August, 1905 



AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



117 



The Garden 



The Garden Month by Month — August 



UGUST is the harvest month of the garden. 

 It is the time of realization and complete- 

 ness. The flower garden is now at the 

 height of maturity. The early plants have 

 bloomed and done with; but the later plants 

 — the plants grown from seed, the rich late 

 riowerers, the plants one has labored for and most wished to 

 see in bloom — these are now in the perfection of maturity, 

 and the garden is ablaze with color as it never was before, 

 and as, alas ! it soon will not be again. It is, therefore, the 

 harvest month, the month when all the flower lovers' hopes 

 are realized, and the harvest of labor is complete. 



There is now no creative work to be done ; that has long 

 since been finished and completed. One can realize now 

 how far right one was in the planning and arrangement. It 

 will be a serviceable thing to make records of the color 

 scheme, jotting down the bunches of color where they espe- 

 cially predominate and studying the excellence of the present 

 result, or arranging for a bettering the next season. It is 

 good, too, to watch one's neighbor's gardens, to note wherein 

 they excel one's own, to see what rare and curious plants he 

 may have, and how successful he may have been with com- 

 moner and more frequent plants. Nor should one trust to 

 one's memory in such matters ; a little note-book will be useful 

 for this work, and at the end of the season should be richly 

 stored with knowledge and suggestion, much of which should 

 bear good fruit next year. One's own experiences should also 

 be fully noted, for the best of memories are apt to fail at 

 times, and a written record has a value and utility that mere 

 memory can not give. 



While the garden has long since been complete, and is now 



perfected from the flowering standpoint, there is still work 

 to be done. It is a lucky gardener who has no weeds in 

 August, and the person who does not, some warm August 

 morning, discover some gigantic weed in the full pride of 

 blooming where only flowers should appear, is fortunate in- 

 deed. With the utmost care one is continually passing over 

 weeds which have a habit of maturing in most unexpected 

 places. Even in these late days the weeder has his occupa- 

 tion, although his work is slight compared to what it was 

 earlier in the year. 



Notwithstanding its maturity of bloom the garden must 

 be kept in spick and span order. The lawns must be regularly 

 and frequently mowed, the paths kept scrupulously clean, 

 the plants watched for insect and other ills, the dead flowers 

 plucked off unless deliberately allowed to seed, by which the 

 blooming power of the plant will be greatly decreased. 

 There is always work to do in the garden, and August is no 

 exception to this imperative law. 



Yet even in these warm days it is necessary to look beyond 

 to the winter plants and even to the planting of next spring. 

 Pansy seed for early spring blooming should now be sown, 

 in rich fine soil. When the young plants have reached a 

 height of two inches they should be transplanted and set six 

 inches apart. All tendencies to flower should be rigidly 

 checked. When the cold weather comes they may be cov- 

 ered with brush and then with pieces of burlap, which will 

 keep them warm while admitting air at the same time. 



Other winter plants should now be started. The seeds 

 of cineraria, cyclamens, Chinese primroses and similar plants 

 should all be sown and the plants given a good start in pots 

 before they are taken within the house. 



The School Garden 



The growth of the school garden idea is one of the most 

 interesting phases of modern education. Primarily designed 

 to interest children in garden growth, to give them a real, 

 understandable interest in nature, it has long since tran- 

 scended this elemental point of view and become a potent 

 force in the educational scheme. Yet its primitive purpose, 

 to interest children in nature, is still of value, and of very 

 great value, and must necessarily always remain so. 



The original idea of introducing plant life, with its mar- 

 velous story of growth and beauty, into child life is inherently 

 beautiful. It is an idea as beautiful in the city as in the coun- 

 try. Its novelty in city school life is greater than in the 

 country, yet its value as an object lesson in natural beauty is 

 quite as great and quite as necessary in the country. The 

 country child does not take naturally to flowers or to any 

 form of plant life. He has them constantly with him. His 

 father, in most cases, has no interest in flowers as flowers, or 

 in anything that grows save as a source of revenue. A 

 glance will tell him if a field of wheat is a good field, if a 

 cabbage patch will make a profitable yield, or if the potatoes 

 are doing well. He can, of course, distinguish all vege- 

 tables at the merest glance, and his knowledge of the rota- 

 tion of crops may be more than superficial. 



But of the beauty of plant life, of its beauty significance, 

 of the profound lessons of germination and growth, he has 

 no idea whatever. Nor is his wife much better equipped. 

 She will have, perhaps, her little door-yard, but save for a 

 few plants around the house there will be nothing at all. 



The advocates of the school garden, however, do not 

 stop at introducing interest alone; they do not seek merely 

 to teach how plants and flowers grow — in itself perhaps suf- 

 ficently valuable knowledge — but they go much further than 

 that, and correlate the school garden to other phases of teach- 

 ing, so that, in a sense, it forms the basis of the whole school 

 idea. Thus arithmetic is taught in planning and laying out 

 the garden. The multiplication table, fractions, lessons in 

 finding areas and perimeters, measuring distances and other 

 work of like nature all have their place. Later on certain 

 aspects of bookkeeping are introduced, the children buying 

 seeds and receiving bills for them, paying for them with 

 checks and otherwise conducting the garden affairs on a busi- 

 ness basis. 



Other phases of teaching are illustrated and developed in 

 the garden work. Facility in the use of language is pro- 

 moted by encouraging and demanding conversations on the 

 work done and things observed. Diaries are kept, and the 

 child trained in writing and in observation. Drawing is 

 helped, and coloring, by the drawing of plant life. Prac- 

 tical lessons in ethics and behavior are developed in the 

 garden work which have a very high value in practicability. 

 One child, for example, will help a sick child; one boy will 

 learn that he must do the joint work necessitated by the de- 

 velopment of a concerted scheme; and in other ways the 

 children learn to understand the relationship which must 

 exist between every member of a single community. The 

 variety of lessons thus taught is most considerable. 



