Protected by sweaters and a leather jacket against the biting blasts of the earth wind,I walk along the hillside this afternoon. Snow lies drifted among the wild cherries. Where the wind has swept bare the ground, the soil is frozen and rocklike. On this day of bleak cold, the earth seems dead. Yet every field and hillside, like a child,has the seeds and powers of growth hidden within it. From cocoon to bur, on a winter’s day, there is everywhere life, dormant but waiting. Within the earth there are roots and seeds; on the bare twigs, there are winter buds; buried in soil and mud beneath ice-locked water are the turtles and frogs and dragonfly nymphs; hidden in decaying logs and under snowcovered debris are the fertilized queens of the wasps and blumblebees. Everywhere, on aH sides of us, as far as winter reigns, life is suspended temporarily. But it has not succumbed. It is merely dormant for the time being, merely waiting for the magic touch of spring. All the blooms of another summer, all the unfolding myriad leaves, all the lush green carpet of the grass, all the perfumes of the midsummer dusk, all the rush and glitter of the dragonfly’s wings under the August sun--all these are inherent, locked up in the winter earth. Nor is this time of suspended activity wholly wasted. Scientists have discovered that, for many kinds of seeds, a period of cold is essential to their proper sprouting. They require the months of cold just as they do the days of spring. Seeds that lie on the frozen ground, that are coated with sleet and buried by snow, are thus the most favored of all. Bring those same seeds indoors, cuddle them, keep them warm, protect them from wind and cold and snow, and they sprout readily in the spring. The seeming punishment of winter is providing, in reality, invaluable aid. Similarly, the eggs of some insects, such as the Rocky. Mountain locust, need cold for proper hatching. Winter cold, the enemy of the easy life, thus is not the enemy of all life. It aids in the proper development of seed and egg. The death like inactivity of the winter earth is only an illusion. Life is every where in every foot of frozen soil, in every rocklike yard of solid ground--life is the endless variety of its normal forms.