It has long been the author's belief that Iowa has just as much to offer the nature lover as any other part of the world--that she has indeed a richer flora than many states--and that every true Iowan ought to know something of her trees and shrubs and herbs, her birds and animals, and to feel something of the beauty of her skies and her landscapes. There is so much beauty all around us, every day of the year, shall we not sometimes lift our eyes to behold it?e known as the musquash root and spotted cowbane. From its tuberous roots was prepared the poison which Socrates drank without fear; why should he fear death? Does he not still live among us? Does he not question us, teach us? Yellow loose-strifes and rattle-box are in the swamp, and a patch of swamp milkweed with brilliant fritillaries sipping nectar from its purple blossoms. White wands of meadow-sweet, clusters of sensitive fern, a big shrub of pussy willow with cool green leaves as grateful now as the white and gold blossoms were in April; white trunks and fluttering leaves of small aspens where the grosbeak has just finished nesting; bushy willows and withes of young poplar; nodding wool-grasses and various headed sedges; all these are between the roadside and the fence. There the elder puts out blossoms of spicy snow big as dinner-plates and the Maryland yellow-throat who has four babies in the bulky nest at the foot of the black-berry bush sits and sings his "witchity, witchity, witchity." The lark spa
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