GARDENING 



GARDENING 



home and school gardening seem to the United 

 States government that the Bureau of Educa- 

 tion has established a School and Home Gar- 

 den Division, with experienced teachers in 

 charge, who devote their entire time to in- 

 vestigating and directing garden work in the 

 big cities. 



Specialized Gardening. A farmer is only a 

 gardener on a large scale. A gardener who 

 specializes in vegetables is usually called a 

 truck, or market, gardener; a specialist in fruit, 

 a fruit-grower, or orchardist ; a specialist in 

 flowers, a horticulturist. A landscape gar- 

 dener is an artist engaged by large estates or 

 public park commissioners, who, instead of 

 paints and oils, works with flowers, shrubs, 

 trees, lawns, drives and fountains to paint 

 nature pictures that change with every season 

 and almost with each hour of the day. 



What a Garden Teaches. A garden is like 

 a very wonderful school where all the in- 

 structors teach by silent but interesting object 

 lessons, and where all the pupils "learn to do 

 by doing." It teaches more practical botany 

 than a nature-study course; but it is not 

 merely botany: it joins hands with the study 

 of birds, bees and butterflies, insects and plant 

 bacteria, with the lore of the weather and the 

 seasons, the chemistry of the soil, the use of 

 tools. 



A garden is of physical benefit through the 

 healthful outdoor exercise its cultivation af- 

 fords; and such exercise has an added value 

 because it is really creative. Moral education 

 it gives, too, in lessons of tenderness for helpless 

 things; lessons in responsibility, patience and 

 perseverance, and that vital lesson all must 

 learn that any success worth having results 

 from work. A garden teaches regard for the 

 rights of others, because a child who has cared 

 for a plant from its seedtime understands what 

 ownership means. 



A garden is an education in the appreciation 

 of beauty, color, artistic arrangement and fra- 

 grance. It provides a "first course" in the love 

 of Nature. Being such a little corner of the 

 great outdoors, it permits a closer intimacy 

 with Mother Nature than great woods and 

 rolling stretches of countryside can ever give. 

 Looked at from the purely commercial point 

 of view, a garden is an education in economics. 

 A boy or girl who keeps the home table sup- 

 plied with fresh fruits and vegetables learns 

 how work changes itself into pennies, which 

 grow into dollars. A garden helps to form the 

 good habit of thrift when its surplus is sold 



and the boy or girl encouraged to put this 

 money in the bank or to spend it wisely. In 

 many families parents find it a good plan to 

 pay the little gardeners for all produce used 

 for the table, realizing how great an incentive 

 this supplies to steady and enthusiastic work. 



The Site and the Plan. Whenever there is 

 any choice in the matter of selecting the 

 location of the garden, the important points to 

 be considered are soil and exposure. A south- 

 ern slope with shelter on the north gives ideal 

 results. At any rate, the garden should be in 

 a free, open space, away from shade and big 

 trees, so that Nature's handmaids sun and 

 air may work their magic without interfer- 

 ence. 



The second thing to decide is what kind of a 

 garden it is to be whether a vegetable garden, 

 a flower garden, or a combination of the two. 



Next comes the making of a "working plan," 

 on paper. This should be a diagram, drawn 

 to scale say, a quarter of an inch for each 

 foot of space and should show the exact 

 widths and arrangement of beds, paths and 

 borders. Whenever possible the beds should 

 be so arranged that the rows will run north 

 and south, to give the plants the full benefit 

 of the sun from morning till evening. So much 

 depends upon space and purpose that it would 

 be useless to try to present a suggestive plan 

 in this brief treatment. Home-making mag- 

 azines and special gardening periodicals should 

 be consulted, as well as the many attractive 

 and inexpensive books on the subject, for there 

 is no art that has a larger or more fascinating 

 literature. 



As to the size of the garden, the beginner 

 must beware of "o'erleaping ambition." Plan- 

 ning and seed-planting are easier than culti- 

 vating. A neglected garden may be worse than 

 useless, while even a small plot well tended 

 will yield good profit and endless satisfaction. 

 It is wise to begin on a small scale, find out 

 by experience how much can be well done 

 and then extend operations from season to 

 season. A small bed for a young child, a plot 

 twenty-five feet square, more or less, for an 

 older boy or girl, will afford excellent training 

 and practice, and from these modest begin- 

 nings the garden may be increased year after 

 year. The novice should confine himself to 

 the common and easily-grown varieties, 

 whether among vegetables or flowers. In the 

 flower garden, annuals and vines that grow 

 quickly are encouraging for the beginner. The 

 hardy perennials, which bloom year after year, 



