A Little Garden Calendar for Boys and Girls

by Albert Bigelow Paine

THE SUN IS THE GREATEST OF ALL CHEMISTS

It was about a week later, that one afternoon little Prue and Davy and the Chief Gardener were helping big Prue with her roses, and admiring all the different kinds. Little Prue had been thinking a good deal about roses since the story of the Princess Beautiful, and wondering just which of the climbing red ones had grown about her grave. Then she began to wonder about all the kinds, and how they came. She spoke about this now, as her mamma pointed out one which she said was a new rose—just offered for sale that year.

"Where did it come from?" asked the little girl, "where do new roses come from?"

"From seed," answered the Chief Gardener, "like the new peaches and apples I told you of. Roses belong to the same family, you know, and they are grafted much in the same way. Then the seeds are planted, and from these, fine new kinds are likely to come. Rose-growers are always trying hard to make new kinds by mixing the pollen. The pollen, you remember, is the yellow powder on the little tips of the stamens. These tips, as I believe I told you, are called anthers, and the slender part of the stamen is the filament. It is the pollen falling from the anthers upon the single green stem or pistil in the center of the flower that produces the seed. The pistil is divided in parts, too. The little top piece is called the stigma, and the slender green stem is called the style. The pollen falls on the stigma and is drawn down through the style to give life to the seed-pod below."

THE ROSE STAMENS AND PISTIL WHICH PRODUCE THE SEED

The Chief Gardener picked the bloom of a single bramble rose and pulled it apart to show the children all these things.

"Now," he went on, "gardeners often take a rose of one kind and color and shake it gently over a rose of another kind and color, so that the pollen will fall from the anthers of one upon the stigma of the other. In this way the seeds are mixed and it may happen that wonderful new roses come from those seeds. Sometimes, instead of shaking the rose, the gardener carefully takes up the pollen on a tiny soft brush and lays it gently on the stigma of the other rose, all of which has to be done as soon as the bloom is open. Of course, such roses are kept to themselves, and labeled, and the seeds are carefully labeled also."

Davy and Prue were both interested.

"Oh, can I make some new kinds of roses," asked little Prue, greatly excited. "Can I, Mamma?"

"You may try, but I am afraid you will not be very successful where all the roses are out here in the open air. Still, it will do no harm to see what will happen, and you might get something very wonderful."

"I am already trying for a new kind of peach," said Davy.

"And if you get a good one we will call it the 'Early David,'" laughed the Chief Gardener.

"And what will you call my rose?"

"Why, 'the Princess Prue,' of course."

"Do seeds from the same bush make the different roses?" asked Davy.

"Yes, and from the same pod."

"But are the seeds just alike?"

"They are so far as anybody can see, but when they come to grow and bloom, one may be a white rose, another pink, and another red. Some may be dwarfs in size, and others giants. All may have the same sun, the same water, the same air, and the same soil. It is only the tiny little difference which we cannot see that makes the great difference in the plant, by and by."

Davy was thinking very hard. Soon he said:

"And where do sweet and sour and all the pepper and mustard and horseradish tastes come from? The air and the water don't taste. I never tasted much dirt, but I don't believe any of it would bite like a red pepper."

"GARDENERS OFTEN TAKE A ROSE OF ONE KIND AND SHAKE IT GENTLY OVER A ROSE OF ANOTHER KIND"

The Chief Gardener laughed.

"No, Davy, I don't believe it would," he said. "And I think the sun is the only one who could answer your question. It is a chemistry which no one of this world has been able to explain. Chemistry is a magic which you will understand by and by, and you will know then that the sun is the greatest of all chemists. Suppose we go down into your gardens and see what he is doing there."

"SOMETIMES THE GARDENER TAKES UP THE POLLEN ON A SOFT BRUSH AND LAYS IT GENTLY ON THE STIGMA OF ANOTHER ROSE"

They all went down the little steps that led to the Chief Gardener's enclosure, where Prue and Davy had their gardens, side by side with his. There just as they entered was a great mass of morning-glory vines that every morning were covered with a splendor of purple, and pink, and white, and blue, and just beyond these was a mass of dianthus pinks of every hue and shade. Bachelor-buttons, petunias, and verbenas were all there, too, besides Prue's sweet-pease by the fence, and her alyssum and mignonette. Then came Davy's things, all fresh and growing, and beyond these the Chief Gardener had ever so many things, from beets to beans, from parsley to parsnips, from carrots to corn. In one small corner by the strawberry-bed there grew a little bed of pepper plants, and near-by a row of tomatoes. The Chief Gardener stopped in the midst of all these things.

"Here is the sun's chemistry," he said. "We put some tiny bits of life in the ground. The same earth holds them, the same rain wets them, the same air is above them. Then the sun shines, and with that earth and water and air and that tiny seed, it makes something different of its own. Of one it makes a flower, of another a fruit, and of another a vegetable. Of the flowers it makes many kinds and colors—of the fruits and vegetables it makes many shapes and flavors. The sweet red strawberry and the fiery red pepper grow side by side. It makes food of the roots of the beet, and the parsnip, and carrot, and of the seed of the bean, and of the corn. It fills the mustard, and the horseradish, and the pepper, with a flavor so that we may season our meats and soups, and it gives to thyme, and marjoram, and fennel, a sweet savor that is like an odor of by-gone days. Into the flowers it pours the color and perfume that make them delicious and beautiful, and into the fruit and vegetables the starch and phosphates that make them pleasant to the taste and nourishing to our bodies. Where do all these things come from? We do not see the colors, or smell the perfumes, or taste the sweet and the sour and the bitter in the air and water, and we could not see, or smell, or taste, them in the earth. Yet they must be there, and only the sun knows just how and where to find them, and how to make the best use of them for the world's good, and comfort, and happiness. Without the sun the earth would be bare and cold, and there would be no life—at least, not such life as we know. Every breath we draw, every bite we eat, every step we take, every article of clothing we wear, comes to us through the sun."

"Papa, we can see the sun's colors," said Davy. "When it shines through the cut-glass berry-dish it makes all its colors on the table-cloth."

"So it does, Davy, I didn't remember that. A glass prism shows us all the colors in the sunlight, and these are the colors that it puts into the flowers and fruit—just how, I am afraid we shall never know, though like all great wonders, I suppose, it is really a very simple thing. When plants grow without sunlight, they grow without color, and it is the same with little boys and girls. Open air, sunlight, fresh water, and good food—these are what make plants and people strong and happy and beautiful."

And so June passed and half the year was gone. Prue and Davy were brown from working and playing out of doors, and were growing so fast that Davy said it was hard for his corn to keep up with him. They took great pride in the flowers and vegetables that came to the table from their gardens and always wanted them in separate dishes from those that came from the larger garden. When any of their friends came to dine with them, it was Prue's flowers that were to be worn and Davy's vegetables that were first to be served. By the end of June some of the early things were gone, and had been replanted. Other things had grown so big that they were beginning to crowd in their rows and beds, so that by the first of July, the little gardens that grew side by side, and could be seen like a picture through the windows where the winter gardens had been, reminding little Prue of Alice's garden in Wonderland, had become almost a wonderland jungle.

JULY