A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls

When Dr. S. P. Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, established the Children's Room in that great museum, he took for his motto, "Knowledge begins in wonder," and he put into this room a selection of specimens especially intended to excite interest in the young mind. The biggest bird and the littlest were placed side by side; curious eggs, nests, and insects—not many in number, but temptingly displayed—were ranged about to attract attention and to awake the desire to know more. It was the same Dr. Langley who had once declared that his chief interests in life were children and fairy stories, and it is in the little Washington room that we seem to find the thought embodied, for the children are there, and the fairy stories of nature are suggested on every hand.

It is with Dr. Langley's motto in mind that the "Little Garden Calendar" is offered to parents and teachers, and to children themselves who are old enough to read. The author has tried to tell in simple language a few of the wonders of plant life, and to set down certain easy methods of observation, including planting, tending, and gathering the harvests, from month to month, throughout the year. Along with this it has been his aim to call attention to the more curious characteristics of certain plants—the really human instincts and habits of some, the family relations of others, the dependence of many upon mankind, animals, and insects, and the struggle for existence of all. Simple botany plays a part in the little narrative, which forms a continuous story from chapter to chapter, interwoven with a number of briefer stories—traditions, fairy tales, and the like, all relating to plant life and origin. These are presented by way of entertainment—to illuminate fact with fancy—to follow, as it were, the path of knowledge through the garden of imagination.

The illustrations in this book are from excellent photographs—especially made for the various chapters—that the student of plant life may compare and identify with some degree of assurance as to varieties and particular specimens, especially in the matter of plant organisms. The volume is divided according to the calendar, for the reason that in the plant world there is interest for every month in the year if only someone is by to point the way, and it is for this purpose that the little story of Prue and Davy and their garden is offered to instructors in the schoolroom and at home, and to the young people themselves, with the greetings and good wishes of

The Author.

CONTENTS

		PAGE
January,		13
I	You may begin your garden right away
II	Your garden may not look as I have it here
III	Many seeds are given wings
IV	I think seeds know the months

February,		43
I	Little plants won't stand much handling
II	Hey for the merry little sweet pease
III	Even clover belongs to the pulse family
IV	Beans and morning-glories twine to the right
V	The honeysuckle twines always to the left

March,		73
I	Still it was really a radish
II	The sun swings like a great pendulum
III	Long before there were any railroads and cities
IV	Did you ever see the little man in the pansy?

April,		103
I	The yellow dust is a food for the seed
II	The coming of the corn
III	Cross by name and cross by nature
IV	A peppery family
V	For in that dish was Davy's corn

May,		131
I	Sweet pease have to be put down pretty deep
II	Different families of ants have different droves of
	cows
III	There are many ways of producing species

June,		159
I	Then they went down into the strawberry patch
II	How the rose became queen
III	The sun is the greatest of all

July,		187
I	A plant is divided into three principal parts
II	There are exogens and endogens
III	I don't see what weeds are for, anyway

August,		211
I	There are just two kinds of leaves
II	Sometimes I think plants can see and hear
III	There are plants which do not bloom
IV	The princess by the sea

September,		241
I	A flower really has clothes
II	A flower has many servants
III	A flower may really reason
IV	Some flowers live off other flowers and plants
V	The prince and the thread of gold

October,		267
I	Seeds are made to be planted
II	There are bitter nuts and sweet ones
III	There are many things called fruits

November,		291
I	There are annuals, biennials, and perennials
II	Plants know how to spread
III	All thanks for the plants

December,		313
I	New gardens in the windows
II	To the garden of sleep
III	In the gardens of Christmas
IV	Some verses, and then good-by

ILLUSTRATIONS

	PAGE
Frontispiece
Davy's window—Prue's window	19
The beans at the end of two weeks	23
The morning-glories two weeks old	27
The pot of radishes	35
The pease two weeks old	37
The corn at the end of two weeks	47
The pease run up straight ladders	53
A member of the pulse family	59
The morning-glory twines to the right	65
The nasturtiums began to hide the little pot	75
The very small lettuce leaves	81
Davy's pot of radishes	93
"Davy's corn sent out a plume at the top"	97
"The morning-glories had bloomed and already had seed
pods"	113
"Cabbage" was the fat fellow's name	115
"They called it nasturtium"	121
Alyssum—the sweetest of the "Cross" family	123
"Don't you think the blackberry looks a little like a wild
rose?"	135
"And the apple blossom, too?"	139
Budding	149
The Chief Gardener's strawberries	161
Big, big berries that looked so good	165
The rose stamens and pistil which produce the seed	175
"Gardeners often take a rose of one kind and shake it
gently over a rose of another kind"	178
"Sometimes the gardener takes up the pollen on a soft
brush and lays it gently on the stigma of another
rose"	179
The pistil and stamens of the lily	192
A pistil and calyx and a complete flower	193
A group of endogens—the lily, hyacinth, and daffodil	195
Some simple leaves	217
Pine-needles are leaves	218
There is a lot of kinds and shapes	221
"Beware of the vine with the three-part leaf"	253
The dandelion is bound to spread its seed	256
"So it blooms below the lawn-mower's cutting-wheel"	257
"They cling to everything that passes"	269
Three members of the acorn family	277
The apple is a calyx. The pistil is the core inside of it	283
A raspberry is a cluster of pistils without the core	285
The seed and sets of the onion	295
A black raspberry vine preparing to spread	299
"What are stuck-ins?—oh, slips!"	301
The wool that grows on the sheep's back is there because
the sheep feeds on the green grass in summer	307
A Japanese fern-ball	316
The kind of a tree that nobody but Santa Claus ever raises	323

JANUARY

A LITTLE GARDEN CALENDAR

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