462 
SCOUTING FOR GIRLS 
is not to work among beans when they are wet with 
dew or rain for fear of “rust.” Wait till the sun has 
dried the foliage. 
Frequent and thorough cultivation not only destroys 
the weeds, thus giving your vegetables a better chance 
and giving your garden a tidy, well-kept appearance, 
but it keeps the soil loose and forms a sort of mulch 
whereby the moisture is conserved. The dryer the sea- 
son the greater the need of cultivation. 
It may seem to you that you are obliged to wait long 
and spend a good deal of labor without results, but 
when you have for the breakfast table some cool, crisp 
radishes and for dinner a head of fresh lettuce, and 
later a dish of sweet, luscious beets or mess of string 
beans, you will feel well repaid. 
Let us now turn our attention to the other bed, in 
which you are to grow flowers. This may be treated 
as a sort of background for the vegetable bed. To 
do this let the rows of plants run the other way. That 
is to say, lengthwise of the bed instead of across. It is 
assumed that the ground has been treated as in the 
case of the vegetable bed. 
When you have accomplished this work of prepara- 
tion set your line six inches from the side of the bed 
nearest your vegetables, or the patch between the two 
beds. Make a shallow furrow , the full length of the 
bed with your pointed stick. In this furrow sow your 
flower seeds of some low-growing plant such as sweet 
alyssum. Then move your line back toward the other 
side of the bed one foot. Here you should place some 
taller plants, such as asters. The aster plants should 
have been raised in the house, or purchased from some 
grower. Again move your line one foot nearer the rear 
margin of your bed and in this row plant your tallest 
plants. Dahlias or cosmos would be very effective. 
