"What do you see, Miss Miller?" called Elena.
"I thought we might have a little visit in the garden. We will like some edibles at camp to-night, and the garden is so near, we may as well see what we can find."
The girls eagerly assented to the plan and were soon on the path leading to the garden, pails and baskets swinging as they went. They were passing a patch of early potatoes when the Guide called their attention to the humble vegetable.
"Doesn't any one here eat potatoes?"
"Of course we do, but we can get them on our way back," replied Hilda.
"How many of you know whether a potato is a root, fruit, or stem?" asked Miss Miller, as she stood near a healthy plant.
"Wh-y, it's a fruit, isn't it?" replied Jane.
"No, it's a root," added Zan.
"'Tis neither," said Miss Miller. "A potato is a swollen stem that sends up shoots above ground to bear leaves. I will show you," and the teacher dug up a small potato.
"As the potato grows these small eyes form deeper folds. It looks for all the world like an eye with a heavy lid over it. If we want to use this potato the next year for planting, it is left in the cellar until time to cut. In early spring these eyes send out tubers, and every tuber will make a new vine when planted. Sometimes one large potato will make several good vines.
"The old potato furnishes starch for the new growth to feed upon and before the young potatoes form under ground the old one is dried up by the use of its starch. The green leaves send down nourishment in turn for the young potatoes at the end of the stem, until they have attained their growth in the Fall.
"Potatoes used to be grown from seed that formed in the small pod left when the blossoms fell off. But growing potatoes from tubers of old ones was so much quicker, and saved so much labour, that a crisis has been reached in the present day. The potatoes are now unable to produce seed! No seed is to be had for general use. Last year an offer of several hundred dollars was made for a thimble-full of potato seed, and do you know, girls, that not a farmer in the United States could procure enough potato seed to win that prize offer!"
"Why, my goodness! What will we do?" said Zan.
"We'll have to retrace our steps and find a way to accomplish progress without so important a loss. No one has ever given a thought what to do in case of a potato famine, for the homely vegetable has always been so abundant. But its very value is depreciating slowly, for very few potatoes will keep long, and almost all potatoes have great black spots in the centre, while many of them have 'dry rot.' This is due to the manner in which they are grown to-day. Each crop depletes the nourishing qualities of the new one, and finally they will no longer flourish."
"Add to this the pest of potato bugs and it looks as if potatoes were doomed, doesn't it?" added Zan.
"Bugs? Why, Zan, do potatoes have bugs?" cried the girls.
"The vines do! Potato bugs look a great deal like a lady-bug only I think they are prettier," replied Zan.
"But they are not as harmless as the lady-bug," added Miss Miller. "A potato bug will soon destroy a vine if it is left to feed unmolested."
"What can one do to them?" asked Jane, curiously.
"Dad pays the boys and me a cent a dozen to carry a small tin can under each vine and, with a stick, push them off of the potato vine into the can with some kerosene in it," said Zan.
"Ugh! How can you! I think that is horrid!" exclaimed Elena, her artistic soul in arms against such a method.
"This summer Bill will have to spray hellebore on the vines, or use Paris Green to kill the bugs, for I don't want to spend time that way any more," said Zan, laughing at Elena's expression.
Miss Miller smiled, too, as they continued through the garden and came to the grape arbour. She gave them a short talk on the habits and qualities of various grapes and how to distinguish the grape-vine-leaf of the different varieties.
"Miss Miller, I spy a few cherries left for us by the robins. I will climb the tree and pick them while you tell the girls about the fruit," offered Zan, taking her basket and soon, up among the branches, throwing down cherries for the Band.
"If we had been a few weeks sooner we should have seen the blossoms fall off and leave small cups where they have been. This cup dries up and finally bursts. Inside it, the tiny green cherry has been forming. This now grows and with the aid of sun and rain, becomes this size, but it is still green; when it is full-grown it turns a pale yellow, then pink, and lastly a crimson like this one. At that time, the fruit is ripe for picking, or the robins will get them before you know it! Robins are very fond of ripe cherries."
Zan had gathered all within reach and slid down the tree with her basket. "Hardly worth the bother – there are so few," said she, shaking them in the bottom of the basket.
"But they are fine and sweet!" remarked Jane, smacking her lips over one.
"Oh, look quick! See the rabbit over there in that green patch!" cried Elena, eagerly.
"Yes, it's one of the bunnies I told you of. He knows where the carrot and cabbage patches are. He's digging for a carrot now. Let's go over very softly and watch him," said Zan.
But the rabbit was too timid to remain at dinner with a number of noisy girls watching nearby, and he soon disappeared.
Hilda pulled out the young carrot the bunny had partly dug out and asked Miss Miller about it.
"The carrot is a root vegetable that is at first a tiny thin string that grows down into the dark earth. As the leaves grow the root grows too, and in the fall when the leaves dry and die, the root remains until it is dug out for use. If it is not used it remains in the ground until spring when it sends up new leaves and flowers. The blossoms make seeds and these in turn fall and grow new carrots, then the old one, its purpose fulfilled, dies."
"Poor old carrot! It works away down in the darkness all its life, and furnishes flowers for new carrots, and then dies, without ever having enjoyed the world," sighed Zan.
"But it did its work well, and that is all we are expected to do here," said Miss Miller.
"Well, I think I'd like a bit more beauty in my life than the carrot gets, or I'd rebel," laughed Elena.
As the Band walked through the garden, first noting one vegetable, then another, they arrived at some fruit trees. "There's a prune, girls," said Miss Miller, pointing to a plum that hung in the sunshine from a slender tree-branch.
"A prune! Why, it's a plum!" laughed Nita.
"A plum that will be a fine prune some day!"
"Are prunes made from plums?" asked Elena, dubiously.
"Yes, but not all plums will make good prunes. A special kind is raised for that purpose. In California, where most of our best prunes come from, great orchards of plum trees grow and bear fruit. When the plums are ripe they are gathered and packed in boxes to be shipped to every part of the globe."
Zan spied some raspberry bushes after that and ran over to see if any were ripe enough to pluck. She gathered enough for supper, and turning back to join the other girls, found Miss Miller pointing out the difference between red and black raspberries. The girls listened eagerly to the interesting information that showed them how the blossoms fell to make way for the green seed. The seeds later, swollen to the size of a ripe berry, being green, gradually changed to a pale yellow; the sun and dew still reaching it turned it to a pink, and at last to the rich crimson with the down on the face. If it should happen to remain on the stem, it would finally dry up and scatter its tiny seeds to sink into the ground and start another vine growing the following spring.
The Band gathered enough lettuce and fruit for supper, and vegetables for dinner the following day, before Miss Miller started toward the house.
After leaving the garden, the teacher explained that she thought they ought to hold a meeting that afternoon at the Bluff. Being only five in number,