Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 307, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 December 1914 — Know Your Own Back Lot? [ARTICLE]

Know Your Own Back Lot?

Do you, denizen of the suburb, know your own countryside? In that patch of woods back of your home there are wonders beyond compare—wild things that would be neighborly if you'd let them, flowers that are growing as nature planned them, and that are quite as beautiful as any so carefully tended in the greenhouses of your wealthy neighbor across the street. Go to a near by woodland (better still if it’s a bit swamp) some twilight, soon, and listen to the evening songs of the feathered folk. You don’t know what music you may have without price until you’ve done this. Explore some of the little streams that meander through meadow and wood. Learn to name the birds and the flowers, classify the rocks and the soils—and look up to stars now and then. See America first? Surely, that’s a fine determination. But see your own countryside even before you see the rest of the United States. —The Countryside Magazine.