EASY BOTANY.
MARCH.
The delightful science of botany treats of the forms and habits of plants.
This study leads the steps away from the busy town to the quiet woods and hills, giving a charm to every stroll, and making for each young student hosts of friends whose sweet faces will greet him through life with unaltering truth and beauty.
Gathering wild flowers is a pleasure too well known to need dwelling upon, but studying plants botanically involves more than this, as the student will soon find out. And there are difficulties, such as hard Latin words of many syllables which must be pronounced, and, worse still, spelled—a trying process even to the experienced. Care must also be taken to write down everything distinctly, and there must be patience, faithfulness, and resolute perseverance. But the reward comes, and one feels paid for his trouble when he is able to pick a flower, to sit down and find it out, and give to it its hard botanical name.
It is now spring, and the tears and smiles of April will quickly awaken the sleeping wild flowers. Let me urge the young people to take up the study of these "darlings of the forest." Gray's First Lessons in Botany will help along beginners, and before the flowers come we will tell them where to find them.
Let each one have a ruled blank book of good size to write down the botanical and common name of every flower. How many flowers do you think you can find in April? and who will find the most?