The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming.

Ellen Eddy Shaw

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• Publié par: nuphung
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 52
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming., by Ellen Eddy Shaw This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net Title: The Library of Work and Play: Gardening and Farming. Author: Ellen Eddy Shaw Release Date: September 27, 2004 [EBook #13537] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARDENING AND FARMING *** Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Stephen Schulze and the PG Online Distributed Proofreaders Team The Library of Work and Play GARDENING AND FARMING BY ELLEN EDDY SHAW 1911 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE REAL BOYS OF THIS REAL CLUB AND TO THE GIRLS WHO ARE JUST AS GOOD AS BOYS CONTENTS PART I—THE GARDEN CLUB I. The Garden Club II. The Boys' Garden Difficulties III. The Girls' Secret IV. Garden Experiments Performed Indoors V. The Work Shop End of the Garden VI. What the Girls Made Winter Evenings VII. Improving the School Grounds VIII. Myron's Strawberry Bed IX. Jack's All-Round Garden X. Albert and Jay's Drainage Problem XI. George's Cabbage Troubles XII. Peter, Potatoes and Profit XIII. Philip's Backyard XIV. The Corn Contest XV. The Girls' Secret Work XVI. More About the Girls' Work XVII. The Girls' Winter Work XVIII. The Grand Wind-Up—Girls vs. Boys PART II.—THE CHIEF'S GARDEN TALKS I. The Soil II. Plant Food III. Seeds IV. The Plant Itself V. Increasing Plants VI. Garden Operations VII. Common Weeds VIII. Garden Pests IX. Vegetable Culture X. Flower Culture XI. The Wild-Flower Garden XII. Landscape Gardening XIII. How Boys and Girls Can Make Money from Their Gardens ILLUSTRATIONS Dee's Garden Was a "Lovesome Thing" Frontispiece The Way The Chief Taught His Boys to Handle Tools Jay's Tile Drain Converted a Swamp into a Garden Philip's Backyard Made Beautiful by Annuals and Quick-growing Vines The Bulb Story Constant Cultivation of the Soil Saved George's Cabbages Jack's Rake Handle as a Measuring Stick Albert Sowing Large Seeds Singly Elizabeth Sowing Small Seed from the Package Myron Transplanting His Long-rooted Strawberry Plants Katharine Transplanting Her Flowers by a Method of Lifting PART I—THE GARDEN CLUB I THE GARDEN CLUB The door opened. A gust of wind and rain literally swept five boys, wet and breathless, into the room. The man at the big oak table in front of a huge open fire looked up, smiled, and said, "Off with your duds, boys! Bar the door securely, Jay, for it's a wild night. Throw a fresh log on the fire, Albert. And all line up." For a few moments the big cheerful room seemed full of wriggling, twisting boys as great coats were pulled off and hung up carefully on pegs at the far end of the room. It was a rule here at The Chief's home that things should always be shipshape. Then the "line up" came. This was a little ceremony the boys always went through, having dropped into it quite of their own accord. They formed a line in front of the open fire with backs to it and faces toward the man. Then they solemnly saluted in military style. At this The Chief arose, saluted, and by a wave of the hand assigned each boy to his place at the table. This little group of boys had formed itself naturally into a club. It met with The Chief every Saturday night. He was really no chief, this big, boy-loving man who had come to spend a while in this little country village, to rest and to write. The boys had named him The Chief because, as Albert said, "He could lead any tribe and tame any savage." At this Albert always laughed for he himself had been called a savage so many times he almost believed he was one. The boys dropped into their places. Jay, or the "Little Chief" as the boys called him, sat opposite the Big Chief at the end of the table and right in front of the fire. He was slim and tall and light of foot. He could run faster, throw farther, and play better than any other boy in the village. He always led, he never bullied, he played fair, so the other boys always followed. Albert, Jay's brother, big and heavy and as full of mischief as he could hold, took his place at The Chief's right hand. Albert called this his place of honour although knowing full well that he was there so The Chief might have him within reach. Next to Albert came George, frank-faced and bashful, sturdy and loyal. Opposite him red-headed, stubby Peter sat always on the edge of his chair, always with a bit of a smile on his face, never talking much, always agreeing good-naturedly. Beside Peter and at The Chief's left was Jack, who wriggled constantly like a young eel. After the boys were seated and quiet, The Chief pushed back his work, a plan of his summer's garden, leaned back in his chair and said, "I think first we had better take up your reports." Then he pointed at Jay who began: "Well, when Albert and I asked father for a piece of the garden for our very own to work exactly as we pleased this summer, with no questions asked or answered, he laughed. He said that Albert wouldn't stick to it a day." "I will, just the same," shouted out Albert quite red in the face. "Just keep out of this, Savage, until I get through." The man laid a restraining hand on Albert's arm and Jay continued: "But I begged father, and told him we'd always worked for him, and he might let us try for ourselves. Besides, I told him we'd not shirk his work. So finally he said we each could have the ten hills in the corn patch for the experiment, just as you wished. And then—" "And then," broke in Albert, unable longer to contain himself, "what do you think he gave us? It's just no use trying, for he gave us an old piece of land below the barn. It's a regular old swamp; why, water stands there the whole spring long, and it takes half the summer to dry it out. Then it gets hard as a brick. Now what is the use of trying on that?" "We'll take it just the same, and so we told father," continued Jay. "We have just got to make that old land do something." The Chief nodded and pointed to George for