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 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 UM1VEKSITY of CALIFOR* 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY 

 
 Nature Studies on the Farm 
 
 SOILS AND PLANTS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES A. KEFFER 
 
 PROFESSOR OF HORTICULTURE AND FORESTRY, UNIVERSITY 
 OF TENNESSEE , 
 
 NEW YORK : CINCINNATI : CHICAGO 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 r'K 1907
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
 CHARLES A. KEFFER. 
 
 NATURE STUDIES ON THE FARM. 
 W. P. I
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PACK 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 II. ORIGIN OF SOILS . . 13 
 
 III. KINDS OF SOIL 16 
 
 IV. THE PLANT AND THE SOIL ... 20 
 V. LITTLE RIVERS UNDER THE GROUND .... 25 
 
 VI. WHAT THE FOREST DOES FOR THE SOIL ... 30 
 
 VII. THE ROBBER FARMER 38 
 
 VIII. WEEDS ... 41 
 
 IX. WHAT THE RUSSIAN THISTLE Din .... 48 
 
 X. THE PLANT'S BUSINESS 51 
 
 XI. BUDS AND SEEDS 57 
 
 XII. WHY DO WE PLOW ? 62 
 
 XIII. GIVE THE CROPS PLENTY TO EAT . . . .68 
 
 XIV. SOWING THE SEED 74 
 
 XV. ROUND AND ROUND THE FARM 78 
 
 XVI. STIRRING THE SOIL 82 
 
 XVII. THE HOED CROPS 87 
 
 XVIII. THE CEREALS 92 
 
 XIX. IN THE MEADOW 95 
 
 XX. Two COUSINS 102
 
 PACT 
 
 XXI. A BLANKET GARDKN 107 
 
 XXII. CUTTINGS |. .112 
 
 XXIII. TRANSI'LANTINC; 116 
 
 XXIV. Roll's C.ARDEN 120 
 
 XXV. THE ORCHARD 126 
 
 XXVI. THK GRATEFUL PLANTS 131 
 
 Sl'GGESTIONS TO TEACHKRS '37
 
 NATURE STUDIES ON THE FARM 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 
 
 / 6 S 8 <o 
 
 No boy or girl who has always lived in the country 
 will need to be introduced to plants, as though they 
 were strangers ; but I want you not only to be ac- 
 quainted with corn and cotton, with fruits and 
 flowers, but also to know the way in which they 
 grow, as well as something of the soil from which 
 they get their food, of the roots that secure it, the 
 leaves that digest it, and the fruit where the food is 
 so largely used. 
 
 ,. And I particularly want .you to learn these lessons 
 \^\ about plants very largely from the plants themselves, 
 y Therefore this book is to be read and not studied, as 
 si would be the case were it a geography or a spelling 
 book. I can tell you in the book a few things that 
 it is well to know, but the plant can tell you a great 
 many more things that are both interesting and use- 
 ful. I believe that the potato plant can tell boys 
 things that will almost make them enjoy hoeing 
 potatoes ! 
 
 7
 
 This work that we are to begin together is not 
 plant study merely, but a study of the growing plant ; 
 and our purpose is to learn to help the plants to grow 
 better, so that they may give us larger crops. To 
 do this we must learn something about soils as well 
 as about plants. We shall find that the same law of 
 life applies to plants as to animals and to man. 
 Like us, the plant grows best when it is fed best. 
 
 Strawberry plant. 
 
 Like us too, the plant is helpless when very young, 
 and becomes stronger and better able to take care 
 of itself as it grows older. Indeed, fruit trees are so 
 much like people that the German gardeners call 
 the place where young trees are grown a " tree- 
 school," and all the fruit trees have to spend a few 
 years there, learning how to grow. 
 
 And here is a question that I want to ask you : 
 What are the differences between plants and ani- 
 mals? You say in reply, " Animals move from place 
 to place, and plants do not." Are you sure plants 
 do not move ? Before you decide, please learn all
 
 you can from the strawberry plant. Then see if 
 the Bermuda grass stays in the spot where it is 
 planted. Maybe there is a good place for wild ferns 
 near your school. Find some " walking " ferns and 
 see w r hether they are not spreading out to new places. 
 
 Bermuda grass. 
 
 Are you quite sure plants do not move? True, they 
 do not run like colts, but neither do snails run, and 
 in the nature books you will find stories of the coral 
 which never moves, and of the oyster, which spends 
 almost all its life in one spot. There are a great 
 many plants that move easily. The green plant 
 called pond scum moves readily through water, and 
 a host of other plants do the same ; and then there
 
 10 
 
 are all the little plants, so small that we cannot see 
 them, which float about in the air like dust. 
 
 You may say, " Animals eat food, and plants do 
 not." Let us see about that. We know that plants 
 
 v 
 
 Walking fern. 
 
 grow, because we see them get larger from week to 
 week and from year to year; but they cannot grow 
 without food. You may say that they cannot eat 
 without mouths ; but every plant has a great many 
 mouths covering all its young roots and much of its 
 leaf surface, and these mouths are no more curious 
 than those of many animals. The plant must have 
 its food just as surely as a cow or a horse.
 
 II 
 
 Plants breathe in a way of their own, and, indeed, 
 they do almost everything that animals do. They 
 do not hear or talk, but you know there are even 
 people who are deaf and dumb ; and plants have 
 their own way 
 of making their 
 wants known. Do 
 you know how a 
 plant tells that it 
 is thirsty? When 
 we have gone a 
 little farther, per- 
 haps we can see 
 how a plant says 
 that it is hungry. 
 
 I have seen 
 plants starve to 
 death, and I have 
 seen whole fields 
 of wheat so nearly 
 starved that the 
 poor plants only 
 grew half as high as well-fed wheat plants grow, and 
 many of their stalks were headless. Every plant in 
 the field did its very best to make well-filled heads, 
 but they were too weak and starved ; so instead of a 
 big crop the farmer hardly got five bushels of grain 
 
 Thirsty corn plants.
 
 12 
 
 to the acre. I wonder whether that farmer starved 
 his boys and girls as he did his wheat. Like all 
 other good plants the wheat plant gets its food from 
 the soil. The dodder and the mistletoe steal their 
 food from the plants on which they grow, but they 
 are thieves. 
 
 As plants depend on the soil for their food, we 
 may well begin our study where the plants begin to 
 grow.
 
 II. ORIGIN OF SOILS 
 
 ALL of the land is called soil, down to the hard 
 rock which lies at a greater or less depth below the 
 surface. In some places the soil is very deep ; in 
 others it is only a few inches in depth ; while there 
 are small spots on the earth's surface where there is 
 no soil, but only bare rock. When we speak of soil 
 we usually have in mind only the surface layer, 
 which is darker-colored, more fertile, and more porous 
 than the subsoil. But the deep-lying clays are soil, 
 and the pure sands that are found along rivers and 
 often in layers under the surface are soils also, and 
 have a great influence on the fertility of the land. 
 
 Now, if this were a fairy story, I should begin with 
 " Once upon a time," and then tell you how, a great 
 many years ago, the whole earth was covered with 
 water, and in some way a little strip of soft rock was 
 raised here and there above the sea. And the waves 
 washed the rock, just as you may see the waves of a 
 river wash the shore, and little bits of rock and shells 
 were broken loose by the waves and carried by sea 
 currents to other places, where they settled, making 
 big sand bars, that at last reached the top of the 
 water just as sand bars are formed along our 
 creeks and rivers. And as the land was raised higher 
 the frosts cracked the rocks, and the lightning broke
 
 them, and the rains beat upon them, forming streams 
 and rivers that washed the loose parts down to lower 
 places, grinding the broken stone and mixing it all 
 up. When plants grew on the earth they too were 
 
 Sand bar in creek. 
 
 swept down by the water and mixed with the broken 
 stone, which became finer and finer until some of 
 it was like dust. 
 
 In this fine earth, made of ground rock mixed 
 with leaves and twigs, worms and other small animals 
 lived, making burrows and still farther mixing the 
 earth which the water had ground. Finally all this 
 grinding and mixing and moving from one place to
 
 15 
 
 another made the rock into soil. Soil-making has 
 been going on since the world began, and soils are 
 being made to-day just as they were when the world 
 was young. 
 
 When it rains again see if you can find any road- 
 side stream that is not muddy. Why is not the 
 water in it clear? Make a strong dam across such 
 a stream, and when the rain has ceased see what you 
 can find in your dam. Then go down to the creek 
 and see if the rain has made any changes along the 
 creek banks. Has it washed away soil in one place 
 and made a little bar in another ? Well, that is soil 
 movement and soil-making. 
 
 The next time you dig worms to fish with, please 
 search very carefully for the holes the worms have 
 made in the soil, and you will be surprised to see 
 how many there are, and how they go in all di- 
 rections. Then remember how the roots of the 
 trees pass through the soil. Every worm hole, and 
 every dead root, is a place for water to get through, 
 carrying tiny bits of surface soil to the subsoil and 
 thus changing it. 
 
 So we see that the soil is changing all the time, 
 and I suppose there are almost as many living 
 things in the ground as there are above ground, all 
 working on the soil, mixing and moving, and thus 
 making it over and over again.
 
 1 6 
 
 III. KINDS OF SOIL 
 
 THERE arc three kinds of soil : clay, sand, and 
 loam. Clay is very fine soil, with more or less lime 
 and decayed plants and animals mixed with it. 
 Pure clay is so fine that when moist it can be molded 
 into many shapes, and when dry and burned these 
 will hold water. This is the way our dishes are 
 made. Most clay soils are impure, and do not hold 
 water like pure clay. All clay soils hold water much 
 better than sand, because the clay is much finer and 
 its parts stick closer together. Fine sand holds 
 water much better than coarse sand or gravel. 
 Water passes readily through sandy soil, and slowly 
 through clay soil. If you will make a heap of stones, 
 each as large as your fist, and another heap of small 
 stones, a third of coarse sand, a fourth of fine sand, 
 and a fifth of clay, and then pour water on all 
 of them until they are wet through, you will see that 
 clay holds water best. The big stones will be per- 
 fectly dry long before the clay is dry. This is be- 
 cause the clay is made up of very tiny bits, which 
 are soft and cling together so that the water cannot 
 get away from them, while there are big holes be- 
 tween the big stones through which all the water 
 soon runs out. The sand is made of very hard bits 
 that have sharp edges, and there are also many fine
 
 17 
 
 holes between the grains of sand, so that the water 
 runs through it readily. Thus we see that pure 
 clay holds water a long time and pure sand can- 
 not hold water. Now, if sand is mixed with clay 
 the soil thus made will hold water better than pure 
 sand and not so well as pure clay; for the sharp 
 edges of the bits of sand will keep the fine bits of 
 
 Clay, loam, and sand molds (taken from flower pots). 
 
 clay wider apart and thus let the water through. 
 A mixture of sand and clay is called loam. 
 
 Very few plants can live in a soil like pure clay 
 in which water stands. Water cress and a few 
 other plants can do so. And very few plants thrive 
 in sand, because it holds so little water. The cac- 
 tus is about the only family of plants that likes such 
 very dry soil. But almost all plants do well in loam, 
 which is not so dry as sand nor so wet as clay. Of 
 course there are clay soils which have a little sand
 
 i8 
 
 in them, and sandy soils which have some clay, so 
 that all kinds of mixtures may be found : sandy 
 clays, clayey loams, loamy sands, clayey sands, etc. 
 In clays the parts of soil are so very fine that they 
 pack closely together, and when wet the spaces 
 between the little soil flakes are filled with water, 
 and such soils contain little, if any, air. In sandy- 
 soils the grains of sand are of all shapes and sizes, 
 so that they do not fit into one another. Such soils 
 have many spaces between the grains and when 
 they are quite moist, as in loams, the sharp sand 
 grains separate the fine clay enough for air space, 
 so that loam soils contain more air than clay, though 
 less than sand. We shall find after a while that the 
 roots of plants must have air to do their work. 
 
 Our plants would have a hard time of it, however, 
 if the soils in which they grow contained nothing 
 but sand and clay. One might take sand or clay 
 and wash it until perfectly clean, then bake it in an 
 oven until perfectly dry, and then set plants in it, 
 giving them all the boiled water they wanted, yet 
 they would not live very long. This shows that 
 plants require something more in the soil than clay 
 and sand. Think how long the trees and weeds 
 and grasses have been covering the land with leaves 
 and stems, and how many animals have worked and 
 died in the soil. All of their bodies, as well as the
 
 19 
 
 leaves and stems, decay and become a part of the 
 soil. 
 
 The animal and vegetable matter that decays in 
 the soil forms one of its most useful parts, called 
 humus. In the forest where the trees grow so thick 
 that the wind cannot blow the leaves away the humus 
 in time becomes a thick layer over the soil. This 
 is what makes the ground feel soft as we walk in 
 the woods. 
 
 It is the rarest thing to find a soil of pure sand or 
 pure clay, for everywhere there are a great many 
 things mixed with the sand or clay. There is al- 
 ways some iron and lime and there are other things 
 which the plants require for food. That is why we 
 seldom see a soil where no plants at all will grow.
 
 20 
 
 IV. THE PLANT AND THE SOIL 
 
 WHILE there are a few plants that 
 live in water without being fastened 
 to the soil, all the cultivated plants 
 are grown in soil. The roots of the 
 plant anchor it to its place so that it 
 cannot be destroyed by wind. Small 
 plants that do not rise high in the 
 air are in no danger from wind, and 
 yet they often have very large roots. 
 The clover, one of the most useful 
 of forage plants, often has roots over 
 ten feet deep, although it seldom has 
 stems over two feet high. So the 
 root must have some other use be- 
 sides that of holding the plant in 
 the soil. 
 
 In the spring, when growth first 
 begins, the wheat plant is much 
 smaller above ground than below - 
 its stem is smaller than its root. It 
 will take very careful work and a good 
 deal of digging to get all of the roots 
 of a strong winter-wheat plant in 
 early spring. And if we try to dig 
 Young wheat plant, up all the roots of a wheat plant
 
 21 
 
 when it is in blossom we shall have to make a big 
 hole in the ground. But the wind does not blow 
 the wheat plant over ; it sometimes breaks the straw, 
 but the root holds the plant in place. Why should 
 the \vheat plant have such a large root with so many 
 branches ? 
 
 If there are any woods near the schoolhouse, let 
 us see if we can find a tree that has blown down. 
 How deep into the ground do the roots grow? I 
 have seen the roots of alfalfa plants go ten feet or 
 more into the soil ; and in a very dry knoll in Da- 
 kota I once took the trouble to dig out all the roots 
 of a box elder tree, the seed of which I had planted 
 twelve years before. The tree was little more than 
 twelve feet high it would have grown much 
 taller in the same time in Tennessee and it was 
 about ten feet in diameter of crown. A man helped 
 me and we were very careful not to cut any root, 
 following each one until it was no thicker than a fine 
 knitting needle. It took us two weeks to dig up 
 the tree in this way. And how far do you think the 
 roots had grown ? The deepest branch was traced 
 thirteen feet straight down, and the longest we fol- 
 lowed twenty-four feet from the collar the place 
 where root and stem join and it was then only 
 three feet below the surface. Most of the roots of 
 this tree were within two feet of the surface. If
 
 22 
 
 \ve examine even large forest trees that are blown 
 clown we may observe that they do not send their 
 roots very deep, most of the roots being within four 
 feet of the surface. Can any one tell why? 
 
 Is the soil the same color all the way down ? And 
 why is there a difference ? I suppose if you and I 
 
 An uprooted forest tree. 
 
 (Reproduced by permission of the Forest Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture.) 
 
 were to use just the right things, we could take 
 some of the light-gray-colored subsoil, or some red 
 or yellow clay, and we could color them just like 
 the surface soil. If we take even a little rotten
 
 23 
 
 wood from an old log, or some decayed grass and 
 weeds and leaves, and break them up fine and mix 
 them with the red or gray subsoil, we can change 
 its color and also change its water-holding power. 
 Let us try it. 
 
 But if instead of leaves we use well-rotted barn- 
 yard manure it will not only change the color of the 
 soil, but will make it richer and better for the growth 
 of plants. We can take soil from a deep hole, like 
 that thrown out in digging a well, and if we mix 
 enough sand with it so as to make its water-holding 
 power like loam, and then add well-rotted manure, 
 we can grow plants in it quite as well as if we had 
 used surface soil. 
 
 Suppose there were a very hungry boy in this 
 school, whose mother, knowing him to be always 
 hungry, had put a piece of pie on every tenth fence 
 post from the schoolhouse to his home. No doubt 
 he would eat the nearest piece first ; but if some 
 other boy had eaten all the pie near the school- 
 house, or if the first boy were still hungry when he 
 reached his home, I dare say he would eat the pie 
 he found there also. Just think what a host of plants 
 there are, and all hungry for the food the soil con- 
 tains. They grow most of their roots in the dark 
 surface soil because most of their food is there, but 
 they almost always send some roots deep down into
 
 24 
 
 the subsoil, where there is apt to be more moisture. 
 Thus they are better able to stand a famine or a 
 drought. 
 
 The roots of plants adhere closely to the bits of 
 soil so they can absorb moisture from them. The 
 young roots are covered thickly with hairs, which 
 grow into the tiny spaces between the soil particles, 
 and press close to the soil to get its moisture. But 
 the old roots and the tips of the young roots have 
 no hairs. If you pull up a very young corn or 
 wheat plant the roots will be covered with soil. 
 What makes it stick, and why are the root tips 
 clean ?
 
 V. LITTLE RIVERS UNDER THE GROUND 
 
 IT rained all day long at the Fruit Farm one day 
 last January, and the next morning the sun was 
 shining when I started to ride to school. As I 
 passed along a hillside road in the woods, the gutter 
 at the roadside was full of running water. In grad- 
 
 A roadside rivulet after rain. 
 
 ing, the land on the higher side was cut down about 
 eighteen inches, and the dirt was thrown to the 
 lower side, so as to make the road level ; then a shal- 
 low ditch was made on the upper side. As I rode 
 along I noticed a great many little streams of water
 
 26 
 
 gushing out of little holes in the bank that had 
 been made in grading. They were like springs, 
 and I thought they must come from underground 
 rivers. But where did all the water come from that 
 was pouring out of the bank? What made the little 
 rivers under the ground? 
 
 The next day the little rivers were still flowing, 
 and the water was as clear as any spring. A few 
 days later the rivers were all dry, but I am sure 
 after the next rain they will flow again. 
 
 Let us talk about them a few minutes. How 
 many branches are there in the crown of a beech 
 tree ? The crown of a tree is the part above the 
 trunk, no matter how low the limbs may grow. If 
 they start at the ground the little tree is all crown. 
 And how many branches are there in the root of 
 the beech tree? It would be hard to answer either 
 of these questions, but every large tree has a great 
 many branches both above and below the surface 
 of the soil. 
 
 When next we go into the woods I want you to 
 find a big tree and try to count the number of dead 
 limbs in its crown, and the scars where limbs have 
 been. Many limbs, big and little, die every year. 
 The crown branches drop off when they die, and 
 the root branches decay, leaving a hole where they 
 grew.
 
 When the rain falls in the forest it does not pack 
 the soil as it does sometimes in fields, for the tree 
 tops break the force of the drops, and much of the 
 rain water follows down the limbs and trunk to the 
 ground. The forest floor is covered with a carpet 
 
 Leaves on the forest floor. 
 
 of decaying leaves, which absorbs the rain water. 
 As it sinks into the soil it finds the holes where 
 the dead roots once grew, and so instead of running 
 off over the surface of the land as would happen on 
 a hard road, the rain water in the forest makes little 
 underground rivers. 
 
 The water that follows the courses of dead roots
 
 28 
 
 helps to make the subsoil richer by carrying down 
 small parts of the decayed leaves and twigs from the 
 surface. The air also passes freely into all the holes 
 in the soil, and this is very helpful to the roots of 
 plants. 
 
 Forest floor with carpet removed. 
 
 There are other channels for water and air besides 
 those where roots once grew. All the animals that 
 make burrows in the soil help to form underground 
 rivers. The moles, gophers, woodchucks, mice, 
 and many other little creatures that are a pest to 
 farmer and woodsman help him a little in this way. 
 The fish worm makes a great many tiny channels
 
 29 
 
 through which air and water pass freely, and it 
 is thus a great worker in deepening the soil and 
 making it richer. 
 
 Now, when a forest is all cut away, and the land 
 is turned into farms, many of the underground 
 rivers become dry, and the rain water runs over the 
 surface of the soil, washing it into gullies, unless the 
 fanner uses his land very carefully. Since the trees 
 are no longer there to put a coat of leaves on the 
 ground every year, the farmer should try to sup- 
 ply something in the place of leaves. He may plow 
 under crops of peas, grass, rye, or weeds any kind 
 of plants that will decay in the soil will help to keep 
 open underground rivers. Or he may plow under 
 the manure from the stables and feeding lots, and 
 thus make the soil richer and keep the little rivers 
 flowing at the same time.
 
 VI. WHAT THE FOREST DOES FOR THE 
 
 SOIL 
 
 EVERY plant does something to the soil in which 
 it grows. It takes something out of the soil and 
 gives something back to it. The soil is like a sav- 
 ings bank. Some people put in money every week, 
 and take out very little; and the bank takes care 
 of the money and adds to it, so that the longer a 
 man leaves his money with the banker the more he 
 gets. Then, some day he can take out more money 
 than he has put in, for the money itself has been 
 earning a little all the time, and this little is added 
 to the whole amount. Year by year the savings 
 increase. If a boy two years old were to begin now 
 and put one cent a day in the savings bank until 
 he came of age, he would have a hundred dollars, 
 provided he drew no money out. 
 
 Now, the forest is all the time taking a little 
 store from the soil, but it is every year putting more 
 into it than it takes out. All through the long 
 summer the roots of the trees are taking water from 
 the soil and carrying it up to the leaves. 
 
 The water is never pure, but always contains 
 certain things that the plants live upon. If you 
 drop a lump of sugar into water, the lump soon dis- 
 appears, but the w r ater tastes sweet. The water has
 
 taken up the sugar. In the same way, while the 
 water is in the ground it takes up certain things 
 from the soil which it carries into the plant. We 
 think spring water pure, because it is clear, but 
 pure spring water contains all the food that plants 
 need. 
 
 The trees that grow in the forest where the wind 
 cannot blow the leaves away act just like other 
 plants their roots absorb water from the soil, and 
 this water contains different things that the trees 
 must have for food ; but such very small portions 
 are dissolved in the water that it tastes pure to us. 
 Spring water contains a great many things, all 
 mixed together, and all necessary for the plants. 
 Here are some of the things contained in spring 
 water that plants must have in their food : oxygen, 
 hydrogen, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, iron, 
 chlorine, calcium, magnesium. You need not learn 
 these names. They are used here just to show 
 you how many different things spring water may 
 contain when we think it is perfectly pure. 
 
 The water that enters the plant thus carries food, 
 and the plant thrives on it, as we grow by what we 
 eat. 
 
 Every year the forest returns to the soil all the 
 leaves that grew during the season and a great 
 many twigs and limbs that have died" from want of
 
 32 
 
 light. Down in the ground a great many roots also 
 die every year. The forest covers the ground so 
 densely that the wind cannot blow the fallen leaves 
 away, and the shade of the trees keeps the ground 
 much more moist than it would be if the trees were 
 
 Section through leaves and surface soil to subsoil. 
 
 wide apart, as in an orchard. So the leaves, twigs, 
 and dead limbs lying on the moist soil soon decay, 
 and most of the matter they are made of burns up 
 and passes into the air. The burning is so very 
 slow that there is neither smoke nor flame. We 
 are apt to think that there can be no burning unless 
 there is fire, but the fact is that the change which
 
 33 
 
 takes place in the dead leaves that fall from the 
 trees is a very slow burning. It takes several years 
 for a single crop of leaves to burn in this way ; 
 while a fire lighted to the leaves would burn 
 throughout the forest in a very few hours. But 
 such rapid burning leaves only ashes, and ashes do 
 not improve the soil so much as do leaves and twigs 
 and fruit, which rot slowly and become mixed with 
 the soil itself. We call the decaying wood and 
 leaves humus, and it is the best gift the forest can 
 make to the soil. It is a good plant food. It holds 
 water like a sponge. It lets air into the soil when 
 mixed with it. It prevents the rapid drying of the 
 soil. All these things are good for the plants that 
 the farmer grows, and so the forest helps not only 
 the soil but it helps the farmer also. 
 
 It takes a great many years for the humus to form 
 on the floor of the forest. Every leaf helps, but 
 each leaf is so small that all the leaves that grow in 
 fifty years or more are needed to make humus enough 
 to improve the soil of a field. 
 
 A farmer can supply as much plant food to the 
 soil, in the form of manure, in a single winter as a 
 forest might give in fifty years ; but a great many 
 farmers do not manure their fields at all. They 
 plant crops in the fields year after year, and the crops 
 yield less and less, until the soil does not produce 
 
 3
 
 34 
 
 enough to pay for working it. Then the farmer 
 quits and lets nature care for the land. 
 
 What does nature do with an old field ? By bad 
 work on the part of the farmer the loam has become 
 washed away and the clay subsoil shows here and 
 there in the field. The crops have taken so much 
 of the plant food out of the soil that even the weeds 
 do not grow well in it. But hardly any soil is too 
 poor for some kind of a weed to live in it, even 
 though the growth is poor. 
 
 So the first few-years after a field is turned out 
 there is a growth of poor weeds, each one of which 
 is helping the soil a little. Kvery weed that grows, 
 no matter how bad it may be for our crops, earns its 
 right to live by doing what it can to make the soil 
 better; and in old fields, where nothing else will 
 grow, the weeds are very useful to the owner of the 
 land. 
 
 After a while there will appear among the weeds 
 a few woody plants, such as greenbrier, and black- 
 berry, and sassafras, and each one of these helps to 
 make the soil better not only by the fall and decay 
 of its own leaves but also by making lodging places 
 for the dead weed leaves, so that the wind cannot 
 blow them away. 
 
 If we go away for fifteen or twenty years, and then 
 return, we shall hardly know the old field, for it will
 
 36 
 
 be covered over with young trees of many kinds. 
 Pine and cedar, tulip and ash, maple and cherry 
 a great many trees will be found in the field, and 
 only in a few places can we see the bare soil. Al- 
 most everywhere the trees and bushes will cover 
 the land, and every one of them will be at work 
 making the land better by shedding its yearly crop 
 
 Sapling pines in abandoned field. 
 
 of leaves and twigs. All the time the trees will be 
 getting bigger and bigger. In fifty years quite 
 good-sized trees will stand in the field, making a 
 young forest ; and in a hundred years or more fine 
 timber can be cut from the old field, and the land
 
 37 
 
 will be so rich that it will again produce good 
 crops. 
 
 But a hundred years is a long time to wait for the 
 forest to enrich our poor soil. The better way is 
 not to allow our crops to rob the soil. Let us every 
 year put just a little more plant food into the soil 
 than the crops take out. Then, if we look carefully 
 after a few other things, our fields will never be worn 
 out, but will become better year by year. 
 
 In the Middle West, where the forest only bor- 
 ders the streams, or where no trees grow, it takes 
 much longer for nature to restore fertility to a worn- 
 out field because there the ground cover is only 
 weeds and grasses, and humus forms very slowly.
 
 VII. THK ROBBER FARMKR 
 
 ONCK upon a time there was a farmer who be- 
 came poorer and poorer until everything he had was 
 taken away from him to pay his debts. The crops 
 that this farmer grew were all robbers they took 
 things from the soil and put nothing back. It was 
 not the fault of the crops, however, but of the farmer ; 
 and when at last he lost all his lands the fields were 
 not sorry, for the man that got them did not help 
 the crops to rob, and they began to get fertile again. 
 
 When the first farmer bought the land it was all 
 covered with forests, and the trees had made it rich. 
 The first thing he did was to cut all the trees and sell 
 them to the lumbermen. When he first plowed the 
 land it was full of tree roots, and it had a dark, rich 
 color. Part of the farm was level, but part of it was 
 very steep. The farmer cleared it all of trees and 
 pianted corn, which he plowed and hoed. The corn 
 grew large and strong, for it had all the food it 
 wanted. The forest had greatly enriched the soil 
 
 During the summer, whenever it rained, little 
 gullies would form, and the rain water would carry 
 the soil away, in places one or two feet wide and 
 three or four inches deep. In all the steep parts of 
 the field the rich top soil would thus be washed 
 away, and neither the corn plants nor the farmer
 
 39 
 
 were helped by it. Some other farmer, who lived 
 down the slope or along the creek where the soil 
 was lodged by the stream, was made richer, and that 
 was all. 
 
 All summer long the corn grew and made a fine 
 crop. When the corn was ripe in the fall the farmer 
 cut all the stalks off close to the ground and shocked 
 them. When he had shucked all the ears and put 
 them into the corn crib he sold the fodder to a 
 neighbor to be fed to the stock during the winter. 
 The big field was left all bare ; so the winter rains 
 washed the rich top soil down the slopes; but the 
 farmer was thinking what a fine crop he had made, 
 and he left the land to take care of itself. 
 
 The forest had not treated the land so badly. It 
 had taken a great deal of richness from the soil, but 
 in the fall, when the frost came, it had covered the 
 land all over with leaves. And in the winter many 
 dead twigs and branches dropped off the trees, and 
 many roots died in the ground. All these dead 
 leaves and twigs, branches and roots, the forest gave 
 back to the soil. But the corn plant could give 
 nothing; since even its leaves and stalks had been 
 carried away. 
 
 The poor farmer planted other crops on this field 
 
 -wheat, oats, rye, corn and every year he took 
 
 all the crop away. In a very few years the field did
 
 40 
 
 not yield so well as it did at first. The tenth crop 
 of corn had only small stalks, and there were al- 
 most as many nubbins as good ears. The corn 
 plants were anxious to make just as big ears as the 
 first crop of corn had produced, but the plant food 
 in the soil had been used up or wasted. 
 
 What should you tell this farmer to do? I 
 should tell him to go into the forest and learn the 
 lesson it teaches. The plant food in the soil which 
 he has carried away in the form of crops must be 
 replaced in the form of manures. The forest uses 
 leaves and roots and twigs and branches for manure 
 for the soil. What should the farmer use ?
 
 VIII. WEEDS 
 
 WHAT is a weed ? In one story it was said that if 
 the farmer plows under a heavy growth of weeds it 
 keeps the little rivers 
 in the soil open and 
 thus prevents the rain 
 from making gullies 
 in the fields. When 
 weeds are allowed to 
 grow high for this 
 purpose, they are use- 
 ful and may be called 
 a kind of crop. In- 
 deed, in the northwest, 
 where wheat is the 
 greatest crop, most 
 farmers allow weeds 
 to grow in the fields 
 instead of wheat, once 
 in four or five years, 
 on purpose to plow 
 under. They call the 
 weeds a fallow crop; 
 
 and by plowing the land when the weeds are in 
 bloom they prevent weed growth the next year 
 and improve the texture of the soil. 
 
 Corn cockle, a weed of the wheatfield.
 
 42 
 
 Morning glory, a weed of the meadow. 
 
 In Tennessee corn- 
 fields one often sees 
 a great many morn- 
 ing-glory vines, and 
 in the morning when 
 the flowers are all 
 open they are very 
 pretty. Is the morn- 
 ing-glory a weed ? 
 Two years ago I 
 grew some bachelor's 
 buttons in the gar- 
 den, and every visitor 
 admired their blue 
 flowers. The bache- 
 lor's button, like most 
 plants, has several 
 names. The Ger- 
 mans call it the corn 
 flower, and some 
 people call it ragged 
 robin. Last year I 
 planted other things 
 in that part of the gar- 
 den, but the bache- 
 lor's buttons had 
 sown their own seed
 
 43 
 
 in the land, and it took a great deal of hoeing to 
 get rid of them. Were they weeds ? 
 
 Last year acorn plant came up in the rose garden, 
 and the gardener allowed it to stand. It was a weed, 
 just as truly as if it had been a purslane or a dog 
 fennel or a sour dock. 
 
 When the morning-glory grew in the cornfield it 
 was out of place, for the land was intended to pro- 
 duce a crop of corn. And when the corn plant 
 appeared in the rose garden it was equally out of 
 place, for it was the business of the garden to yield 
 a crop of roses. 
 
 A weed, then, is a plant that is growing where it 
 is not wanted. The dictionary tells us a weed is a 
 plant that is useless or troublesome ; and soine one 
 says a weed is a plant for which man has not found 
 a use. Let us think of all these meanings in trying 
 to find out what a weed is. 
 
 In a cornfield, the morning-glory is a weed, but it 
 is a flower to be cared for if planted where it will shade 
 the kitchen window, or the porch where the morn- 
 ing's work is done. It seems odd to call the useful 
 corn plant a weed, but there are a great many useful 
 things that become nuisances when out of place. 
 
 Every plant that comes up in a wheat field except 
 the wheat itself is a weed, and the same is true of 
 any other plant in any field devoted to a special
 
 44 
 
 crop. The pastures and meadows are apt to have 
 many kinds of weeds, and all of them are much 
 
 safer among the 
 grasses than they 
 would be if grow- 
 ing among corn 
 plants. Why ? 
 
 The farmer 
 must keep up a 
 constant fight with 
 the weeds, or they 
 will use more of 
 the plant food in 
 the fields than his 
 crop can spare. 
 The fields ought 
 to be rich enough 
 to support the 
 crop and have 
 something left, 
 but it would be 
 foolish to give 
 what is left to the 
 weeds. And if it should happen that weeds 
 spring up in spite of the farmer's care, the best 
 thing to do with them is to plow them into the 
 soil, where by decaying they will help the land; 
 
 Dock, a weed of the meadows.
 
 45 
 
 only this should always be done before they go to 
 seed. When one plows ripe weeds under one really 
 sows a crop that is very hard to overcome. 
 
 Weeds are troublesome not only because they 
 take food from the soil but also water. W r eeds 
 require water just as crops do, and in dry seasons, 
 particularly, the weeds should be kept out. 
 
 Some weeds are very aggressive, and if left to 
 themselves capture a field or a meadow in a single 
 season. But these are usually watched for by the 
 farmer, and he seldom lets them get a foothold. I 
 suppose that the sneaking kind of weeds that slip in 
 among the grasses in the meadow land, or hide 
 among the small grain, really cause the most loss, 
 for no one realizes how much they are taking from 
 the crop. 
 
 When the meadow gets very weedy it must be 
 plowed, and corn and other crops that need hoeing 
 must be planted in the field. Corn, cotton, tobacco, 
 potatoes, and vegetables are good crops to plant on 
 grass land, for the tillage they require is the very 
 thing necessary to kill the weeds. 
 
 The weeds could teach us many lessons, but 
 usually we are too busy killing them to study them 
 very much. If we study their habits we shall dis- 
 cover better ways of fighting them. A great many 
 farmers who try to kill weeds only succeed in trans-
 
 4 6 
 
 planting them. I have seen men wait until the cool 
 of the evening to hoe the weeds in their gardens. 
 That was easy for the men, but had the weeds been 
 cut off just below the surface of the soil after the 
 dew had dried in the morning, they would not have 
 sprouted again after the next rain. I have also 
 seen boys hoeing in weedy gardens, where they 
 
 Ox-eye daisy, a weed of the meadows. 
 
 would cut off the weeds just above the ground, or 
 dig them up bodily by making deep gashes into 
 the ground. Neither is a good way. In the first 
 case buds near the ground are sure to grow, and in 
 the second a rain will set the plants to growing 
 again. 
 
 The best way to kill weeds by hoeing is to cut 
 just far enough below the surface of the soil to cut 
 through the root, and then turn the stem base up, so
 
 47 
 
 that it will wilt quickly. Deep hoeing often leaves 
 enough soil attached to the root above the cut to 
 enable the plant to grow. Hoe shallow, from one 
 half to one inch deep, and hoe every bit of the sur- 
 face. This will kill all the weeds, make adust mulch 
 on the ground, and save the moisture in the soil for 
 the crop. 
 
 No single hoeing will kill all the weeds, for the 
 seeds do not all sprout at one time, and we no sooner 
 get rid of those that are big to-day than little ones 
 grow up which must be hoed next week. 
 
 For field work cultivators with many small teeth 
 are the best weed killers, but they can only be used 
 to advantage while the weeds are small. The weeds 
 in a corn crop should never be allowed to grow 
 until they are so big that a double shovel cultivator 
 is the only thing that can root them up. The corn- 
 field is best cultivated with a spike-tooth harrow 
 until the corn is at least four inches high. 
 
 Now, it would be a good thing for us to learn the 
 names of all the weeds we can, and make a collec- 
 tion of them in three sizes : in babyhood, in flower, 
 and in fruit. And let us be sure to get the roots as 
 well as the tops. In doing this I think we can find 
 out what the business of the weed is.
 
 48 
 
 IX. WHAT THE RUSSIAN THISTLE DID 
 
 THIS is the story of a foreigner. There are a 
 great many foreigners in our fields, but most of 
 them have lived there so long that we can hardly 
 tell them from the natives. But this foreigner 
 made such a commotion in so short a time that she 
 was very much talked about. Most plants (we are 
 talking about plants, you know, not about people) 
 come into a new country very quietly, and some of 
 them slip in hidden among others. That is what 
 the thistle did. 
 
 Nobody wanted her. She was not liked in 
 Russia, but she was sly, and slipped into the wheat 
 fields and hid her seeds among the grain, and so 
 got into the grain sacks. Somebody bought a lot 
 of Russian wheat to plant in Dakota, and the thistle 
 was bought, too, though the buyer did not know it, 
 and everybody was sorry when the discovery was 
 made. 
 
 Now, the thistle had had a pretty hard time in 
 Russia, and she was glad to get away. She took 
 her place in the seeder as if she had a right there, 
 and she no sooner found herself in the ground than 
 she pushed her head above the surface and took a 
 look around. It was a fine country. There was 
 plenty of moisture and plenty of food, and she
 
 49 
 
 enjoyed her life very much, growing fast and strong. 
 She was modest at first and nobody saw her. 
 
 A great many plants besides wheat grew in the 
 fields of Dakota. There was the mustard, which 
 had big leaves and bright yellow flowers. In some 
 fields there were so many mustard flowers that you 
 could not see the wheat eighty acres of brilliant 
 yellow ! And there were the fire weed and the 
 cockle, and many others. The farmers on the look- 
 out for these might be excused for not seeing a plant 
 whose leaves were less than half an inch long, and 
 spine-shaped at that, and whose flowers were so 
 small that one had to search for them, hidden close 
 to the stem in the axils of the leaves. 
 
 So the Russian thistle grew unmolested, and it 
 happened that some plants escaped the reaper, and 
 they stood quietly until the end of the season, ripen- 
 ing their seed. Unlike the mustard, they did not 
 hasten to drop their seed and they each produced a 
 great many, for almost every leaf hid a flower, and 
 every flower produced a seed. But in the fall, when 
 the wind began to blow, the thistles were wrenched 
 loose, and began rolling over the fields before the 
 wind. As they jumped along over the plowed land 
 the seeds were jolted out, but the thistle hated to 
 part with them, so she did not drop them all at once. 
 It took a great many jolts before they were all set 
 
 4
 
 50 
 
 free, and the wind had carried the thistle several 
 miles, so that she sowed her seed over a big stretch 
 of country. 
 
 There were few fences in Dakota at that time, 
 and it is a level country, so the big, bushy thistles 
 rolled for miles and miles, scattering their seed as 
 they went. The next spring the farmers began to 
 notice a new weed in their wheatfields, and because 
 it had spiny leaves they called it a thistle, and soon, 
 when it was learned whence it came, it was given 
 the name of Russian thistle. As a matter of fact, 
 however, it is not even related to the thistle family, 
 but belongs to the pigweeds. And how it spread ! 
 In a very few years it became worse than the mus- 
 tard, and the State passed a law against it. 
 
 For a few years the farmers were in a panic, and 
 then some one discovered that the foreigner could 
 not live in a field where the cultivator was kept 
 going, and the farmers really owe a vote of thanks 
 to the Russian thistle for forcing them to rotate 
 hoed crops with small grain.
 
 Si 
 
 X. THE PLANT'S BUSINESS 
 
 I WONDER why it is that so many men treat plants 
 as if they were not alive. It seems as if they never 
 thought about the life of the plant until they tried 
 to kill it. They know that horses, cattle, sheep, and 
 pigs are alive, and they give them a group name, 
 " live stock." No doubt they think of plants as 
 "dead stock." It would be no more foolish than to 
 treat the plants as many men do. 
 
 I like to think of plants, as I like to think of boys, 
 as always very much alive, every one with business 
 to attend to, and each doing his best at the work. 
 I think you will agree with me that the peach tree 
 and the apple tree have business of their own, and 
 when they give us fine crops of fruit we are glad 
 they have worked so well. And we are sure that 
 the corn plants and the cotton plants have done a 
 good summer's work when we gather good crops of 
 corn and cotton in the fall. But have not the cockle- 
 bur and the ragweed also attended to their business 
 during the entire season? 
 
 Sometimes I think that man believes that all the 
 plants were made for him that the business of 
 the plants is to be useful to man. But a great 
 many questions rush to my mind. If that is so, 
 why does he find so many of them useless ? \\ hy
 
 52 
 
 does lie use them in so few ways ? And so we may 
 well study this question: What is the plant's busi- 
 ness ? 
 
 The boy that gathers hickory nuts enjoys the 
 exercise and likes the nuts. I wonder if it ever 
 occurs to him that there are other nut gatherers be- 
 sides himself, and 
 that the old hickory 
 tree thinks more of 
 them than of him ? 
 When I was a boy 
 we used to devote 
 a day every year 
 to gathering wild 
 plums. Father 
 and mother and 
 all of us children 
 would go up the 
 river several miles 
 in our boats, and 
 when the season 
 
 was good we would get all the plums we could use. 
 There were wild plum thickets which fruited freely. 
 Many plums were too poor to use, but some were 
 very fine. We all have gathered luscious black- 
 berries in the wood lots and pastures, and along 
 the roadside. Was it the business of hickory and 
 
 Blackberry in fruit.
 
 53- 
 
 plum tree and blackberry bush to ripen their fruits 
 for us ? 
 
 Away up in the Canada woods where the birch 
 tree is so common that men for- 
 get its beauty, when early spring 
 comes the air is full of tiny seeds 
 that come spinning on their 
 double wings to the earth ; and 
 if the wind catches them it car- 
 ries them far from the parent 
 tree, and may even land them 
 miles away. You may see the 
 same thing happen in the pines. 
 Then all of you know what 
 thistledown is ; and if you have 
 not made fairy balls of milk- 
 weed seed, all I can say is you 
 had better learn how, this very 
 summer. I have seen little girls 
 ask the head of the dandelion if 
 mother wanted them, by blow- 
 ing it three times, and if all of its hair was blown 
 off in three blows, home they went. Do you sup- 
 pose the business of the dandelion is to tell little 
 girls when their mothers want them? If not, why 
 do their heads have hair, all white and silky, that 
 blows away with a breath ? 
 
 Dandelion in fruit.
 
 54 
 
 Then there are the burdocks and the cockle- 
 burs and the beggar's lice. I have gone through 
 the woods in the fall and come out with my clothing 
 
 so covered with beg- 
 
 gar's lice that it al- 
 most seemed as if 
 the plants were angry 
 with me and had 
 made a half hour's 
 work necessary in 
 order to, settle some 
 grudge. I wonder if 
 the burdock and the 
 cockle hate cows ? 
 Is it the business of 
 beggar's lice and bur- 
 dock to bother me 
 and the cows ? 
 
 If these are the duties of plants, I must say I like 
 the nut trees and the fruiting plants vastly better 
 than some others I have mentioned. But in going 
 through the mountains one sees thousands of nut 
 trees, and very few people, and who does not know 
 what vast quantities of berries go to waste every 
 year? Are the plants so wasteful as to produce nuts 
 and berries that are not used at all ? 
 
 I think we must find some other business for the 
 
 Burdock seed.
 
 55 
 
 plants than being useful to man. They are useful 
 to us in a great many ways, but then, turn about is 
 
 Burdock. 
 
 fair play, and we are useful to such plants as be- 
 friend us. Indeed, I have seen cockleburs growing
 
 56 
 
 in cornfields so happily that it almost made me 
 think their best friend was the farmer. 
 
 Besides we have already seen that plants are use- 
 ful to the soil as well as to man. The forest im- 
 proves the soil by giving to it every year a crop of 
 leaves and twigs. And in the prairies and the plains 
 the grasses help the soil in much the same way. 
 Furthermore the plants are as useful to animals and 
 birds as to men. Every animal that eats grass and 
 grain and fruit, and every bird that lives on seeds, is 
 dependent on the plants for food.
 
 57 
 XI. BUDS AND SEEDS 
 
 IF we have all decided what the plant's business 
 is we may find out something about the means 
 it uses in doing its work. All the plant has to 
 think about is how to make more plants of its 
 own kind, and it begins working with this end in 
 view very early. In order to have as many perfect 
 seeds as possible, while it is yet in flower, it does 
 what it can to attract insects, which help in making 
 its seeds perfect. The insects do a great deal of 
 work for the plants, but the plants pay them well. 
 They store perfume in their flowers, and what is 
 even better, they store honey there, to pay for the 
 insects' work. 
 
 But to me the strangest thing the plants do is to 
 hang out bright flags red and white and yellow 
 and many other colors to attract the insects' atten- 
 tion. You know the bees and flies have a great 
 many eyes, and they can see a long way. One of 
 them may be flying along for exercise, when he spies 
 the pink banner of a wild azalea, far across the 
 creek. He says to himself, " I did not know Miss 
 Azalea was awake yet, but I see her wavinir a flai* 
 
 J O O* 
 
 and I will go over and visit her." And when he 
 reaches the azalea, that lovely flower has a dish of 
 the sweetest-smelling honey for him. No wonder
 
 58 
 he is s^lad to work a little for her. Let us watch 
 
 O 
 
 along the road as we go home and see if we cannot 
 find insect visitors among the flowers. The weeds 
 are just as good friends of insects as the other plants. 
 
 Now, some plants do not care for the insects. 
 They get the breeze to do their work, and they do 
 not have to pay him, so they do not take the trouble 
 to hang out flags, nor store honey in their flowers. 
 All the plants of this kind save the material the 
 flags are made of to use in other ways. The wheat, 
 corn, grasses, and many of the trees have greenish- 
 colored flowers, because they do not need the help 
 of insects. But the clover and rape and cotton and 
 many vegetables brighten their flowers to call the 
 insects. And the wild rose is red and sweet, not 
 because we love it, but because it thus lures and 
 repays its insect visitors. 
 
 A little while after the flowers fade, a great many 
 seeds take their places on the plant. The plants 
 have almost as many kinds of seed and seed covers 
 as they have flowers. The apple plant covers its 
 seed with juicy flesh in a bright red skin, and it 
 gives the flesh and skin to you and me for carrying 
 its seeds out of the orchard and dropping them on 
 the ground. The wheat plant covers its seeds with 
 a strawy chaff that is troublesome to thresh off ; 
 and is of no use to us at all ; but the wheat plant
 
 59 
 
 knows well that men like its seed to make flour 
 of, and will be sure to save enough to make more 
 wheat plants next year. 
 
 The nut trees know that squirrels and boys will 
 carry off most of their seed, but they also know 
 that squirrels 
 have short mem- 
 ories, and for- 
 get where they 
 have made their 
 storehouse. The 
 dogwoods feed 
 their berries to 
 the birds, which 
 carry the seed 
 away and drop 
 it to grow into 
 dogwood trees. 
 
 Now I think 
 we can see why the beggar's lice and the cockle- 
 bur bother men and other animals that pass their 
 way. The maple and the elm drop their seeds 
 into the stream over which they love to grow, and 
 the willow and the poplar give theirs to the wind, 
 to carry where it will. 
 
 Have you thought what a lot of work the plants 
 give men and birds and beasts and creeks and wind 
 
 Dogwood berries.
 
 6o 
 
 to do ? Men are not the only planters. I should 
 not be surprised if the birds plant more seed than 
 the farmers. All the sycamore and willow and 
 
 cottonwood trees 
 along our rivers 
 were planted by 
 the streams, while 
 the wind has helped 
 to plant the pin- 
 eries. 
 
 So you see the 
 plants have many 
 friends to call up- 
 on ; and the reason 
 they make them- 
 selves useful to us 
 is that we, in turn, 
 may help them to 
 increase in number 
 and in size, more than \vould be possible in their 
 wild state. 
 
 Every seed is a little plant that only needs heat 
 and moisture and air to help it push up a stem and 
 down a root, and there it is, alive and working, like 
 its parent plant. And every bud is a little plant 
 too, only it gets its moisture through the stem on 
 which it grows, and when it pushes, it makes a new 
 
 Beggar's lice.
 
 6i 
 
 branch instead of a new plant. Many plants in- 
 crease in number from stem-buds as readily as from 
 seed-buds, and some few have ceased making seed 
 growing entirely from stem-buds. The potato, 
 sugar cane, and banana form few, if any, seeds. 
 The seedless raisin is made from a grape which 
 grows only from stem-buds. The tulip and most 
 other bulbs form very few seeds, but grow from 
 stem-buds. 
 
 So plants have two ways of making new plants 
 by seeds and by buds. Can you mention some farm 
 and garden crops that are grown from seed, and 
 others from buds ?
 
 62 
 
 XII. WHY DO WE PLOW? 
 
 MAYBE I ought to ask why we see so many kinds 
 of plowing. When I see three big, strong horses 
 hitched to a good plow, going along at a brisk walk, 
 
 pulling hard, I 
 like to go over 
 into the field 
 and watch the 
 work. And if I 
 find a second 
 team, stronger 
 than the first, 
 following in the 
 furrow with a 
 subsoil plow, I 
 
 am sure that a good beginning is being made 
 toward a good crop. But when I see one little 
 horse hitched to a little plow, I am just as sure 
 that if the crop turns out good it will be not 
 because of, but in spite of, the plowing. 
 
 The little plow hardly turns a furrow more than 
 three inches deep. The man behind it is not care- 
 ful to make his furrows straight and even, and often 
 there are little unplowed spaces left. There is very 
 little good in this kind of plowing. It leaves the 
 top soil almost where it was before, and it does not 
 
 A plow at work.
 
 loosen the lower soil. The only help it is to the 
 farmer is that he gets enough loose earth by that 
 kind of plowing to cover the seed when he puts in 
 his crop. 
 
 The man with the big plow and the subsoiler does 
 a great deal more than this. His surface plow is 
 turning a furrow 
 ten inches deep, 
 and when the fur- 
 row is finished 
 the top soil is at 
 the bottom of the 
 last furrow and 
 the earth is 
 crumbled loose 
 all the way 
 through. The 
 subsoiler follow- 
 ing loosens the earth six inches deeper, without 
 moving it from its place. When the field is done, 
 the earth has been stirred to a depth of sixteen 
 inches, and it is loose, so that the air goes through 
 it almost as freely as it passes over its surface. 
 Why do we plow ? 
 
 I think a little observation just after a rain will 
 tell us one reason why. The rain comes down on 
 the pike road, the roadside, the meadow, and the 
 
 A subsoil plow.
 
 6 4 
 
 field ; the water quickly disappears from the .riewly 
 plowed field, and it takes a long, hard rain to 'make 
 little streams on its surface. The meadow does not 
 soak up the rain as fast as the plowed land, but the 
 
 Poor plowing. 
 
 water does not stand on the surface there as it does 
 in the dirt road ; while on a hard pike it takes but 
 a very little shower to leave pools of water in the 
 ruts. The dirt road has been packed by travel un- 
 til it too is very hard. The meadow, with its thin 
 covering of grass, has protected the soil from pack- 
 ing and baking, but it is not so loose as the plowed 
 land, in which, if the work was well done, the earth
 
 65 
 
 has been crumbled to a depth of ten inches or 
 more. 
 
 When* well plowed, then, the soil will absorb a 
 great deal more rain water, and will allow much less 
 to run off in surface streams, than is the case in land 
 that is not plowed. Shallow plowing does but little 
 
 Plows. 
 
 good, because it does not make a deep enough layer 
 of loose soil, and often the soil loosened in shallow 
 plowing is carried away by heavy rains. 
 
 In times of drought the land becomes hard as 
 well as dry, and does not so readily absorb the rain 
 as when it is loose. Deep-plowed land can be kept 
 more open than land plowed shallow, and so resists 
 droughts better.
 
 66 
 
 The rain that is absorbed by the surface layer of 
 plowed land sinks in the air spaces of the subsoil. 
 If the field has been subsoil-plowed the subsoil is 
 loose and open, letting the water sink easily into the 
 lower depths, where it finds pathways made by dead 
 roots and earthworms, and thus it gets deep into the 
 ground, and is all saved to the field. 
 
 The best time to plow depends not so much on 
 the season of the year as on the condition of the 
 soil. If the ground is very dry, as is often the case 
 in September, the soil will not crumble when turned, 
 but will break into large clods, in which condition 
 it will not absorb the rain easily. On the other 
 hand, especially in clay soil, if the land is plowed 
 when too wet, it will at first be sticky, and when 
 dry will be very hard, making it almost impossible 
 to fine it down with disks or harrows. Often land 
 plowed when too wet remains in bad condition 
 throughout the season. The best condition of the 
 
 O 
 
 soil for plowing is when it is dry on the surface and 
 fresh below. It will then crumble under the plow, 
 and can be perfectly turned, and is easily fined with 
 the disk harrow and the spike-tooth harrow. 
 
 Whenever stubble land is to be plowed the sooner 
 it can be done after the harvest the better. The 
 land should be so well turned that all the stubble is 
 covered. This can be done by taking narrow, regu-
 
 6; 
 
 lar furrows. The summer rains will help rot the 
 straw in the ground, and when well-rotted the straw 
 turns into manure, like the forest leaves. It adds very 
 little to the richness of the land, but makes clay 
 easier to work, by keeping the soil particles from 
 running together. For the same reason it is a good 
 plan to plow under the weeds, grass, cowpeas, or any 
 other green crop. 
 
 When through overcropping land has become 
 very poor, cowpeas, crimson clover, or other plants 
 of a similar nature, are often sown for the special 
 purpose of plowing them under as a fertilizer.
 
 68 
 
 XIII. GIVE THK CROPS PLENTY TO EAT 
 
 HEALTHY plants are like healthy boys and girls 
 always hungry. And when you have thousands of 
 corn plants in one field you may be sure that they 
 will need a great deal of food. Feeding a corn 
 plant and feeding a boy are two very different 
 things, because the plant and the boy do not eat in 
 the same way. The boy must have his food pre- 
 pared, and he wants it at least three times a day. 
 If the farmer had to feed a meal to each corn plant 
 three times a day, what a task he would have ! But 
 the farmer only places food for his corn crop once 
 in the whole year. And sometimes he forgets or 
 neglects to do even that, and then the poor corn 
 plants have a hard time, and yield only nubbins 
 instead of good, big ears. 
 
 We feed our crops when we fertilize the land in 
 which they grow. Some farmers use barnyard 
 manure to fertilize their fields, and some buy 
 fertilizers. When the manure is carefully handled 
 it is not only a good plant food, but it improves the 
 soil as the forest leaves do, and the green crops that 
 are plo\ved under. When the fertilizers are bought 
 it is more important to plow under cover crops than 
 when barnyard manure is used. 
 
 The plants need a good many kinds of food, but
 
 there is always plenty of almost all kinds in the 
 soil. The three kinds of plant food that must be 
 bought are nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. 
 These can be bought already mixed, or they can be 
 had separately. Barnyard manure contains all of 
 them, but if we want to buy nitrogen for plants, we 
 get it in the form of nitrate of soda or cotton-seed 
 meal. If we 
 want phosphoric 
 acid, we buy acid 
 phosphate or 
 ground bone, 
 and if we want 
 potash, we get 
 muriate or sul- 
 phate of potash 
 or wood ashes. 
 
 manures. 
 
 There are many 
 
 other fertilizers besides these, which contain more 
 or less nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and potash. These 
 things are to the plant what meat and bread and 
 vegetables are to boys and girls they are the 
 food by which the plants grow. It is not neces- 
 sary to remember their names, but we must remem- 
 ber that the plant cannot live without them. 
 
 When we want to make our pigs and cattle grow 
 well we feed them all they will eat ; and we must 
 
 ing effect of
 
 ;o 
 
 have the soil rich in plant food to make the plants 
 grow well. The plants take a good deal of their 
 food from the air, but we cannot control that- 
 
 there is always 
 plenty of the air 
 food. 
 
 When we 
 plant corn we 
 expect a crop of 
 grain. The plant 
 is just as anxious 
 to make a crop 
 as we are. The 
 plant's business 
 in life is to pro- 
 duce seeds, and 
 scatter them 
 widely. Every 
 grain of corn is a seed that contains a tiny bud 
 and a great deal of stored food for the bud to use 
 in growing until it can make roots and leaves. 
 And every bit of the stored food in the seed must 
 be taken by the plant from the soil and the air. 
 If there is plenty of food the plant will make big, 
 plump grains of corn, and full ears ; but if there 
 is so little food that the plant is almost starved, 
 it cannot do its work of seed-making any more than 
 
 Well-fed corn plants.
 
 a starving man could do his work, whatever it 
 might be. 
 
 But I can think of plants standing in rich soil and 
 starving to death, just as I can think of people 
 
 Small plant starved: it grew near a roadside tree. Large plant well fed: 
 from center of same field. 
 
 who are sick and cannot eat, though they have 
 plenty of food. To use its food, the plant must 
 have good roots and good leaves. The plants live 
 entirely on liquid diet -- they eat nothing but soup! 
 And the soup they eat is water just as it comes in
 
 72 
 
 the ground, with the things that are dissolved in 
 it. 
 
 When the rain is soaked into the soil, it takes up 
 all the plant food it can nitrogen and phosphoric 
 acid and potash and a great many other things. 
 
 Well-fed cowpeas. 
 
 But all of them put together are not enough to give 
 the water any taste ; it is like pure spring water. 
 If there is plenty of fertilizer in the soil, though, 
 enough of it will dissolve in the water to feed the 
 crops well. 
 
 Now, the soil that is best for plants must contain 
 air as well as water. The very best condition is to 
 have each grain of soil covered with a film of water,
 
 73 
 
 and wherever the grains are a little large, the spaces 
 between them will be filled with air. In this condi- 
 tion the roots grow readily, pushing themselves 
 between the soil particles, and using both the air 
 and the water in the soil. But in wet soil the air 
 spaces have been filled with water, and the roots 
 
 Starved cowpeas. 
 
 cannot work without air. They may thus stand in 
 rich soil and starve to death. Whenever a corn- 
 field is flooded, the leaves turn yellow, and that is a 
 way the plants have of telling us they are starving 
 for air at the root. 
 
 So, too, in times of severe drought there may be 
 plenty of food, but there is not water enough to take 
 it into the plant. 
 
 See how very much like people the plants are !
 
 74 
 
 XIV. SOWING THE SEED 
 
 I WONDER how many seeds the plants sow every 
 year. I am sure that the ox-eye daisy alone sows 
 millions and millions ; and when I think of all the 
 flowers, and the grasses, and the weeds, and the 
 trees, and the farm and garden crops, there must be 
 more seed sown every year than there are coins for 
 all the money in the world. 
 
 If you could count the seeds that . ripen on a 
 single radish plant, you would have a big job, for I 
 dare say there are hundreds. And if the radish is 
 let alone it will sow every seed it has. But it would 
 not plant them as the gardener would. The radish 
 plant can not plow and harrow and put its seeds in 
 a drill ; it must simply drop them from its pods, and 
 then leave them for nature to take care of. 
 
 We have found in a previous story what strange 
 ways some plants have of getting their seed spread 
 abroad. Wheat and corn and the vegetables are 
 lucky enough to be very useful to man, and need 
 not depend on wind and beasts and water to carry 
 their seeds away and plant them. But none of the 
 wild plants expect help from man. And so, in order 
 that each plant may have at least one of its seeds to 
 grow, it sows hundreds in the hope that one may fall 
 in a good place and get a chance to live.
 
 75 
 
 The wild plants sow millions and millions of seeds 
 every year, and most of these fail to sprout. Of 
 those that grow, very few live to bear seed. This 
 spring, on May 6, I found one hundred and seventy- 
 three little cherry trees just started from the seed, 
 on one square foot of land beneath a wild cherry, 
 and there were a great many other plants growing 
 with them on that one square foot of land - ox- 
 eye daisies, plantains, wild lettuce, several kinds 
 of grasses, and other weeds. How many of these 
 cherry trees do you think will live to bear fruit ? 
 
 Now, if each of the little seedling plants had been 
 given enough room to grow in and plenty of food, 
 all might have lived to bear seed. That is good 
 farming: to give each plant plenty of food, and the 
 right surroundings, and room enough, so that it may 
 grow as large and strong as it will. 
 
 Although the plants themselves do not sort their 
 seed, we do it for them. Instead of planting every 
 grain of wheat, as it comes from the threshing 
 machine, we plant only the plumpest grains. The 
 big grains contain more stored food than the small 
 or shriveled grains, and the little plant in the big 
 grain will have the best start, and usually it will 
 make more and better seed than the small grains. 
 
 But the little plants, as soon as they come up, 
 must have room for their leaves to spread out to
 
 Wheat big and little grains. 
 
 the light, and for their roots to grow in. So if we 
 sow the seed thick we must soon thin the plants 
 
 by taking part of 
 them out. 
 
 Why do we 
 transplant toma- 
 toes and cab- 
 bage, and why 
 do we not trans- 
 plant wheat and 
 oats ? 
 
 Suppose a farmer were to sow five bushels of 
 good wheat to the acre, instead of five pecks, which 
 is enough for a good crop if the soil is the right 
 kind and in good condition. He would use four 
 times as much seed. Would he get four times as 
 large a yield ? 
 
 When we sow corn for ensilage we drill the seed in 
 rows, so the plants stand about six inches apart in 
 rows three and one half feet apart ; and the crop is 
 a great yield of leaves and stalks, but are there 
 many large ears ? 
 
 You see, then, that a great deal depends upon 
 getting the right amount of seed for a crop into 
 the ground. We must sow the best amount of the 
 best seed, at the best time, in the best way. 
 What are these four bests for wheat ?
 
 77 
 
 The plants do not cover their seed with soil, but 
 we must do it for them. Many plants try their best 
 to cover their seeds with leaves, but the wind blows 
 the leaves away and the seeds are left to dry. 
 
 We know that the seed must have moisture to 
 sprout, so we cover the seed with soil and pack the 
 earth firmly upon it. If the seed is sown too deep, 
 the food it contains will not last long enough for the 
 little sprout to reach the surface, and it will die. 
 
 I once planted some wheat grains in blotting 
 paper and they taught me some things that every 
 farmer should know. Ask the teacher to show you 
 how to make a blotting paper garden. 
 
 Some farmers sow wheat broadcast and harrow it 
 in. Others sow it with a press drill. Which is the 
 better way? 
 
 We know that the seed must have air as well as 
 moisture in order to sprout. Now, if the land is 
 wet, all the spaces in it are filled with water, and so 
 we should never plant seed in wet soil. But if the 
 land is dust-dry, while it contains plenty of air it has 
 not enough moisture for the seed to sprout. So the 
 soil should be neither wet nor dry, but just between, 
 when we call it fresh.
 
 XV. ROUND AND ROUND THE FARM 
 
 LKT us make a picture of a farm on the black- 
 board. In the center we shall mark off five acres 
 for home, garden, and feeding lots. Then we shall 
 make a line each way from the middle of one side, 
 passing through the home lot and reaching to the 
 center of the opposite side. We shall thus divide 
 the farm into four fields, which we may call A, B, C, 
 and D. 
 
 Now I want you to help me drive the crops from 
 one field to another in regular order, round and 
 round the farm. It does not make any difference 
 how we start, but there is a best way of arranging 
 our procession. If this year we have small grain 
 in A, corn in B, pasture in C, and meadow in D, 
 next year there should be meadow in A, small grain 
 in B, corn in C, and pasture in D. In the third year 
 there should be pasture in A, meadow in B, small 
 grain in C, and corn in D. In the fourth year 
 there should be corn in A, pasture in B, meadow 
 in C, and small grain in D, and this will complete 
 the first round. The fifth year the fields should be 
 used as they were when the rotation began. 
 
 Just at first, it seems as if it were a good deal of 
 trouble to change the crops from field to field every 
 year; it would be much less bother to plant corn in
 
 79 
 
 the same field ten years in succession. And when 
 a field is seeded to grass, which grows well for 
 several years without being disturbed, why should 
 we leave it in grass only two years at a time the 
 first year for hay and the second for pasture ? 
 
 I know two boys whose home life is very different. 
 One has meat and bread and butter and potatoes, 
 every meal, and nothing else to eat. He gets tired 
 of having nothing but meat and bread and butter 
 and potatoes, and often his stomach gets out of 
 order. He is not a very strong boy, and I am afraid 
 it is because of the sameness of his diet. 
 
 The other boy never knows what his next meal is 
 to be, for his mother gives him vegetables and fruits 
 and eggs, as well as meat and bread and butter and 
 potatoes. He does not have any more food than the 
 first boy, but there are so many kinds of food that 
 he does not tire of it, and he is strong and healthy. 
 
 We do not all relish exactly the same food, nor do 
 we use the same amounts of each kind. It is very 
 much the same with the plants. It may be that 
 the hay crop does not take the same amount of 
 nitrogen that the corn crop needs, and when the 
 pasture is plowed under it makes the soil quite 
 different from what it is when the corn stubble is 
 turned, because there is such a mass of grass tops to 
 rot in the soil.
 
 8o 
 
 If instead of grass we use cowpeas for a hay crop, 
 while it is true we must sow the seed each year, yet 
 they make a very heavy forage crop, and they enrich 
 the land merely by growing in it. Neither corn nor 
 other hoed crops can do this, but the clovers and 
 cowpeas, soja beans, velvet beans, and the pod-bear- 
 ing plants generally, take nitrogen from the air as 
 well as from the soil. Nitrogen is the most expen- 
 sive of all fertilizers ; and where clover or alfalfa or 
 cowpeas are grown, all the nitrogen that is stored in 
 the stems and roots of the plants at the time the 
 land is plowed becomes food for the next crop. 
 
 You will notice that I let corn follow pasture, and 
 if the pasture is of clover or peas, the corn will get 
 all the nitrogen their roots and stems contained. 
 The corn is a very greedy plant and sends its roots 
 far and deep in search of food. Clover and alfalfa 
 are even deeper-rooted than the corn, and they thus 
 prepare the land better for corn than any other 
 crops can. In the same way the corn, by its deep 
 rooting, puts the soil in good condition for small 
 grain. The grasses like a firm seed-bed, and may 
 be sown with small grain, growing in the shade of 
 the grain crop until it is harvested. So you see there 
 are good reasons for deciding the order of the 
 plants in the rotation. If potatoes, cotton, or other 
 crops that requires cultivating, are to be grown, they
 
 8i 
 
 should be given a place with corn, and of course all 
 kinds of small grain may be grown in the same 
 field. 
 
 One of the most helpful things in a rotation is the 
 year that the field is in pasture. The animals drop 
 manure all over the field, and when the pasture is 
 turned under, the manure adds to the fertility of the 
 land. By this plan, every field of the farm is fer- 
 tilized by a manure which both enriches the land 
 and improves its texture. The use of a field for 
 pasturage one year in four does not mean that no 
 fertilizers will be needed. The small grain crop 
 should have a dressing of fertilizer, and if the land 
 is poor, a good dressing should be spread on the 
 pasture before it is turned under for corn. 
 
 But the lesson to be remembered is that it is best 
 for all crops to move from field to field, round and 
 round the farm, in regular order; corn, grain, grass, 
 pasture, over and over again.
 
 82 
 
 XVI. STIRRING THE SOIL 
 
 THKRK arc a great many boys who believe that the 
 only reason why we cultivate the cornfield is to kill 
 weeds, and so keep the food that is in the soil for 
 the corn plants. 
 
 But I have seen cornfields that were badly in need 
 of cultivation in which very few weeds were growing. 
 We cultivate, or stir the soil, in many ways, and 
 always our chief reason has something to do with 
 the moisture of the soil. Sometimes when the land 
 is too wet, \ve stir the soil deeply to help dry it out. 
 When it is swampy, it may even be necessary to 
 ditch it, or put tile drains under the surface. 
 
 As a rule, however, we stir the soil to help it 
 absorb and hold moisture. I have told you that 
 plowing, which is one form of stirring the soil, if 
 well done, helps the land to absorb a great deal more 
 rain water than is taken in by unplowed land. All 
 the little open spaces in the plowed land fill up with 
 water before any begins to run off the surface. 
 Within a short time most of this water seeps into 
 the lower soil. The land gradually dries, because 
 the air is drier than the soil, and water passes from 
 the land into the air exactly as it passes from water. 
 If you fill a shallow pan with water and set it in the 
 sun, in a few days it will all have disappeared. But
 
 if you put a board over it, the water will last a long 
 time. 
 
 You know that the rain comes from clouds, which 
 are made principally of water that has been absorbed 
 by the air from the sea. But all the time the air is 
 also absorbing water from the land. First the top 
 
 Implements for stirring the soil. 
 
 soil becomes dry, and then in times of drought the 
 subsoil to a good depth may lose nearly all its water 
 into the air. 
 
 But if you cover fresh soil with a deep layer of 
 straw or leaves, it remains damp much longer than 
 uncovered soil. And I want you to see, if the road 
 is dry when you go home to-night, whether the 
 cultivated land in the cornfield is equally dry. 
 In some parts of the country, where they have
 
 8 4 
 
 plenty of straw, farmers plant their potatoes on the 
 surface, or barely cover them, then cover over the 
 entire field with straw. The potato tops grow up 
 through the straw, which mulches the land, keeping 
 it moist, and the potatoes form between the soil and 
 the straw. When they are ripe they are perfectly 
 clean, and the more easily gathered because they 
 are grown on top of the soil instead of under the 
 surface. 
 
 But we can not have straw and leaves enough to 
 make a good mulch over a big field, so we try to 
 make a mulch of the soil itself. We call it a dust 
 mulch, and we make it by running a fine-tooth culti- 
 vator through the soil to a depth of about two 
 inches. This lets the air in, and fines the earth so 
 that it dries out quickly, making a dust. 
 
 Many farmers go over their corn and small grain 
 two or three times with spike-tooth harrows, or with 
 wire-weeders, when the young plants are first up, 
 killing a great many weeds, and at the same time 
 covering the land with a dust mulch that prevents 
 the moisture from getting out into the air. 
 
 I have told you that the soil is made up of a great 
 many very small bits, each covered with a thin film 
 of water. The dry air absorbs the moisture from 
 the topmost soil particles, and then takes the mois- 
 ture from the ones below, and very soon the layer of
 
 85 
 
 soil in which the roots of the corn are growing is 
 dried out. Now, if we can put a layer of dust 
 between the corn roots and the dry air, it will check 
 
 Making a dust mulch (weeder at work). 
 
 the drying out of the soil exactly as a layer of leaves 
 or straw would. 
 
 We cultivate our crops to keep the surface as 
 near dust as possible in dry weather. There is a 
 great deal more need of cultivating in dry weather, 
 for it is then necessary to save all the moisture the 
 land contains for the crop. By simply keeping the 
 cultivator going, crops have been saved from drought.
 
 86 
 
 Single and double shovel cultivators are the poorest 
 implements that can be used for this work, for they 
 ridge the surface, causing it to dry more rapidly 
 than a smooth surface, which is formed by using 
 wire weeders and spike-tooth cultivators. 
 
 If weeds get a good start in the field, the fine- 
 toothed machines are not so good for rooting them 
 up as the larger ones, but the regular use of fine- 
 toothed cultivators prevents the weeds from getting 
 a start and so saves both the food and water the 
 weeds would use for the crop. 
 
 Stirring the soil permits the air to pass into it 
 freely and thus helps the plants to grow, for the 
 roots of plants need air in their work. Changes 
 take place in the soil when the air goes through it 
 freely, making it richer in plant food. 
 
 So a very large part of the work of the farmer is 
 plowing and cultivating and hoeing stirring the 
 soil.
 
 8; 
 
 XVII. THE HOED CROPS 
 
 WHEN you read the title of this story I wonder 
 how many of you will know what is meant by hoed 
 crops. We hoe cabbage and tomatoes. Do we hoe 
 wheat and peas? Do we hoe the grasses? The 
 gardener and the farmer give different meanings to 
 the word hoe. To the gardener it means stirring 
 the soil around vegetables. All the boys know 
 what a hoe is, and most boys dislike it, for some- 
 how the garden always needs hoeing just when 
 there are so many other things to be done pleas- 
 ant things, like fishing and hunting and swimming. 
 
 The market gardener uses a wheel-hoe instead of 
 a wooden-handled hoe, and by pushing it ahead of 
 him he can stir the soil as fast as he can walk. It 
 is a splendid machine, and one can do more and 
 better work with it among many plants than can be 
 done with a common hoe. 
 
 In large market gardens there are horse-hoes, 
 cultivators with five, seven, nine, or more teeth, 
 which are movable and can be arranged to do deep 
 or shallow work. 
 
 Of course more work can be done with the horse- 
 hoe than with the wheel-hoe. The next machine 
 for hoeing is a farmer's implement, the double culti- 
 vator, which straddles a row of corn, is pulled by two
 
 88 
 
 horses, and has spring teeth, or shovels. With this 
 the farmer can hoe several acres in a day. 
 
 So we see that every kind of crop that needs to 
 have the soil cultivated while it is growing, is called 
 a hoed crop. Corn, cotton, tobacco, and sorghum, as 
 
 A wheel hoe. 
 
 well as beans, peas, melons, onions, radish, and cab- 
 bage, are hoed crops. 
 
 There are many things which all kinds of hoed 
 crops need alike, and that is why we find ourselves 
 talking about corn and cabbage in the same story. 
 
 All the hoed crops do best in land that has been 
 well fertilized, well drained, and well plowed. They
 
 8 9 
 
 all need a great deal more hoeing in the early part 
 of the season than later on. When the plants first 
 come up in the spring, the soil is not so warm as it 
 becomes later; but hoeing the soil lets the air in and 
 warms it, and air and warmth make the little plants 
 grow faster. Then, as you know, all the weeds have 
 sown their seed in the fields before the farmer puts 
 in corn or cotton, and it almost always happens that 
 the weeds start before the crops do. Hoeing kills 
 the weeds, but one cut of the hoe will kill hundreds 
 of weeds in April which by June would require a 
 sharp stroke each ; and in the meantime the weeds 
 would have robbed the crop of a good deal of food. 
 
 By giving the crops a good start, we help them to 
 form big roots, which are their food-gatherers, and 
 big leaves, where their food is digested. All that 
 corn and cotton put into ear and boll is gathered by 
 roots and digested in leaves. So the first thing is to 
 make them strong. 
 
 After the plants have reached full size, no hoeing 
 is done. Maybe you think the farmer lays by his 
 corn because it is too big to cultivate, but that is not 
 the reason; for he might- make the rows farther apart, 
 and then he could plow until the corn is ripe. The 
 real reason is because it is time for the corn to stop 
 growing so fast and begin to form ears. The corn 
 seems to like to grow just as tall as it can. In Okla-
 
 90 
 
 homa, for example, it grows twelve feet high, while 
 in Minnesota, where the summer is much shorter, 
 and all the nights are cool, it seldom gets more than 
 eight feet high. But after all, what the farmer 
 wants is well-filled ears, and not a long stalk. So 
 the sooner he can get his corn to turn its attention 
 to making seed, the better. 
 
 It is much the same with the other crops. Get 
 them to grow well and strong during the first part 
 of the season, and they will make more and better 
 seeds afterward. The sweet potato sometimes makes 
 such a great top growth that it seems to forget to 
 thicken up its roots, and the farmers say it "runs all 
 to top." When this happens, it is a good plan to 
 twist the stems just above the ground until the juice 
 starts from them. This will remind them of their 
 work, and they will begin making potatoes instead of 
 long stems. 
 
 You know, when the tobacco plant is in bud or 
 flower, the entire flower cluster is cut off, so that the 
 food which would go into the seed passes largely into 
 the leaf, making it more perfect. But before the 
 sweet potatoes are twisted, or the tobacco is topped, 
 while the plants are still young, they are hoed often 
 and thoroughly, and made to grow well. When their 
 roots and leaves are well formed, and flowering be- 
 gins, the hoeing is stopped so as to check stem
 
 growth, for this always results in making more and 
 better seed. 
 
 I used to have a teacher who told us that when 
 the plants were in flower anything that checked 
 their growth made them fear that they might die, 
 so they hurried all they could with their work. Do 
 you remember what the plant's business is ? 
 
 Hoeing makes the plants grow better, by warming 
 the soil, saving the moisture in the soil, letting air 
 into the soil for the roots, and killing the robber 
 weeds. 
 
 All the crops that pay better for the extra work of 
 hoeing are called hoed crops. All the work that is 
 done on the soil after the crops are up is some form 
 of hoeing.
 
 XVIII. THE CEREALS 
 
 THK small grains wheat, oats, rye, and barley - 
 are called cereals, and they grow so much alike that 
 we can treat them in the same way. In the 
 Southern and Eastern states wheat is planted in 
 the fall, and the crop is harvested the following 
 summer, but in the north-west all the seed is 
 sown in the spring, and the harvest is in August. 
 
 The cultivation of the cereals is best done before 
 the s6ed is sown. That may seem strange to you, 
 but let us think about it a minute. 
 
 Wheat and oats cover the ground so closely, even 
 when sown with a press drill, that if we used a culti- 
 vator in the wheatfield, we would tear up at least two 
 thirds of the plants, and that would never do. In 
 Germany they sometimes sow wheat in drills wide 
 enough apart to allow hoeing by hand, but the work 
 is done by old women who get very little pay. If 
 we were to sow wheat in wide drills, there would be 
 danger of its being blown down by the wind. If it 
 grew well, each plant would yield more grain than 
 under our present method, but the whole field would 
 give little, if any, more, and the cost of cultivation 
 would be much greater. 
 
 As we grow them, the cereals come up so thick 
 that they smother out a good many weeds, but the
 
 93 
 
 farmer must try to get all the weeds killed before 
 he sows the grain. If plowing is done early, a great 
 many weeds will sprout soon after the land is plowed ; 
 and if the land can be harrowed twice before the 
 seed is drilled in, a host of weeds will be killed. 
 
 The cereals like a firm seed bed. If the land is 
 dry when plowed, it will need disking and rolling 
 and harrowing to make it fine and firm for the seed. 
 If the land has been in corn or an ensilage crop, 
 which has been given clean cultivation, the farmer 
 sometimes disks the field without plowing and then 
 drills in the seed. In this way he gets a firm seed 
 bed, and if the land is rich and clean this is a good 
 plan. One advantage of sowing small grain on 
 corn land is that the cultivation necessary to make 
 a good corn crop has killed the weeds, so that much 
 of the work for the grain crop is done while the corn 
 is growing. 
 
 All the old picture books show us a picture of the 
 farmer with a sack of seed slung from his shoulder, 
 walking across a plowed field, sowing the s.eed by 
 hand. But a much better way is to plant with a 
 press drill, which sows the seed in regular rows and 
 presses the soil firmly upon it, so that it will sprout 
 quickly and from the first make a good growth. 
 Broadcast sowing must be covered with a harrow, 
 which neither covers the seed evenly nor firmly
 
 94 
 
 presses the soil upon it. The drill is made so 
 that fertilizers can be sown with the grain. Grass 
 or clover can also be sown, and the machine meas- 
 ures exactly the amount of seed that is sown per 
 acre. 
 
 Often the small grain is harrowed and rolled after 
 it is up, but when the plants have tillered, nothing 
 more can be done for them ; the last harrowing is 
 the last hoeing they will get. During the winter, 
 the small grains may be grazed lightly without harm, 
 and rye is often sown purposely for winter pasture. 
 
 In the spring, especially if frost has raised the 
 plants, a good rolling will help them, and thereafter 
 the field must be left until harvest time. 
 
 The farmer can not control the weather, and 
 much of his success with cereals depends upon the 
 moisture content of the soil and the weather. But 
 there are things which he can do that will help to 
 make a good yield. He can run his seed wheat 
 through sieves that will separate the large from the 
 small grains, and use only the large grains for plant- 
 ing. He can soak the seed grain in blue vitriol for 
 a short time, then spread it to dry, before sowing, 
 and thus prevent smut in the crop. He can sow 
 late rather than early, and thus lessen the danger 
 from the Hessian fly. He can enrich the soil, and 
 have it in perfect condition at the time of seeding.
 
 95 
 
 XIX. IN THE MEADOW 
 
 THERE was once a grass plant that found itself in 
 the midst of a meadow, and it thought it would like 
 to know all about its neighbors. They were a very 
 quiet company 
 and the grass 
 plant had no help 
 from them. In 
 fact, it seemed as 
 if every plant in 
 that field was 
 doing its very 
 best to crowd 
 the other plants. 
 Our plant was 
 of the Orchard- 
 Grass family, 
 and when it first 
 peeped out from 
 
 the soil it had plenty of room. True, there were a 
 host of other little grasses there, but they were all 
 so tiny that nobody was crowded. 
 
 They were happy too. Big stems of wheat 
 towered above them, and they liked the cool spring- 
 time. As May passed, the shade of the wheat plants 
 was very pleasant, for some days were too warm for 
 
 Orchard-Grass.
 
 the grasses. But one day in June a noisy monster 
 swept over the little grasses, carrying with it the 
 
 forest of wheat. Only 
 the stubble remained, 
 and it made hardly any 
 shade. 
 
 But our little grass 
 was strong enough by 
 this time to stand the 
 full sun, and it grew 
 faster than before. 
 When it first came up 
 it showed a single erect 
 stem, that soon bore a 
 straight, narrow leaf. 
 But after a few months, 
 it began to send out 
 little side shoots, and 
 before long the Or- 
 chard-Grass found it- 
 self rubbing against 
 another grass plant 
 
 Then it bean to think 
 
 
 of its neighbor. 
 
 All the other grass plants had been doing the 
 same thing, though most of them did not grow as 
 fast as the Orchard-Grass. The Timothy was a
 
 97 
 
 strong youngster, but the Red-Top was very delicate 
 and had hardly thought of branching when it found 
 itself in the way of the Orchard-Grass. The Tall 
 Meadow Oat-Grass and the Italian Rye-Grass were 
 there, but they did not hap- 
 pen to be near our friend. 
 And a little Fescue that 
 had slipped in without being 
 caught waited breathlessly 
 to see if the others were 
 going to put it out of the 
 field. 
 
 The Orchard-Grass did 
 not stop growing while it 
 was thinking of its neigh- 
 bors. It was almost the 
 strongest plant in the field, 
 and it pushed a shoot right 
 over the Red-Top, which 
 had to bend its back so long 
 that it became a cripple for 
 the rest of its life. The 
 Timothy on the other side 
 was more stubborn and it 
 
 pushed its own shoots among those of the Orchard- 
 Grass until they were pretty well mixed up. 
 
 The Orchard-Grass was quietly watching the 
 7 
 
 Red-Top.
 
 9 8 
 
 struggle for room that was going on among several 
 other grasses near by, which became so mixed up 
 that the farmer himself could not tell which was 
 which. Here and there in the field a Red Clover 
 grew. It had a deep, strong root that helped it 
 
 Meadow grasses. 
 
 greatly, so that it was not afraid of being overrun 
 by any of the grasses. 
 
 As week after week passed, the grasses crowded 
 each other more and more, and soon their stems 
 were so laced that hardly a plant was growing free. 
 Of course none of the plants grew as strong as they 
 would have grown with plenty of room even the
 
 99 
 
 Orchard-Grass sent up finer flower stalks than it 
 would have produced if it could have had all the 
 room it wanted. But the farmer was rather glad 
 when he saw his whole meadow so well covered 
 that not a bit of soil could be seen. He knew 
 very well that snug neighbors meant finer hay, 
 with less wood in the grass sterns, and that is 
 just the kind of hay his horses and cattle like the 
 best. 
 
 When the grasses were strong enough they all 
 began to shoot up their flower stalks, and the 
 meadow was a beautiful sight, for it was a carpet of 
 many shades of green. And the Orchard-Grass, 
 lifting its stems highest of all, admired the rest 
 almost as much as itself. But its feet were very 
 much crowded. It tried to push its neighbors aside, 
 but they only bent a little and kept on growing. 
 And the whole meadow was at its very best. 
 
 Just when all the plants were telling themselves 
 how beautiful they were, a fearful shudder went 
 through them all, for they heard that awful noise 
 that as very young plants they remembered in the 
 wheat. The tall Orchard-Grass looked over its 
 lower neighbors and saw a big, clattering machine, 
 drawn by two beasts which nipped at the nighest 
 grasses as they passed. And as the thing moved, 
 all the green stalks went down beneath it, and
 
 IOI 
 
 beyond, the field was even cleaner than it was when 
 the wheat was removed. Nearer and nearer came 
 the monster, and soon it was upon them. The 
 Orchard-Grass trembled to its very roots, and then 
 a terrible thing happened the Orchard-Grass 
 was beheaded by one of the beasts, and the next 
 instant it was cut to the ground by the machine. 
 
 Who will tell the story of what became of the 
 grasses after the machine had cut them all ?
 
 IO2 
 
 XX. TWO COUSINS 
 
 THKKK were two cousins, each having a very good 
 opinion of the way in which she stored her food. 
 The name of one was Purple Turnip, and the other 
 
 " Miss Early Cabbage." 
 
 was called Early Cabbage. Both belonged to the 
 Brassica family, very worthy people, though not so 
 well-born as the Rose family.
 
 103 
 
 It happened that the two cousins found them- 
 selves opposite each other in the school garden, and 
 as the days passed, each spent a great deal of time 
 
 " Miss Purple Turnip." 
 
 in talking to herself about her way of growing. 
 Purple never so much as looked at Early, and 
 Early saw nothing but the soil and the sky, but
 
 IO4 
 
 sometimes people talk so much and so loud that 
 everybody hears what is said. That is how I 
 happened to hear the two cousins. 
 
 Miss Early was very proud of her big leaves. 
 She spread them out to the sun, taking care to 
 arrange them so that as much as possible of each 
 leaf should be in the full sunshine. For several 
 weeks she insisted on showing her big leaves, and 
 the more the gardener hoed, the more she spread 
 them out, until she touched her neighbors in the 
 row. In about two months, however, she seemed to 
 change her plan. Instead of spreading out her 
 leaves, she kept them hidden away in a bud. While 
 the leaves were big, one could hardly see the little 
 bud in the midst of them, but when the great leaves 
 stopped growing, the little bud became larger and 
 larger until it stopped looking like a bud and looked 
 more and more like a cabbage head. 
 
 Miss Purple could not boast of big leaves like 
 Miss Early, and, indeed, she was a much more 
 modest person. She did nothing to attract atten- 
 tion. At first she spread her leaves flat on the 
 ground, and later she lifted them larger and stronger, 
 so that the sunshine could touch them on both 
 sides. When her leaves were full grown, she did 
 not change her manner of life, so far as I could see. 
 She did not get a big head, like her cousin, Miss
 
 105 
 
 Early Cabbage. And neither did she send up 
 a flower stalk, as did another cousin of hers, 
 Miss White Mustard. She seemed to be resting. 
 I began to think she was getting lazy, when the 
 gardener came and pulled her neighbor up, and then 
 I saw that she had been making a big round root 
 under the ground, while her cousin was making a 
 head. All the while, each cousin had been telling 
 herself how much better her way of growing was 
 than any other. 
 
 I wanted to see what Miss Purple Turnip would 
 do with her round root and what Miss Early Cab- 
 bage would do with her big head, so I watched them 
 through the summer. Miss Early's head grew so 
 big that it could grow no bigger, then it seemed to 
 rest awhile, and then one morning it cracked ! 
 
 And Miss Purple simply sat there, and did not 
 change at all for several weeks. 
 
 In a week or two after the cracking of Miss 
 Early's head, I was surprised to see that she had be- 
 gun to grow again, and it seemed to me that her 
 growth was even faster than when her big leaves 
 were forming. Out of her head came a tall stalk, 
 that branched freely, and soon was covered with 
 buds, and directly Miss Early was wearing a flowered 
 gown ! 
 
 And Miss Purple, after her rest, also pushed up a
 
 io6 
 
 flower stalk, and when she put on her flowered 
 gown, it was so much like her cousin's that you 
 might have thought they were cut from the same 
 piece of cloth, except that one was a dull pink and 
 the other a yellow. 
 
 And after they had admired themselves awhile, 
 and had a good many visitors, they laid aside their 
 flowered frocks, and in a few days the seed pods 
 came where the flowers had been ; and soon the seed 
 was ripe. 
 
 But by the time the cousins were covered with 
 seed pods a great change had come to head and 
 root. In fact, Miss Early Cabbage's head had en- 
 tirely disappeared, and the round root of Miss 
 Purple Turnip was almost hollow. When I cut 
 Miss Cabbage down, I saw that her stem was hollow 
 too. Now, you all know how good to eat the 
 " heart " of a cabbage head is ! 
 
 What had become of Miss Cabbage's head, and 
 where had the good part of Miss Turnip's round 
 root gone ?
 
 XXI. A BLANKET GARDEN 
 
 YES, a tiny little garden, no bigger than a blanket, 
 and you would hardly believe how many things grew 
 in it, nor how much better they tasted than the 
 things that came from the big garden, where plow- 
 ing and hoeing and all manner of hard work were 
 necessary ! 
 
 You must know that our blanket garden was more 
 
 A hotbed. 
 
 like a playhouse than a place for hard work. \Ye 
 made it in January and ate radishes from it in Feb- 
 ruary, and about the time for sowing beet seed in the 
 big garden we were eating lettuce that grew in the 
 blanket garden. The market gardener would have 
 called it a hotbed, but to me it was more like a 
 blanket garden, where the plants were kept cozy
 
 io8 
 
 and warm, as we are in the cold winter nights by 
 nice wool blankets. 
 
 In the first place, we dug an oblong space six 
 feet wide, twelve feet long, and eighteen inches deep. 
 It was on the south side of a big barn, where 
 cold winds could not reach it, and where it was 
 warm in the sun, even on cold days. Then we 
 made a wall of posts and boards, fitting close to 
 the sides of our garden. The back wall, toward the 
 barn, was three feet high, eighteen inches above the 
 surface of the ground ; and the front wall was thirty 
 inches high, twelve inches above the surface. A piece 
 of two by four joist was set in from back to front 
 every three feet, and the ends of the frame were 
 beveled so as to make an even slant from the back 
 to the front. 
 
 During the winter, manure from the horse stalls 
 had been saved, and turned several times, so that 
 when the frame was made, enough hot manure had 
 been saved to fill it. The manure was turned 
 frequently to keep it from burning, and to save the 
 heat, so that it would last until spring in the garden 
 frame. Each time it was turned, it was shaken 
 apart, so as to let in plenty of air. The bedding was 
 left mixed with the manure. 
 
 When the frame was ready, a layer of manure 
 nine inches deep was put in the bottom, and tramped,
 
 109 
 
 then another layer was added, and so on until it was 
 eighteen or twenty inches deep, tramped firmly. 
 Then four inches of rich garden loam, containing 
 enough sand to make it drain well, was spread 
 evenly over the manure, and we put the blanket on. 
 
 And what do you think the blanket was made of? 
 Not wool, but glass. We had the lumber dealer 
 order us four hotbed sash, each three by six feet, 
 with three rows of glass, the panes ten by twelve 
 inches ; the sash rested close on the joists we had 
 put from front to rear of our frame, and so our 
 blanket garden was finished. 
 
 In a few days, the manure in the frame began 
 heating, and for a day or two the soil next it was 
 very warm to the touch ; but this high heat was 
 soon gone, and then the garden was ready for plant- 
 ing. 
 
 We had grown some Boston Market lettuce 
 plants in a box in the kitchen window, and they 
 were about two inches high when the garden was 
 ready. These we planted first, setting them six in- 
 ches apart in rows nine inches apart. Half way be- 
 tween the lettuce rows we planted Twenty-Day 
 Forcing radish, putting the seed one inch apart 
 and half an inch deep. We planted two sashes 
 of lettuce, but only one sash of radish. Between 
 the lettuce plants under the other sash we sowed
 
 I 10 
 
 Crosby's Egyptian beet. We sowed four rows of 
 Early Jersey Wakefield cabbage, two rows of White 
 Plume celery, and two rows of Earliana tomato. 
 These seed were sown quite thick in the rows, 
 four inches apart. One sash was left vacant, and 
 when the tomato and celery plants showed their 
 fourth leaf they were transplanted two inches apart 
 so as to have a big start by the time warm weather 
 should come. 
 
 The heat from the manure warmed the soil like 
 the May sun, and the glass kept the heat in the 
 frame. We watered the soil with a sprinkler, and on 
 every bright day we raised the sash to admit fresh 
 air, and so the little seedlings found themselves even 
 better off than they would have been in the open 
 ground in spring. 
 
 And they needed more attention than a spring 
 garden, but you see the whole blanket garden was 
 so small that it was like play to weed it and water 
 it and air it, and it was very interesting to see the 
 plants grow. Almost before the lettuce plants be- 
 gan to thrive the radishes were ready for use. The 
 radish is a cousin of Miss Turnip and has the same 
 habit of storing food in its root, to use later in seed 
 making. 
 
 By the time the radishes were used, thelettuce plants 
 had grown so as almost to touch, and in March they
 
 Ill 
 
 had formed heads, the inner leaves of which were 
 cream-colored, and so good ! When the lettuce 
 was cut, its place was given to flower seeds, and 
 when the flowering plants were sent into the garden, 
 sweet potatoes were set in the blanket garden and 
 their sprouts were ready for planting in June, to 
 make a late crop. So we had radishes and lettuce 
 from the frames before spring came, then we got an 
 early start for our flowers, and finally grew sweet po- 
 tato plants. Of course the cabbage and celery and 
 tomato plants were planted out when the weather 
 was warm enough, so our blanket garden was a 
 great help, and paid better for the amount of space 
 given it than anything else on the farm.
 
 112 
 
 XXII. CUTTINGS 
 
 IT has been quite a while since we had our lesson 
 on seeds and buds, and almost all of the crops we 
 have talked about since are grown from seeds. To- 
 day we shall talk about stem buds and how to grow 
 plants from them. The potato, grape, rose, black- 
 berry, geranium, and many other plants are com- 
 
 A rooted cutting of hydrangea. 
 
 monly grown from cuttings of wood or root that 
 have one or more buds. Perhaps you have thought 
 that only hard plants, like trees, have wood in their 
 stems ; but the little threads that run through the 
 leaves of plantain and through corn stalks are all 
 wood, and every geranium stem has a ring of wood
 
 H3 
 
 around its pith. Some time when you have them 
 handy I want you to compare the stem of a gera- 
 nium plant with a long shoot from a peach tree, 
 looking carefully at each from the tip to the base 
 of the stem. 
 
 All along the stems I have spoken of there are 
 buds ; and if we were only skillful enough and could 
 give it just the right amount of heat and moisture 
 we could grow a plant from every well-grown bud 
 that forms. You may remember that there is a bud 
 in every seed. It feeds on a supply of food stored 
 in the seed until leaves and roots are formed. There 
 is a similar store of food in all stems, enough for 
 each bud that sprouts until it grows leaves and can 
 digest its own food. This is why all other plants 
 that live more than one season are able to push 
 forth leaves in the spring. The buds are nourished 
 on food stored in the stem the summer before. 
 
 If a stem, bearing a few buds, is cut from a grape- 
 vine in winter, and is planted at once in fresh soil or 
 sand, growth will begin at the approach of summer. 
 The buds will swell exactly as if the cuttings had 
 not been removed from the parent plant. Soon buds 
 will sprout, and while little leaves will form on the 
 new growth, little roots are forming in the soil. By 
 fall the young vine will be three feet long or more, 
 and ready for planting in the vineyard.
 
 In the same way, many flowering shrubs can be 
 grown. Such flowering plants as geranium, carna- 
 tion, heliotrope, the begonias, and fuchsias are grown 
 from cuttings of new wood. 
 Very soft, rapid-growing shoots 
 are not so good for cuttings as 
 firmer shoots, but hard wood 
 should not be used. 
 
 The best way to make cut- 
 tings is to cut the base just 
 below a bud, and have at least 
 one joint, making the top cut 
 half an inch above a bud. The 
 cutting should be from one to 
 two inches long, and the end of 
 the shoot makes the best cut- 
 ting, if it is not too short. Not 
 more than two full-grown leaves 
 should be left on the cutting. 
 If the leaves are very large, the 
 outer half of each can be cut 
 away. This is often done with 
 coleus plants. Plant them in a box of sand, placing 
 them one inch apart in rows two inches apart, set- 
 ting them not more than one inch deep. 
 
 Some cuttings root in ten days, and others require 
 several weeks. The kinds named above take from 
 
 A root cutting of horse 
 radish.
 
 two to four weeks to root, depending on the heat. 
 The cuttings can be taken from the sand without 
 injury, provided it is moist. When they are rooted, 
 they are planted in a rich, sandy soil, in pots, cans, 
 or boxes ; or if left in the sand until strong roots 
 are formed they can be planted at once in the 
 garden. 
 
 Some plants, like blackberry and horse radish, 
 grow readily from root cuttings, the young shoots 
 pushing up exactly as though seed had been planted. 
 The Irish potato tuber is a short, thickened stem 
 that grows underground. Its eyes are buds, and it 
 is these which form the new plants when we grow 
 potatoes. The sweet potato plants are shoots 
 from the roots which are bedded down in the spring. 
 How do we grow strawberries, black raspberries, and 
 red raspberries ?
 
 XXIII. TRANSPLANTING 
 
 IF ever you visit a greenhouse, you will see a 
 great many plants in very small pots, and even the 
 largest plants will be growing in much less space 
 than they would have occupied in open ground. 
 
 The florist moves 
 his plants from pot 
 to pot, each time 
 giving the flower a 
 pot only one size 
 larger than it had 
 before. It would 
 be much simpler 
 and a great saving 
 of work to set the 
 cutting, as soon as 
 it had rooted, into 
 a big pot, where it 
 could grow a long 
 time before it 
 would need more 
 
 Chrysanthemums as transplanted. 
 
 room. 
 
 But the most interesting place is the evergreen 
 nursery. You know they have nurseries for trees as 
 well as for children. The little evergreens pine, 
 spruce, hemlock, cedar are so delicate when they
 
 ii; 
 
 first come through the ground that they must be 
 grown in a house made of lath screens to protect 
 them from the hot sunshine. A hemlock tree does 
 not grow an inch high the first season. The seeds 
 are sown very thick and when the tiny trees are two 
 or three years old they are taken up and set about 
 two inches apart in rows six or eight inches apart. 
 
 A hillside orchard. 
 
 Here they spend two more years in the screen 
 house, and then they are transplanted to the nursery 
 rows. Usually the more delicate evergreens will 
 have been moved four or five times before they are 
 ready for sale. 
 
 In the Southern States the market gardener sows 
 his early cabbage seed very thick in seed beds in
 
 n8 
 
 September, and in early November he transplants 
 them a few inches apart in cold frames, where they 
 are kept until late February or March, when they 
 are set in the garden. If we want very early toma- 
 toes we sow the seed in shallow boxes in January, 
 then set each seedling in a small pot. As soon as 
 roots show against the side of the pot, we set the 
 plant in a larger one, and possibly transplant it a 
 third time before the weather is settled enough to 
 set it in the open ground. I have known tomatoes 
 grown in four-inch pots to have small fruit on them 
 when put in the garden, early in May. 
 
 Fruit trees are grown very close together in rows 
 the first year or two. The nurseryman may grow 
 250,000 trees on an acre, where the orchardist could 
 not grow 250, because when large they would be 
 too close together. 
 
 The florist transplants his potted plants to get 
 the greatest growth of root in the smallest space, as 
 his room is always limited ; and besides, plants bloom 
 more freely when their root growth is restricted. 
 
 The evergreen grower transplants his little trees 
 frequently in order to get as many fine roots as pos- 
 sible near the base of the stem, so that when the 
 tree is sold it will lose few roots in the last digging. 
 
 The market gardener transplants his cabbage and 
 tomatoes to prolong his season, growing them in
 
 the winter under glass and getting well-rooted plants 
 for setting in the field. 
 
 The nurseryman transplants his fruit trees because 
 he can grow many in a small space, and with little 
 labor, while young ; and when they get larger the 
 trees must have a great deal of room. 
 
 Transplanting is always a great advantage to the 
 plant when carefully done, for every time a young 
 root is cut several branches will form, in the same 
 way as pruning the limb of a tree causes it to branch 
 more freely. By this means the root-surface is in- 
 creased, and the plant can thereby secure more food 
 from the soil.
 
 I2O 
 
 XXIV. ROB'S GARDEN 
 
 I WONDER how many boys who read this story 
 dislike the garden as much as Rob did ! And I 
 wonder whether boys and girls who have gardens of 
 their own learn at last to love them as Rob loved his. 
 
 Spading with narrow forkfuls. 
 
 Rob was a town boy who lived with his grand- 
 mother. There was a small yard with a little grass 
 plot in front and a garden behind the house. Noth- 
 ing in all Rob's experience was so annoying as the 
 little garden in the back yard. Whenever he wanted 
 to play marbles in the spring the garden had to be
 
 121 
 
 dug. When all the boys were going swimming in 
 summer the garden had to be weeded. And Rob 
 was fast growing to dislike, not only the garden, but 
 all kinds of plants. 
 
 One spring Rob's uncle came home for a visit 
 just as the frost was gone from the garden. He 
 
 Fining the soil with a rake. 
 
 liked to dig and he had many things to tell Rob about 
 the soil and manures and different kinds of seeds. 
 They worked in the garden together, and for the first 
 time in his life Rob found himself almost enjoying 
 the garden work. Uncle Bert spread a thick coat of 
 manure on the land and turned the soil with deep,
 
 122 
 
 narrow forkfuls, so that when he had finished dig- 
 ging there was no need of hoeing at all, and he 
 made raking so easy that to smooth the surface was 
 almost like play. They saved all the " fish worms " 
 as they dug, for Uncle Bert had a habit of always 
 finding time for a little fun after the work was over. 
 
 Smoothing the soil with a rake. 
 
 Do you remember what the earthworms do for the 
 soil ? 
 
 It was a little garden, so small that a horse and 
 cultivator could hardly have turned around in it; so 
 all the work was done by hand. Rob often said 
 before he learned to like the garden that if he could
 
 123 
 
 plow the land, as they did at Uncle Walter's on 
 the farm, it would be all right. But I doubt if farm 
 boys like to plow much better than Rob liked to dig 
 with a spading fork. 
 
 Uncle Bert showed Rob how much easier and 
 better a spading fork worked when narrow instead 
 of wide forkfuls were taken ; and he showed him how 
 to break and fine the soil by digging the rake teeth 
 into it, and how to smooth the surface by holding 
 the rake handle almost straight up and passing the 
 back of the teeth lightly over it. Then they made 
 straight rows with the back of the rake, and they 
 planted such things as lettuce, radish, spinach, carrot, 
 parsnip, and salsify, in rows fifteen inches apart, cov- 
 ering the seed from one half to one inch deep and 
 pressing the soil over the seed by tapping it with the 
 back of the rake. They set early cabbage plants 
 fifteen inches apart in rows two feet apart. That 
 was gardening enough for one day. Later on beans 
 and tomatoes, sweet corn and cucumbers, found a 
 place in the little garden. You see there were 
 only four people in the family, and while the gar- 
 den was only 36 by 44 feet in size, it produced 
 plenty of these vegetables for the family. 
 
 Now, Uncle Bert had a way of looking at things 
 that was new to Rob, and it helped make the garden 
 pleasanter. When Rob learned that the right way
 
 124 
 
 to kill weeds with a hoe is to scalp them, he looked 
 on every weed as a wild Indian, and went on the 
 war path after them. He stopped cutting deep into 
 the soil as though he were trying to dig it all up 
 
 again, but he filed his 
 hoe sharp and then 
 cut the weeds off just 
 a little below the sur- 
 face, stirring them 
 about so that they 
 would dry quickly. 
 
 Uncle Bert also 
 showed Rob how 
 hoeing, when done in 
 the right way, was as 
 helpful in saving 
 moisture in the gar- 
 den as harrowing was in the field. While they 
 worked, Rob learned that the weeds were robbers, 
 and that a dry crust among the plants in the 
 garden is a robber also, since it lets the moisture 
 out of the soil into the air. One set of robbers 
 they killed by scalping, and the others they destroyed 
 entirely with their hoes. 
 
 Then they went swimming. 
 
 Somehow, as the season advanced, it was noticed 
 that Rob stopped scolding, and began to talk of " my 
 
 A scalped weed.
 
 125 
 
 peas " and " my tomatoes." He was taking a pride 
 in his garden. Perhaps the peas and tomatoes had 
 been suggesting things to the boy while they all 
 worked together in the garden. Qf course the 
 plants could not dig, nor rake, nor hoe; but they had 
 their own work to do, and they were able to do it 
 well because the boy had learned how to help them. 
 I wish every boy in this school would try to see 
 how many pleasant ways of doing pleasant things 
 can be found in a garden ; and perhaps there is a 
 " swimming hole " near enough to wash away the 
 memory of all the unpleasant parts.
 
 126 
 
 XXV. THE ORCHARD 
 
 THERE may be some people who do not like the 
 garden, but everybody likes the orchard. Of course 
 there are different kinds of orchards, but the kind I 
 mean is a place where fruit grows ; that is the only 
 kind people like. I know of orchards where sassa- 
 fras grows among starving apple trees that are full 
 of dead limbs, and bear a great many lichens, and 
 insect pests, and fungi everything, one might 
 almost say, but fruit! I can't understand why the 
 owners do not cut the old trees up for firewood, 
 and plant the land tp crops they like well enough 
 to take care of. Can you ? 
 
 Before the farmer plants an orchard, he ought to 
 say to himself : " I want to grow fruit on this land, 
 just as I want to grow corn and wheat in the fields. 
 I know I can not get a crop of corn or wheat with- 
 out doing the work those crops need ; so I will do 
 my best also for my orchard, and give it just the 
 care it requires." 
 
 It only takes one year to grow a crop of wheat, 
 and the following year some other crop is put in 
 that field. But the orchard must grow several years 
 before it begins to bear, and then, year after year, 
 it ought to yield better and larger crops. If it is 
 not worth caring for, it is not worth having. Give
 
 127 
 
 it just as much care as any other field every year 
 and it will be very apt to give you a good profit. 
 Neglect it and it will pay no better than any other 
 neglected field. That is what I want you to re- 
 member while you are planting an orchard. 
 
 Choose a hilltop or hillside a north or west 
 
 A fruiting quince tree. 
 
 slope is best for almost all kinds of fruit trees. Buy 
 strong one-year-old peach and apple, and two-year- 
 old cherry, plum, pear, and quince. Set apple trees 
 twenty-eight feet apart and all others sixteen feet 
 apart. An orchard looks best and is most easily 
 cared for when the rows are perfectly straight, but if
 
 128 
 
 it is to be planted on a steep slope it is best to set 
 the trees in straight rows up and down the hill, with 
 each row on the same level around the hill. This 
 will give an irregular stand, but it will enable the 
 owner to plow around the hills instead of over them, 
 
 and in a measure pre- 
 vent washing. 
 
 Make large holes, 
 cut away all bruised 
 roots with a sharp 
 knife, give them their 
 natural spread and fill 
 in fine soil carefully 
 and firmly around 
 them. The trees 
 should stand about 
 an inch deeper than 
 they stood in the 
 nursery. Every win- 
 ter the fruit trees 
 should be pruned, and all through the growing 
 season they should be cultivated and protected from 
 insects and disease. 
 
 Pruning is cutting out branches in order that 
 those remaining may have more room, more food, 
 and more light, and thus grow better. Wild trees 
 prune themselves. If you will take a walk in the 
 
 A cherry tree in full bloom.
 
 129 
 
 woods where the trees grow very thick, you may be 
 able to see how they get rid of useless branches. 
 
 Fruit trees, however, are planted so far apart that 
 they do not prune themselves readily; and besides, 
 they can not do the work themselves as well as we can. 
 
 Early in the spring, 
 the orchard should be 
 plowed at least six 
 inches deep, and then 
 the disk harrow or the 
 spike-tooth harrow 
 should keep the 
 weeds down until 
 May, when cowpeas 
 can be sown. In 
 August, as soon as 
 the pea hay is made, 
 the orchard is disked, 
 and at once sown to 
 rye, which tillers well 
 before freezing 
 
 , , , , A well-pruned young apple tree. 
 
 weather, and makes 
 
 the best kind of soil cover for the winter. Rabbits 
 are apt to gnaw the bark of fruit trees, but they like 
 rye better than bark, and seldom harm trees where 
 rye is growing. 
 
 While the trees are young, small-growing corn,
 
 130 
 
 potatoes, strawberries, navy beans, and other crops 
 that require hoeing, but do not rob the trees of too 
 much food, may be grown in the orchard, but after 
 they begin to bear, the trees should have all the 
 soil. No soil is rich enough to produce many crops 
 of fruit without manure, anymore than a field could 
 yield large crops of grain year after year without 
 fertilizers. 
 
 Many kinds of insects feed on the leaves and bark 
 and fruit of orchard trees, and there are plant dis- 
 eases, such as mildew, apple scab, and peach rot, 
 that infest them. All these must be guarded 
 against, and with plowing and cultivating and prun- 
 ing and spraying, the owner of an orchard is as 
 busy as the owner of a wheat farm or a stock farm ; 
 and yet there are a great many farmers who think 
 that fruit trees grow like forest trees, and require no 
 care. If we wished to grow peach wood and apple 
 wood, we might treat the trees as we would ash or 
 maple, but we want to grow fruit, with just enough 
 wood for the fruit to hang on.
 
 XXVI. THE GRATEFUL PLANTS 
 
 A GOOD many years ago there was a little boy 
 who looked just like me. He never lived in the 
 country, but from the time he was big enough to 
 pick strawberries (and you know a very little boy 
 can do that) he worked during the long summer 
 vacation in a market garden. 
 
 There was a wise old English gardener who 
 looked after the boys, and worked with them. He 
 not only showed them how to do their work, but also 
 tried to give them reasons for his methods. And 
 always he would finish his little talks with the same 
 speech : " Boys, you will never make good gardeners 
 until you learn to love plants." 
 
 And now, at the close of this little book, I feel 
 like saying to all the boys and girls who have been 
 working with me, " The one thing above all others 
 that I hope you have learned is to love the plants." 
 If you love them well enough, you will study them 
 until you learn their ways, so that you may do 
 everything necessary to make them as perfect as 
 they can be grown. You will study the soil in 
 which they grow, and learn how to make it more 
 fertile, so that it will produce better crops. You will 
 find what kind of grasses will grow best on your 
 farm, and what variety of corn will give the largest
 
 132 
 
 yield. You will see how your neighbor treats his 
 land, and try to make your own as good or better. 
 You will study the weeds and learn lessons in the 
 forest and by the roadside. And once in a while, 
 perhaps, some plant will tell you a secret of its own 
 that nobody else knows. 
 
 Sometimes when I am hoeing in the garden, I 
 have a little make-believe conversation with the 
 vegetables. One must be very intimate with the 
 plants before such talks are possible. 
 
 One day a tomato plant became very confiding, 
 and it said to me, " I often wonder, when I remem- 
 ber what my great-great-great-grandmother was like, 
 whether men think as much of us tomatoes as we 
 think of men ! Every one of us is deeply grateful to 
 man for helping us to improve so rapidly, and to be 
 of so much more importance among the garden plants 
 than our forefathers. I am not ashamed of my fam- 
 ily, but when I think how long man loved my cousin, 
 the potato, before he even knew us, it really makes 
 me feel hurt. Of course, now everybody loves us, 
 but, can you believe it ? there were years and years 
 when people actually thought we were poisonous, 
 and they only allowed us a place in the garden as 
 curiosities. They called us 'love-apples' your 
 own grandmother will tell you so but they did 
 not love us." And the tomato sighed at the humble
 
 133 
 
 place its forefathers had held in the opinion of man- 
 kind. Then it continued its story: " I must admit 
 that our family has changed greatly since the days 
 when we were called love-apples. Why, I don't be- 
 lieve I look any more like a love-apple than you 
 resemble a wild Indian ! " 
 
 " How did you change your appearance so much ? " 
 I asked. " When 
 I was a little boy, 
 all the tomatoes 
 were either pear- 
 shaped and small, 
 or very much 
 ribbed, and you 
 are as smooth 
 and beautiful as 
 can be." 
 
 " Thank you," 
 said the tomato, 
 " it is so nice to 
 hear pleasant things. I will tell you. One day a 
 man discovered that we were not poisonous at all, 
 but were really very good to eat ; so he moved us out 
 of the flower border, where we had always been kept, 
 and where we were crowded, and put us in the big 
 garden, where we could spread out our roots and 
 find plenty of food. 
 
 A ribbed tomato.
 
 134 
 
 " Now you know when any one does you a kind- 
 ness you try to return it in some way, and all the 
 plants have the same feeling. Having plenty to eat, 
 we stored up more food, and made better fruit. 
 And our good friend, who became very much in- 
 terested in watching us, chose the very largest and 
 best fruits he could find among us, and saved the 
 seeds from them. And when these seeds were 
 planted and grew to fruiting size, every plant among 
 them did its very best to make its fruit more per- 
 fect. And so it was only a few generations till, by 
 the help of the good man who selected the seeds of 
 the very best fruits each year, we managed to hide 
 all our ribs with flesh. Now everybody likes us ; 
 and really, when I think of those dear old ribby 
 ancestors of mine, I feel .very sorry that men did not 
 learn to love them sooner. 
 
 " But I will tell you a secret," continued the 
 tomato plant. " Every kind of plant in the world, 
 and each plant of every kind, must do its very best 
 for itself or it is apt to die out entirely. My ! my ! 
 when I remember how much man has helped us 
 tomatoes, I pity the poor forest trees, even though 
 they are ever so much larger than we. We are not 
 crowded, and whenever one of those upstart weeds 
 tries to grow among us the gardener cuts his head 
 off ; but nobody helps the forest trees. Of course
 
 135 
 
 the old trees must sow millions of seeds, because 
 somehow man does not love them as he does us, 
 and so does not protect and help them, and though 
 millions sprout in the spring they are no sooner born 
 than they begin to fight one another. You see how 
 
 Well-rounded tomato. 
 
 it is : there is not room nor food enough for all of 
 them, so very soon they struggle with one another 
 for room and food. Always the strongest win and 
 the weakest die. It must be pitiful to see the dying 
 saplings in a pine thicket," said the tomato. " The 
 strong pines take so much room that they soon
 
 136 
 
 overtop the weaker ones, and you know plants can 
 not live without light. So from the first year, as 
 long as the forest lives, the trees must strive against 
 each other and only the best reach a grand old age. 
 "All plants, both wild and cultivated, have had 
 much the same history as our family, only among 
 the' wild plants the changes have been very much 
 slower than among such plants as man has helped. 
 We love mankind. How can we help it when men 
 have done so much for us ? I wish," said the tomato, 
 wistfully " oh ! how I wish that all men would 
 love us too ; for then we would be even more perfect 
 and beautiful and useful than we are now."
 
 137 
 
 SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS 
 
 IN presuming to add to the curriculum a subject new to the 
 schools and to the teachers, I am hopeful that the teacher may 
 find in it a diversion, and a help in maintaining a live interest on 
 the part of many boys and girls who might otherwise be apa- 
 thetic toward all school work. 
 
 At first thought it seems absurd to speak of agriculture as a 
 new subject in rural schools, surrounded as they are by fields 
 and patronized exclusively by farmers. But as teachers we all 
 have found to our sorrow that English is a new subject to the 
 pupil, though no one can recall the time when he was not familiar 
 with it. And so it is with agriculture, although every pupil in 
 the rural schools may know something about farming. I hope my 
 suggestions will lead the teacher to find purely local illustrative 
 material, for the more concrete we make the first lessons on any 
 subject, the greater our chance of success. 
 
 My notion of writing these stories (I would call all of them 
 stories, though in only a few is the story form attempted) is that 
 pupils of the fourth to sixth grades might use one or two of them 
 a week instead of a reading lesson, and that for every story 
 some original work would be required of each pupil. Some 
 stories will be best illustrated by asking for reports of farm 
 operations at home, others by the making of simple experiments 
 at school, and still others by excursions of the class to the woods 
 or to the fields. 
 
 In any event, let the teacher remember that these are to be 
 simple lessons, and that they do not attempt to cover the vast 
 field of agriculture. Call them nature studies if you like the name 
 better. Make a school garden and illustrate the stories there if you 
 happen to be enough interested in the idea to make it a practical 
 success. It is true the average country school yard is about the 
 last place an intelligent farmer would think of choosing for field 
 or garden operations, and the. average school teacher neither
 
 plows nor sows nor reaps, while on all sides are examples to 
 serve his every need ; but a successful school garden is an 
 invaluable aid in all kinds of nature work, and wherever condi- 
 tions are at all favorable the teacher should attempt one. 
 
 It would seem that any form of instruction that begins within 
 the present knowledge of the pupil and carries him step by step 
 into the unknown would profit him. And if the reasons of 
 things can be discovered, rather than taught, the discoverer is an 
 interested voyager in that particular sea. 
 
 I have tried in each story to throw a little light on the great 
 subject of economic plant production, and the series as a whole 
 should give the pupil a simple notion of the why and the how 
 of field work. 
 
 You will need some material that may not be available in your 
 district. Let your state university or agricultural college help 
 you. These institutions can do no better work than the particu- 
 lar form of " university extension " that will bring them into 
 close touch with the common schools. They can send you grape 
 cuttings and flower slips and give an occasional help over the 
 hard places, if you will look ahead and discover your need in 
 time. If you have a school garden, or want one, they will send 
 you a canna or a dahlia or some other plant to put in it, for every 
 university or agricultural college would like to have a small share 
 in every rural school. 
 
 But we all know that only a little of the world's interest is in 
 books ; and still less of childhood's interest centers there. Na- 
 ture allures the children and teaches them many things. We who 
 are interested in the rural schools can do no better work for our 
 commonwealth than to aid in making farm life and the things 
 pertaining to it more attractive to the farm boy or girl. There 
 is a certain amount of drudgery inseparable from farm life, but 
 there is vastly more of interest than many tillers of the soil have 
 discovered. Let us begin with the children and try to give them 
 an idea of their relation to the plant world. It will make work 
 more interesting, and life larger and better.
 
 139 
 
 SUGGESTIONS 
 
 I. Introduction. Take the children to a nursery if there is 
 one in the neighborhood, and show them the little fruit trees. 
 As you go to and from school, be on the lookout for plants that 
 increase by runners, underground stems, etc. In all of them, 
 as the new plants become established the old ones die, and thus 
 the plant slowly moves from place to place. Set a strawberry 
 plant in the school garden, in rich soil. Hoe it and water it well. 
 Layer each runner so as to give the greatest amount of room, and 
 as the new runners appear layer them so that they will root quickly. 
 By fall the single plant should have spread over a circle of more 
 than ten feet. As many as 1260 plants have been grown from 
 one in a single season. 
 
 II. Soil. Give each child a piece of soft stone, like shale or 
 sandstone, and some very dry decayed forest leaves. Let him 
 pound these leaves and the stone into dust, mix them with 
 water in a fruit jar (one tenth dust, nine tenths water), shake 
 violently, and let the mixture stand over night. In the morn- 
 ing let him drain off the water carefully and set the jar on the 
 back of the kitchen stove until the contents can be handled. 
 Compare with soil from a garden and from a stony field. Dig 
 in moist earth for angleworms, using sharp spade (watch for 
 the holes the worms make in the soil) ; break up spadefuls with 
 the hands to see where the holes go. Let the school visit a 
 river or a creek and see how sand bars and washed banks are 
 made. Let the school visit an old field or a hillside and see 
 gullying. 
 
 III. Kinds of Soil. Have each pupil dig a hole in the 
 garden at home, deep enough to show the change in color 
 between the top soil and that below (subsoil). The pupil should 
 spade one side of the hole vertical, and measure with a rule the 
 depth of surface soil (to changed color). Have each pupil brinjj 
 a small sample of soil from a field at home and let the class 
 decide whether it is a clay, sand, or loam, or some modification 
 of one of these.
 
 140 
 
 Have a pile of clay and another of sand in the yard, and 
 mix gradually, noting the change. Instead of sand use pul- 
 verized dry leaves. 
 
 Wet samples of clay, sand, loam, and gravel, and determine 
 the order of their drying. 
 
 Plant wheat seed in fresh clay, sand, and loam, and see which 
 sprouts quickest and best. Let the plants dry up, and see 
 which lives longest without water. 
 
 The teacher will often find no pure clay, nor clean sand, in his 
 vicinity ; the clays differ in color and texture, but are alike in 
 their relation to water, which makes them stiff and plastic. 
 
 Sand may be washed and baked in an oven. If clay is treated 
 in the same way, a good lesson is found for the children. Re- 
 member that so far as agriculture is concerned, the whole inter- 
 est in soil rests in its relation to the plant ; and as the soil food 
 of the plant is only absorbed in water, the child should be made 
 to see that any soil, by whatever name, or of whatever color or 
 texture, that will allow water to drain from it, and still retain 
 enough to make plants grow, is a safe soil to use for farming. 
 A mixture of pure sand and clay in the right proportions for this 
 result is called loam. Almost everywhere the top soil is loam, 
 even though the subsoil is clay or sand. The top soil always 
 contains more or less decayed vegetable matter (humus), which 
 both enriches it and improves its water-holding power. 
 
 IV. The Plant and the Soil. Secure several blotters from an 
 insurance office, or buy blotting paper in a large piece and fold 
 it to a convenient size. On a Monday morning dip the blotters in 
 water, then sow wheat and radish seed between them. Put them 
 in a closed box or drawer to prevent drying, and thereafter keep 
 them damp but not wet. Remove the cover (upper) blotter every 
 day and watch the seeds grow. By the end of the week, if the 
 schoolroom is kept warm, both wheat and radish will have 
 rooted enough to show root hairs. The root tips increase in 
 length, and if they had hairs on them, the hairs would all be 
 rubbed off as the root tip pushed into the soil. Only the tips of
 
 the root lengthen. Carefully dig up young plants of any kind, 
 wash the soil off very gently, and make a study of root hairs. 
 Potted geraniums are very good for this exercise, when the 
 roots have reached the sides of the pot. There are no hairs 
 on old roots, because they have done their work in that part of 
 the soil, and as the root pushes into fresh soil the hairs develop 
 there. 
 
 
 
 Tree roots are almost all even in the largest trees within 
 four feet of the surface, because there is much more plant food 
 in the surface layers of soil than in the lower or subsoil. Surface 
 soil is colored by decayed leaves, twigs, etc., and such vegetable 
 matter is washed into the soil by rain. The upper layers of soil 
 act as a filter, and by the time the water has passed through 
 three or four feet of soil it will have become colorless. 
 
 Make all the observations suggested in the story. 
 
 V. Little Rivers under the Ground. Find a cut in a wood 
 road like that described, and watch what happens after a rain. 
 
 Underground waterways of this kind are better than surface 
 gullies, because they do not wash the rich surface soil away, and 
 they prevent gullying. After a sharp shower take the class out to 
 a gully and see how much washing is going on. This is an espe- 
 cially important subject for the South, because our soils wash 
 away very badly, and every effort to prevent this waste should 
 be encouraged. 
 
 VI. What the Forest does for the Soil. Have an excursion 
 to a thick woodland, if possible adjacent to orchards, grainfields, 
 and meadows. Study the surface of the soil in all. Why do the 
 leaves not make a mulch (soil cover) in the orchard as they do 
 in the forest ? Why does not the meadow grass decay and make 
 humus like the forest litter ? Because much of the grass is cut 
 for hay, and what is left decays very slowly, since the sun 
 keeps it dry. Grass really does make humus in time. The 
 prairie soils of the West are very rich in humus, made entirely 
 from decayed grass, leaves, stems, and roots. In the forest see 
 whether all kinds of leaves decay with equal rapidity. Compare
 
 142 
 
 especially needle-shaped leaves (pine) with broad leaves (maple, 
 oak, etc.). 
 
 Why do ladies get leaf-mold for their house plants ? Study 
 particularly some abandoned field, such as is described in the 
 story. Have the pupils bring reports from home of the length 
 of time the different farm fields have been in cultivation, and of 
 the results of parents' observations of effect of forest growth in 
 reclaiming land. 
 
 VII. The Robber Farmer. The object of this story is to show 
 the importance of fertilizing the soil. The teacher should not 
 attempt to explain the composition of fertilizers and manures, 
 but the pupil should be impressed with the fact that every plant 
 that is removed from the farm takes away a small but definite 
 amount of plant food, and if this is not replaced the fields will 
 gradually become sterile. In fact, good farming demands that 
 each year more plant food (fertilizers) be added to the soil than 
 is removed in the crop, thus gradually improving instead of re- 
 ducing the soil fertility. 
 
 Let each pupil bring the history of one field in the home farm 
 as far back as he can learn it just what crops were produced 
 in it, and just how much manure or fertilizer was applied ; 
 whether it has been under cultivation ever since it was cleared 
 of forest, or whether it has been in grass, and how often and how 
 long each time. Such records will show whether there is any 
 " robbery " going on in your neighborhood. 
 
 VIII. Weeds. Work with weeds can go on from this lesson 
 to the end of the year. Have each pupil make a collection of 
 weeds. Get a specimen in flower and press it in an old book, or 
 make a press of newspapers with a piece of board weighted by a 
 stone. If you cannot name them, your State Experiment Station 
 will doubtless be glad to help you, though every rural teacher 
 should have a Gray's " Manual of Botany," and learn to classify 
 his own specimens. Each specimen in the pupil's collection 
 should be labeled with its common name, and a brief description 
 of its bad habits, with the means of destroying it. If collections
 
 H3 
 
 of the ripe fruit and seed can be secured, all the better. Make a 
 weed collection for the school. In this connection teach the 
 class that all the time there is a great struggle going on among 
 the plants for food and for room to grow in. Not one in ten 
 thousand of the seeds that sprout every spring lives to produce 
 seed, and so man must protect the plants that are useful to him 
 by destroying the others, which he calls weeds. 
 
 Have each pupil find all the different weeds he can in his 
 father's hayfield, and in the cornfield. In which is there the 
 greater number, and why ? What weeds live in the ground over 
 winter? What weeds spread by seed only? What weeds spread by 
 stems ? What weeds produce most seed ? What weed seeds have 
 wings, or hair, or silk, or any other means of being spread by the 
 wind ? Bring specimens to school (always by preference the entire 
 plant). What weeds spread by fastening themselves to animals 
 or to people's clothing? You see there are many things to work 
 up about the weeds. Tillage is stirring the soil. Dust mulch is 
 a soil covering of dust, instead of leaves, straw, etc., commonly 
 used for mulching. 
 
 IX. What the Russian Thistle Did. The Russian thistle 
 (Salsola kali} is a tumbleweed one of a class which breaks off 
 at the ground when its seed is ripe, and is blown before the wind 
 for a great distance, dropping its seed as it goes. This form is 
 less common in the east than in the plains, and is given as 
 showing one of the many interesting ways the plants have of 
 spreading their seed abroad. A valuable exercise is the study 
 of seed distribution by different kinds of plants. 
 
 X. The Plant's Business. Have the class tell the special 
 usefulness to man of many plants not named in the lesson, and 
 just what part of each is used. 
 
 Flax. Woody part of stem for linen. Seed for " linseed " 
 oil and oil cake. 
 
 Corn. Pith to make cellulose, with which the sides of battle- 
 ships are stuffed, so that when a ball pierces the outer wall the 
 cellulose swells quickly and fills the hole.
 
 144 
 
 Hemp. Woody part of stem for ropes. 
 
 Hops. Fruit for bread or beer making. 
 
 Tobacco. Leaves for smoking, etc. 
 
 Peanuts. Fruit for food. 
 
 Artichoke. Root for stock food. 
 
 Globe artichoke. Buds, vegetable, for food. 
 
 Asparagus. Young shoots, vegetable, for food. 
 
 Rhubarb. Leaf stalk, vegetable, for food. 
 
 Cauliflower. Flower bud, vegetable, for food. 
 
 Use especially all farm and garden plants known in your 
 neighborhood. 
 
 XI. Buds and Seeds. Have a boy dig up a number of black- 
 berry and red raspberry roots and have the class find buds on 
 them (not roots really, but underground stems). 
 
 Find buds on Bermuda, Johnson, or other grass and 
 on corn. Tear away the sheath of the leaf which surrounds 
 the stem of grasses and grains, and at its base, attached just 
 above the joint, you will find a little bud. Compare this, as to 
 position, with the tree buds. Compare the potato tuber (the 
 potato itself) with the potato leaf stem. Find buds on both, and 
 see if there is anything on the potato that compares with the 
 leaf. 
 
 The bright colors of flowers are undoubtedly there to attract 
 insects. Dr. Mueller has written a large book, devoted entirely 
 to lists of insects that visit the different flowers. Have pupils 
 watch a flower on a bright morning and see how many kinds of 
 insects get into it. 
 
 Green-colored flowers are wind-fertilized the Carolina pop- 
 lar, walnut, oak, ash, and most other forest trees, are of this 
 class. Many plants, like the red clover and orchids, could not 
 bear seeds at all if the insects did not help them. 
 
 Soak beans in water twenty-four to forty-eight hours, then slip 
 off the skin, separate the seed-leaves, and see the bud between 
 them. Compare with corn treated in the same way, and with 
 buds on growing plants.
 
 145 
 
 In the spring watch the growth of leaf buds on a tree and 
 compare with the sprouting of seed strikingly similar. 
 
 XII. Why do we Plow? Good plowing is seldom seen, and 
 the pupils of grades four to six often have this work to do. 
 One of the best things we could accomplish for agriculture 
 would be the improvement of plowing. Why not have a plow- 
 ing contest some day, and ask three of the best farmers in the 
 neighborhood to serve as judges ? Let the prize be a blue ribbon, 
 and let it be understood that to do work well is in itself the 
 greatest prize. Have the pupils measure (with a rule) the depth 
 of the plowing that is done at home. Have them report on sub- 
 soiling. Tell the boys to take a spade and dig straight down in 
 a grainfield, a cornfield, and a meadotf , shaving one side of the 
 hole until smooth, and see if they can tell from the appearance of 
 the soil how deep it has been plowed. Good plowing means 
 straight furrows, so narrow that all the land is turned, and the 
 burying of all stubble, weeds, or other surface covering. The 
 deeper the plowing, the greater the benefit to the soil, provided 
 no more subsoil is turned up than will weather (crumble) in a 
 single season. 
 
 XIII. Give the Crops Plenty to Eat. The elements which all 
 plants require 'for growth are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitro- 
 gen, potassium, iron, sulphur, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, 
 chlorine, calcium, and silicon. Carbon is taken in through the 
 pores of leaves. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen, 
 and this is absorbed from the soil by the roots. All the other 
 elements named are dissolved in the soil water in the form of 
 nitrates, sulphates, phosphates, etc. 
 
 If you have a school garden, good work can be done by grow- 
 ing the same crop in beds that have not been fertilized and beds 
 fertilized with manure, cottonseed meal, acid phosphate, muriate 
 of potash. Beds ten by ten feet will not require more than 
 one pound of meal and of phosphate and a quarter of a pound of 
 muriate of potash. Plant one bed to which the last three ferti- 
 lizers have been added two and one quarter pounds of mixed
 
 146 
 
 fertilizer. If you can get nitrate of soda, plant one bed without 
 the meal fertili/cr, and after the plants are up sprinkle one 
 eighth of a pound of fine nitrate next to the plants. In three or 
 four weeks repeat the nitrate. 
 
 If you have no school garden, get the nearest neighbor to the 
 school to let your class do this work in his garden. Corn, small 
 grain, or any garden vegetable will answer the purpose. 
 
 Have the pupils report what fertilizers, and quantity per acre, 
 are used on the different crops at home. 
 
 Watch the effect of drought on different crops ; of too much 
 wet weather. Ensilage is a crop that has been chopped fine and 
 packed while green in an air-tight place, called a silo. Ensilage 
 is an especially good food for dairy cattle. 
 
 XIV. Sowing the Seed. Let each pupil mark a bean plant at 
 home, and save it until all the beans are ripe, or yellow ; then 
 count the number of pods and the number of beans. The bean 
 makes comparatively few seeds. A fifteen-year-old apple tree 
 should bear fifteen bushels of apples. If there are one hundred 
 and fifty apples in a bushel, and they average seven seeds each, 
 how many seeds would a ten-acre orchard contain if the trees 
 stood twenty-eight by twenty-eight feet ? Tell the class the 
 parable of the sower (Matt. xiii. 3-8). 
 
 From a handful of wheat select a hundred of the largest, 
 plumpest grains and plant in a row (at home or in the school 
 garden). In a row beside the first plant a hundred of the small- 
 est, shriveled grains. Any other seeds will do equally well 
 radish are especially good, because they mature quickly. 
 
 Plant one lot (using the same number of seeds in all lots) 
 without firming the soil above them. Firm the soil on the second 
 lot. The result is most marked in dry weather. 
 
 Plant one lot in rough, lumpy soil, another in well-fined soil 
 (particularly useful, as many farmers neglect preparation of soil 
 for seed). 
 
 A blotting-paper garden is especially useful for showing effects 
 of moisture. Submerge one blotter of seeds in water, keep a
 
 147 
 
 second dry, a third wet, but with access to air, and a fourth 
 damp but not wet. Comparisons are interesting. Have each 
 pupil examine daily at the same hour and keep a written record 
 of the number of seeds that sprout each day. 
 
 A cover crop is anything that is grown to prevent soil washing, 
 such as rye, crimson clover, etc. The cover crops are usually 
 sown in early fall, and are plowed under in the spring, thus be- 
 coming important means of soil improvement. 
 
 XV. Round and Round the Farm. Rotation of crops is a 
 part of good farm management. If there is a farm in your 
 neighborhood where it has been in practice for several years, 
 make an excursion to it, and go over the fields with the farmer, 
 getting him to explain his system to the children. If you have 
 any old and young forest growths near your school, see if the 
 new growth is like the old forest near it. The forest is very apt 
 to " rotate." Find out what crops are most commonly grown 
 in your neighborhood and get the help of your best farmer in 
 arranging a rotation, making a diagram to suit the locality. All 
 the fields need not be of the same size or shape. Have each 
 pupil make a map of his home farm, and plan a rotation for it, 
 based on - the experience of the best farmer in the neighborhood. 
 
 XVI. Stirring the Soil. Make experiments in the school 
 garden, or home garden, in mulching a little square (say, three 
 hills square, nine hills) of corn one foot deep with grass, straw, 
 weeds, or any other litter. Keep the surface of the ground on a 
 similar square adjacent, hoed one to two inches deep, so that no 
 crust is allowed to form on it. On a third square scalp the 
 weeds, but do not hoe nor cultivate, keeping clean of weeds. 
 Note the results from week to week. Measure the height in 
 inches to the top of the stalk (including only the sheath of 
 the youngest leaf not to its point). Note the yield. 
 
 If any of your neighbors use fine-shovel (spike-toothed or 
 two-inch) and others use " bull-tongue " or double-shovel culti- 
 vators, compare the work done, and show which is best, and 
 why.
 
 148 
 
 Study for yourself, in the practice of your neighbors, the 
 methods of cultivation employed, keeping in mind the character 
 of season (wet or dry) and of the soil. 
 
 XVII. Hoed Crops. If there is a market garden or " truck 
 farm " in your neighborhood, make an excursion to it, and see 
 how much more thoroughly crops are tilled than on the average 
 farm, especially the hoed crops. Examine market gardeners' 
 tools and implements and show how well adapted they are to the 
 stirring of the soil. 
 
 In the school or home garden try the experiment, in rows of 
 beans side by side, of keeping one well hoed and another hoed 
 very little. Early cabbage is a specially good crop for this exer- 
 cise. Take ten plants for each treatment. Stir the soil well 
 every week around the first ten and scalp the weeds only about 
 the second. 
 
 Try the effect of late cultivation (hoeing) on sweet corn. Keep 
 hoeing one lot until it is ready for market ; stop a second as 
 soon as the first tassel shows. 
 
 XVIII. Cereals. Impress the fact that planting small grain 
 in weedy land is throwing away a part of the crop, because every 
 weed takes food that ought to go to the grain, and there is no 
 practical way of killing the weeds after the grain is sown. 
 
 Get each pupil to report the exact way his father treats his 
 grainfield. When is it plowed ? How deep ? How often is it 
 harrowed before planting ? How much seed is sown per acre ? 
 How much and what fertilizer is used ? What kind of a seeder 
 is used ? Is it rolled after seeding and in spring ? At what stage 
 is it cut? How is it harvested (stacked, or threshed from field)? 
 You will be surprised how good a story your boys and girls can 
 tell of the wheat or other small grain. " Tiller " means to branch 
 at the surface of the ground. 
 
 XIX. In the Meadow. Meadows and pastures are fields in 
 which grass is the crop raised. If the grass is cut for hay, the 
 field in which it grows is called a meadow. If animals are 
 grazed on the grass, the field is called a pasture.
 
 149 
 
 As a rule the farmer cuts hay in the early summer, and when 
 the grass plants have started to grow again he turns his cattle or 
 sheep on the meadow for fall pasturage. 
 
 We must remember that the hay crop is made up of single 
 grass plants, the same as wheat, or corn, or cotton. There are 
 a great many more grass plants growing on an acre than corn 
 plants, and in the case of the grass each plant branches at the 
 ground or sends out runners, which so intermingle that it is hard 
 to pick out a single plant from its fellows. So we have come to 
 think of grass as a sod, or meadow, or pasture. Let us not for- 
 get, however, that every lawn and meadow and pasture is made 
 up of separate grass plants, each of which after a time will send 
 up flower stalks and will mature seed. 
 
 Meadows and pastures are grown for hay and for grazing. In 
 both cases the most useful part of the grass plant is the leaves. 
 If the seed is allowed to ripen before the grass is cut, the hay 
 will be much poorer in quality than if it were cut in the blossom. 
 Cattle will not do so well in grass that has gone to seed, as in 
 grass that is young. The reason is that almost all grass seed are 
 very small and quite hard, and are not digested by the animal that 
 eats them. We know that the seed contains stored food, which 
 was made in the leaves. If the grass is cut just as the buds begin 
 to bloom, most of this stored food will be contained in the stem 
 and leaves, and thus the animals feeding on the hay will get it 
 all. 
 
 If the farmer wants to grow grass for hay, he should cut it as 
 the first bloom appears. If he intends to thresh it, like wheat, 
 and sell the seed, he should cut it when the seed is all ripe, but 
 before it begins to fall. 
 
 The grass is a very delicate plant when it first sprouts, and 
 the wheat or oats protect it by growing more rapidly. It grows 
 slowly in the shade of the grain, but when the crop is cut, the 
 grass plants are strong enough to be helped by the full sunshine, 
 and by fall the meadow land can be grazed lightly. Meadow 
 land that is fertile and has a good water supply will yield good
 
 150 
 
 hay crops for several years without reseeding. But each year it 
 is apt to get a little weedier, and it is best to put the meadow 
 land in regular rotation. Among the best meadow grasses are 
 timothy, red top, and orchard grass. Where it can be grown, 
 red clover should always be mixed with the meadow grasses. 
 Meadows should always be plowed under when they become 
 weedy, and the best crop to plant in them, especially if clover 
 has been mixed with the grasses, is corn or potatoes. 
 
 Rough land can often be more profitably used for pastures 
 than for cultivation. In mountain regions, if enough trees are 
 left to provide a light shade, blue grass makes a good permanent 
 pasture, especially if cottonseed meal forms a part of the cattle 
 feed, the sod improving with age. Early in the spring the entire 
 pasture should be harrowed to scatter the manure evenly over it. 
 In the South a good permanent pasture can be made of Bermuda 
 grass, which is one of the best soil binders, and is very useful 
 for preventing the washing of hillskle lands. It is hard to get rid 
 of, and should be kept out of fields that are in regular rotation. 
 
 Have the pupils learn when the meadow at home was sown, 
 and bring to school as many different kinds of weeds as they can 
 find in the meadow ; also as many different grasses as they can 
 find. If you have any trouble in naming the grasses, send a 
 sample of leaf and flower or seed stalk to your university or ex- 
 periment station. 
 
 Have each pupil write a description of the way hay is made on 
 his home farm. 
 
 XX. Two Cousins. One of the most important lessons in 
 plant culture is the fact that the plant is a machine for digesting, 
 storing, and using food. In youth the plant is constantly digest- 
 ing more food than it uses in growth, and this excess is stored up 
 in the stem, the root, or the leaf until the flowering and fruiting 
 comes. Plants bloom only when they have reached a certain ma- 
 turity, and the rapid development of flower and seed is explained 
 by the great amount of stored food within the plant. In the cases 
 given, the bud (cabbage head) and root (turnip) are storehouses.
 
 You know the peach blooms before there are any leaves on the 
 trees. All the material in the flowers was stored in the twigs the 
 year before. This explains also how all trees start to grow in 
 the spring on food stored up the summer before. How very 
 necessary, then, to make the soil for crops rich, since well- 
 fed plants produce the heaviest crops. 
 
 Children can be greatly interested in this subject, and it is full 
 of lessons. The sprouting of seed depends on the store of food 
 within it. The starting of growth in the spring, fruitage the 
 whole operation of plant growth seems to center here. 
 
 Have the class report on different parts of plants used as 
 storehouses Irish potato, sweet potato, cowpea, wheat, corn, 
 artichoke, gladiolus, mullein, burdock, timothy grass, etc. These 
 reports should be made after discovering an enlargement of 
 certain parts, as the tuber of the potato and the root of the mul- 
 lein weed before its flower stalk forms. 
 
 XXI. A Blanket Garden. It is believed that the directions in 
 the lesson for making a hotbed are explicit. If you have no way 
 of getting money for sash (though almost any school can arrange 
 an entertainment for the raising of necessary funds), try a similar 
 framed garden at school after the principal danger of frost is 
 past in spring. A board covering at night will be sufficient 
 protection. It will succeed better than a big school garden at first 
 because its small size will mean less work, and the entire class can 
 claim a share in it. Watch the watering. Water only when dry, 
 then give a soaking, and as soon as the surface is dry enough hoe 
 it or break the crust. Lift the sash every day to admit air, but 
 guard against frost on cold days. It will stimulate interest in 
 the patrons if you grow enough early tomato (variety Earliana) 
 plants to give each pupil a dozen or two for his home 
 garden. 
 
 XXII. Cuttings. By all means have a box of sand in the 
 school window, if you cannot arrange a hotbed (blanket garden), 
 and have the pupils bring slips of geranium, heliotrope, coleus, 
 or any other plants. Take a box not more than four inches
 
 152 
 
 deep. Place in it three inches of clean, sharp sand, and plant 
 the cuttings as described in the lesson. Keep the sand damp 
 and after ten days or two weeks pull up a cutting of each variety 
 to see if roots are forming resetting at once. As soon as a 
 root shows one fourth inch long the cutting can be potted in a 
 rich sandy loam. In the schoolroom the pots had best sit in 
 shallow boxes of sand in a sunny window. 
 
 Have all the pupils make hard-wood cuttings of grapes and 
 such shrubs as spiraea, golden elder, crape myrtle, and the flow- 
 ering shrubs generally. These are to be made in the late fall or 
 winter, and will not begin to grow until the following spring. But 
 they grow so well that they are large enough to set in their 
 permanent places when one year old. Make blackberry and 
 horseradish root cuttings. 
 
 XXIII. Transplanting. The value of transplanting is easily 
 illustrated in the case of potted plants. When soft-wood cuttings 
 are rooted, set them first in very small pots. In a month or six 
 weeks the roots will show against the sides of the pots (you can 
 turn the plant out of the pot by inverting the pot and giving it a 
 sharp tap on the edge of the table). Then set the plant in a 
 three-inch pot, packing a very little soil all around the ball of 
 earth with a stick, until the plant is firm. In a few weeks it will 
 need transplanting again. If you will leave a few geraniums in 
 three-inch pots, and transplant others successively into four, five, 
 and six inch pots, those in the three-inch pots will bloom soonest, 
 but the others will grow best. 
 
 If you have a school garden, try resetting shrubs or forest trees 
 when one, two, and three years old, and compare the roots with 
 those of trees that have not been reset. This exercise is espe- 
 cially valuable with walnut, hickory, and the oaks grown from 
 seed. 
 
 XXIV. Rob's Garden. In this story I have endeavored to 
 suggest what sympathy means to boys when they have irksome 
 tasks in hand. The story maybe applied not only in the garden 
 but with book lessons as well.
 
 153 
 
 One of the best exercises in this course is in connection with 
 this lesson : How large an amount of any garden or field crop 
 can be grown on a small (measured) area of land ? Can a boy 
 or a girl grow enough beets, beans, cabbage, corn, or any other 
 vegetable on one square yard of garden land to feed a family 
 one meal ? Try it with several vegetables let us say lettuce, 
 beets, cabbage, tomatoes, and snap beans. That would require 
 a plat of land three by fifteen feet in size. Explain to the class 
 how closely these plants can stand when mature : lettuce and 
 beets three inches apart, in rows twelve inches apart but the 
 thinnings can be used, so drill close in the rows ; beans two 
 to three inches apart, in rows fifteen to eighteen inches apart ; 
 early cabbage eighteen inches apart, in rows eighteen inches 
 apart ; tomatoes three feet apart. Remind the class that a tomato 
 plant can be set in the center of the early cabbage, and of the 
 lettuce, beets, and beans ; so they can have four tomato plants 
 or they can get two or more crops of lettuce. The problem 
 of how much crops can be grown from a small area can be 
 worked out in many ways, and is an interesting and practical 
 one. From the crop on his five square yards let the pupil 
 estimate how much might be grown on one acre. 
 
 XXV. The Orchard. There are many lessons for boys and 
 girls in the way trees grow and bear fruit. Ask your class which 
 bears the more nuts, a walnut tree in an open field or one 
 closely surrounded by other trees. Why ? Which yields the 
 more useful timber, and why ? The trees in the open develop 
 a great crown, and of course nuts only grow out on the young 
 branches, so the more branches a tree can have, if they get light 
 enough, the more nuts it can produce. On the other hand, the 
 trunk of a tree is best for timber, because it has few knots and 
 is of large size. When trees grow close, their trunks are long, 
 the lower limbs being shaded out. 
 
 In their rivalry for light there is the same competition among 
 the branches of an orchard tree, or any other tree planted in 
 the open, that exists among the close-growing trees of a forest.
 
 154 
 
 Prune out the weakest, or those tending crosswise of other limbs, 
 and you admit light enough for the full development of the 
 remainder. 
 
 Study frost localities. The cold air settles in the low places. 
 Often there is a frost at the bottom of the hill and none at the 
 top. This is especially important in choosing a location for 
 peaches. Children can observe frost phenomena as well as 
 adults. When the center of a fruit bud has turned black or 
 brown, it has been killed by frost. Often the peach crop will 
 have been killed even though there is heavy bloom, because 
 the petals of the flowers are hardier than the ovaries. 
 
 Above all, impress the idea that fruit is a crop, the same as 
 corn, and an orchard requires tillage the same as a cornfield. 
 That is why crops are planted between the trees to insure 
 their cultivation, and to get some return from the land while the 
 orchard is too young to bear. 
 
 XXVI. The Grateful Plants. It is the purpose of this story to 
 suggest how farmers may improve their crops by careful selec- 
 tion. In this work not only the seed, but the plant on which it 
 grows, should be observed, and only the best plants should be 
 saved for seed. 
 
 If earliness is the most important quality (as in raddish, lettuce, 
 etc.), the first plants to mature should be saved for seed, and only 
 their plumpest seed should be used. Selection can be made for 
 size, flavor, color, or any other quality. 
 
 Variability is a law of nature, and hardly any two plants are 
 exactly alike. 
 
 Have pupils select the largest ten heads of wheat they can 
 find in a field, the earliest cabbage in their home garden, or the 
 largest flower on their favorite plant, and save the seed for next 
 year's planting. Many practical exercises are possible.
 
 NATURE STU DY 
 
 $0.40 
 
 By FRANK OVERTON, A.M., M.D., assisted by 
 MARY E. HILL, Instructor in Science and Nature 
 Study in the Goodyear Burlingame School, Syracuse, N.Y. 
 
 THIS book is designed to furnish a year's work in nature 
 study for pupils from eight to eleven years of age. The 
 subjects taken up are connected with everyday life, and 
 include the house fly, mosquito, butterfly, moths, mush- 
 rooms, dandelion, spider webs, golden-rod, golden -rod gall, 
 burdock, nest of a paper wasp, nest of a mud wasp, bird's 
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 worm, onion, maple seed, sprouting bean, maple bud, tad- 
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 clothes moth. These are arranged in the order of the 
 seasons, beginning with fall, but suggestions are given for 
 studying many of the specimens throughout their entire life 
 histories. 
 
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 writing may lead to closer observation of the specimens, and 
 that nature study may afford interesting and inspiring subjects 
 for expression with pencil and pen. 
 
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 arouses the enthusiasm of the pupil, because it gives him 
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 clearly outlined that the greatest success can be attained even 
 by teachers who have had no previous knowledge ot the sub- 
 ject, provided only that they are learners with their pupils. 
 
 AMERICAN BOOK CO M P A N V
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY READING 
 
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 earliest years in which these books can be read to advantage. 
 
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 Other Islands of the Sea 60 
 
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 6 Popular Science Reader . . 75 
 
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 of Schools, Boston, Mass. 
 
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 teachers particularly, because of their very easy gradation. 
 Both in thought and expression, the books are so carefully 
 graded that each selection is but slightly more difficult than 
 the preceding one, and there is no real gap anywhere. 
 ^| Although a wide variety of reading matter is provided, 
 good literature, embodying child interests, has been considered 
 of fundamental importance. Lessons of a similar nature are 
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 ^[ By the use of this series, the child will be taught to read in 
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 he will be made acquainted with the masterpieces of many fa- 
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 ^[ The books are very attractive in mechanical appearance, 
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 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY
 
 MILNE'S PROGRESSIVE 
 ARITHMETICS 
 
 By WILLIAM J. MILNE, Ph.D., LL.D., President of 
 New York State Normal College, Albany, N. Y. 
 
 First Book $0.35 Second Book $0.40 
 
 % Third Book $0.45 
 
 THIS series of arithmetics has been prepared to meet the 
 demand for a presentation of the subject upon somewhat 
 new lines. This treatment does not, however, depart 
 from the old and tried foundations, which have gained for the 
 author's previous series the widest use throughout the country. 
 In the Progressive Arithmetics, these older features have been 
 preserved, and infused with new life by a combination with 
 what is best in modern method* of instruction. 
 ^[ Built upon a definite pedagogical plan, these books teach the 
 processes of arithmetic in such a way as to develop the reasoning 
 faculties, and to train the power of rapid, accurate, and skillful 
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 ^| Each new topic is first carefully developed, and then en- 
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 may be accomplished in a half year is taken as the unit of 
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 AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 
 
 (57)
 
 STEPS IN ENGLISH 
 
 By A. C. McLEAN, A.M., Principal of Luckey School, 
 Pittsburg; THOMAS C. BLAISDELL, A.M., Pro- 
 fessor of English, Fifth Avenue Normal High School, 
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 Schools, Allegheny, Pa. 
 
 Book One. For third, fourth, and fifth years $0.40 
 
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 (80
 
 NEW CENTURY HISTORY 
 OF THE UNITED STATES 
 
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 By EDWARD EGGLESTON 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
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 UNITED STATES was not only the last literary 
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