238 THE PLANT WORLD. 



of personal interest. The child that has worked with his hands 

 in the earth making the seed bed, planting the seeds and covering 

 them with fine soil, removing stones and breaking lumps, press- 

 ing the surface here or loosening it there for different results, has 

 a real and definite knowledge which can never be effaced ; and 

 when the teacher of botany calls upon such a child to suggest 

 reasons why a fine seed bed is desirable for small seeds his answer 

 is made after calling upon his five senses and several centers of 

 information of his body. His feet remember the difference be- 

 tween the spaded and unspaded plot ; his hands remind him of 

 plots where one could run the fingers deep into soil like flour, and 

 of others where one's whole strength could make no impression 

 on the hard cracked surface. His eyes remind him of how differ- 

 ent were the final results in growth on these two kinds of soils. 

 And so, as the questions are asked by the teacher, the child 

 answers from a memory stored with experiences which are clear 

 cut, well defined, usable. 



A plot of ground a foot square can be made to furnish material 

 for a dozen sciences, geography, composition, arithmetic ; almost 

 every subject can be taught with the garden as a text. The 

 earthworm in the ground ; the butterfly hovering over the plant ; 

 the caterpillar eating the leaves ; the aphis sucking the sap ; the 

 lady-bug eating the aphis ; the beans " backing up " from the 

 soil ; the onions coming up doubled as though they were to be 

 threaded through a darning needle ; the flies " going to roost " at 

 night ; the spiders catching the flies ; everything is of the utmost 

 interest to the small gardeners. 



To the teacher of botany the pupil's garden plot will be of 

 very great help, and an introduction to a wider range of study is 

 easily arranged through the weeds that come in. In one garden 

 a specimen of each different weed found was relegated to the 

 weed plot, and soon there were several wild cousins of the tame 

 plants. Some of them were the following: 



Tame. Wild. 



Tomato Jimson weed 



Portulacca Pusley 



Buckwheat Smartweed 



Radish Mustard 



