ild oxalis loves the moist, shady places.]

What will be done with all the flowers that have been picked? In each
home the vases are filled and the tables decorated. There is no room for
all of them and some are thrown out. These flowers, once so fresh and
bright as they nodded in the breeze, now lie crushed and wilted on the
ground.

Another spring returns and the children are out again looking in the
familiar places for the flowers they know so well. But there seems to be
something wrong, for there are not so many as there used to be. The
children have to go farther and search more carefully to get their arms
full.

Still a third spring comes and the children are just as ready for the
happy excursions and just as anxious to get the flowers. They hunt the
fields over, but in the places where the flowers used to be so thick
there are only a few scattering ones. They cannot understand what is
wrong, but Nature could tell them if they would ask her. The year before
she was short of seed, but this year it is much worse, for she had
hardly any to plant in her garden. She is short of bulbs also, and of
many other plants that grow from year to year, for the children
carelessly pulled these up.

[Illustration: _H. W. Fairbanks_
Wild asters cover the mountain meadows.]

The children do not want to go home with only a few flowers, and so they
wander farther into the country than they have ever been before. Here
they find them as abundant as they used to be near home.

The children do not stop to think that at the base of the bright,
fragrant blossoms grow the seed that will make the flowers of the next
year. Nature can spare the seed of a part of the blossoms, for she grows
many more than she needs; but if we pick them all, what can she do for
the coming year?

The wild flowers are living things struggling for a place in the world,
just as are the animals and birds. We cannot abuse and destroy too many
of them if we would have them stay and add to the beauty of our homes.
Should we not take just as much pleasure in gathering the flowers if we
did not bring home more than we needed? Would it not be better to be
satisfied with smaller bouquets and leave enough in the fields to go to
seed and gladden us next year?

The reckless gathering of wild flowers has gone on so long and they have
been picked so closely about many of our towns and cities, that they are
disappearing. When there are no longer wild flowers within r