GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



not of a washed-out, brownish tinge. A small amount of salt 

 may or may not be added before cooking. Authorities differ 

 on this point, but I have used both methods and prefer to 

 add salt after the vegetable is cooked. Cabbage should be 

 boiled in salted water of 212 heat." 1 



It is not strange that nature study and the beginning of 

 scientific pursuits should get their strongest impulse from 

 gardening. It is said that all the nature study a child needs 

 can be learned by working in a garden. Some believe that 

 this is claiming too much ; but are not those who object 

 usually the ones who have taken gardening in a literal and 

 narrow sense ? There are certainly moments when it seems 

 to a teacher as though the garden lay at the very heart of the 

 world of science, so many truly scientific impulses have been 

 known to begin or end there. As a source of material for 

 study, it certainly does not run dry ; the animals and plants 

 that jostle one another in a tiny space are likely to confuse 

 a pupil by their very abundance and variety. Again, the 

 problems suggested in a plot, however small, are universal 

 problems. Where f indeed, can be seen more strikingly the 

 effect of environment, or the survival of the fittest ? 



Bypaths, such as studies of spiders, of fungi, or of our 

 native shrubs and trees, ar-e all possibilities which, sighted 

 through some garden experience, may be opened up to the 

 young gardeners. A hand-to-hand conflict with pests makes 

 children see the advantage of a knowledge of animals and -of 

 a collection of insects for study. As a result, a taste for nat- 

 ural history begins to bud. A small collection, including at 

 first only "local celebrities," quickly outgrows its original 

 cases, and some day the delivery of a mysterious package, 

 plastered all over with Brazilian stamps, records the fact that 

 rare beetles have arrived for a boy's really valuable collection. 



1 Edith Loring Fullerton, The Vegetable Garden. 



