Project Gutenberg's Some Summer Days in Iowa, by Frederick John Lazell

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Title: Some Summer Days in Iowa

Author: Frederick John Lazell

Release Date: April 24, 2006 [EBook #18249]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOME SUMMER DAYS IN IOWA ***

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Some Summer Days in Iowa

BY

Frederick John Lazell

_A book of the seasons, each page of which should be written in
its own season and out of doors, or in its own locality, wherever
it may be._--THOREAU

CEDAR RAPIDS, IOWA
THE TORCH PRESS
NINETEEN HUNDRED NINE

COPYRIGHT 1909
BY
FRED J. LAZELL

[Illustration: "HAS CUT ITS WAY STRAIGHT DOWN THE FACE OF A CLIFF" (p.
111)]

PREFACE

Like the two preceding little volumes of this series, this book seeks
to show something of what Iowa has to offer to the man who loves the
out-of-doors. There is nothing very unusual in it. The trees and the
flowers, the birds and the small wild animals which it mentions and
describes are such as may be seen in the Iowa fields and woods by
anyone who cares enough about them to walk amid their haunts. The
illustrations are such as the ordinary nature lover may "take" for
himself with his pocket kodak. The woodthrush built in a thicket by
the bungalow and borrowed a paper napkin for her nest. The chipmunk
came every morning for his slice of bread. And then the woodchuck
learned to be unafraid.

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?

The majority of Iowa people still find pleasure in the simple life,
still have the love for that which Nature so freely bestows. They find
time to look upon the beau