Gardening for Little Girls

PRACTICAL ARTS FOR LITTLE GIRLS
A Series Uniform with this Volume Each book, illustrated, 75 cents net ————— COOKERY FOR LITTLE GIRLS · · · SEWING FOR LITTLE GIRLS · · · WORK AND PLAY FOR LITTLE GIRLS · · · HOUSEKEEPING FOR LITTLE GIRLS · · · GARDENING FOR LITTLE GIRLS

PUZZLE PICTURE,—FIND THE LITTLE GIRL
BY OLIVE HYDE FOSTER Author of Cookery for Little Girls Sewing for Little Girls Housekeeping for Little Girls
NEW YORK DUFFIELD & COMPANY 1917
Copyright, 1916 by HOUSE AND GARDEN Copyright, 1916, by HOUSEWIVES MAGAZINE Copyright, 1917, by ST. NICHOLAS The Century Co. Copyright, 1917, by COUNTRYSIDE MAGAZINE The Independent Co. Copyright, 1917, by OLIVE HYDE FOSTER
DEDICATED TO Junior and Allan, Two of the dearest children that ever showed love for the soil.
Children take naturally to gardening, and few occupations count so much for their development,—mental, moral and physical.
Where children's garden clubs and community gardens have been tried, the little folks have shown an aptitude surprising to their elders, and under exactly the same natural, climatic conditions, the children have often obtained astonishingly greater results. Moreover, in the poor districts many a family table, previously unattractive and lacking in nourishment, has been made attractive as well as nutritious , with their fresh green vegetables and flowers.
Ideas of industry and thrift, too, are at the same time inculcated without words, and habits formed that affect their character for life. A well-known New York City Public School superintendent once said to me that she had a flower bed every year in the children's gardens, where a troublesome boy could always be controlled by giving to him the honor of its care and keeping.
The love of nature, whether inborn or acquired, is one of the greatest sources of pleasure, and any scientific knowledge connected with it of inestimable satisfaction. Carlyle's lament was, Would that some one had taught me in childhood the names of the stars and the grasses.