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Thursday, October 5, 2017

1889 - Seed Crafts for the Clever Child (With Notes for Modern Parents)

As a retired art teacher, I applaud any craft that gets a child using their hands, especially ones that turn "nothing" into something. 

Over the years I taught I noticed children having less and less control over their hands. While in the 19th century little children (K and first grade) were using tools of all sorts, from pen knives to needles and thread, kids now manipulate pre-made things, and their understanding of how to hold and use tools, even scissors has gone way down hill.   Handwriting readiness for the classroom teacher has gone the same way.  If you are reading this your child probably isn't who I am talking about :-)   (My notes in brown text.)

Harper's Young People, Volume 11, Part 1 - 1889


The fierce-looking snake shown in No. 6 is simply a lot of acorn cups strung together in order of size on a piece of string or line wire.

Hand drills are magic to children.  Forget the electric ones for little kids.  Let them revel in watching the drill turn its way down into the wood.  Show them how the drill is an inclined plane wrapped around.  They will get to invent some sort of clamp to hold the acorn cap still...perhaps their legos could be put to use?     

I think this illustration is a bit fanciful...that tail doesn't look likely.  Perhaps aiming for a fatter boa would match the acorn caps I know.

The pretty basket (No. 9) is made of melon seeds strung on stout silk or linen thread. The shape of the basket and of the handle is preserved by a frame of wire bent to the proper shape. This will form the rim and handle of the basket, and from the rim strings of melon seeds may hang. 

The manner of threading the seeds is shown in No. 10. The lining of the basket is a bag of colored China silk. It should be attached to the wire frame only, and hang loose therefrom. It is not to be expected that this fragile little basket will hold anything heavy, but hung from a gas bracket in a bedroom it will be useful as a receptacle for the burnt matches which are not wanted immediately to provide legs and arms for cork beauties.

See the original article for more 19th century projects like the little doll "cork beauties".
I do not know if this is relevant, but many seed crafts soak the seeds before sewing or piercing as the dry ones split.  

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

1887 - Elder's Wife's Way to Save Seed, and Another Way

Herbaceous Border by Helen Allingham
These two people have differing approaches to seed gathering, and life!  
Elder's Wife seems to be a bit of a Martha Stewart.   

Both of these articles were published in Popular Gardening and Fruit Growing in 1887.  


On the Gathering and Care of Flower Seeds.

Many persons gather seeds for the season all on one day and that far along in the season. I commence with the first flower of spring, and keep it up all through the season.

I usually carry in my pocket a small ball of twine, and when I see an extra fine flower from which I would like seed, I tie a bit of twine around the stem, and when among my flowers I am on the lookout for the ripened seeds of such. These I gather and tie up in the corner
seeds. Fine seeds with coarse husks can easily be separated by sifting; and still others, like Scabiosa and Calendula, require no cleaning.

All seeds must be carefully cured before storing away, and even then should not be closely packed into bags. Choose a bag considerably larger than you think will be needed for the amount of seeds, label it plainly with the name of the flower, so there need be no guesswork as to its contents.

For seed bags take bleached muslin, tear off strips from 2 to 4 inches wide. With the narrowest hemmer on the sewing machine hem them on one edge; cut the 2 inch strips into 3 inch pieces, 3 into 4, and 4 into 6, sew these into bags, leaving the hem outside. Cut pieces of twine, such as druggists use, into 3 or 4 inch pieces, tie a knot in each end, sew one fast by the middle to each bag near the top, and you are ready for the seeds as they are cleaned.

To me seed gathering is one of the pleasures of floriculture; quite as delightful as any other part, and this is especially so to one who saves more than are needed for her own use, that she may be liberal to others.

Is there not in each one's circle of acquaintance some child, invalid or poor person who would be pleased to have a pretty flower bed if only they had some seeds?  If so, then apportion into little paper bags, writing the name of the seeds plainly on each, and send them to such. 


"A good deal of trouble" do you say?   A little pleasant recreation if one enters into the spirit of it rightly.          
 -Elder's Wife



Saving Flower Seeds.


I think that my way is simpler than the Elder's Wife's, referred to on page 153. I save all my letter envelopes. In May I get an open chip basket (one costing 5c to 10c is good enough and big enough for any one who has only a small garden) and a bunch of old envelopes, and start a-gathering, beginning with Rock Cress, Erysimum, Crown Anemones, and other early bloomers, putting the seeds of each kind into a separate envelope, on which is marked the name with pencil, and the envelopes, as they are filled, put upright in the basket and bring them in.  And every now and again, all summer, as there are seeds ready to save I gather them in the same way. And when I bring them in I remove the envelopes from the basket to a flat box—the same as I use for starting seeds in—and set the box on a dry, airy shelf secure from mice. 

After the summer's gathering I clean the seeds, return them to the envelopes whence they came, the envelopes to the boxes, and the boxes to the shelves. But I never bother to put the seeds into closed bags. As they are, they are always handy, easy to get at, and open to ventilation. So long as they are dry, hard frost in winter won't hurt even tropical seeds. In cleaning seeds I use a small sieve made out of a piece of mosquito wire netting. In order to separate such wooly-coated seeds as Anemones and Globe Amaranths rub them in dry, clean sand; this will not remove the wool from the seeds but it will render it less liable to stick in bunches.         
 — William Falconer.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

1884 - Seed Humor ...really!

Meissonier
This story was published in 1884 in The Gardeners' Magazine, Volume 27.  I find the originals tough on my eyes and actually wait to read them until after I copy and "open up" the text for easier online viewing.

Enjoy!





The following story first appeared in the pages of Once a Week.  It is founded on a joke of the 
painter Meissonier who set a trap for his gardener and then fell into it himself.

I THINK you're something of a gardener, are you not? 

I admitted horticultural propensities in a small degree, and he continued. 

Then you'll enjoy my story all the more. Well, my father was a great florist, an amateur, and used to take immense pleasure in the cultivation of a moderate-sized garden attached to our suburban cottage at Islington.

You seem surprised at my mentioning such a site for a cottage and garden, but I allude to the Islington as I knew it thirty years ago, when Newington “Green Lanes’ was a dangerous place after dark, and an inhabitant of Upper or Lower Clapton was considered a rustic. Numerous little cottages, with their neatly-trimmed flower-beds, were to be seen at Islington at the time of which I speak, and conspicuous among them all for artistic arrangement and plants of really great value was my father's garden.

How well I recollect the look of satisfaction with which he used to regard the work of his hands, as, sitting in his easy chair on a summer's Sunday evening, he would slowly puff his after-dinner pipe (he was a widower) while drawing the attention of some friends to the peculiarities of certain cuttings, and the various beauties of his favourite shrubs.

His companion on one of these occasions was a Mr. Tibbs, a thorough Cockney, with about as much idea of country life and agricultural pursuits as a fish has of nut-cracking. 
He was a tradesman in the City, had risen to the rank of alderman, and was now within no very great distance of the mayoralty. 

 This “achievement of greatness,’ though adding somewhat to his natural pomposity, had in no way diminished his innate relish for a joke. His fun certainly was not refined, nor his raillery elegant; but, as he used to say, “a joke's a joke,” and undoubtedly Mr. Tibbs’s jokes were peculiarly his own, and no one, I'm sure, would ever think of claiming them. 

“How's Polly Hanthus?" was his invariable greeting on entering our house. After the delivery of which facetious allusion to my father, he would indulge in chuckles of some seconds' duration. 
“Well,” said he, when my father had finished a long disquisition on the merits of a splendid chrysanthemum; “well, Lorquison, I don't know much about your kissymythumbs, which is Latin or Greek, or—something or other,” he added, after a pause, feeling rather out of his element on an etymological question.    “But I’ll send you a seed or two the like of which you’ve never come across, my boy.” 

Then, taking his pipe from his mouth, he wagged his head in a fat and happy manner. 

“And what may they be?'' asked my father, with much interest.

 “Well, they may be anything,” replied Tibbs, with an inward chuckle at his own wit ; “but they happen to be seeds.  Lor' bless you, I ain’t a-going to tell you what they are. But they're rare—very rare. Such a gardener (he pronounced it gardinger) as you ought to tell what the plant is when you looks at the seed. For my part I don't pretend to call 'em any grand name— its a very short 'un. Will you have 'em?" 

“Delighted!" answered my father, “send them as soon as possible; and I don't doubt but that we shall be able to get up a curious paper on the subject in the GARDENER's MAGAZINE.” 

“Very good; then mind you take care in planting of 'em, Lorquison, 'cos they've never been sown afore in this country.” 
Here Mr. Tibbs was taken with a violent fit of coughing, which, although he attributed it to the evening air, or the smoke going “the wrong way,” my young eyes detected as the effect caused by a series of suppressed chuckles.   My father, elated with the idea of his new acquisition, did not remark this. 

“Here's my coach,” said Tibbs; knocking the ashes out of his pipe. 
“Don’t forget the seeds,” were my father's last words, as his guest departed. 

I believe my father scarcely slept all that night, he was never a sluggard, but on that Monday morning he was up earlier than ever, and working in his garden with a diligence worthy of “The old Corycian.” He was clearing out a space of ground for the reception of the promised seeds. 

At breakfast he was in a perpetual state of fidget; the postman was late—stay—would it come by post—no, by carrier. At last, however, the postman did arrive, and delivered into my father's hands, ready at the front gate to receive him, a small packet, with a letter from Tibbs containing an apology for having sent only twenty seeds, and pleading their value as his excuse. These twenty little wonders were quite round and very small, being, as it appeared to us, of a dark red colour. My father inspected them, and looked puzzled; smelt them, and said “Humph. That “Humph" was portentous; even the stolid Tibbs would cease his chuckle at my father’s “Humph: ” 

Perhaps you know that all gardeners examine with a glass, and taste their seeds; my father was now about to go through this double process. He looked at them through his powerful microscope. “Why, surely—” said my father, and took another survey. 
Something was wrong.

 “I do believe—” he began, and then followed the trial by tasting. He smacked his lips and clicked his tongue against his palate—frowned—spat out the seed—bent down his head to the microscope, and then exclaimed:

 “Confound that Tibbs ..."
 I waited anxiously for what was to follow. 

“Seeds! Why he's sent me the dried roe of a herring!"

 I recollect how amused I was, as a child, at that practical joke of Tibbs’s.


My father laughed heartily in spite of his vexation, and folding up the packet previous to putting it away in his private drawer, said quietly, “Very well, Mr. Tibbs,” by which I knew that he intended to repay our Cockney friend in his own coin. 

He wrote, however, thanking Tibbs for his present, and that little gentleman, I have no doubt, retailed the joke to many a friend on 'Change, and began to look upon himself as the Theodore Hook of private life. But they laugh longest who laugh last. 

Three weeks after this, Tibbs met my father one Saturday afternoon in the City. 
“How's Polly Hanthus?" inquired Tibbs. 
“Well, thank you,” replied my father, “Will you dine with me tomorrow?” 

Tibbs was not the man to refuse a good offer. “By the way,” he slyly asked, almost bursting with chuckles, “how about those seeds, eh?” 

“What seeds?” asked my father, with an air of utter ignorance. 
“Oh, that won't do”; returned Tibbs. “I say, are they growing? T'want bad, was it?” 

“If you mean those seeds you sent to me as a curiosity three weeks ago, I can only say, that they’re getting on capitally.”

“They, what?” exclaimed the alderman.

 “Well? I grant you that it is a lusus naturae.”  {a freak of nature}

“Oh, indeed : " said Tibbs, thinking that this might be the horticultural Latin for a herring. 

“But come to-morrow, and you’ll see them yourself. Good-bye!” 

“Very curious—very!” murmured the bewildered Tibbs to himself, as my father hurried off. 


When my father returned to Islington on that Saturday night, he brought with him twenty red herrings.   Tibbs, according to promise, dined with us on Sunday. 

“After the post-prandial pipe, you shall see how well your seeds are progressing.” 

Tibbs put his hands in his pockets, and feebly smiled at my father's words. He had tried, during dinner, to discover whether real seeds had been sent by some mistake, or the trick had been discovered. But my father began talk about sea anemones, prickly fish, jelly fish, of strange marine inhabitants that had the appearance of vegetables, and so on, till Mr. Tibbs saw but slight difference between a cod fish and a fir tree, and began to think his joke was not so good a one after all. 

Dinner finished, the pipe smoked, my father led the way down the garden walk. He was enjoying himself immensely. Tibbs began to think of all the persons to whom he had told the excellent story of Lorquison and the herrings, and repented that he had not given more of his time to the study of natural history. On he walked, following my father through rows of geraniums, pinks, bright roses, and marvelous tulips, until at length they arrived at a sequestered part where, on a fresh dug bed, overshadowed by two fine laburnums, stood twenty inverted flower-pots arranged in four rows. There my father stopped. 

“Now,” said he, “you musn't be disappointed if they’re not so far advanced as you expected; but I think they’re getting on admirably, considering 'tis the first time they’ve ever been planted in this country.” 

Tibbs remembered his own words and mumbled something about “first time—this country—who'd ha’ thought”—and looked very foolish. 

“There,” said my father, lifting up the first pot. Tibbs caught sight of something beneath it.

 “Good gracious !” he exclaimed, and put on his spectacles. Sure enough there was the nose of a red herring just visible above the ground.

 “Cover it up, Tibbs, the cold air may hurt it,” cried my father, who had been pretending to examine the other pots. “There's a better one—it has had more sun.” 

He pointed to one which he had just uncovered, whose eyes, just visible above the black earth, were looking up in the most impudent manner. Tibbs moved on silently; carefully did he replace the first pot, and with the gravest face imaginable examined all the herrings in turn. 

"They're getting on well,” said my father, “’tis a curious sight.” 

“Curious " echoed Tibbs, regaining his speech. “It’s wonderful, sir,” said he, taking my father aside in his most impressive manner, “I thought yesterday 'twas a joke; but I give you my solemn word of honour that I shouldn't have believed it if I had not seen it.” 

Having given utterance to this remarkable sentence, he slowly, turned on his heel and walked towards the house, my father following with his handkerchief tightly pressed against his mouth. 
As for me, I stopped behind, and pulled up the twenty herrings one after the other, and when I returned to the house Mr. Tibbs had departed. 

Not bad, was it?


Herring Print from The Herring, its natural history and national importance By John M. Mitchell

Sunday, October 1, 2017

1881 - A Little Advice on Saving Flower Seeds

I grew up in a household where grubby seed filled envelopes and twisted bits of tissue were tucked in drawers.  They may have never reached a garden, but my mom and gram couldn't pass up the chance to save seeds that were just "going to waste"...especially when they were from someone else's garden!
Step, E., Bois, D., Favourite flowers of garden and greenhouse, vol. 1: t. 43 (1896-1897) 



1859 - A Seed Saver's Gentle Rant

It's time to look around the garden for flower seeds to save!
The garden. An illustrated weekly journal of horticulture in all its branches [ed. William Robinson], vol. 40: (1891)

Saving Flower Seeds.

Don't forget to save flower seeds, as they successively ripen. 


Many careful and industrious gardeners are annoyed every Spring by thoughtless neighbors coming to beg seeds. 
"I had plenty of flowers last season,'' they each say, "but neglected to save any seed; it was too great a bore to do it; please give me a few of several of the prettiest kinds of flowers, as you have a plenty." 
And so it happens every Spring. Now, the only way to treat such people is to say, "No: save your own seeds; or if too careless or indolent for that, then buy them!"

There are cases, indeed, in which one person may ask for a few seeds of his neighbor; but no one should live by begging. Every person who pretends to have flowers, should make it a regular part of his Summer's business to save seeds for the next year's use.

Some persons keep all their old letter envelopes for gathering seed; others make little paper bags for the purpose. Or, if one docs not choose either of these methods, it is well to have an old newspaper always at hand when walking in the garden, to collect any seeds that may be ripe. Mark the name on the margin of the paper, and lay the seeds away to become thoroughly dry. On rainy days, these may be cleaned of chaff, done up in small packets, and laid away for the season. 


As some of the finest of the late flowers are now ripening their seeds, our advice may be followed to good advantage.