has not had an intimate, friendly acquaintance with some special tree has missed something from life. Yet even those of us who love a tree because we find its shade a comfort in summer and its bare branches etched against the sky a delight in winter, may have very little understanding of the wonderful life-processes which have made this tree a thing of beauty. If we would become aware of the life of our tree we must study it carefully. We should best begin by writing in a blank book week after week what happens to our tree for a year. If we keep such a diary, letting the tree dictate what we write, we shall then know more of the life of our tree.

In selecting a tree for this lesson I have chosen the sugar maple, for several reasons. It is everywhere common; it is beautiful; it is most useful; and it has been unanimously chosen as the representative tree of the Empire State. Let each of us choose some maple tree in our immediate vicinity that shall be the subject for our lesson now, and again in the winter, and again in the spring. Our first thought in this study is that a tree is a living being, in a measure like ourselves, and that it has been confronted with many difficult problems which it must have solved successfully, since it is alive. It has found breathing space and food; it has won room for its roots in the earth and for its branches in the light; and it has matured its seeds and planted them for a new generation.

BRIEF PHYSIOLOGY OF THE TREE.

The tree lives by breathing and by getting its daily food. It breathes through the numerous pores in its leaves, and green bark, and roots. The leaves are often called the lungs of the tree, but the young bark also has many openings into which the air penetrates, and the roots get air that is present in the soil. So the tree really breathes all over its active surface, and by this process takes in oxygen from the air. It gives off carbon dioxid as we do when we breathe.

While the leaves act as partial lungs they have two other most important functions. First, they must manufacture the food for the entire tree. "Starch factories" is the name that Uncle John gives to the leaves when he talks to children, and it is a good name. The leaf is the factory; the green pulp in the leaf cells is part of the machinery; the machinery is set in motion by sun-shine power instead of steam or water power; the raw materials are taken from the air and from the sap sent up from the roots; the first product is usually starch. Thus, it is well when we begin the study of our tree to notice that the leaves are so arranged as to gain all sunlight possible, for without sunlight the starch factories would be obliged to "shut down." It has been estimated that on a mature maple of vigorous growth there is exposed to the sun nearly a half acre of leaf surface. Our tree appears to us in an unfamiliar light when we think of it as a starch factory covering half an acre. Plants are the original starch factories. The manufactories that we build appropriate the starch that plants make from the raw materials.

Starch is plant-food in a convenient form for storage; but as it cannot be assimilated by plants in this form it must be changed to sugar before it can be transported and used in building up plant tissues. Hence the leaves have to perform the office of a stomach in order to digest the food they have made for the use of the tree; they change the starch to sugar, and they take from the sap nitrogen, sulfur, phosphorus, and other substances which the roots have appropriated from the soil, and to these they add portions of the starch, and thus make the proteids which form another part of the diet of the tree. It is interesting to know that while these starch factories can operate only in the sunlight, the leaves can digest the food, transport it, and build up tissues in the dark.

The autumn leaf, which is so beautiful, has completed its work. The green material which colors the pulp in the leaf cells is withdrawn, leaving there material which is useless, so far as the growing of the tree is concerned, but which glows gold and red, thereby making glad the eye that loves the varying tints in autumn foliage. It is a mistake to believe that the frost makes these brilliant colors: they are caused by the natural old age and death of the leaf, and where is there to be found old age and death more beautiful? When the leaf turns yellow or red it is making ready to depart from the tree; a thin corky layer is being developed between its petiole and the twig, and when this is finally accomplished the leaf drops from its own weight, from the touch of the lightest breeze, or from a frost on a cold night.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE MAPLES.

We want you to know the maples from actual observation.

Discover the characteristic forms of the tree, the character of bark, fruits, and leaves. Verify the pictures in this lesson.

Though the fruit of the sugar maple matures in midsummer, yet you may perhaps find beneath your tree some of the keys or seeds now partially planted. If the tree stands alone you may perchance see how well she has strewn its seeds, and how many of its progeny have been placed in positions where they can grow successfully.

We have in New York State seven species of maple common in our forests. Two of these are dwarf species rarely attaining thirty-five feet in height, more often found as mere bushes. These two are the mountain maple and the striped maple or moosewood. This latter is sometimes called goose-foot maple, because its leaf is shaped somewhat like the foot of a goose. Of the maples that attain to the dignity of tall trees we have four species: the sugar maple, the silver or white maple, the red or swamp maple, and the box elder. The leaf of the box elder does not look like the leaf of a maple at all; it has a compound leaf of three or five leaflets, but the flowers and fruits are those of the maples. There is also a variety of sugar maple that is called black maple. We have planted in our parks the sycamore and Norway maples introduced from Europe, and also ornamental species from Japan. Our native species are easily distinguished from these and from each other; just a little observation as to the shape of the leaves, the form of the trees, and the character of the bark enables a person to tell all these species at a glance. I hope that you will become familiar with the seven native species. Such knowledge is not only of practical use, but gives real zest and pleasure. When a person walks in the morning he should be able to call his tree acquaintances as well as his human acquaintances by name.

QUESTIONS ON THE MAPLES.

1. How many species of maple trees do you know and what are they?

2. How do you distinguish the red maple and the silver maple from the sugar maple?

3. What is the shape of the one tree you have chosen to study?

4. What is there in its shape to tell you of its history, _i.e._, did it grow in the open or in the forest? Was it ever shaded on either side; if so, what was the effect? How have the prevailing winds affected its shape?

5. How old do you think the tree is?

6. Was the tree injured by storm or insects during the past season; if so, how?

7. Study the leaves on this tree and note any differences in shape and color.

8. What is the use of the skeleton of the leaf?

9. Is there always a bud in the axil where the leaf stalk joins the twig?

10. How are the leaves arranged on the twig?

11. What is the color of the tree this autumn?

12. When did the leaves begin to fall? Place in your note book the date when the tree finally becomes bare.

13. Have you found any seeds from your tree? If so, describe them.

14. How are they dispersed and planted?

15. Are both seeds of the pair filled out?

16. How high is your tree?

17. How large an area of shade does it produce? If it stands alone, measure the ground covered by its shadow from morning until evening.

18. How has its shadow affected the plants beneath it? Are the same plants growing there that grow in the open field?

19. Make a sketch of the tree you are studying, showing its outline.

20. Make a sketch of the leaf of the sugar maple.

LEAFLET XLVIII.

THE MAPLE IN FEBRUARY.[65]

BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK.

[65] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. V, No. 5, February, 1904.

SAP.

Strong as the sea and silent as the grave, it ebbs and flows unseen:
Flooding the earth,--a fragrant tidal wave, with mists of deepening
green,

--JOHN B. TABB.

"Tapping the sugar bush" are magical words to the country boy and girl. The winter which was at first so welcome with its miracle of snow, and its attendant joys of sleighing and skating, begins to pall by the last of February. Too many days the clouds hang low and the swirling flakes make out-of-door pursuits difficult. Then there comes a day when the south wind blows blandly and the snow settles into hard, marble-like drifts, and here and there a knoll appears bare, and soggy, and brown. It is then that there comes just a suggestion of spring in the air; and the bare trees show a flush of living red through their grayness and every spray grows heavy with swelling buds. Well do we older folk remember that in our own childhood after a few such days the father would say, "We will get the sap buckets down from the stable loft and wash them, for we can tap the sugar bush soon if this weather holds." In those days the buckets were made of staves, and were by no means so easily washed as are the metal buckets of to-day. Still do we recall the sickish smell of musty sap that greeted our nostrils when we poured the boiling water in to cleanse those old, brown buckets. During the long winter evenings we had all had something to do with the fashioning of the sap spiles made from selected stems of sumac; after some older one had removed half of the small branch lengthwise with a draw-shave we younger ones had cleared out the pith, thinking thirstily meanwhile of the sweet liquid which would sometime flow there.

With buckets and spiles ready when the momentous day came, the large, iron caldron kettle was loaded on a stoneboat together with the sap cask and log chain, the axe and various other utensils, and as many children as could find standing room; and then the oxen were hitched on and the procession started across the rough pasture to the woods where it eventually arrived after numerous stops for reloading almost everything but the kettle. When we came to the boiling-place we lifted the kettle into place and flanked it with two great logs, against which the fire was to be kindled. Meanwhile the oxen and stoneboat had returned to the house for a load of buckets; and the oxen blinking with bowed heads or with noses lifted aloft to keep the underbrush from striking their faces "geed and hawed" up hill and down dale through the woods, stopping here and there while the man with the auger bored holes in certain trees near other holes which had bled sweet juices in years gone by. When the auger was withdrawn the sap followed it and enthusiastic young tongues met it half way though they received more chips than sweetness therefrom. Then the spiles were driven in tightly with a wooden mallet.

The next day after "tapping," those of us large enough to wear the neck-yoke donned this badge of servitude and with its help brought pails of sap to the kettle, and the "boiling" began. As the evening shades gathered, how delicious was the odor of the sap steam permeating the woods farther than the shafts of fire-light pierced the gloom! How weird and delightful was this night experience in the woods! and how cheerfully we swallowed the smoke which the contrary wind seemed ever to turn toward us! We poked the fire to send the sparks upward and now and then we added more sap from the barrel and removed the scum from the boiling liquid with a skimmer which was thrust into the cleft end of a stick to provide it with a sufficiently long handle. As the evening wore on we drew closer to each other as we told the stories of the Indians and the bears and panthers that had roamed these woods when our father was a little boy; and there came to each of us a disquieting suspicion that perhaps they were not all gone yet, for everything seemed possible in those night-shrouded woods; and our hearts suddenly jumped into our throats when nearby there sounded the tremulous, blood-curdling cry of the screech owl.

It was the most fun to gather the sap in the warmer mornings, when on the mounds the red squaw-berries were glistening through a frosty veil; then we looked critically at the tracks in the snow to see what visitors had come sniffing around our buckets. We felt nothing but scorn for him who could not translate correctly those hieroglyphics on the film of soft snow that made white again the soiled drifts. Rabbit, skunk, squirrel, mouse, muskrat, fox: we knew them all by their tracks.

After about three days of gathering and boiling the sap, came the "syruping down." During all that afternoon we added no more sap, and we watched carefully the tawny steaming mass in the kettle; and when it threatened to boil over we threw in a thin slice of fat pork which seemed to have some mysterious, calming influence. The odor grew more and more delicious, and finally the syrup was pronounced sufficiently thick. The kettle was swung off the logs and the syrup dripped through a cloth strainer into the carrying pail. Oh! the blackness of the material left on that strainer! but it was "clean woods-dirt" and never destroyed our faith in the maple sugar any more than did the belief that our friends were made of "dirt" destroy our friendship for them.

Now the old stave bucket and the sumac spile are gone, and in their place a patent galvanized spile not only conducts the sap but holds in place a tin bucket carefully covered. The old caldron kettle is broken or lies rusting in the shed. In its place are evaporating vats placed over furnaces with chimneys, built in the new-fangled sugar houses. The maple molasses of to-day seems to us a pale and anæmic liquid and lacks just that delicious flavor of the rich, dark nectar which we, with the help of cinders and smoke and various other things, brewed of yore in the open woods.

While sugar-making interests us chiefly as one of our own industries, yet we must not forget that it is based upon the life processes of the maple tree, and in studying about it we may be able to learn important facts about the tree which we have chosen for our study.

QUESTIONS ON THE MAPLE TREE.

1. How does the maple tree look in winter? Describe it or sketch it.

2. Are the buds on the twigs opposite or alternate?

3. Are the tips of the twigs the same color as the bark on the larger limbs and trunk?

4. If you can draw, make a pencil sketch, natural size, of three inches square of bark of the maple tree trunk.

5. How does the bark on the trunk differ from that on the branches?

6. How does the bark on the trunk of a maple tree differ from that on the trunk of a soft maple or an elm?

7. What work for the tree do the trunk and branches perform?

8. Is the tree tapped on all sides? If not, why?

9. How deep must the spiles be driven successfully to draw off the sap?

10. Would you tap a tree directly above or at the same spot tapped last year; or would you place two spiles one above the other? Give reasons.

11. Why does the sap flow more freely on warm days after cold nights?

12. Is the sap of which we make sugar going up or down?

13. How does the sugar come to be in the sap?

14. Why is the sugar made during the "first run" better than that which is made later? Why cannot you make sugar in the summer?

15. Does it injure trees to tap them?

16. Do the holes made in earlier years become farther apart as the tree grows?

17. What other trees besides the sugar maple give sweet sap?

18. What animals, birds, and insects are to be seen in the woods during sugar-making time?

19. Have you ever seen the tracks of animals on the snow in the woods? If so, make pictures of them and tell what animals made them.

LEAFLET XLIX.

THE RED SQUIRREL OR CHICKAREE.[66]

BY ANNA BOTSFORD COMSTOCK.

[66] Home Nature-Study Course, Vol. V, No. 2, November, 1903.

"All day long the red squirrels came and went, and afforded
me much entertainment by their manoeuvres. One would approach
at first warily through the shrub-oaks, running over the snow
crust by fits and starts like a leaf blown by the wind, now a
few paces this way, with wonderful speed and waste of energy,
making inconceivable haste with his "trotters" as if it were for
a wager, and now as many paces that way, but never getting on
more than half a rod at a time; and then suddenly pausing with
a ludicrous expression and a gratuitous somerset, as if all the
eyes in the universe were fixed on him,--for all the motions of
a squirrel, even in the most solitary recesses of the forest,
imply spectators as much as those of a dancing girl,--wasting more
time in delay and circumspection than would have sufficed to walk
the whole distance,--I never saw one walk,--and then suddenly,
before you could say Jack Robinson, he would be in the top of a
young pitch-pine, winding up his clock and chiding all imaginary
spectators, soliloquizing and talking to all the universe at the
same time,--for no reason that I could ever detect, or he himself
was aware of, I suspect."--THOREAU.

From contact with civilization some wild animals flourish while others are soon exterminated by association with man. To this latter class belongs the black squirrel. Within my own memory this beautiful creature was almost as common in the rural districts of New York State as was the red squirrel; but now it is seen no more except in most retired places; while the red squirrel, pugnacious and companionable, defiant and shy, climbs on our very roofs and sits there scolding us for daring to come within his range of vision. One reason for the disappearance of the black squirrel is, undoubtedly, the fact that its meat is a delicious food. The red squirrel is also good food at certain times of the year, but because of its lesser size, and its greater agility and cunning, it has succeeded in living not merely despite of man, but because of man, for now he rifles corn cribs and grain bins and waxes opulent by levying tribute on man's own savings.

Although the red squirrel is familiar to us all, yet, I think, there are few who really know its habits, which are as interesting as are those of bear or lion. Note, for example, the way he peeps at us from the far side of the tree, and the way he uses his tail as a balance and a help in steering as he leaps. This same tail he uses in the winter as a boa by wrapping it around himself as he lies curled up in his snug house. His vocal exercises are most entertaining also; he is the only singer I know who can carry two parts at a time. Notice some time this autumn when the hickory nuts are ripe that the happy red squirrel is singing you a duet all by himself,--a high, shrill chatter, with a low chuckling accompaniment.

We usually regard nuts as the main food of squirrels, but this is not necessarily so; for they are fond of the seeds of pines and hemlocks, and also hang around our orchards for apple-seeds. In fact, their diet is varied. The red squirrel is a great thief and keeps his keen eye on chipmunks and mice, hoping to find where they store their food so that he can steal it if he can do so without danger to his precious self.

QUESTIONS ON THE RED SQUIRREL.

We want you to make some original observations on the red squirrel.

1. In summer, what is the color of the red squirrel on the upper parts? Beneath?

2. What is the color along the side where the two colors join?

3. Do these colors change in winter?

4. Tell how and where the squirrel makes its nest.

5. Does it carry nuts in its teeth or in its cheeks?

6. Has it cheek pockets like the chipmunk?

7. Does the red squirrel store food for winter use? If so, where?

8. Does it spend its time sleeping in winter like the chipmunk, or does it go out often to get food?

9. Name all the kinds of food which you know it eats.

10. Did you ever see a red squirrel disturb birds' nests?

11. How does a squirrel get at the meat of a hard-shelled nut like a black walnut, or a hickory nut? (Answer this by a sketch, if you can draw.)

12. Do the squirrels of your neighborhood have certain paths in tree-tops which they follow?

13. How many emotions does the squirrel express with his voice?

14. What kind of tracks does the red squirrel make in the snow? (Show this by a sketch if possible.)

LEAFLET L.

THE IMPROVEMENT OF COUNTRY SCHOOL GROUNDS.[67]

BY JOHN W. SPENCER.

[67] Supplement to Junior Naturalist Monthly, February, 1902.

MY DEAR TEACHER:

Despite all that is said and done the average school ground is far short of its possibilities in an artistic way. Of this you are well aware, and no doubt you have often wished that you might remedy this defect. Your hours are full of arduous work. Perhaps, however, you can interest your children to help you to clean and to improve the grounds, without much extra care or work on your part.

This illustration of a schoolhouse (Fig. 292) is taken from Bulletin 160, published by the College of Agriculture of Cornell University. The title of the bulletin is "Hints on Rural School Grounds." I wish you would send for the bulletin. It will be mailed you free if you request it.

The picture is not an imaginary sketch, but a faithful representation of what stood in a prosperous rural community less than five years ago. To one familiar with country school buildings it will not be considered as a solitary "awful example," but rather as a type of many that are scattered over the State. I hope it is not your misfortune to be teaching in such a house, even though it is my desire to reach every teacher who is that luckless. However, to make my talk more real let us "make believe," as children say, that you are the priestess in a similar temple of learning. Together we will plan how we can make the most of very uncongenial surroundings.

It would be safe to wager a red apple that the inside of the building is every bit as dilapidated as the outside. A community that tolerates such a building would not be likely to have anything but the rudest furniture and most of that on crutches. It would be something out of the usual if the box stove is not short a leg or two, with brick-bats being used as substitutes. You will be fortunate if the stove door has two good hinges and if the wood is not green. At the last school meeting, did the patrons instruct the trustees not to pay more than six dollars per week for your services? Was the proposition that the district raise five dollars, to which the State would add five more for the purchase of books for a library, unanimously voted down and the poor man who introduced the resolution expected to apologize for his temerity? The leading man in the district each Sunday during summer drives two miles to salt his young stock, inspect fences, and see how the yearlings are prospering; but he never thinks of visiting the school to see how his children are progressing. Yet the people of this district are not bad. They are counted good citizens by the bar and judge, when they are drawn on juries. The public buildings at the county-seat are models of their kind and these gentlemen do not remonstrate as to the expense. Perhaps it has not occurred to them that school buildings and grounds should have as high a standard as those of the county. A correct public ideal is everything. It is not a hopeless undertaking to advance such an ideal in the community of which we are speaking.

I suggest to you as teacher in this school to undertake some improvements in the grounds. I consider the above sketch to be a zero case. If improvements can be developed here, it is reasonable to suppose that the same can be repeated where conditions are primarily better. The possibilities are sufficient to warrant the undertaking. The victory will add to your strength. The lives of the children will be better filled for the part they may do, and you will have started a public improvement.

I should not appeal to the parents for help. You have a fountain of power in the children. It is necessary only to inspire and guide them. This is no theory of mine. It is a result that has been worked out in many instances.

The beautiful city of Rochester is proud of its schools. The development of the town made the construction of new school buildings necessary to such an extent that little money remained for the improvement of the grounds. Some of them were located in the breadwinners' districts. The grounds were as the contractor left them; your imagination can picture their condition. The interiors were well nigh perfect. The exterior was sometimes a Sahara of mud and builders' rubbish. The principal of one of the schools--a woman, by the way,--knowing the force in children, set about to apply it to the improvement of the surroundings. Her method was first to inspire, and then to direct. Her success was ample. Both boys and girls participated. The girls organized themselves into a tug-of-war team (Fig. 293). By fastening ropes to sticks and beams, these things were hauled out of sight. The boys leveled the hummocks and brought fertile soil from some distance. This principal confined her improvements to small areas--so small that the children wanted to do more when they were through. From the time school opened until the rigors of winter stopped the juvenile improvements, only part of the space from the front of the building to the street was graded. Some of the boys brought chaff from a haymow, which was raked in as lawn grass seed. The following spring quite as many weeds appeared as grass, but the children gave the weeds the personification of robbers and made their career short. The promoters had a just pride in what they had accomplished; and that meagre bit of lawn meant vastly more to them than had it been made by a high-salaried landscape gardener.

I am acquainted with another instance, where the patrons are largely Polish Jews. I am credibly informed that the average head of a family does not have a gross annual income to exceed three hundred and fifty dollars. This necessitates that the mother go out for work and that the children leave school as soon as the law allows to take up work. Yet with all these unfavorable circumstances the pupils have a pride in their school grounds that is glorious to see. In the fall of 1901 prizes were offered for the greatest improvement of school grounds made by children. Nothing daunted, the principal entered his grounds in competition with those in the more wealthy part of the city. The committee of awards gave him the third prize. To judge from the mere physical side, the decision was no doubt just; but when judged on the score of getting the greatest results from the least material, the principal and his school may have deserved the first prize, plus a reward.

The chances are that your fuel is wood, and perhaps not very dry at that. It is in a pile in the open. Sometimes the sticks are scattered over half the lot. This you can prevent by properly appealing to the pride of your pupils. You will find that they wish to be more tidy than is the school over in Whippoorwill Hollow or in some other district that is considered to be a little more in the back country than your own.

About the time you hear the first spring notes of the bluebird and the robin, prepare public opinion in your little school community for a spring furnishing. You can devise many ways to inspire them. Tell them about Col. George R. Waring and his white brigade and what they did to make New York City cleaner than it had been for many decades before. After the Spanish war, when Cuba became a responsibility upon the United States, the question arose as to what could be done to make filthy Havana cleaner and freer from yellow fever. No one was thought by the Federal government so competent to solve the problem as Colonel Waring. He went, spared not himself, and did his duty, did it so fearlessly that he died the victim of the filth he had fought so valiantly. He had done much during previous years to commend his memory to posterity; but probably nothing will stand out so prominently as his great ability to correct municipal untidiness. Ask your pupils to be Warings in their own neighborhoods.

By this time the ground will be bare of snow and it will be soft. Ask some of the pupils to bring rakes, and have them gather up the rubbish. You can all play gypsies when you gather about the bonfire. This will be a favorable time to sow grass seed; for I have no doubt the school lot will need it. A lawn mixture of seed would be ideal, but I hardly expect you to pay for it. At this stage of your improvements, I scarcely expect that any of the patrons of your school would do so either. Later some of them may feel differently. Your pupils can at least follow the plan of those spoken of in Rochester--get chaff from a haymow. It will inevitably be a mixture of grass and weeds, but the latter can be pulled out after germinating. It is barely possible that some farmer will give you some clover and timothy, such as he uses in seeding his meadow; and this will be far better.

Next, I should put out a hitching-post. When your school commissioner calls it will be appreciated. If that functionary does not publicly compliment your school for even such small improvements, I wish you would report such indifference to me, giving his full address, and I will request him to explain this forgetfulness.

Good results in landscape-gardening depend on observing certain principles, the same as with our wardrobe. Many a clever girl will accomplish more in dress with twenty-five dollars than others can do with twice that amount. Among the first and most important efforts is to make a frame or setting for the house by planting around the borders of the place. Sometimes the location will make this inconvenient if not impossible, when, for instance, the building is placed near the street or crowded between other buildings. Even in such cases, however, it is well to keep the idea clearly in mind and to approach it as nearly as circumstances will permit. An illustration of a normal location to which this principle can be applied is shown in Fig. 294. The trees and the higher shrubs are planted first and on the extreme borders of the lot, with shorter shrubs, roses, and the like in front of them. This frame can be given a finish by planting flowers or very low things next the grass. If the area be ample, let the edges be irregular (Fig. 294); but if very limited, straight lines become necessary.

The open space within the boundaries should be a mat of green carpeting, for nothing can be more beautiful than sward. Fight all influences to bedeck it with beds of flowers in forms of stars and moons and other celestial and terrestrial designs. The demands for such capers may be great, but hold out against them boldly. Certain small shrubs, ferns, and flowers may be planted along the walls of the building, particularly in the angles; but I beg of you to leave the green plat unscalloped and unspoiled, only as is necessary for drives and walks. When the buildings are unsightly, cover with vines and plant bushes against them. Fig. 295 illustrates how Fig. 292 may be improved with very little effort.

Now I will speak of the actual planting. In the light of unnumbered thousands of Arbor Day trees put out to struggle a few weeks for life and then die, this may seem the most important feature of my article. To the unsuccessful planter, let me suggest that he select shrubs and trees which take care of themselves under adverse conditions. We have a number of such. If they were imported from Japan and sold at fancy prices, they would be greatly appreciated. The common sumac is one of them. For a shrub I know of nothing of its class so sure to bear the ordeal of transplanting or to make more vigorous growth under adverse conditions. It can be pruned to suit, and nothing can rival its blaze of color in late autumn; yet as a farmer, I know the experience of fighting against its existence in fence corners, about stone piles, and on steep hillsides. I do this even though I am fond of the shrub and admire it. It encroaches on my vineyard and injures the crop. Grapes will help pay taxes and sumac will not. In my cherry orchard it is a weed. In my back yard and on the borders of my lawn it is an ornamental shrub. The same can be observed of people. When in their proper sphere they are helpful factors in a community; when out of it they are nuisances.

If you ask me to mention a tree most likely to live when planted by unskilled hands, I should name the willow. I mean the most common kind to be found in the northern States--the kind that stands beside the roadside watering-trough. The impression is common that willows will thrive only in wet places. It is true that a willow is very comfortable in places where many other trees will suffer from wet feet; yet it will give good results elsewhere. It is reasonable to suppose that poor soil goes with a poor school building, and a refined tree would probably find life hard in such a place. I should certainly plant a willow in such cases. It will thrive where a goat can, and where a sheep cannot. For city places, the Carolina poplar is to be recommended. If the soil is good enough, plant maples, elms, or other trees.

A judicious planting of Virginia creeper helps the appearance of buildings both good and bad. I should surely plant it about the main building and the outbuildings and fences, if the patrons of the school did not object. The probabilities are that when the vines have begun to cover some of the deformities of the place, some finicky resident of the district will cut them out on the plea that they promote decay of the weather-beaten clap-boards; but do not be discouraged by such a possibility. Vines, too, usually interfere with the painting of a building. Although they may be taken down and put back after the painters are through, the first effect is not regained unless the process of putting back has been done with unusual care.

Do not make the mistake of planting too much. A small lawn can be overdressed as is sometimes the case with women. Lilac, Japan quince, syringa, hydrangea, and like common shrubs, could be planted if the opportunities of space seem to warrant.

I hope it will be your taste to allow the limbs of the trees to start low and those of the shrubs to begin as near the ground as possible. I am aware that among country people it is the practice to tolerate only the higher limbs. I can give a reason for this only on the supposition that they must do something in pruning, and the lower limbs are the most convenient to reach. I know a man who came into possession of a place having a fine lot of evergreens with the lower branches at the ground. By way of proclaiming a change of ownership he cut away the lower branches, leaving a bare trunk of about five feet. Before he touched them they were beautiful green cones and when passing the place I always turned my face in their direction to enjoy the beauty. When he was through they were standing on one leg, and a wooden leg at that. I have never felt kindly toward the man since.

In the matter of planting I know of no better method than that of the experienced orchardist. As a rule he buys his trees of a nurseryman. They are often dug in the fall, and are planted the following spring. During the interval they are stored in specially constructed cellars, and at no time are the roots permitted to become dry. When packed for shipment damp moss is placed about the roots. When the orchardist removes them from the packing box he "heels" them in, which is a kind of probationary planting in shallow furrows where they stand until ready to be set out permanently. When that time comes the trees are taken from the trench and the roots plunged in a tub of thin mud or doused with water and covered with a blanket. An orchardist counts a tree lost if the roots have been allowed to remain in the sun until the small rootlets have so dried that they have a gray appearance.

In taking the young tree from the nursery row only a fraction of the original roots go with the tree, and these are badly bruised at the point of cleavage. These ragged ends should be dressed smoothly by means of a slanting cut with a knife. All mutilated roots should be removed. You must bear in mind that the roots you find with the trees are capable of performing but a small part of what was done by all the roots when growing in their native place.

The hole in which the tree is set should be large enough to accommodate the roots without cramping them out of their natural positions. It is important that the earth used for filling should be fertile, and it is doubly important that it should be fine--even superfine. Clods, even small clods like marbles, will not snuggle up to the bark of the root as closely as is absolutely necessary. Set the tree about an inch deeper than you think it originally stood, so that when planted and the earth settles, it will really be about the same depth. All the earth should not be dumped in at once and then the surface pressed firm with the feet. A close examination will show that the soil has "bridged" in places, leaving many roots in tiny caverns. It is important that fine soil should be snuggled close to each little rootlet, not for warmth but for moisture. Fill the hole by installments of one-third at each filling. Sprinkle the fine earth about the roots. Then dash in a third of a pail of water. This will give the roots much needed moisture and, best of all, will wash the earth about each root fiber. I urge the adoption of this careful method for all trees and shrubs, not excepting the sumac and willow. Even wallows will show their gratitude for such considerate treatment, even though they are able to survive rougher usage. They will pay for it when the drought and neglect of summer come.