Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904New York State College of Agriculture
History
Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets: Being a selection, with revision, from the teachers' leaflets, home nature-study lessons, junior naturalist monthlies and other publications from the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., 1896-1904
New York State College of Agriculture
Natural history; Nature study
There is a deep-seated prejudice that usefulness and beauty do not
belong together;--a prejudice based obviously on human selfishness, for
if a thing is useful to us we emphasize that quality so much that we
forget to look for its beauty. Thus it is that the clover suffers great
injustice; it has for centuries been a most valuable forage crop, and,
therefore, we forget to note its beauty, or to regard it as an object
worthy of æsthetic attention. This is a pitiful fact; but it cheats us
more than it does the clover, for the clover blossoms not for us, but
for the bees and butterflies as well as for itself. As I remember the
scenes which have impressed me most, I find among them three in which
clover was the special attraction. One was a well-cultivated thrifty
orchard carpeted with the brilliant red of the crimson clover in bloom.
One was a great field of alfalfa spread near the shore of the Great Salt
Lake, which met our eyes as we came through the pass in the Wasatch
Mountains after days of travel in dust-colored lands; the brilliant
green of that alfalfa field in the evening sunlight refreshed our eyes
as the draught of cold water refreshes the parched throat of the
traveller in a desert. And another was a gently undulating field in our
own State stretching away like a sea to the west, covered with the
purple foam of the red clover in blossom; and the fragrance of that
field settled like a benediction over the acres that margined it. But we
do not need landscapes to teach us the beauty of clover. Just one clover
blossom studied carefully and looked at with clear-seeing eyes, reveals
each floweret beautiful in color, interesting in form, and perfect in
its mechanism for securing pollination.
The clover is especially renowned for its partnerships with members of
the animal kingdom. It readily forms a partnership with man, thriftily
growing in his pastures and meadows, while he distributes its seed. For
ages it has been a special partner of the bees, giving them honey for
carrying its pollen. Below the ground it has formed a mysterious
partnership with microbes, and the clover seems to be getting the best
of the bargain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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