Flower-Gathering As soon as the snowdrops are through, the gatherers
of wild flowers are out. The days get a little warmer, and more and more of them are met along the lanes and across the fields. The snowdrop season has passed. The gatherers of hazel catkins have graduated to prim- roses, and soon they will be thinking of bluebells and wood anemones. After the novelty of the spring flowers they will take breath, and then hunt for fruits, the wild strawberry, the wild raspberry, the crab-apple, the bullace, the blackberry, the hazelnut and, finally, the mushroom. Wild flowers look better growing than picked. It is hard to impress this upon children, and one can hardly blame them for wanting to carry beauty home. Some adults have the same weakness, and pick so many that they leave a trail of dropped flowers as they make their way back. The harvest of the field is another matter. It does little harm, and there is something more lasting in a bottle of blackberry- wine or a jar of apple-jelly.
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