Supplement to 



S^uniot IRaturalist /Hbontbl^ 



Published by the College ol Agriculture of Cornell 

 University, from October to May, and entered at 

 Ithaca as second-clasj matter. L. H. Bailey, Director 



ALICE G. McCLOSKEY. Editor 



New Series. Vol. 2. ITHACA, N. Y., APRIL, 1906. 



No. 7 



PEPPERPOD'S BERRY-BOX GARDEN 



This is Little Miss Pepperpocl. Some of you have met her before. 

 She is called so because her hot temper flashes out so often. However, it 

 helps her to carry through whatever she undertakes. 



Last term at school she raised some peppergrass in an egg-shell farm. 



The taste of the one small sandwich that she made 



from her crop then, has made her wish for more\ So 



she has found a quart berry-box and means to have a 



larger peppergrass farm. 



The other name of peppergrass is Curled-Cress. It 



is of the same family as water-cress, and tastes just 



like it, but grows willingly in garden soil while its 



relative insists on having its roots in running water. 

 But the berry-box is full of holes. If she does not 

 in some way stop them up, the soil will leak away when 

 she waters her farm. At the kindergarten she learned 



to cut and fold paper very neatly. 



So now she borrows her mamma's 



big shears and cuts and fits a lining 



of thick paper for her berry-box. 



In the garden she has found some fine crumbly soil 



which she thinks will be good for her box-garden. Her 



teacher says that soil in boxes and pots must be of a 

 kind that will not " cake " or harden when it is dry. 

 To make sure that it will not, she will add a little sand 

 or woods earth. She is filling the berry-box much too 



full, as you see in the picture. Pots 



and boxes should not be c[uite full 



of earth when ready for seeds or 



plants. It washes ofif at watering 



and makes an untidy mess. 



She sows the seed about a half inch apart, on the top 



of the earth and then covers it carefully with a thin 



layer of sand, about four times as thick as the seed itself. 



