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 ? 
