“How little do we appreciate our opportunities for natural observation! Even under the most apparently discouraging and commonplace environment, what a neglected harvest! A back-yard city grass-plot, forsooth, what an invitation! Yet there is one interrogation to which the local naturalist is continually called to respond. If perchance he dwells in Connecticut, how repeatedly is he asked, ‘Don’t you find your particular locality in Connecticut a specially rich field for natural observation?’ The botanist of New Jersey or the ornithologist of Esopus-on-Hudson is expected to give an affirmative reply to similar questions [Illustration: _Upland Meadows_ _From a Painting_] concerning his chosen hunting-grounds, if, indeed, he does not avail himself of that happy aphorism with which Gilbert White was wont to instruct his questioners concerning the natural-history harvest of his beloved Selborne: ‘That locality is always richest which is most observed.’ “With the possession of a back-yard, then, there is still hope for the most case-hardened cit. Let the quickened sod have its freedom of expression, and the grasses and weeds a respite from the sickle. Give the cold shoulder to the gardener, or, if need be, confine his arts to the fence border, and if you would repeat my experience, let the chrysanthemum claim the chief part of his attention. Twenty-five varieties of this plant bloomed in my borders last season, and they won my admiration, not less because of their beautiful display of color, which more than once relieved itself against a background of snow, than for the sterling wisdom they had displayed in biding their time until the rival wildlings of my grass-plot had seen their day. “Next summer my square of turf shall again contribute to my enjoyment, yea, though I seed the whole community with thistles, tares, and fleabane, and run the gauntlet of the city ordinances.”