Jane Eayre Fryer

“ No, they haven’t outgrown fairy folk, at least Mary Frances hasn’t, for that is a part of this story—how Feather Flop, the rooster, and Jack-in-the-Pulpit and Bouncing Bet, the fairies of the wood, helped teach her to garden.
But in their study and work, Mary Frances and Billy learned more than that—they learned to appreciate what a wonderful amount of energy is expended by Mother Nature in growing one little plant from a seed; how careful she is that nothing be wasted; and what pleasure there is in tilling the soil, and helping things grow! ”

“ Neither can the sun pull the moisture up through the tiny little tubes in the soil if we break those little tubes and crumble the tops into dust. No, you need not look for these tubes, Mary Frances; they are too tiny for you to see, but they act very much like blotting paper to bring the under moisture up to the surface, and unless they are broken and crumbled, the deep earth moisture goes sailing off into the air to meet the sun, as fast as if it ran out of a little spigot running it off, and the poor plant baby dries up for want of deep moisture near its roots. ”

“ The spirit of comradeship and of loving understanding of little men and women thoroughly permeates this unique garden book. The enchantment of the story of Mary Frances’ gardens successfully carries the play-lesson idea, as the most potent method of creating a love for work and learning, into a realm undreamed of before. The little reader’s delight is heightened by cut-out gardens which are inserted in the book. These cut-out gardens are beautifully colored to show the natural color of the flowers, insects, etc. ”

“ They make the sign just as attractive as they possibly can for the particular kind of insect they wish to come to them to eat.
They use the loveliest colors and the most delightful odors, which please the bees, the butterflies, the moths, more than they please even you and me, by their wonderful beauty and fragrance.
Nectar
The food they give the bee is—no, Mary Frances, it is not honey, it is nectar, out of which the bees make honey. ”

“ She must be very proud when she gets all dressed up in the lovely Spring days in her best finery—a shiny corolla collar, made of yellow petals, held in a calyx cup, made of green sepals, and a stamen fringe necklace, powdered with pollen!
Oh, yes, she wears a lovely dress of green lacey leaves. The leaf is made strong, just as children are, by a bone, a leaf-bone or a mid-rib.
All other flowers dress in a similar way, but not every flower has as many beautiful things to wear as has little Buttercup. ”

“ Billy Tests the Soil “DO you suppose, Professor—I mean Billy—do you imagine we can keep the garden a secret?”
The early Spring day was so lovely that the children were sitting in the summer house.
“I guess the folks will suspect something,” answered Billy, “when they see us digging and spading, but they won’t for a moment think of all we’re planning to do.”
“They can’t help seeing things grow,” Billy went on, “but how little they’ll expect you to come in some day with radishes and lettuce from your own garden.”
“You’re just like Feather Flop!” exclaimed Mary Frances. ”

“ This winsome book so happily combines fact and fancy that any girl who reads it will all unconsciously absorb the principles of cookery while devouring the most fascinating sort of story. It throws a glamor around the processes of baking and boiling and leads girls into pleasant habits of usefulness and industry. ”

“ It has therefore, no leaves. It doesn’t need them. It starts out as an honest plant baby, but soon “goes wrong,” reaching out long tendrils by which it takes hold of any convenient plant neighbor. It sends little leg-like suckers down into the stem of this plant neighbor. It lets go of the earth with its roots, and drinks the life-blood, or sap, of its host, the plant on which it has seized hold.
The disgracefully lazy dodder does no work at all except to make flowers and seeds. ”

“ Between the pink of the Baby Rambler and the blue of the eupatorium is a bush of feverfew; and between the blue of the eupatorium and the yellow of the rudbeckia is the white of achillea.
Mary Frances says that she thinks that these [366] flowers form the most perfect color-picture in her garden.
On the other side of the garden are perennial sunflowers which are so much more desirable than golden glow, and beneath them are brilliant nasturtiums.
One must remember that the various shades of one color always combine well together. ”

“ There are several other very desirable Hybrid Perpetual roses, but the name of one only of each color has been listed, because one has so much more pleasure in cutting a half dozen buds of the same color and form than a mixture of different kinds.
Even if one has space for many rose bushes, there is a great deal more satisfaction in having two or more bushes of the same variety than many different kinds, for a bouquet of the same kind of flowers is so much more beautiful than an assortment. ”

“ When decayed, they are humus.
Another way to make a compost heap is to dig grass sods about eight inches square, and make them into a pile about two feet high, with layers of earth and manure between, and let stand in the weather to decay. Turn over when decayed. When wanted for use, cut some down, knock apart and spread.
You have heard of sowing rye or oats, and “ploughing the crop under” to enrich the soil; this makes humus out of the green rye or oats and their roots.
The plant baby and big plants, too, need many different kinds of food, but the most important is humus. ”

“ We know you are wondering whether we are really the flowers, ‘Jack-in-the-Pulpit’ and ‘Bouncing Bet.’ No, we are the fairies of those flowers. Every kind of flower has its fairy. They try to talk with the human beings they see, but very few can hear them or see them. ”

“ Eleanor added.
“Fine!” cried Jack, rubbing his tiny hands in glee. “It’s splendid to teach such interested persons. It took human beings many, many years to find these things out. If only their eyes and ears had been open to us fairy folks, it wouldn’t have taken so long.”
“Now, human people, in growing garden plants, want to give them the best kinds of food,” he continued. “So, after studying to find out what is in the soil that plants need most, they have gathered those things together from various places, and have made Commercial Fertilizers. ”

“ They think they are just doing their duty in gathering nectar to make honey and pollen for bee-flour, but in dipping their heads down into the deep calyx where the nectar is stored, they get their furry bodies covered with pollen, and when they come out of that flower, or go to visit another, they spread pollen all over the stigma of the pistil! ”

“ The plants may be moved, when some size, to the hardy garden, near the place of some of the Perennials which die down; for instance, hyacinths, tulips, and other bulbs. Indeed, those having short roots may be placed directly over the bulbs after their leaves have withered and dried.
A border of low-growing Annuals along the vegetable beds makes the vegetable garden a place of beauty.
If you live where there is snow in Winter, in order to have early Summer blooms, the seeds must be started early, under glass protection, in a sunny window, or in a hotbed. ”

“ It is not necessary to tell what particular old roses became the great-grandparents of our present roses. Indeed, it would be a difficult matter, for commercial rose growers have guarded well the secret of just what roses they used to produce the new ones.
The term given to a new flower is hybrid, which means a mixture. When, about the year 1825, a new class of roses, called the Hybrid Perpetual, was brought into existence, everybody was glad, because these new hybrids bloomed longer than any of their parents; were of good strong growth; and were perfectly hardy. ”

“ Cultivating is done by use of the hoe and “cultivator,” the rake-like tool which has but few prongs. Draw the cultivator between the rows of plants every day or two. Use the hoe in smaller spaces. Use the hoe to chop down weeds below the surface of the ground, being careful not to cut into the roots of the garden plants.
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In breaking up the hard soil, or “cultivating,” the weeds are destroyed, but hard soil is a worse enemy of plant babies than weeds even, although every child knows how dreadful it is for a garden to let weeds steal all the food from the baby plants. ”

“ The Wichuraiana roses are highly valued where the winters are severe or where the plant cannot receive special care, as in a cemetery. (For this reason they have been called “Memorial.”) Once planted, they seem to care for themselves. They trail along the ground, or over rocks, and often climb over any support.
Do not plant them in the rose garden where you need space to grow bushes for blooms which are lovely for cutting.
Wichuraiana roses bloom in June and July and sometimes later. Insects do not trouble the beautiful shiny foliage, which stays green nearly all winter. ”

“ Both the young and the parents are very helpful to the garden because they eat harmful insects—scale insects and aphids or green plant lice.
One species of ladybird which the California fruit growers brought from Australia has been the means of exterminating a scale insect very injurious to the orange and lemon trees of the Western coast. The larva of the ladybird turns into a hard encased pupa, and later into a full-grown ladybird insect.
“My,” exclaimed Mary Frances, “another garden friend! Why, Billy, one is never alone in the garden. There are always lots of friends about.” ”

“ From twenty thousand to forty thousand, or more, inhabitants live in the Bee City, so no wonder it is a busy place. You would think that everything would be in confusion, but on the contrary everything is in marvelous law and order. ”

“ Some of the Arum family like dry soil and some like damp, marshy places. I do not like very dry places myself, and Cousin Calamus Sweet Flag likes his feet wet all the time.”
“Isn’t it wonderful,” Mary Frances leaned forward in her interest. “Isn’t it wonderful, how plants growing side by side are so different?”
“They eat the same things, yet are so different,” smiled Bouncing Bet. “For instance, isn’t it surprising that an onion and a lily may grow side by side? ”

“ Rugosa Roses
Sometimes Rugosa Roses have been called, “Ironclad,” because of their thick leathery foliage, which is seldom, if ever, troubled with insects; and because of their wonderful hardiness and ability to live under trying conditions.
They bloom early, in large flowers, some of which resemble large single wild roses; others resemble large “double wild roses,” if you can imagine such roses. Many make the Autumn gay with their brilliant red seed berries.
Do not make the mistake of planting Rugosa among the rose bushes you are growing for cut flowers. ”

“ Dig deep to loosen the soil; (2) Spread over it well-rotted manure; (3) Dig and turn the soil over again; (4) Rake the top soil fine and level.
It is a good plan to spread leaves and manure over the ground in the Fall and dig them in in the Spring to make the soil rich and crumbly, or friable.
Did you ever think how many different parts of plants are used for food?
We eat the roots of some vegetables; such as beets, carrots, radishes, turnips.
Of others we use the leaves; such as lettuce, celery, cabbage, spinach, parsley. ”

“ How to Plant Bulbs
Bulbs do not like clayey soil, nor do they like dampness; neither do they thrive on fresh manure.
Remembering this, you already know just about what kind of soil they need—well-drained, loamy soil, full of humus or well-rotted manure, and some sand; for sandy soil is needed by all bulbs.
If you do not have such garden soil, dig quite large holes with your trowel, and fill them with such a mixture. If you do not have well-rotted manure, use a sprinkling of bone meal.
Depth to Plant
A good rule for the depth to plant bulbs is twice their length ”

“ You see, the bulb of the onion is made up of the thickened [261] lower ends of the leaves, the top green parts of which have dried off.”
“It is interesting,” she went on, “to see how quickly the plants which have stored food begin to grow when put into the warm place. It is because of this fact that bulbous flowers are the first to bloom in the Spring. They do not have to make food to begin to grow, for their food is ready for use, and just a little warmth and moisture will start them.”
“Oh, I see why crocuses, and hyacinths, and tulips bloom so early,” said Mary Frances. ”

“ Now you see that Beauty Butterfly and night moths are not just a gorgeous bit of living color. Such moths and Beauty Butterfly accomplish much good.
“Well, Miss Gardener said she lay out in the hammock, just as you are lying, Mary Frances, studying just what I have told you, only in a much more difficult way, and she kept saying over and over to [111] herself, ‘Corolla, calyx, sepals, stamens, pistil,’ in order that she might know her lesson, when all at once her book began to slip out of her hand and she could not seem to cling to it at all. ”

“ Mushrooms or Toad Stools
Mushrooms are flowerless plants, and they do not grow from seeds, but from spores.
The spores fall from the pretty gills on the under side of the umbrella part of the plant.
Of course, since they have no green color, you know that mushrooms do not make their own food. They, like most other—
Fungi,
live on dead vegetable matter.
Mushrooms grow by means of thread-like feeders which they send down into the dead material which they use.
It is a good thing that fungi use dead trees and leaves and other dead matter for food ”

“ Names of Parts of Flowers THE children worked in the garden early and late for days, and if the grown-ups in the big house suspected they were gardening, they did not hint that they thought of such a thing.
Billy spaded, and Mary Frances planted, and Feather Flop looked on from a distance whenever Billy was anywhere to be seen.
One day, Mary Frances met him as she came to the compost heap, where she was going to throw some weeds and grass cuttings.
“Why, Feather Flop,” she exclaimed, “I haven’t seen you for ever-so-long! Where have you been?” ”

“ How the Bees Work AS I said, the work in the Beehive City is divided up.
The Worker Bees are divided into various groups: who forage for nectar; who gather pollen; who guard the entrance to the hive from enemies; who clean the city; who build the comb; the nurse-bees, who feed the babies; the undertakers, who carry away the dead; and a group whose duty it is to fan the air to keep the hive cool.
The Ventilating Workers—The Fanners
They keep their tiny wings vibrating so rapidly that sometimes the draught they make will put out a lighted candle flame held at the entrance of the hive at night. ”

“ You see, a hotbed is a tiny greenhouse. In both a greenhouse and a hotbed, artificial heat is supplied.
Greenhouses are heated by steam or hot water pipes: ordinary hotbeds are heated by fresh manure, which, in the process of decomposing, gives off a great amount of heat.
Heat, air and sunlight are essential for plants’ growth.
The slanting glass sash catches the sunshine, and holds in the heat which the manure gives off. The sashes are raised a little in the warmest part of each day, which gives the plants air. ”

“ Manure is the best fertilizer. In manure almost every kind of plant food is supplied, but there are chemical foods which stimulate growth and are easily applied. If it is impossible to obtain manure, use decayed vegetables and leaves, and Commercial Fertilizer, which is made up of the mineral or chemical food needed by plants. Do not use too much, for it is very heating and may burn the roots of young plants. ”