The Beginner's Garden Book: A Textbook for the Upper Grammar Grades

Front matter

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Mp* $ m

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO

Preface

One of the most striking educational movements of recent times is toward the interesting of children in gardening. State boards of education, local school boards, and local home gardening associations have all encouraged and superintended the work. The advantages are very plain, and in both town and country two are chief. In the first place, children, whether through an awakened love of flowers or an understanding of the economic value of vegetables, are brought into direct con¬ tact with nature, and must necessarily profit, mentally and physically. In the second place, children are kept busy who otherwise might be idle through the weeks of vacation. They learn to work, they understand the values created by work, and they gain from this both self-respect and respect for property. Gardening thus becomes a lesson in civics. In addition, in country towns intensive agriculture, our depend¬ ence in the future, must be stimulated by gardening. The garden movement is, for all these reasons, of even national importance.

This book is offered as a textbook of gardening for the upper grammar grades. It covers not merely the school work indoors and out, but also the work of gardening at home. Thus it has a wide field, and at the same time ‘follows the natural activities of the school year. From his own knowl¬ edge of gardening, as well as from his acquaintance with the school and home gardening work at Concord, Massachusetts, the author is certain that the book is practical.

The divisions of the book explain themselves. Beginning with the fall work at the opening of school, and following the

VI

PREFACE course of the year, the garden cycle is completed. The teacher is advised to study beforehand the indoor experiments, in order to make sure that the materials are such that the lesson can be properly explained. During these experiments plenty of seeds and seedlings should be at hand.

While the book is designed for use in schools, it need not be so confined. Its scope and its practical treatment fit it for the use of all beginners in gardening, of whatever age.

Acknowledgment is made to Professors L. H. Bailey, G. W. Warren, and C. A. Stebbens for the use of illustrations from their books. And both author and publisher take this oppor¬ tunity to thank J. M. Thorburn and Company, seedsmen, of New York City, for supplying numerous photographs for use in this volume.

The author desires to acknowledge with thanks the assist¬ ance of Wilfrid Wheeler, of Concord, Massachusetts. His experience as a practical horticulturist, as well as his knowl¬ edge gained as member of the Concord Home Gardening Association, of the school committee of the town, and of the State Board of Education, have made his advice in planning and writing the book of the greatest assistance.

ALLEN FRENCH.

Concord, Massachusetts,

Section I The Autumn Work Chapter Page

I. The Purpose of a Plant . 1

II. The Saving of Seed . . . 8

III. Picking . 14

IY. Going into Winter Quarters . . . .25

V. Potting for the Winter ...... 33

Section II The Winter Work

YI. Notes and Accounts . 40

VII. A Seed and its Growth . 49

VIII. The Testing of Seed . 57

IX. The Life of a Plant . 65

X. Various Ways of Growing Plants . . .73

XI. The Soil . 82

XII. The Soil Water . 88

XIII. Plant Chemistry . 97

XIV. Humus . 104

XV. The Kinds of Plants . 109

Section III Gardening Under Glass

XVI. The Flats . 116

XVII. Seeding the Flats . 121

XVIII. The Seedlings, Indoors . 127

XIX. Potting . 134

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

PAGE

XX.

The House Plants ....

. 141

XXI.

IIot-beds and Cold-frames

. 146

XXII.

The Management of Frames .

. 153

XXIII.

Other Plant Protectors .

. 164

Section IV The Real Garden

XXIV. Starting the Old Garden . . . .168

XXV. The Garden Site ...... 171

XXVI. Planning the Garden . 176

XXVII. Perennial Plants . 193

XXVIII. Bulbs and Tubers ...... 201

XXXII. The Fruit Garden ...... 229

XXXIII. Garden Tools ....... 239

XXXIV. Preparing the Soil ...... 248

XXXV. Planting . 263

XXXVI. The Seedlings, Outdoors ..... 269 XXXVI T. Transplanting ....... 277

XXXVIII. Plant Enemies . 284

XXXIX. Plant Friends ....... 291

XL. Garden Management ...... 296

APPENDICES

I. Planting List . 311

II. Planting Table . 380

III. Draining of a Garden . 388

V. Table of Vegetable Seeds ...... 392

THE BEGIKKER’S GARDEN

BOOK

SECTION 1 THE AUTUMN WORK CHAPTER I The Purpose of a Plant

It is interesting to consider that nations ceased to be savage when they gave up wandering and settled down. They could not settle in one place without a constant supply of food, and this they got by farming. Farming, or agri¬ culture, which thus supports civilization by supplying men’s needs, led the way to gardening, or horticulture. Gardening supplies pleasures in the shape of delicate food or beautiful plants. It may be made a business, and is then one of the healthiest and most interesting ; or it may be carried on in one’s spare time, for pleasure ; or it may be made to give both pleasure and profit.

A garden may be called a plot of ground in which plants are made to do their best. Gardening therefore means the careful rearing of plants, giving each what it most needs. This rules out laziness and indifference ; it calls for thought and pains. Gardening for beginners should not mean hard work unless it is carried on for money or unless one has mistakenly laid out too large a plot. Properly carried on, gardening should mean a little regular work each day.

Although at first sight garden plants are entirely unlike, they are alike in certain ways. Each has root, stem, and leaves, and each has the same purpose. This purpose is of course unconscious ; but it is nature’s chief care that each plant shall make seed. The seed is made by means of flowers. If man did not interfere, the plants that are alive to-day would go on, year after year, blossoming and making seed imim

Fig. 1. — The Child and its Garden.

A garden should be in proportion to the strength of the gardener. Note

the child’s small patch.

from which other plants would grow. This is true not only of plants that sprout and die within a single summer, but also of a tree that will live a thousand years. And although nature has other ways to make plants, of which man takes advantage, and although man interferes with the natural growth of plants in the strangest ways, such as making a plant grow from a leaf, it is still true that the most important

THE PURPOSE OF A PLANT purpose of every plant is to make its seed. The means by which it does this we need to study.

When root and stem and leaf are all doing their work together so successfully that the plant has more strength than it needs for mere living, or growing,1 it prepares to make a flower. Somewhere on its stalk (and some plants, like the lettuce or the foxglove, will make a stalk if they haven’t one already) it makes a flower-bud. This presently, on its own

Corolla 4

They are all shown together in 4, where they combine for the making of the seed, shown at the bottom of the pistil.

little stalk, makes a blossom. And the blossom has four im¬ portant sets of parts.

Outside of all, seldom to be used again when once the bud has opened, is a set of usually green sepals called the calyx. It protects the bud.

Inside the calyx is a set of colored petals called the corolla. When once they open out, they are the most noticeable part of the flower, make it different from every other kind, and serve to attract bees. It is the corolla that we usually admire in a flower.

Nature, however, does her work through the two remaining sets of parts. First are the stamens. There are usually three or four, and often many, to a blossom. They are made

1 This is the natural course. When a plant is injured, it often flowers.

of little stalks, called filaments, on which are fixed heavier parts, called the anthers. The anthers make a fine dust, called pollen, which the wind or the bees can carry about.

The stamens are ranged in the middle of the blossom, around the pistil or pistils, the second important part. A pistil is a stalk, with a somewhat sticky tip, and a hollow base called the ovary, which may be translated egg-holder, or seed vessel.

The scent of the flower, and its nectar, from which bees make honey, serve to attract insects, and these carry the pollen from flower to flower.

This description suits very well a flower that is regular in form, such as a Shirley poppy. Here you can see at once the

various parts : the calyx below, the delicate and beautiful corolla, the stamens in their circle, adding greatly to the

Fig. 3. — Many of the pistils of this ear beauty of the flower> of corn received no pollen. and in the middle the

pistil. But as soon as you find a double blossom, such as one of the double poppies ; or when you see an irregular flower, such as the nasturtium or sweet pea ; or when you study a compound flower, such as the daisy or the scabiosa, then the parts are more difficult to distinguish. Nevertheless, the description is still generally true, although flowers vary in innumerable ways. It may be that some one part is missing ; that by having the stamens and pistils on different blossoms, two flowers are needed to do the work of one (as in the corn and some strawberries) ; or that the flower is so changed in looks as scarcely to seem a flower at all. Nevertheless, there will always be at least

THE PURPOSE OF A PLANT the pollen and the ovary, with the parts that hold them, and some other parts as well.

For simple study, in plants easily procured in the fall of the year, the following are best : among flowers, poppies, nasturtiums, pansies, petunias, snapdragons, sweet peas; among vegetables, squash and tomatoes.

The work of the flower is as follows: The pollen must first be carried to the stigma, or sticky part of the pistil. This is done by means of the wind, by simply falling down¬ ward, or by the help of bees, who carry the floury pollen upon their fuzzy legs. Once a pollen grain has reached the stigma, the grain opens and its contents work into the pistil until they reach the ovary. Here they find an ovule, or the beginning of an egg or seed, which cannot be complete until the pollen reaches it.

The two unite, and at once the seed be¬ gins to form. When complete and ripe, the seed is ready to make a new plant.

Seeds take hundreds of different forms. If we look at an apple, an orange, a bean, and a peanut, we shall begin to see how widely seeds differ. The apple and orange are not seeds alone ; they are fruit as well, for

fruit is the seed and its envelope, or covering. Here are some common examples of the different kinds of fruit.

The apple and pear contain seeds, but their chief part is the calyx, which during the summer becomes fleshy.

The strawberry’s pulpy part is the end of the flowerstalk, which is thickened like the calyx of the apple. The seeds are carried on the surface.

Fig. 4. — The seeds and thickened calyx of the pear.

The fig and pineapple are the crowded parts of many flowers, ripening on the stem which held them all.

Most changes in the form of fruits are made by the wall of the ovary, which is called the pericarp. This changes in all possible ways. With the bean it becomes thin and dry, the pod. But with the gooseberry it becomes fleshy, inside the outer covering. With the peach the inner parts of the peri¬ carp become most strikingly different, one part being fleshy and delicious, the other stony, to protect the seed.

Sometimes the pericarp seems to become a part of the seed, its skin, as with the wheat and corn.

Sometimes the pericarp is surrounded, or partly surrounded, by another covering, as with the burr of the chestnut, the sheaf of the hazel-nut, or the cup of the acorn.

Fruits often combine many seeds.

This is true of the squashes and melons, the ear of corn, and the to¬ mato. Fewer at a time are to be found in the legumes, or podded plants, such as the pea. The cones of pines and firs contain seeds at the bases of the scales.

Considering this list of very dif¬ ferent fruits, one easily sees that the seed does not always come bare and naked from the plant. Indeed, many seeds fall from the plant while still embedded in the fruit, and

Fig. 5. — Bal¬ sam pod.

Fig. 6. — Balsam pod exploding, scattering the seed.

THE PURPOSE OF A PLANT become free from it only when it rots. There are some pericarps, however, which cling to the plant rather than to the seed. Such pericarps open and allow the seed to es¬ cape, as with the ripe pea and bean, and all legumes. The larkspur, the columbine, and the poppy all do the same, and the ripe seeds are shaken abroad in order to lodge in the earth.

Until man left his wandering, and took to settled life, plants took care of the work of seeding themselves. The seed fell by chance, and struck root if it could. Such seed¬ ing still takes place in all wild spots, such as the woods and the fence rows, where the trees and the weeds are always struggling for a chance to live. But thousands of years ago men discovered that the best way to provide vegetable food was to grow plants in good earth, with plenty of space, and protected from struggle. The first step to this was the saving of seed.

1. When a savage tribe gives up wandering, why does the culti¬ vation of the soil become necessary ?

2. Explain the difference between gardening and farming. What is a garden ?

3. In what way are all plants alike ?

4. What is the purpose of a plant ?

5. What does a plant need before it can flower ?

6. What are the parts of a common flower ? What are the necessary parts? The work of a flower?

7. What is a seed ? A fruit ? Give examples.

8. In what ways do plants scatter seed ?

CHAPTER II The Saving of Seed

One of the most important things in gardening is to have good seed. This is because good plants cannot come from poor seed, and because it is scarcely worth while to labor over poor plants,

A hundred years ago almost every gardener and farmer saved his own seed. Nowadays the growing of seed is a business in itself. It is a work of great care, and most people find it simpler and cheaper to buy seed than to grow it.

Nevertheless, nearly every one can profitably save some seed. It is so easy to pay a few cents for a packet of seed that we do not recollect that with certain kinds it is cheaper to save than to buy. People are said to be wasteful nowa¬ days : here is a chance to be thrifty. Again, by watching for especially fine plants, we maybe able to save a little finer seed than we can buy. And finally, by saving seed of the same kind for a few years we may develop plants which will do better in our district than any that can be obtained at the store. These are three very good reasons, then, for saving certain kinds of seed.

I do not mean that we should try to make, that is, to breed, new kinds of plants. That is a difficult work. The plant-breeder crosses two kinds of plants ; that is, he brings the pollen of one to the pistil of another. The parent plants he chooses for the qualities (color, shape, size, flavor) which he wishes to mix together in the new plants. He saves the

THE SAVING OF SEED seed, raises plants from it, and keeps only those which suit him. These he crosses again, saves the seed again, and so goes on, year after year, in the work of producing the kind of plant that he has set his heart on. In this way, by the patient work of men whose names we seldom hear, were produced the fine varieties which any one can buy for little money.

The work of selecting seed is different. We let the plants breed as they will, but keep on the watch for especially fine ones of the kind that we like best or need most. From these we save the seed, hoping for at least as good results next year. We depend, therefore, a good deal upon acci¬ dent, but also much upon our own taste.

For any one with a garden that is near other gardens, as is a school plot, the value of saved seed is often very slight. For the wind and the bees are always busy in crossing neighboring plants, so that a single plant in one garden may have been pollenized from two or three neighboring plots. Seed from such plants cannot be depended on to be as good as their parents. If one is thinking of saving any kind of seed, then, he is best off if the plants grow by themselves, at a distance from similar plants, which might bring unwished -for qualities. From a field of the same kind of corn, from tomato plants which stand by themselves and which all come from the same packet of seed, or from poppies which have no poppy neighbors, it will probably pay to save the seed of the finest plants.

Fig. 7. — The new round tomato, as compared with the smaller, grooved, older kind.

The result of breeding.

Again, from certain kinds of plants we shall scarcely be willing to go to the trouble of saving seed. Plants that need two years to grow, such as the parsnip, take up too much soil and time. The seed of some plants, such as rhubarb, do not certainly produce plants like their parents, for they are likely to be worse. The seed of other plants, like the peony, take from four to six years to make flowers, and there is a shorter way to get flowering plants. And the seed of a tree is of very little value to most of us, since to grow a tree from seed will tax the patience of any home gardener, when several years can be saved by buying one.

Nevertheless, with annual plants whose seed are easy to handle, seed saving may be worth while. Some of them we grow for flowers. If you have a poppy, or a sweet pea, or a petunia, whose beauty you especially admire, the seed may be saved. Biennials and perennials, which live more than a year, also yield seed worth saving. So with the larkspur, columbine, and foxglove. But remember always that if other such plants are near, the result may be dis¬ appointing. The colors may be different, and the blossoms smaller.

More important in many localities is the saving of vege¬ table seed. Everywhere throughout the middle West are associations for the saving of seed corn, a single perfect ear of which has been known to sell for two hundred and fifty dollars. The seed of tomatoes may well be saved by any one who has found plants which do especially well for his soil. Further, with plants which are not grown from seed, such as the potato, it may prove very wise to save tubers for growing again. In all these cases the amount of seed saved is but a very small part of the whole crop, the rest of which may be used in other ways.

The saving of seed requires alertness and good judgment

THE SAVING OF SEED

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35|

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more than any other qualities. The gardener must be alert to find the plants from which to save seed, and to gather it at the right time. His judgment shows itself in knowing what to look for in a plant, and in recog¬ nizing it when it appears. For example, one who wishes to save the seed of corn should know the looks of a healthy plant and a good ear ; he should always be on the watch for them, he should pro¬ tect them while growing, gather them while ripe, and dry and store them properly.

Study, then, any kind of plant Fig- 8-~A good ear °f

. corn and its ancestor. The

from which you wish to save seed. reSult of selection.

Whether it is a columbine or a

potato, learn what a healthy one is like. When you have found such a one, protect it and watch for the proper time to gather seed. The time varies a good deal. There is, for instance, no hurry about corn. When the seed is ripe, the plant is nearly dead. The ear may remain on the stalk for some time afterward. But a columbine, or poppy, or lupine may suddenly shed its seed. Know what your plant is likely to do. Generally it is the flower that sows its own seed, and generally the vegetable that can wait for a long time. But learn the right time for picking, watch for it, and then — pick. Gather the whole pods, or the whole fruit.

Once the seed is picked, it must be treated. If small, keep it in a tin box. Put it daily to dry in the sun, until it is thoroughly dry. If it is a podded seed, lay the pods on white paper, so that if the seeds fall out they may be gathered easily. If it is a fruit like a squash, or is an ear of corn, there is no better way than to dry it whole and keep it so. As we shall see later, there is an especial reason for keeping the corn seed on the cob until it is wanted. With a pulpy fruit

like the tomato, time will be re¬ quired for it to become so dry that the seeds will separate out.

And once dry, the seed must be stored. To begin with, label it clearly. Then, as it should be dry all the time, protect it from mois¬ ture. Keep it next from warmth.

For moisture and warmth will cause seed to sprout or to spoil.

It may be well, also, to keep seed from the light. A cool, dry cellar or closet is a good place in which to store it. But here or anywhere it must be kept from mice, for they will speedily ruin seed or tubers.

The watching of plants which you have raised from your own seed is very interesting. It is a test of your judgment. It is satisfying to find that your poppy, or your corn, is as good as, or even perhaps a little better than, the plant of last year. Your money has been saved to good purpose, and your work is well paid. Of course you haven’t a new kind of plant ; we leave that to the breeder ; 1 but of your kind you have a new strain. When for a second time you save the seed, you can feel almost sure that the seedman himself has none better. Moreover, you know well at least one department of gardening. If you carry the work further, you may be well rewarded, indeed. Only a few years of careful selection may prove you to have a strain of seed which,

1 Of course pure accident, such as sometimes happens, may produce in your garden a new and fine variety.

Fig. 9. — A Squash and its Seed.

When the squash is to be eaten, scoop out the seed and dry it.

I

THE SAVING OF SEED 13

in your soil at least, is the best possible. Thus, starting always with good seed, a farmer boy may develop a strain of corn, a vegetable gardener a strain of tomato, a flower gardener a strain of petunia,1 which will make the crops notable in the neighborhood.

1 . What is the work of a plant-breeder ? A plant selecter ?

2. In what cases is it not wise to save seed ?

3. From what kinds of plants will it pay to save seed?

4. What do we need in order to succeed in this work ?

5. When is seed to be gathered ? How is it to be treated ? How should it be stored ?

1 Flowers whose seed is worth saving are : poppies, Canterbury bell, columbine, forget-me-not, foxglove, hollyhock, larkspur, lupine, mignon¬ ette, nasturtium, petunia, phlox, portulaca, sunflowers, sweet pea, sweet William. Vegetables are: corn, beans, muskmelons and all squashes (including cucumber), okra, peas, pepper, tomato, and egg plant.

Chapter III

The picking of one’s flowers or vegetables depends partly upon the purpose. Let us first consider vegetables.

As vegetables are grown solely for food, and as their garden is seldom admired ex¬ cept for neatness and thriftiness, the picker does not hesitate to take what he needs wherever he finds it. What he wants is a full basket. But as he picks there are certain things he should remember.

In the first place, his vegetables should be young. Some of them, such as okra, kohl-rabi, and string beans, are ready to punish him if he leaves them too long, for they become stringy. But other plants, even though they do not become stringy, should be picked just as early as these. The basket fills faster, to be sure, if the peas and corn and summer squash have been left to grow to their full size, but the vegetables are no longer delicate. It is Snap”- safe to say that most vegetables should be picked before they come to their full If from good seed, size.

In the second place, vegetables should be picked “at the last minute”; that is, as late as will give the cook proper time to prepare them

Fig. 10. — “ Beans and if not too old, they have no strings at all.

for the table. It has been proved that corn loses its sweetness from the minute it is picked ; it should be picked if possible, therefore, just before it is to be cooked. Other vegetables, except lettuce, do not so soon lose their fresh¬ ness ; but there is no reason why a home vegetable gar-

Fig. 11. — Pick carefully. By careless dragging at pea vines the picker may either tear them from the trellis or loosen them in the earth.

dener should ever pick his vegetables the day before they are used. Generally they should be picked early in the morning, before the sun has been on them. And this time, which is good for the vegetables, is good for the gar¬ dener, too.

Unless his supply is very short, the gardener should bring to the house only perfect vegetables. To save his supply, he should learn how much to pick for each day’s needs.

THE BEGIN NEB'S GARDEN BOOK

The vegetables should be brought neat and clean to the house. All dust should be washed or wiped off, the roots should be cut away, and the outer leaves of such plants as lettuce and cabbage should be picked off. If this is a help to the cook, it is also a help to the gardener. Roots, leaves, and dead plants should all go in an out-of-the-way pile, the compost heap, which in the course of time yields good * material by the rotting of the refuse. For this pile, also, the gardener should demand from the cook all parts of the vegetables that she does not use. The pods of the peas, the husks of the corn, all can be thrown on the compost heap.1

The flower gardener has a different task. In the first place, she (for it is pretty safe to assume the flower gardener is a girl) must 'consider not only what she brings to the house, but also what she leaves behind. The garden should always show flowers; therefore it must not be stripped. Yet no faded flowers should be left on the plants. Besides appearance, there is another reason for this. If flowers are allowed to go to seed, the plants are likely to cease blooming. So even if flowers are not wanted for the house, the gardener should (except where seed is to be saved) make a daily round of the garden, picking off the faded flowers. These should not be dropped on the ground, but carried to the compost heap.

When flowers are wanted for the house, they should be picked with care. Buds too young to open, and old blooms which will soon fade, should both be avoided. Pick the just opening blossoms, those which are nearly open, and the flowers which are in early bloom. Thus you will have a bunch which will both show variety and last for some time.

1 There is no such danger of breeding flies in the compost heap as there is with manure.

IT

Pick with the flower some of its own foliage ; or if this is not in good condition, pick stems and leaves of another plant.