172 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 

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

 lean b'e 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, 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, are 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. 



