Tell us your best remedies for insects that injure plants? What plants are best for the house in winter? In summer? Do you know how to make good window-boxes? Tell us anything you know about plants and their care.
Would your town or district be pleasanter and better to live in if more flowers and trees were growing in it? What are parks worth to a large city? But there. I am running into our subject for July!
Are you supposed to answer all those questions? Bless you, no! No one has to do anything in our Department. We get work enough in our daily lives—our Department is to afford us a change and relief from everyday work. It isn’t any the less play because we can profit by it and learn things from it. And perhaps it will teach us how to turn some of our daily work into an interesting kind of game (if we haven’t learned how to do that already) and yet do it better than we did before. The questions are merely to suggest things for our June number. Pick out a few that interest you and find out something about them or tell us what you know already. Mercy, no! You don’t have to! But you’re likely to find a little of it amusing and pleasant and to add a bit more interest to your life.
If we only know how, and try, we can make our lives so much more pleasant for ourselves and those about us! It is very easy. And it doesn’t take much time or brains or money or anything else, except “gumption” enough to try.
For May, June and July
So for May we will continue our discussion of woman’s interest in politics; in June, our common, ornamental flowers, wild and cultivated; in July, what women can do toward improving and beautifying their native town or district.
Suggest Future Subjects
I have asked the printer to put the above announcement at the beginning of our Department for the sake of convenience. I believe it will be a good plan to announce our monthly subjects three numbers ahead all the time, so that we can have plenty of time to think them over in advance, make suggestions and send in information.
Now, what shall we have for the August number? If there is something you are interested in or want to talk about or hear others talk about, send it in to the Department. Do this not only for August but for all the following numbers. I chose the subject for the first few months in order to get our plan started. Now I have had more than my share of “chooses” and all the others are for you to select. It may be that I can arrange to have a special prize offered each month for the best monthly topic suggested. I’ll try.