GARDEN STUDIES 123 



Another reason for the decline of the home garden is 

 found in the increase of weeds, noxious insects, caused by 

 wanton destruction or neglect of our insectivorous animals, 

 and fungous diseases, mildews, rusts, blights, and moulds. 

 All these things conspire to render gardening unnaturally 

 and unnecessarily difficult. For one individual to fight 

 against these things in a small city lot is a hopeless task. 

 It is the old story of the broom against the ocean. These 

 great forces of living nature enforce the brotherhood of 

 man. Each must do his part, and all must cooperate for 

 the common good, and if properly understood and util- 

 ized, the good forces in nature can largely be balanced 

 against the evil and thus gardening be relieved of many 

 of its most discouraging features. But at present people 

 do not even know the names of the insects and fungi 

 that are doing the most harm in their own back yards, 

 and scarcely one in a hundred has any conception of the 

 things that are doing the most good. How can we lay 

 the necessary foundation of common knowledge of these 

 forces in nature except through our system of universal 

 education ? And, further, these important common proc- 

 esses going on about us form the most normal basis for 

 lifelong interest and intimacy with nature. When a begin- 

 ning is made, some of our greatest difficulties become 

 most fascinating studies. For example, as soon as we 

 realize that codling moths have ruined all the apples on our 

 trees, and during the winter are hiding under the scales 

 of bark on their trunks, it is with a thrill of delight that 

 we see a downy woodpecker industriously pecking into 

 one scale after the other and extracting the larvae. Or 

 when our cherry trees have been black masses of aphids, 



