"Yes. There are some heliotrope plants, marguerites, some lovely rose geraniums, and a few flowering maples or—I have forgotten the long name for them."
"Abutilon is the other name," added The Chief. "Well, that is a start, surely. I'll do some potting with you next Saturday afternoon. That will give Elizabeth time to get her hotel plants. I guess Dee will drive you up. You are to take a big basket with you, and your trowels. Carefully lift each plant from its resting-place. Water the soil a bit before you take up the plants. They come up easier for this, and soil is more likely to remain clinging to the roots. If it should rain Friday you will be saved the trouble of taking a watering pot with you. Be sure to take up with the plant some of its own soil. Then pack all these soil-encased plants in your basket. Do not let the sun get at them before we get at potting. Come all of you at two in the afternoon. Bring your plants with their own earth, your straggly geraniums, pots, and each a trowel. Now perhaps you will be willing to trot home so I may eat my supper."
Next Saturday at two a grand collection of girls, plants, big pots, little pots, and trowels arrived. The Chief took girls and all out into his potting shed. This was once an old woodhouse; now a shed with benches running along two sides of it. Under the benches were great heaps of soil. Pots and pans were piled in one corner and garden implements were neatly put up on the walls.
"I call this a pretty nice place for work," said Eloise in tones full of real interest. The Chief nodded smilingly at her, for there was a bond of sympathy between the man and this real outdoor girl. Eloise had a greater appreciation of the work than any one of the others.
"Where did that splendid window box come from?" asked Josephine.
"That is one the boys made last winter especially for the school. I shall have to give you girls some group work first. Then I'll demonstrate potting and slipping to you all together. Eloise and Josephine will start to put the drainage material into the pots. Ethel and Dee may do the same for the window box. Put in your curved pieces of pot over the drainage hole, then about an inch of drainage material. There is a wooden mallet. Crack up some bits of old flower pot as you need them. Outside is a half barrel of old pots. Instead of using all pot for this half inch of drainage material, use some charcoal. In that barrel marked charcoal you will find plenty of pieces. The charcoal is not only good for drainage but helps keep the soil sweet. Helena, Miriam and Katharine will mix the soil. Here are some firkins and peck measures. To every three measures of soil from that pile there, which is nothing but garden soil, add one measure of sand and one of leaf mould. Now, my leaf mould over there in that tub isn't real mould from the woods. You see the part desired in leaf mould is vegetable matter. I can get that from old rotted leaves and rotted sods. Notice, girls, that you see no green grass in that soddy matter I have shaved off with my spade—only the under surface of the sods. This surface is full of vegetable matter in the form of young roots. Stir up all these portions thoroughly.
"Now, Elizabeth, look at these pots. Some are brand new, some are clogged with soil and green matter. Soak the new ones in a pailful of water and clean and wash the dirty ones."
"I'd like to ask why I am to soak the new pots, and why, since soil is going right back into these old pots, I have to clean them. I should think the soil clinging to the sides would help out."
"Yes, I should like to know that, too," said Miriam, stopping her work.
"If new pots are not soaked the soil in them dries out very rapidly. You can see that would be bad. Old soil clinging to plants interferes with the new root growth while the green affects the porosity of the pot."