109 



month of May and give it, together with a small amount of money to 

 spend on seeds, to a child who has had a garden of its own and learnt 

 to love flowers. Do not give any help in the choosing unless especi- 

 ally asked to do so, and limit the choice to about three or four packets- 

 For a child to get the most pleasure out of a garden it should not have 

 too much assistance, either in plants or work. The soil should be well 

 dug up to begin with, all else should be done by the juvenile proprietor, 

 and for the garden to be of the most use, it should not be made too easy 

 to get plants, so that each one may be cherished and new ones grown 

 from seeds or cuttings. I know from my own experience when a child, 

 what a source of delight my garden was. On coming home from board- 

 ing-school to spend the holidays, the first thing to be looked at was my 

 garden. The associations with flowers are all good and enlightening, 

 and a love for them should be most carefully engendered and cherished 

 in those unhappy children where it does not exist naturally. Such how- 

 ever, are exceedingly rare. The greatest encouragement to a child who 

 has a garden of its own, is for the elders to take an interest in it, never 

 decline to go and look at it whenever asktd to do so, and above all things 

 do not interfere in the arrangement and management except to prevent 

 disastrous mistakes ; small mistakes will do good, by teaching their own 

 lessons. Now, what these gardens are to children, public gardens are 

 to the masses, furnishing them with, at the same time, innocent and 

 beneficial and also engrossing and satisfying occupation. 



All public gardens should be scientific to the extent of having 

 everything properly named and plainly labelled. The first demand when 

 anything creates interest is to know its name, and it is a great dis 

 appointment when this cannot be obtained. As a matter ot history it 

 is interesting to learn that the Royal Botanic Garden at Kew, now the 

 most extensive scientific garden in the world, was far from being scien- 

 tific at the time it was taken over, and the committee appointed to 

 investigate the matter, when referring to the fact that few plants were 

 properly labelled, expressed the following opinion of a garden in that 

 state : " It is not easy to discover what advantage except that of a 

 pleasant walk has been derived, by the public, from the privilege of 

 visiting the garden." 



The value of plants as food and medicine is a legitimate field of 



.^ 



