128 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



with suspicion, if, indeed, it was not shunned as poison. The 

 Russian thistle, which lately gave our Western ranch friends 

 such alarm, is to-day praised as a superior food for live stock 

 and is actually sown on their farms. Travelers speak with 

 much gusto of the dishes they have relished in other lands, 

 but on inquiry we find that some of the best of these are 

 concocted out of the very weeds, or cousins of the weeds, 

 that straggle along our roadsides. Through such instances 

 we learn not to be snobs ; we come to understand better 

 every day what Emerson meant by saying that a weed is a 

 plant whose worth has not yet been discovered. A distin- 

 guished chemist goes still farther in his prophecies. He 

 says, " I believe that there is not a by-product or a residuum 

 or a weed in our fields which will not be of value to human 

 beings." A family in the suburbs is following up this hint 

 in their home gardens. They have set apart a certain space 

 where each year they cultivate experimentally a few un- 

 familiar food plants. Some of these are plain weeds which 

 promise well, but to which, as far as is known, gardeners have 

 never deigned to give attention. Others are foreign food 

 plants, highly valued abroad but almost unknown as yet to 

 American housewives. 



The members of this enterprising family interest them- 

 selves not only in developing these obscure plant virtues but, 

 after the plants are raised, in preparing them appetizingly for 

 the table. When they have succeeded with some new plant 

 which they find palatable and nutritious, in high glee they 

 call the neighbors in. This is one of the by-pleasures of the 

 garden. A well-known gardener recommends for considera- 

 tion such plants as chicory, okra, chervil, pe-tsai, prickly 

 spinach, and Sakurajima radish. Another suggests purslane, 

 mustard, charlock, and peppergrass. Pigweed, we are assured, 

 makes delicious greens. Shall we try it some day ? 



