GIFT OF MICHAEL REE^E Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/amongschoolgardeOOgreerich RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION •AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS • BY M. LOUISE GREENE, M.Pd., Ph.D. (Yalej NEW YORK CHARITIHS PUBLICATION C O M M I T T K H . . . . M C M X 1 jREESE cU f^ Copyright, 191 o, by The Russell Sage Foundation PRESS OF WM. F. FELL CO. PHILADELPHIA FOREWORD "Among School Gardens" is intended, (i) To answer the questions: What are school gardens? What purpose do they serve? Where are the best? (2) To give such explicit directions that a novice may be able to start a school garden; and to show that even the simplest one can be of great benefit to children. (3) To share with those already interested in school gardens knowl- edge of work done in different places. Until a few years ago it was difficult to obtain the right sort of instruction in school gardening unless one left home for a long period. Many are unable to do this. General information and some experience in cultivating flowers in a city yard constituted the few foundation stones upon which I decided to build a good superstructure of knowledge applicable to all phases of the sub- ject. The fact that I had to collect my own equip- ment may enable me to help others who cannot obtain the proper training for school gardening. Some instruction from Mr. Herbert D. Hemenway, one of the pioneers of the movement, consid- erable practice at the greenhouse bench, in the teacher's class and in charge of children under Mr. Stanley H. Rood, Director of the excellently equipped School of Horticulture, Hartford, Conn., and work with Mr. Henry G. Parsons, lecturer on V 205079 FOREWORD the subject in the summer school of New York University, constituted the chief part of my preparation. Visits to some of the best gardens in our own country and Canada were also made. Later, at the suggestion of Miss Mary Marshall Butler, of Yonkers, N. Y., the Russell Sage Foundation asked me to spend a summer study- ing school gardens with a view to this publication. I have endeavored to make the book a readable, reliable statement of what seems fundamental in school gardening. It would be impossible to mention the names of the many persons, reaching into the hundreds, who have helped in gathering data. Almost without exception all who were asked gave generously of their interest, knowledge, and illustrative material. Some of the latter was unavailable. What has been used shows special phases of the work and as wide a range as possible of school garden activities. Frequently busy men and women gave from half a day to several days of their time. Without such assistance this book could not have come into existence. The writer acknowledges with sincere appre- ciation the courtesies received from the following: Assistant Secretary Hays; Professors L. C. Corbett and Dick J. Crosby, of the United States Department of Agriculture; Miss Susan B. Sipe, Supervisor of Nature Study in the District of Columbia and collaborator in the Department of Agriculture; Miss Louise Klein Miller, Curator of School Gardens, Cleveland, Ohio; Miss Florence vi FOREWORD E. Lillie, of Minneapolis, Minn.; Miss Emilie Yunker, Woman's Outdoor Art League of Louis- ville, Ky . ; Miss Stella Nathan, Supervisor of School Gardens for the Board of Education, Philadelphia, Pa.; Mr. John L. Randall, of the Pittsburgh Play- ground Association; Professor Otis W. Caldwell, of Chicago University, Chicago, 111., and Professor Benjamin Marshall Davis, of Miami University. This list, brief as it is, would be incomplete were no mention made of indebtedness to Doctor James W. Robertson and the staff of Macdonald College, Ste. Annede Bellevue, Quebec; to Professor S. D. McCready, and Mr. E. A. Howes, of Guelph, Ontario. For the critical 'reading of the chapter on "Weeds" I am indebted to Professor Alexander W. Evans, of Yale University; for chapters con- cerning soil, planting, etc., to Mr. R. P. Powell, Superintendent of City Farming, in Buffalo, N. Y.; and for reading the manuscript as a whole, to Mr. Edward Mahoney and Mr. Stanley H. Rood. To Messrs. Doubleday, Page and Company and The Macmillan Company, to the editors of Suburban Life, the National Association of Audu- bon Societies and the National Cash Register Com- pany of Dayton, Ohio, and to James Vick's Sons, Rochester, New York, acknowledgment is made for the use of excerpts, lists, and photographs. M. Louise Greene. New Haven, Ginnecticut, March, U)io. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Foreword v List of Illustrations xi CHAPTER I The Evolution of the School Garden ... 3 CHAPTER 11 Different Kinds of School Gardens .... 41 CHAPTER III Soil Fertility 83 CHAPTER IV Cost of Equipment ill CHAPTER V Planning and Planting the Garden 145 CHAPTER VI After Planting, What? 177 CHAPTER VII An Interlude: Some Garden Weeds .203 CHAPTER Vm The School Garden in Vacation and in Term Time . 221 CHAPTER IX Some Last Things 263 ix TABLE OF CONTENTS APPENDICES PAGE A. Notes 279 B. Testimony 321 C. How to Plant a Tree 336 D. Ten Principles of Pruning 338 E. A Hymn for Arbor Day 339 Bibliography 343 Index 377 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACE Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, N. Y. Frontispiece "Mine" 5 Domestic Science or Kitchen Garden, Oakland School, Cleveland, Ohio opp. page 7 Macdonald College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue. School garden on the "group plan" 14 Section of a "Group" Garden: one or two children on each vegetable plot 15 Guelph School Gardens, July, 1909 .... 16 Bowesville School Grounds, Canada '7 Teachers' Class visiting the Merden School Gar- dens, Canada 19 "Boys should be Formed not Reformed." Na- tional Cash Register Gardens opp. page 21 Morgan School, Washington, D. C 22 School of Horticulture, Hartford, Conn, ... 26 Boys' Plots, School of Horticulture .... 27 A Teacher's Garden, School of Horticulture . 27 DeWitt Clinton Park School Garden, New York City 28 Second Planting, Wainwright Garden, Philadel- phia .• opp. page 29 Corner of Ludlow Schoolyard, Washington, D. C. 31 Second Grade children making Cuttings. Nor- mal School, Washington, D. C 33 Macdonald Consolidated School and Gardens, Canada 35 xi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE A Philadelphia School Garden . . opp. page 37 Could You Do Better? 42 Housekeeping Room, DeWitt Clinton Park, New York City .48 "Little Brother Helps" 50 Vacant Lot in Louisville — The first planting . 54 Vacant Lot in Louisville — After several seasons' planting 55 The New Technical High School, Cleveland, Ohio opp. page 59 Crippled children farming in the heart of New York City 60 Garden at Bellevue Hospital, New York City 63 Rock Garden, Ludlow School, Dubuque, Iowa 67 Canadian boys spraying Potatoes 70 Canby, Minn., Public School Garden and Experi- mental Farm 72 School Garden, State Norm'al School, Kearney, Nebraska 74 What Is! 78 What Might Be 78 Children Who Need School Gardens ... 84 The Raking-drill. Carroll Garden, Philadelphia, Pa. opp. page 89 A Cleveland Lot — Before cultivation opp. page 97 The Same Cleveland Lot — After cultivation opp. page 96 Device for Experiments with Soil .98 Hauling Street Sweepings, Louisville, Ky. . 103 Chart of Eigh teen-Cent Garden .112 Eighteen-Cent Garden opp. page 1 1 5 Fourth Grade boys fixing Fence, Normal School, Louisville, Ky 1 19 A Model Tool-House .... opp. page 121 Hazelwood Park School Garden, Pittsburgh, Pa. . 127 xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Section of Wooden Pergola Doan Sch(X3l Garden, Cleveland, showing central arbor and pergola Good Tools Cultivating Stick . . . . Proper Use of the Spade Rosedale Garden, Cleveland, Ohio . A Garden should have a Bird-box Plan of Doan School Garden Plan of a Model Garden Kindergarten Class, Carroll Garden, opp. page PACK 135 140 '45 '47 148 150 Philadelphia opp. page Plan of Axe School Garden, Philadelphia Lines Stretched for Planting, Red Wing, Minn. . Crops Appearing, Red Wing, Minn Garden of Francis W. Parker School, Chicago Bed Marker, or Marking Board .... Eight-year-ohd boy who made his own Marker Plan of Planting used by Teachers' Class, Henry G. Parsons, Instructor Planting Operations .... opp. page 170 Planting Operations (continued) opp. page 171 Aquatic Garden with Fountain .... A School Garden Class, Red Wing, Minn. Toolhouse Decorated for Harvest Festival opp. page Root Cage or Planting Frame View of End Piece showing Grooves Children of the Normal School, Louisville, Ky., and their tulips blooming in March . opp. page Planting Plan, showing succession of crops. Wil- lard School Garden, Cleveland, Ohio Outfit for Insect Study Insect Spreading Board xiii '5' '53 155 '57 161 164 166 169 172 178 181 183 184 187 189 190 191 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PACK 195 "Killing Jar" Thinning his Plants "The Father of the Man without a Job" Normal Student's Home Garden, Washington, D. C 196 Writing up the Day's Diary 197 Home-made Breeding Cage 199 First Year's Growth of Yellow Dock . . . 204 Jimson Weed 204 Plantain 206 Common Purslane or Portulaca Oleracea . 207 Couch Grass 208 Woodbery Garden, Baltimore — The lot before cultivation 210 Woodbery Lot — After the children made their school garden 211 Pigweed 212 Carpet Weed 212 Leaf, Spike and Root of Broad-Leaved Dock . 213 First Year's Growth of Broad-leaved Dock .214 Poison Ivy 215 Flowering Plant of Burdock 217 Mullein 218 Home Garden of Two Boys of the "Training Gar- den" . - . . . opp. page 223 Comparing Crops 223 What Park Life Boys Plan 226 Park Life School Garden, Dubuque, Iowa . 228 The Daily Lecture for Park Life Boys . . 229 The New Half of Fairview Garden School, Yon- kers, N. Y opp. page 231 Pittsburgh Children enjoying their School Garden 232 Making the Most of a Small Space .... 234 The Douglas School Garden, Cincinnati . . . 236 xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAliK Conquering Difficulties, P. S. 41, Manhattan. New York City 238 School Garden and Arsenal Park, Pittsburgh, Pa. 239 Plan of Hyannis Garden 242 Sixth Grade Pupils Budding Peaches, Normal, 111 245 Child with Grain 248 Formal Garden made by the Children of School No. 10, Indianapolis opp. page 251 First Grade Children learning the Names of the Flowers, Lakeview School, Pueblo, Col. . .252 DeWitt Clinton Park School Garden, New York . 253 Fourth Grade children cutting Grain, Lakeview School, Pueblo 258 A Happy Crowd of Harvesters opp. page 263 Philadelphia Mill Girl Gardeners opp. page 267 A Member of the "City Beautiful Club," Louis- ville 268 A Welcome Guest at Fairview 271 Our Pumpkins, Lakeview School, Pueblo . 272 Exhibit of V^egetables raised by School Children, Louisville, Ky opp. page 275 XV CHAPTER I THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN CHAPTER I THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN • "School gardens are not intended to create gardeners or farmers, hut to aflFord the growing boy or girl an opportunity for many-sided development. ■ A SCHOOL garden may be defined as any garden where children are taught to care for flowers, or vegetables, or both, by one who can, while teaching the life history of the plants and of their friends and enemies, instil in the children a love for outdoor work and such knowledge of natural forces and their laws as shall develop character and efficiency. To make it apparent that size is not a crucial matter, a second definition may be that it "is any garden in which a boy or girl of school age takes an active interest. It may be a tiny seedling grow- ing in a flowerpot indoors or an extensive series of garden crops in a large garden outdoors. The gar- dens may be collective or individual or both; they may be at the school or the home or both. In all these cases the plants to be grown are much the same and the methods involved in growing them 3 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS are similar;"* while the underlying purpose of the teaching is threefold, educational, industrial, and social — or moral, since it is only in relation to others that moral conduct or character exists. As the founder of the children's school farm in DeWitt Clinton Park, New York, wrote in her first report: " I did not start a garden simply to grow a few vegetables and flowers. The garden was used as a means to show how willing and anxious children are to work, and to teach them in their work some necessary civic virtues; private care of public property, economy, honesty, application, con- centration, self government, civic pride, justice, the dignity of labor, and the love of nature by opening to their minds the little we know of her mysteries, more wonderful than any fairy tale."f The virtues here enumerated can best be taught in the school garden with the individual plot and ownership, because there the interest is greater, the rewards are more desirable, and cause and effect are more frequently and clearly demon- strable. The cultivation of such virtues is at the minimum when the garden of a school is only a bit of decorative planting in the care of which the children have no part. School-ground decoration of this type is better than none, for like pictures on the schoolroom walls, it sends out a daily influence * Weed and Emerson: The School Garden Book, p. 3. t Mrs. Henry Parsons in Report of the First Children's School Farm in New York City, for 1902-1904. 4 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN in behalf of orderliness and beauty. So much the more reason why the decorative planting should be of the best, that it may teach symmetry of arrangement, harmony of line and color, and unity throughout. Such a garden may inspire some degree of "Mine civic pride in the children and some respect for public property through the feeling that their school home is superior to that of others. But these ideas are likely to be limited in practical re- sults to children who have an eye for natural beauty. Introduce but a little bulb planting by the children, however, a little active participa- 5 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS tion in the care of the plants and grounds, and at once to each and every child the garden becomes "our" garden, and an injury to it a personal affair; any praise or merit becomes a comment about something " I made or helped to make." With this sense of participation, comes genuine private care of public property. Of necessity, there must follow with this kind of interest, many self-deter- mined convictions on the part of the child as to what is morally as well as culturally right and wrong in the garden. Lessons like these become gradually ingrained modes or habits of thought, and the child fibre is toughened morally. The larger the field the gardening offers, other things being equal, the greater the opportunity for development of the child. Hence, the plea for individual beds and also for co-operative labor on larger areas, as on paths, and on class or sample plots. The union of these two kinds of tasks best illustrates life where each individual works out his own salvation; if happily and usefully, he must do it with due consideration for others and for his own share of responsibility for the public good. For the understanding of a subject, it is neces- sary to know both its past and present. Con- sequently a brief history of school gardening is in order. Putting aside for a time the consideration of the few gardens, — not more than four or five, — which were started prior to 1900, the movement in America is barely ten years old. Yet, like the occasional stations of the wireless telegraph, it 6 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN throws a chain of gardens as it were, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Florida to Maine; while in our island possessions the people are fol- lowing our lead, as in Porto Rico, or have ante- dated our experiment, as in Hawaii.* In the United States, the initial step in establish- ing school gardens was taken by the Massachusetts Horticultural Society which, in 1890, sent Mr. Henry Lincoln Clapp to make a study of school gardens in Europe. As a result of his report and the work of the society in encouraging children to grow flowers and vegetables at their homes, interest in school gardening was aroused and slowly but steadily increased. Mr. Clapp him- self, Master of the George Putnam school of Roxbury, Massachusetts, instituted, in 1891, the first school garden in America, — a wild-flower garden, for which his pupils brought the earth and collected the ferns. The garden is still in existence with some 150 native wild plants. Since 1900 a vegetable plot with individual beds has been added. ♦ In Hawaii "The course in the Normal School includes garden and field work, budding, grafting, potting, transplanting, study of domestic and wild animals, beneficial and injurious insects, etc. Plats of ground are assigned to groups of students who supervise the work of the pupils in the training school in caring for these plats. These training school pupils work together by grades, raising vege- "^ tables which are disposed of in the city markets. The proceeds are used to purchase school equipment. The other grade schools of the city are also given instruction similar to that in the training school by a traveling instructor, and a portion of each school's grounds is set apart for the growing of vegetables." Alger. K. C: Circulars of Educational Information No. 13. Depi. of Education. Vermont. 1904. 7 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Mr. Clapp reported that about the beginning of the last century many European proprietors of large landed estates instituted gardens or small farms for the instruction of their younger work- men and for the training of overseers.* Out of this practice grew a few famous colleges, schools of agriculture and farm schools, some of which spe- cialized in one or more branches of garden, field or dairy work. The courses of study were planned to cover three or four years' work, and were offered to children over fourteen years of age who were the sons or daughters of the farmers or laborers on the estates. Governments sometimes became interested in these schools and were even induced to lend them aid. From such experimental schools there gradually arose the belief that something ought to be done to give children of the rural schools who had reached the age of six some definite instruction in the use of their environment so that they might draw from it both wealth and happiness. The underlying reason for putting such instruction in the schools was not an educational one. The primary object was not to train brain, hands and muscles at the same time, nor to increase brain power through skilful use of the hands and prac- tice in the co-ordination of the little used muscles; it was rather an economic one, to stop the flow of unskilled labor to the towns and cities, to build up the agricultural wealth of the nation. * See Appendix A, Note i. 8 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN Some of the German states early led the way in the practical demonstration of the value of such instruction. Schleswig-Holstein in 1814, Nassau in 181 7, and Prussia in 1819 introduced into the rural schools the culture of fruits and vegetables. Other German states soon followed. Though the point of view was economic rather than educational, the very stress laid upon agri- cultural results necessitated careful training of the teachers for such garden work and, later, brought the introduction of plant study, even in the cities,* as a special feature of the work of the elementary and secondary schools. By royal edicts, in 1869, both Austria and Swe- den took up the school garden movement. Aus- tria demanded that both a garden and a place for agricultural experiments should be established wherever practicable in connection with rural schools. Sweden required that every school should have a garden containing from 70 to 150 square yards of ground properly laid out. Belgium has in her elementary schools a compul- sory course in horticulture in which she emphasizes the raising of fruit and vegetables and truck farm- ing, the last being the main industry of her people. * Berlin has a large central garden as well as smaller ones adjacent to her schools. The central garden contains about ten acres. From it. on regular distribution days, there are sent to the schools from SO.ooo to 100,000 specimens for biological or botanical study. The daily papers announce beforehand the kinds to be sent. Classes visit the garden to study the growing plants and trees. See Bennett. H. C. : School Gardens in Great Cities, pp. 7-9. 9 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS France, since 1880, has recognized the school garden in the curriculum of her elementary schools. By order of the French Ministry of Education, courses in the normal schools are made to include such instruction as will enable graduate teachers "to carry to the elementary schools an exact knowledge of the soil, the means of improving it, methods of cultivation, management of a farm and garden."* The French Ministry states that the main object is "not to teach the business of farming but to inspire a love for the country and to develop the natural tendencies of children to become interested in flowers, birds, etc." This is the law, but in practice the school gardens as late as 1902 were universally maintained more for the benefit of the teachers, many of whom are enthusiastic horticulturists, than for the welfare of the child. It is only since 1902 that gardens have been attached to the rural schools and con- ducted more and more from the new viewpoint. Russia, like France, requires every school re- ceiving public funds to maintain a garden for flowers and vegetables and also a plot for orchard and forest trees, and, in addition, an apiary. Short summer courses are provided for teachers. Seeds and books are furnished free, and traveling instructors are sent to see that the gardens are well laid out, properly started, and the courses ♦Addis, Wilford: Courses in Agriculture in the Higher Elementary Schools of France. U. S. Bureau of Education. Report of Com- missioners for 1889-1890, Vol. \\., pp. 1007-1013. 10 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN of Study well planned. Still, it is the industrial idea that is everywhere prominent. in England, school garden work has been carried on during the last seventeen years, but until recently chiefly in connection with supplementary schools or maintained by private philanthropy. In 1895, the Department of Education added cottage gardening as an optional study for boys. The gardens were managed by the master of the school or by a gardener from the neighborhood. This method has been improved upon by the present system of supervision. "Each county now has its agricultural inspector. They inspect and often instruct in all the schools throughout their respective counties, lecture evenings and Saturdays to teachers preparing for examination, and carry out a most detailed system of marking day and evening school gardens, and judging flower shows. They plan the gardens and seem to feel that the results should be the best obtainable, even though the workers are children, else the parents will not be in sympathy with the work."* Many of the latter have cottage gardens and are critical judges of the worth of the children's work. A report in 1908 by Horace J. Wright, inspector ♦ Sipe. Susan B.: School Gardening and Nature Study in English Rural Schools and in London. U. S. Dept. of Agric, Office of Experiment Stations. Bulletin 204. The examinations referred to are those of the Royal Horticultural Society covering topics in elementary agriculture. Those who pass successfully are entitled, in some counties, to additional salaries. II AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS for Surrey, gives "in round figures 8300 pupils receiving instruction in gardening at 600 ele- mentary day schools throughout England." These, as well as the ** evening school gardens" or "continuation gardens," are steadily increasing. Some counties make liberal grants for the work while others are parsimonious. The evening school gardens were first established in Surrey in 1892, and are intended for boys employed during the day. To such the teacher or gardener of the day school classes gives individual attention twice a week in lessons of at least an hour. The school garden plot is usually one rod square. "There must be a teacher for at least every fourteen boys." The pupils must be eleven years of age or older. Prizes are given to both the boys and the teacher. Indeed, the teachers' salaries are determined somewhat by the total number of marks given to each garden and its relation to the county's average as determined by the county in- spector. Salaries for a garden are based upon a fee of three shillings a pupil for each plot culti- vated throughout the summer, with the addi- tion of merit grants according to the rating of the garden. Sometimes the teacher having the best garden in the county, "the county premier," is awarded a medal or silver watch. In Switzerland almost alone we find emphasis placed upon the pedagogic and the utilitarian value of the school garden. For some years, the Swiss have kept both ends equally in view. 12 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN In the middle grade of the primary schools, pupils acquire some knowledge of agriculture. Instruction is given in soils and their fer- tilization and in practical field work. Such instruction, like the nature work in our own schools, is a part of the regular curriculum. Its aim is pedagogical. The utilitarian informa- tion given is incidental, though, of course, it appears otherwise to the child and often to the child's parents. The main object of the study is to train to better mental grasp by developing the power of observation, the skilful use of the finer muscles of the hands, and by experience through practical lessons in cause and effect. Turning for a moment to Canada, where, in the spring of 1904, a group of school gardens was established in each of the provinces of On- tario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward's Island, we encounter the work of Dr. James W. Robertson,* former Commis- sioner of Agriculture and Dairying and until lately director of the Macdonald Fund and President of Macdonald College at Ste. Anne de Bellevue. The Macdonald Fund for the establishment of the Macdonald schools throughout the eastern prov- inces, Macdonald Institute at Guelph, Canada, neighbor to the Ontario Agricultural College, and Macdonald College recently established at Ste. Anne de Bellevue in the province of Quebec, were ♦Dr. Robertson is known as the "Agricultural Wizard of the North." «3 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the gifts of Sir William C. Macdonald of Mont- real. The Macdonald movement "aims at helping the rural population to understand better what education is and what it aims at for them and their children." It deals on the one side with the im- provement of homes through its preparation of Macdonald College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue. School Garden ON THE "Group Plan" teachers in domestic science and household art, and on the other with the betterment of rural home conditions through improvement of the school life and modification of the curriculum to meet the needs of rural districts. As a vital factor bearing upon the life of the community, and as pedagogically sound, it introduced in addi- 14 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN tion to manual training, the school garden, whose influence and worth had already been demon- strated at Toronto in the Broadview Gardens at- tached to the Boys' Brigade Institute,* and on a larger scale by Dr. Mac- Kay, superintendent of education in the Nova Scotia schools. As early as 1904, Nova Scotia had some 79 gardens, and the maritime provinces have sent the greater number of teachers to Macdonald Institute for the spring and summer courses. The Macdonald school gardens put in the back- ground European ideas of utility, whether eco- nomic or as preliminary of agriculture. 3FT.P0TH Section of a "Group" Gar- den :Onb or Two Children ON Each Vegetable Plot to a scientific study Insisting that "nearly all such * This Institute, under Captain Atkinson, is a self-governing club, carrying on evening classes; two joint stock corporations (one dealing in honey, one in maple syrup): and a garden on a township plan of control. The boys pay for their garden privilege. They make what they can from their produce, even being allowed to speculate by hiring some of their fellow farmers to work for them or by buying standing crops. This practice is guarded somewhat, and is defended on the ground that "such is life." where foresight, brains, industry, rightly count more than short-sighted contentment with being just a "hewer of wood" or unskilled tiller of land. Plots near the street are sold only to good gardeners. In iqoS one boy took |i8 in prize money alone. 2 15 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS gardens stop short with a certain amount of scientific information and the habit of careful observation," these Canadian gardens while "de- signed to encourage the cultivation of the soil as an ideal life work, intend to promote above all things else symmetrical education of the indi- vidual." Hence, in order that this attitude might Macdonald Instituth, Guelph, School Gardens, July, i^of) be emphasized and the gardens become a factor in an educational movement. Dr. Robertson brought them under the Department of Education in each province rather than under the Department of Agriculture. Twenty-one school gardens were started and were maintained free of cost to either pupils or the public for three years. The various provinces passed Orders in Council incorporating i6 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN them into their educational systems, thus placing the school gardens of Canada on a broader educa- tional basis than those of any other state or country. ':* BowEsviLLE School Grounds, Canada "The Macdonald school gardens not only have a recognized place in the provincial systems of education, but they are attached to the ordinary rural schools, owned by the school corporation, 17 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS and conducted under the authority of the school trustees and with the express approval of the rate payers. The work of the garden is recognized as a legitimate part of the school program and it is already interwoven with a considerable part of the other studies. The garden is becoming the outer classroom of the school, and its plots are its blackboards. The garden is not an innovation, or an excrescence, or an addendum, or a diversion. It is a happy field of expression, an organic part of the school in which the boys and girls work among growing things and grow themselves in body and mind and spiritual outlook."* At the beginning of the movement, six teachers of experience in the rural schools were selected and sent, at the expense of the Macdonald fund, for special studies to the Ontario Agricultural Col- lege at Guelph and to Chicago, Cornell, Columbia and Clark universities. They were specially trained to supervise the work in each of the provinces.! The general plan was to have the gardens started in groups of five schools each, at distances of from seven to fifteen or more miles apart, and to have traveling instructors superin- * Cowley, R. H.: The Macdonald School Gardens of Canada, Queen's Quarterly, p. 401. t For the present requirements for teachers see Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture and School Gardens in Village and Rural Schools. Explanatory and Descriptive Circular No. 13, Sept. 1907, July, iQOQ, issued by Department of Education, Toronto, Canada. Also programs of Summer School for Teachers, issued by Macdonald Institute, Guelph. See Appendix A, Note 2. 18 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN tend the work of each group. By these means the value of the work became known to as many taxpayers as possible. To further this end. the gardens were open to inspection at all times and their pupils encouraged to try for prizes at the county fairs, "in many places the people have taken up the experiment with an openmindedness Teachers' Class Visiting the Merden School Gardens. Canada that has already carried it far on the way to success." Today, with the exception of Quebec, where a dual system of schools (Protestant and Catholic) exists, the Macdonald school gardens, some twenty-nine in number, are supported largely by the provinces, in Quebec and in a few in- stances elsewhere the Macdonald fund still offers assistance, though its chief work is to 19 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS support the two institutions for the suitable preparation of leaders and teachers in the "new education." Among pioneer school gardens in the United States, one of the earliest, largest and most com- plete was that established in 1897 by the National Cash Register Company of Dayton, Ohio. The president of the cornpany, after an investigation of the successes and failures of the men who had been boys with him, was impressed by the fact that there had been scarcely a failure among those boys who had been responsible for some farm or garden "chores." He decided that in a very rough neighborhood he would make the experiment of using the surplus energy of the boys in practical garden work and let them have the products of their steady work and business energy. So gratifying was the result that the garden is to- day a marked feature of the welfare work for the employes of the National Cash Register Company.* About the same time, 1897-1898, several normal schools in the east began to offer instruction in school gardening, notably Hyannis, Massachusetts, where, by means of the gardening lessons, banking and business operations were taught, as well as the correlation of garden work with arithmetic and * The plots are lo x loo feet. They are for boys old and strong enough to garden on a scale sufficient, for example, to permit one boy to provide a family of five with fresh vegetables throughout the Season, and make $5.00 in addition. The boys work under a competent gardener. 20 UNIVERSITY THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN Other studies of the schoolroom. South Framing- ham, Massachusetts; Willimantic, Connecticut; Hampton, Virginia;* Johnson, Vermont, soon fell into line, in the west, the development of the garden in connection with rural and consolidated schools, was taken up with energy.f Salt Lake City, Utah; Silver Lake, New Mexico; Joliet, Illinois; Louisville, Kentucky; St. Louis, Missouri; Menomonie, Wisconsin; and Los Angeles, Cal- ifornia, were among the pioneers. ;[: The Normal School of Washington, D. C, introduced the work, and Congress finally made a small grant for gardens in the District of Columbia. By 1904, Circular 13, issued by the Department of Education of the state of Vermont, reported in all from fifteen to twenty normal schools and ten or twelve agri- cultural colleges throughout the country as dis- playing much interest and activity in the school ♦The Whittier School is the practice school of the Institute. It is also a free public school. Probably no school garden in the country has had a greater influence than that of the Whittier School. It reaches about 300 of its own children and through the work of the normal department of Hampton, hundreds of teachers and thousands of children of the colored and Indian races. t Supt. O. J. Kern's work in Winnebago County. 111., is especially noteworthy. See Annual Reports of the Winnebago County Schools and also his Among Country Schools, Ginn and Co.. Boston. IQ06. X This chapter confines itself to a brief mention of those cities or gardens where pioneer work was done and to an outline of its development up to the present time when there are too many towns and cities engaged in the work to enumerate them. Later in the book special references are made to some of the striking details in the work of different localities. 21 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS garden movement. Preparation was thus being made for putting school garden instruction on a pedagogical basis and preparing teachers for their work. ^ Since 1904, other institutions, such as New York University, Amherst Agricultural College, Storrs, the Chautauqua Assembly, have opened Morgan School, Washington, D. C. short summer courses for teachers, and in 1909 the University of Pennsylvania gave a course of four lectures, offering as an object lesson to its summer students a school garden cultivated by the children of Philadelphia.* Both lectures and * Already farmers' institutes of several states have officially endorsed the school garden; summer schools are offering courses for its advancement. The agricultural colleges of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Wisconsin, and 22 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN garden were conducted by the city supervisor of school gardens. Cornell in her Agricultural Col- lege offers helpful courses, and constantly seeks to arouse and sustain interest in the outdoor world and particularly in rural life, by means of her many bulletins. The Rural School Leaflets and Home Nature Study Course are widely distributed. In the central west, the Cleveland Home Garden- ing Association began its work in 1900 with the distribution of 48,868 penny packets of seeds. In the following year, it instituted a test garden in the center of the city. It has continued and greatly increased its work both with adults and with the school children under the direction of the able curator of school gardens, Miss Louise Klein Miller. The Cleveland board of education was the first to appreciate the value of school garden work and to create the office of curator. The curator is not on the educational staff but holds office under the administrative department and is responsible to the director of schools. The board places at the curator's disposal three laborers and in 1909 gave her an assistant teacher. While laying much stress on the nine school gardens connected with its schools and steadily enlarging their number, it particularly emphasizes school- others among the states are doing what they can in the way of training teachers. In iqog the Rhode Island College provided a traveling supervisor for the gardens already established in Provi- dence and Newport. Normal schools and colleges are also providing winter courses, giving the teachers either Saturday lectures or more extended courses through a part of the year's session. 23 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS ground decoration. The board encourages but does not enforce correlation of school garden work with routine studies.* It does not, in any grade, compel the children to work in the gardens. However, it conducts gardens through- out the year, and provides for informal in- struction by the curator, for lectures on garden- ing in the schools in the spring, and for flower shows in September and October. Co-operating with the Home Gardening Association of Cleve- land, the board approves the association's vacant lot work and its training garden, where boy farmers are taught simple truck farming.f To- gether, they encourage the children to purchase bulbs and seeds, to plant home gardens, and to take an interest in the flower shows and festivals at which prizes are offered by the association or its friends. In school ground decoration the children usually have some part, either in the planting, or care or both. Today, Cleveland has more than 50,000 home gardens due to the influence of the school garden and the efforts of the Home Gardening Association. The latter distributes seed packets and bulbs by the hundred thousands both in Cleveland and in outside territory. J * The curator has worked out a system of correlation in arithmetic, geography, drawing and manual training which is optional. t Plots in the training ground are 14 x 25 feet and 28 x 50 feet, in all about 65 plots, and are for boys from ten to fourteen years of age. t Outside of Cleveland in 1909, 421,611 seed packets were dis- tributed. 24 The Home Gardening Association SEEDS FOR 1908. Price One Cent a Packet. Mark opposite the variety the number of packets wanted. Separate Colors Cannot be Ordered. FLOWER SEEDS. Aster, mixed. Scarlet. White and Rose. 15 itichts luKh- Morning Glory, a climber. 1 mixed colors, i 12 ft. high. 1 Bachelor's Button or Corn- flower, mixed, Blue, Pink and While. 2 ft. high. Nasturtium, a climber. mixed Yellow, Orange and Red, 6 ft. high. China Pinks, mixed. Pink. Scarlel. White. and Lilac, 6 inches hi^h. 1 Petunia, Purple and White, 1 I ft. high. 1 Calendula. Yellow and Orange, 1 ft. high. Phlox, mixed (annual) . i Scarlet, Pink and White, I ft. high. Candytuft -mixed. White. Pink and Red. I ft. high. Portulaca. mixed colors, 4 inches high. ! Four.O'clock. Yellow, White and Crim- son. 2 ft. high. Scablosa, or Pincushion, mixed, R< d. Lilac and Pink, I ^ ft. high. ' Larkspur. Blue, White and Pink. 2 ft. h gh. Verbena, mixed. White, Scarlet. Purple, | 6 inches high. 1 Mariaold. French, Yellow and Brown, I ft. hieh. Zinnia, double, Scarlet, 2 ft. high. i VEGETABLE SEEDS. Beans, bush, 1 ft. high. 1 Plant about May tst. | Onions. I ft. high. Plant about April 15th. Beets. 1 9 inches high, I Plant about April asth. Radishes. 6 inches high. Plant about April 15th. Carrots. 6 inches high. Plant about May 15th. Spinach. 6 inches high, Plant about April 15th Lettuce. 9 inches high. Plant a»K)ut April 15th. Sweet Corn, 6 ft. high. Plant about May isth. Return this envelope to the teacher, with your money. Do not put money in this envelope. No. of packets Amount — cents. Write your name here . ~ Address ^ School Grade... No. of Room Your seeds will be delivered in this Envhlopk about April 15th. Prepare your garden early in April. Select the sunniest part of vour yard, but avoid a place where the drippings from the roof will fall on the bed. Dig de« p— a full foot— and break up the lumps. Soil with well-rotted manure dug in will give better results than poor soil. Vegetables require good, rich soil. 25 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS In New England the pioneer work of establish- ing school gardens was, as has been said, begun under the influence of the Massachusetts Horticul- tural Society; and a little later the Massachu- setts Civic League, the Wornan's Auxiliary of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association, the Twentieth Century Club and the Normal School of Horticulture, Hartford, Conn. School of Boston as well as other clubs, schools and village improvement societies throughout the state, took up the work. In Connecticut, the Rev. Dr. Francis Goodwin in 1900 founded the Hartford School of Horti- culture. The enterprise of the Women's Civic Club of that city, shortly after, started a garden 26 Boys' Plots. School of Horticulture THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN in the public park, which has now been taken over by the board of school visitors as one of the several gardens main- tained by them. Dr. Good wi n founded the School of Horti- culture to give opportunity for individual work and graded train- ing to the boys of the Watkinson Farm School of which he was a trustee. Under Mr. Herbert Hemenway the work of the School of Horticulture was broadened to in- clude city boys and girls, teach- ers' classes, and gardens for adult men and women who wished to cul- tivate a plot un- der expert super- vision or advice. Recently, under the present direc- tor, Mr. Stanley H. Rood, lecture courses have also 27 A 1 hAcHhR S (lARObN, Si:HOOl. OF Horticulture AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS been given to teachers by experts upon such practical problems as soils and their treatment, and other agricultural topics. Another pioneer garden serving as a model for the peculiar needs of congested districts in large cities, is that of DeWitt Clinton Park School Farm of New York, originated and started in 1901 DeWitt Clinton Park School Garden, New York City by Mrs. Henry Parsons. It has given inspira- tion to many people to start other gardens upon similar lines. Its work was exhibited on a small scale at both the St. Louis and Jamestown Ex- positions. On little 4x8 foot plots by a system of two plantings, one in May and one in July, it takes some thousand children off the city streets, furnishes nature study material to schools and vis- 28 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN iting classes, and gives to a number of crippled children brought there each week, some happy hours working over their little farms, or superin- tending such work when it must be done by stronger arms. The School Farm, with its flowers, its regu- lar lines of vegetables, its grains and observation plots, presents an almost park-like appearance to the neighborhood. The earlier work of Philadelphia with its con- stantly increasing number of school gardens, the work in Washington, D. C, and the successful Fairview Garden School of Yonkers, New York, should be mentioned among the pioneers. Philadelphia stands out today as the city whose board of education most fully recognizes, from the pedagogical and educational standpoint, the value of the school garden. It appoints a su- pervisor of school gardens (Miss Stella Nathan) ; incorporates the work into its school system in cer- tain grades, and maintains the gardens throughout the growing season. The teaching in the gardens, therefore, follows a prescribed course, yet loses none of its joyous, vital interest to the children. This instruction is correlated in the school room work "from the kindergarten to the senior class of the normal school." Philadelphia now has 8 school gardens, accommodating from 1 50 to 200 children each, 22 kindergarten and 1764 home gardens. It is intended in the coming year that these last shall be regularly supervised by one of the staff of gardening instructors in the 29 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS neighborhood where they are located. The de- tails of this work as well as that of Cleveland will be taken up later. These two cities are foremost in demonstrating the value of the school garden and in honoring it by placing their respective cura- tor and supervisor in high official positions, with suitable appropriations for their work. In the United States school gardens are spread- ing rapidly, and the work is becoming more and more recognized as worthy of a place in local educational systems. At the national capital, the District of Columbia, limited by the terms of the Congressional appropriation of f 1200 for school gardens, which forbid the use of the money for salaries, does the next best thing and appoints Miss Susan B. Sipe, one of the teachers in the Normal School, at a nominal salary, as supervisor of nature study and school gardens in the District of Columbia. A course in nature study has been prepared defining the work from grade to grade and so systematized that each child has a "required amount of work in the school garden just as he has in arithmetic, reading, etc." Washington has four large school gardens on vacant lots, and for school-ground decoration Miss Sipe counts 100 white and 50 colored schools in all but 3 of which the children have some part in the planting and care. Moreover, as empha- sizing the value of her work, the United States Department of Agriculture has made her a colla- borator in the Bureau of Plant Industry and fur- 30 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN nished her with a greenhouse for the instruc- tion of normal students in school garden teach- ing. These pupils are required to conduct home gardens under supervision. The Bureau of Plant Industry, together with the Office of Experi- ment Stations, works with the schools, furnish- CoRNER OF Ludlow Schoolyard, Washington. D. C. ing the supervisor with plants, seeds and other material. Nor does the United States government stop here in its furtherance of the movement. It has published a large number of bulletins on school gardens and allied topics which may be had by application to the Secretary of Agriculture. The 3' AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Bureau of Plant Industry furnishes a large amount of seeds in answer to "school requests," which latter have steadily increased in number since 1904, and now come from every state in the Union, mounting into the thousands.* These seeds are put up in four sets; namely, flowers, vegetables, decorative and economic. Each of the first two sets contains five packets of differ- ent kinds of seed. The decorative set contains ten and the economic eighteen packets, with enough of each kind to plant a square rod of ground. Three of the most important Farmers' Bulletins are No. 195, Annual Flowering Plants; No. 218, The School Garden; and No. 134, Tree Planting on Rural School Grounds. One of great interest, No. 204, Gardening and Nature Study in English Schools, Office of Experiment Stations, has been referred to. The school requests indicate a widespread interest in garden work for children. As yet one may readily count the number of gardens that have risen into prominence because of their excep- tionally fine work. There are, however, with and ♦ in 1908, 1400 requests for seeds came from approximately 4200 schools and ranged from one order of each set of flower and vegetable seeds to sometimes as many as 300 of these, and usually included decorative and economic sets. The economic set includes grasses, cereals, forage and fibre plants so that the children may become familiar with staple crops grown elsewhere than in their own locality. There was enough of each kind of seed to plant a square rod of ground. Requests for from 50 to 100 sets were not uncommon. 32 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN without government help, hundreds of school gar- dens cultivated by from 20 to 200 children each, in scattered towns and cities from Maine to Virginia, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic, that are quietly doing good work the excellence of which in many cases has not come to public notice. In the south and middle west and in the far coast Second GRAOt Children Making Cuttings. Washington, D. C. Normal School, states, in territory with which the writer is not personally familiar, there are thousands of tenta- tive attempts to utilize this new factor in educa- tion. As a rule, the normal schools have been the first to endorse the school garden and to try out its value, while boards of education have viewed 33 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS it as a new thing requiring it to prove its educa- tional and social worth. Frequently they give it a meagre support, recognizing it perhaps by the appointment of a nature study teacher as a super- visor of school gardens, but granting little or no money toward either the maintenance of the garden or a reasonable salary to cover the summer's work of supervision. Sometimes this lack of support is due to a division of opinion among the school com- missioners or among members of the boards of estimate. It may meet the opposition of the older and more conservative principals of the city, or of a ward politician who sees no sense in it and is afraid that the voters will look upon it as a new fad or a new excuse for increasing taxes. Generally, the school garden idea has captured the educational leaders in our country, made friends for itself among the most progressive of our teachers, old and new, and won the children wherever it has been tried. One drawback to its rapid growth is that there is still confusion be- cause of the stress that has been laid sometimes upon theoretical views; or upon its peculiar fitness to meet the special needs of particular places. These lesser questions can be safely left to settle themselves, for a school garden is like a bank in that it may be drawn upon for values of different kinds to meet different needs, as one may require money in the form of gold or silver, check or draft. In a school garden the educational, economic, aesthetic, utilitarian, or sociological value may be 34 THE EVOLUTION QF THE SCHOOL GARDEN made most prominent, according to circumstances. Its power for developing a child's nature should not be confined to only one of these viewpoints; neither should it be considered appropriate to one stratum of society or to a few classes of children only. It may ease the condition of the poor and bring profit and pleasure to their children. To the children of the rich and well to do it will give pleasure, and should teach some needed lessons in MaC1X>NALI) CoNSOI.IDAIHl) ScHOOL AND GaRDHNS, Gl'ELPH personal responsibility and in the consequences of broken laws from which it is human nature to think that one may escape. So long as the educational value of school gardens is not fully recognized by local school boards, just so long will they be dependent for their support upon philanthropic societies or upon the good will of private individuals, and be subject to the discouragement of loose tenure and shift of locality as land values rise. Until very recently 35 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS those interested in agriculture or horticulture or in attempts to benefit social conditions have been most active in establishing them.* It is interest- ing to note how many gardens like those at Yonkers, at Pittsburgh, at Dubuque and, in part, at Cleveland, have developed into social centers. Among educators, friends of the school garden are multiplying rapidly, and increasing numbers believe ''that instruction such as is given in the school garden is of the right kind. It arouses interest in real things; it develops judgment; it brings the child in contact with his envi- ronment, and above all, it gives that opportunity for placing responsibility on the child without which character is not developed. The activi- ties of school garden work are natural to the child and give much needed respite from school-room restraint. . . . The child's mind gets growth out of them because it can understand them. Not only does the school garden serve to edu- cate and train, but it supplies a kind of knowledge * The National Plant, Flower and Fruit Guild encourages school gardens and through its local branches assists in starting them. The International School Farm League seeks to develop the school garden in connection with schools, parks, institutions and day camps, as an educational, recreational, sociological, and remedial agency. The Gardening Association of America, organized October, 190Q, in Buffalo, gives equal emphasis to vacant lot and school gardening and will encourage both because of their tendency to benefit the poor, to show the power of self-help, to further agricultural interests, to lessen the evil influences of city life and to cultivate a love of growing plants. 36 THE EVOLUTION OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN that is highly useful and cultivates a taste for an honorable and remunerative vocation/'* Perhaps best of all is that teaching of the saner and sweeter side of life which comes when the school garden takes the child off the city streets, away from crowded alleys, vicious surroundings, and, in the country, often from misspent leisure; when it finds happy work for idle hands, health for enfeebled bodies, and training for the will and affec- tions. If you doubt the last service, watch the child's love for the flowers and vegetables he has made to grow, and the affectionate pride of his parents in the success of his garden. Sometimes a selfish interest in what the child can provide for the family table has brought him more considera- tion and developed greater gentleness and co- operation in the family life. It has proved just as well to "stand in" with the little farmer who can provide otherwise unattainable delicacies of fresh vegetables, salads and soup materials. All these things make any kind of a garden worth while, and, if we utilize the interest in it to freshen the wearisome tasks of the school- room, there is an added value. The dullest child will brighten as he or she lays out the little plot, figures out the crops, or calculates the gains. The telling of a story with innocent and pleasur- able self interest as the pivotal point, opens a way into an easier and better land of composition than was dreamed of before; while history and geog- ♦Spillman, W. J.: Significance of the School Garden Movement. 37 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS' raphy, textiles, food and clothing have surprising relations to a garden which an occasional apt reference or illustration can bring out. More and more it is being made the partner of physical geography. In every school it should be the twin of nature study and usually the companion of manual training. It is easy to show how much we owe to the husbandman; how the life of the whole round world is inter-dependent, or in a child's phraseology, "hangs together"; how tilling of the soil is a fundamental necessity. No child who has ever loved a garden will despise the farmer, for he has learned by experience to respect manual labor; and that brains and hands must work together to bring good crops. 38 CHAPTER II DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS CHAPTER II DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS "Why should you give your pupils the benefit of a school garden? Because it brings living principles home to the children, and school is living — not a preparation for life. Because it enables the children to solve for themselves, under the law of necessity, some of the most difficult problems which the school course has to offer. . . Because the garden supplies ideal conditions for cultivating the hand and the heart as well as the head." — S. T. Palmer. " In town schools the best plan is to begin with the school garden and emphasize the aesthetic side; then work out to beautify the city, and on this basis work out to the great typical processes of agriculture. In rural schools, the most successful agricultural in- struction is that which begins with the agricultural activities of the local environment, and which finds in these activities certain problems which then become subjects of investigation, and even experiment in a school garden." — B. M. Davis. SCHOOL gardens may be regarded from several points of view and cultivated with one or more of several aims in mind so far as the immediate or future good of the child is concerned. But whatever the special purpose, there should be kept in mind the far reaching in- fluences that will pervade a neighborhood when a successful school garden so inspires the children and parents that little gardens in home yard or window box spring up as restful, cheerful bits of 4 41 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS color. These are a bond of sympathy and pleasure among the poor, the well to do and the wealthy. There is no hobby that may be so inexpensive; no subject of conversation less likely to become dis- agreeably personal; no topic offering better oppor- tunities of give and take in the matter of experience Could You Do Better? than that of flowers. So it follows that a love of flowers tends to level class distinctions; to give openings for real friendliness based upon mutual interests among people whose business and en- vironment may be vastly different. Moreover, the individual betterment that comes from any worthy hobby follows in the wake of flower culture. 42 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS Considering school gardens from the point of view of maintenance, including organization and purpose, they may be divided into four classes: (i) those maintained by individuals, corporations, clubs, philanthropic organizations, playground associations, civic clubs and village improvement societies; (2) gardens supported by and under the control of park commissioners or city recreation bureaus* or boards of public works; (3) those maintained by school commissioners, trustees, or boards of education, in connection with schools, whether as experiments, as features of vacation schools, or as accepted and valuable parts of the school system for which distinct appropriation is made. A fourth class might include many exist- ing gardens where the experiment is maintained by a combination of any two of the above named agencies, as when land is furnished by school board or park commissioners, and means for equipment are supplied by club or private subscription. In the matter of organization, park or school boards usually appoint the head and assistant teachers of gardens under municipal control. Where a club supports a garden, a committee of ways and means is chosen to select the head teacher, to whom is turned over the entire re- sponsibility of running the garden, in either case, reasonable consideration should be shown ♦ St. Louis Park Department Public Recreation Commission supports its children's gardens. 43 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the head-worker in the garden, and deference paid to her knowledge of the most desirable type of assistant (training and personality considered) that the particular garden requires. One city selects assistants from such of its regular elementary grade teachers as are en- rolled upon the eligible list. It employs ^hem in groups of two or more to serve in thegardens either in the afternoon or forenoon for five days each week from July to September and pays them $12 per week. The gardens are also open for work after school hours and on Saturdays in June and September. No insect study or other allied work with garden material is required; the lessons are confined to elementary gardening. The teachers must have had at least one season under experienced supervision in growing the crops that the children will raise. These gardens have a floral border filled by the overflow from the, city's park supply but with room enough left for the children to grow a few plants as their contribu- tion to the beauty of the whole. The individual plots or farms stand for individual care and rights, — even to the right of carelessness as an instructive example. The border demands of the little citizen his or her share of responsibility for the commu- nity's standard of order, beauty and co-operation. In cities where there are a large number of gardens, often of various types, an inspector, supervisor or curator of gardens is appointed, with assistants in each garden to carry out plans 44 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS and instructions. Such assistants may be grade or special teachers, janitors, gardeners, or even some of the more capable children who are selected to have an oversight over their mates and feel highly honored by the titles of section leader, tool keeper, head gardener, monitor, or even constable, and are held responsible for the orderly behavior as well as for the work of their charges. The following report gives an illustration of active co-operation by the children in the supervision of the garden work. Secretary's Report Minneapolis, Minn. April 20, 1909 To the Honorable Members of B Room: Pierce School. 1 have the honor to transmit the following report. The B Room held its first business meeting on tuesday April 20, 1909 at 9: a. m. Our principal, Mrs. Mary D. La Rue presided over the meeting, and the following ofiicers were elected by ballots. Henry Johnson was elected superintendent of the garden. To assist him, the following eight section superintendents were chosen; Blanche Uptergrove, Lewin Olsen, Clarence Hansen, Mary Falconer, Bennie Anderson, Henry Johnson, Helmer Hammer, William Uptergrove and Abner Anderson. Ruth McDonald was elected Treasurer. Mildred Formoe was elected Secretary. Special work was given to each officer, who has the power to [choose] the helpers that he may need. Respectfully Submitted Mildred Formoe Secretary Age 1 2 years. B 6 Pierce 45 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS In very many cases, the assistants are regular teachers who volunteer during the spring term for the extra hours of work in their desire to hasten the day when the school garden shall become an established feature of their school. Where a garden is part of a school a principal will often supervise the work and arrange that each grade teacher shall have time to take her children to the garden for an hour or so in the course of each week; while, if the garden is carried through the summer, a school teacher (sometimes the principal) is hired for the vacation period. Some- times the garden may be cared for during the summer by the janitor or by a committee of the children who remain in town. ^ Turning to the kinds of gardens considered according to environment and purpose, and fol- lowing the analogy of flowers, they may be divided into two orders with several varieties in each; namely, (I) The urban or city school garden, answering to the needs of towns and cities, and (II) the suburban or rural, answering to the needs of small villages and country districts, the two classes being subdivided according to the particu- lar object in mind in the laying out of each. For instance, gardens aiming especially at school- ground decoration would occur in both main divisions in connection with both city and rural schools. And again, gardens for experimental purposes, designed to make clear the use of fertilizers, the development or deterioration of 46 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS crops, and like work, would have a place under rural school gardens and also, to some extent, in almost any well-conducted city garden. The growing of vegetables or flowers or of both as the child's very own property would enter into nearly all varieties of gardens; consequently, this sim- plest and most frequent form of school gardening may be taken as a "fundamental type," just as there is at the other end of the scale the rarely attained and, at first, seemingly costly ideal, a "model school garden." The latter is not costly, however, if measured by effectiveness of results, and the education that can be accomplished through it. The ideal school garden includes the formal or ornamental garden that should be the setting of every model school building; large and separate playgrounds for boys and girls, with screened and vine-covered outbuildings, where necessary; a large garden, having individual and co-operative flower and vegetable plots, also some for obser- vation or experiment ("sample plots," they are frequently called), and larger areas for forestry, grapery, nursery and the growing of small fruits. There should be hot and cold frames for forcing, and a small greenhouse. Most important of all, there should be a controllable water supply and, if possible, a basin or pond for aquatic life. An equipment of tools and a toolhouse are necessary, and an arbor should be provided which may also be used as an outdoor lecture room or for shelter 47 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS from sudden showers. Sun dial, weather vane and rain gauge, together with barometer and thermometer for daily observations should be at hand. To be complete, the model garden should have a suitable place for storing fertilizers, seeds and garden requisites, and even a small suite of household rooms with lecture room and laboratory for carrying on the home laboratory Housekeeping Room, DeWitt Clinton Park, New York City and lecture work for which the garden furnishes both material and opportunity.* This may be ideal and rarely attainable at the start. It is often better to work up to this com- * DeWitt Clinton Park School Farm Garden has such a suite of rooms, including those for tools and for laboratory work, in the basement of the pergola that bounds the garden on the Hudson River side. In these, elementary lessons in housewifery as well as in agriculture are conducted. 48 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS plete garden; to have it built up gradually by the children and their interested associates and older friends. Yet in cities where there is a system of gardens it is well to have one such as a model of attainment. At the present time there are, as has been said, school gardens of many varying kinds carried on for different immediate ends though with the one underlying and universal purpose of helping the children to an all round development. Some of these gardens will be briefly sketched. It is probably true that the mental picture which the term "school garden" most frequently calls up is that of a plot of ground laid out in small individual beds where the common vegetables, together with one or two varieties of flowers, are grown; and larger areas for flowers and observation, or sample plots, on which are grown various plants including the common troublesome garden weeds. In such a garden the children may learn the joy of individual ownership and of co-operative or group work as well. They will at the same time, through sharing in the work on the larger plots, become familiar with a wider range of plant life than that which could be grown on their own small plots. Such a mental picture may have for its setting the congested quarter of a great city, a bit of a public park or playground, a part of town or village schoolyard, or it may be an isolated vacant lot transformed. To know how to plan, to care for and conduct 49 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS such a garden requires the fundamental knowl- edge necessary to success in carrying on any kind of a school garden. For this reason, and because it is more likely to be the sort of garden attempted in any locality as an initial experiment, it is here taken as the basic type, and to it and the work "Little Brother Helps that may be centered in it, the greater number of the following chapters are devoted. One may fmd such gardens in the east and south, in our middle and western states, in Canada and in the West In- dies, though in the last the nature of the crops will vary considerably from the uniformity common on the continent. Its plots may be tiny or big, its 50 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS equipment small or large, the scope of its work nar- row or wide, its quality and quantity graded or un- graded; but as far as it goes, its teaching and ex- perience are fundamental, whether for teacher or child. So to this "fundamental type" we give par excellence the name " school garden," because in the mind of psychologist, educator and teacher, it is a school in which to cultivate, to develop children quite as much as or more than to teach them how to grow flowers or to mature vegetables. This fundamental type offers the largest cultural development for children in the smallest area. It demands of the teacher either little or much train- ing, according to the scope of work carried on in it. Nowhere is less previous experience required ex- cept in the tiny posy garden or where, as in some formal gardens, the work of teacher and children is confined to a very small amount of supervised planting, whether of bulbs or seeds, and to the necessary later care in watering and in keeping the soil loose. From the likeness of much of the work in the "fundamental type" to truck gardening, and from the children's delight in being known as little farmers owning their small farms, this basic type might be called not only the "school garden," but the "school garden farm."* ♦ This term would be equally applicable to the usual school garden in cities and to the extensive school garden tract of five acres or more which Minnesota requires under the Putnam Bill, or to such gardens of lesser area, as would be advisable in our agricultural states. The difference in size would be suggested by the locality mentioned or by the context in which the term occurred. 5« AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS School gardens might then be divided into I. Urban or City Gardens, including 1. The school garden farm (the one usually adopted for congested districts). 2. The garden for school-ground decoration. 3. Gardens for special purposes; such as a. The domestic science or kitchen garden. b. Gardens for germination or forcing purposes. c. Gardens for nursery or forestry purposes. d. Botanical gardens laid out from the standpoint of (i) Plant families. (2) Commercial or home eco- nomics. e. Exchange gardens as clearing houses for surplus plants. f. Training gardens or those of considerable size where stress is particularly laid on large individual plots and the training of their owners to truck farming, even on a commercial scale. g. Gardens for defective or delinquent children, h. Gardens for other specialized aims, whatever they may be; as, for ex- ample, for growing material to illustrate special subjects, or for children in the kindergarten, etc. I. Suburban or Rural Gardens. 1. The school garden farm. 2. Gardens for school-ground decoration. $2 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS 3. Trial gardens or gardens for experimental work with plants or crops. (These are often coupled with No. i.) 4. "Topographical" or chart gardens, leading di- rectly to a wild flower garden or to school- ground decoration or to the school garden farm. The classification into "group" and "individ- ual" gardens is not given here because by far the greater number of gardens in some measure com- bine the two, and because the term is a distinction in method of work rather than in character of gardens. It is a far cry from the complete outfit of the ideal garden to taking up the pavement in a school yard and making 2x2 foot beds for tiny farms. But, as one cannot expect completeness, so one may hope to avoid such impoverishment as the 2x2 foot plots would imply. If you cannot do any better, begin with the 2x2 foot bed and comfort yourself with the thought of the lesser sum of money needed and the probability that the question of soil will resolve itself into buying a few bushels or at most a few loads of good garden soil, such as would be necessary in the case of a roof garden.* In cities, parts, so to speak, of the ideal garden may be scattered judiciously among the various schools, in their yards or on nearby vacant lots. For instance, one school may have only the garden ♦ A load of earth or gravel is one cubic yard, estimated at 1 50 shovelfuls. 53 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS for school-ground decoration, very likely of the formal sort. Here, where plant lines must har- monize with architectural lines and a color scheme of continual bloom be carried out, the training of a landscape gardener, or the advice of an ex- pert, is necessary. But if the outline of such a Vacant Lot in Louisville. The First Planting garden be prepared, the teacher can follow it; the children can help in cultivating the hedges, trees and flowers. The garden becomes an object lesson and pleasure to the neighborhood and of permanent and increasing value to the school. To the children, it will be a means of development in more than one direction. 54 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS A pretty story is told in connection with the formal garden* of the Watterson School, Cleveland, Ohio. At the third clipping of the privet hedge, the cuttings were taken into the schoolroom and the children were asked if they Vacant Lot in LouibViLLE (see opposite page) After Several Seasons' Planting cared enough for their hedge to think that other , ♦ The formal decoration follows the vertical and horizontal lines of ornament and the color scheme of the school building; vines are planted only in the deep angles of the building with the intent to so train them as to make a solid band of green about the base of the building up to the first horizontal lines of white stone trimming. Stiff plants and trees of upright growth carry out the vertical lines while the red and white in the building is repeated in the tan covered playground and in the continuous bloom of pink and white flowers. 55 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS children in a distant school building would also like to own one. They were quite sure that a hedge like theirs would be much appreciated. The curator of the school gardens then explained that if the Watterson children were willing, besides giving the cuttings, to do a little work for those distant schoolmates, the latter could have a hedge. They cheerfully agreed to help. For busy work, they stripped the leaves. Then, they gathered the cuttings into groups of twos and threes, of fives and tens, and then into fifties. These large bundles were sent to another school where the children would lend their cold frames to **bank" or house the cuttings during the winter and to give them an early start so that the new hedge would be ready as soon as possible to make rapid and sturdy growth. Some of the children in the Watterson school were given the stripped leaves, with which they were told to lay out on their desks designs of any shape. Later, there was a little nature study talk upon the con- struction of the leaf and how it serves the parent plant, and attention was called to the difference in color of the upper and under sides. The children were asked to remake their designs using the two shades for color effect. They were promised that they would be shown how the young plants had lain dormant through the winter and how they started into life in the early spring, and were told that they could visit the other school to see the hedge which they had prepared for its boys and girls. 56 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS The Story suggests gardens for special purposes; as for preparation for truck farming (''training gardens"); for exchange of plants; for forcing; for nursery or forestry purposes; or the kitchen garden which might be attached to a school where the cooking courses were particularly good. In connection with any of these gardens, there might be a few flowers or a floraLborder so that the work could be partly individual, partly co-operative. In the kitchen garden there could "be in addition, observation plots showing sweet herbs, grains, flax, hemp and cotton, or the raw products necessary for the commonest household tasks. Observation plots on a large numerical scale are necessary in botanical gardens laid out to show the classifica- tion of plants by families or according to their in- dustrial or commercial uses. Here again, plots can be apportioned to individual children, and special cultural directions may be given to each when necessary. The exchange garden above re- ferred to is carried on perhaps as much for the benefit of the parents as for the little ones. It is a central garden to which men, women and children can bring their extra or duplicate plants and exchange them for those of which others had a surplus. In Cleveland such a garden made in one year 20,000 exchanges. That means not only a good deal of pleasure, but much return for little money. No city offers better opportunity to study the various kinds of gardens than Cleveland with its 5 57 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS nine school gardens and the stress it lays upon school-ground decoration. Miss Miller, in the Watterson and the new Technical High Schools, gives two excellent examples of formal planting, and about many of the older school buildings, some of which present rather hard propositions for the gardener, there are good decorative effects. Of the nine gardens, Rosedale* alone approaches com- pleteness. Among the others, for lack of space, different kinds of gardening are divided. In addi- tion, Cleveland has gardens on vacant lots and one, the Training Garden, conducted by the Home Gardening Association. At present, the work in the last named is divided between the junior and senior boys. It is, however, the intention of the association to develop a graded course of three or four years, so that a boy may here or on a farm, which will later be connected with the garden, learn enough agriculture to earn his living as a truck gardener or be inspired to fmd his way to an agri- cultural college, if he wishes to study general or special farming. Already the association and its friends have rewarded one boy by a scholarship at the Wooster State Agricultural College and expect to appoint him assistant in the Training Garden because being city born and bred yet trained in agriculture, he can attract and teach city boys effectively. A celebrated physician and neurologist tells us that exercise of the muscles is absolutely necessary * See Appendix A, Note 3. 58 ^ OF THE /^ UNIVERSl-^v DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS to develop a healthy brain, to prevent imbecility, "for all thought has a motor side or element."* it is upon this demonstrated proposition that the educational value of manual training is based. It cannot be too often repeated that the brain should be trained in childhood not only by intel- lectual processes but by the development of the smaller muscles, especially those of the hands, by the constant requisition upon sensory and motor nerves, and by the constant quickening of sense perception. The result is intellectual power. It is psychologically sound, then, to propose hand training for those mentally deficient, provided that what is proposed is within the grasp of their low mentality. With some imbecile children tools might be dangerous to themselves or to their fellows; with those less mentally deficient, the simplest forms of manual training may be undertaken provided they require only such amount of thought or work as shall gently and gradually stimulate the brain. Simple garden work, varied in require- ments from cleaning up paths, picking flowers for bouquets or spent blossoms lest they go to seed, and tasks as simple, up through the scale to more exact or difficult duties, offers hand training and gives pleasurable hours of work which may be divided into periods suited to the individual strength and fitful moods of the feeble minded. Thus in schools where the mentally deficient are ♦ Sir James Crichton- Brown. 59 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS segregated, the school garden may supply the place of manual training. Its plants must be hardy and of simple culture, and its system and method of work very elastic. Moreover, its pro- ducts will fit in at the noon luncheon which such schools frequently provide, for the children can Copyright, iqoq, Underwood &» Underwood Crippled Children Farming in the Heart of New York City. supply soup greens and salads, and brighten both table and schoolroom with their flowers. The garden work will provide health-giving physical exercise out of doors that can be regulated to individual needs. To still another class of children largely cut 60 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS off from normal living, the school garden comes as a boon. In one large city, a certain number of plots were divided off for a group of deaf and dumb boys from a public institution. These lads, from twelve to fourteen years of age, were given plots 10 X 45 feet. They cultivated the same crops as boys who had worked one or two years and had risen to the second and third grades in the garden work. The asylum boys took their instructions from the blackboard, found their tools by number in the toolhouse, and went about their work in happy silence. An occasional gesture or simple demonstration from the monitor who supervised their section was all they needed. Their beds presented a higher average in appearance than those of any other class. The class for cripples, at DeWitt Clinton Park, New York, has already been alluded to. Here also may be mentioned gardens maintained in connection with detention schools, or homes for morally delinquent children. In the former, the garden must be conducted on very simple lines, because the children stay for short periods only. Sometimes there is a long period of waiting for suitable conveyance to the home or prison to which they have been sentenced. During this time the boys can cultivate the garden. Those who have had such an opportunity seem to enjoy the work and are loath to leave it. One small boy, so repeatedly up for punishment that it was known his sentence would be severe, made such a decided 6i AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS improvement in manners and showed so strong a love for the garden work, that, as he was about to be taken to court, his teacher sHpped into his hand a bit of paper and bade him give it to the judge. It read "This is my best digger," and bore the teacher's signature. The judge upon weigh- ing its mute appeal sentenced the boy, not to the reformatory among all sorts of criminals, but to a farm for refractory boys, where the environment was better and safer than his own home. When last heard from he was a happy, contented little fellow striving to deserve the opportunity to live and work upon a big farm. It was Dr. Hodge of Clark University, I think, who once said that the quickest way he knew to keep our prisons and reformatories empty was to give every boy a piece of ground, however small, to cultivate for ten years of his boyhood. Last summer, in Provi- dence, an incorrigible truant had one of the prize gardens. Under gardens for special purposes, one might mention those in connection with da^^camps for tuberculous, children, such as the one conducted during the summer of 1909 in connection with Bellevue Hospital, New York. Each day some fifty children were gathered there on the floating hospital boat moored to the dock, with a gangway crossing to that part of the hospital yard which formerly held the dump heap. Thanks to the interest of the International School Farm League, the Woman's Auxiliary of the hospital, and the 62 DIFFERENT KINDS OF SCHOOL GARDENS authorities of the latter, who gave the use of the ground, a school garden was laid out with some fifty little 4x8 beds for vegetables and flowers, and space for more flowers in the borders. Under the guidance of a skilful teacher, who had been trained in the DeWitt Clinton Park garden, the Copyright, iqoo, by Vndrruood MENT North (7 X 45 feet.) ; South (9 x 42 feet). Of these, the East contained 14 plots, the West 12, the North 12, and the South 10, making a total of 48 beds. The average age of the children was eleven years. Premiums, known as the St. Clair prizes, were given. The net cost of the garden was as follows: Plowing f 1 5.00 Taxes or rental 30.00 Seeds and plants 3700 Wear and tear on tools .... 5.00 (Estimated) Incidentals, such as re- moval of trash 4.00 I91.00 Deducting fees paid by the little gardeners, $1 1 .75, made a net total of $79.25, or a cost per pupil of $1.65.* ♦ The average per garden, deducting the St. Clair prizes, was I55.05. The average for the pupils in vegetables raised was I4.64. The number of pupils raising less than |io from the garden was nine. These results itemized are as follows: yegetahUs St. Clair Vegetables sold prices used at home IVinter stored West Garden I70.13 South Garden. . . . 86.29 East Garden .... 27.c)6 North Garden. . . . 63.81 Total $248.19 I44.66 I475 1 14.75 69.49 9-25 5'o 20.01 1.50 3.45 39.34 10.00 5.91 15-97 2-45 voo 8.56 This garden estimate omits salaries and the cost of tools and fertilizer. An estimate of the latter might be I1.50 per load in most places or 100 pounds commercial fertilizer per 100 plots 5x10 feet. In many cases street sweepings are furnished by the city. AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Sometimes, some one interested in school gar- dens, having faith that a first year garden will establish itself as a precedent and win friends to support it with a salaried teacher in succeeding years, can be found to give his or her services as instructor for several days each week. Again, the salary can be divided among several communi- ties, as is now done where a teacher of drawing, or manual training, takes charge of the work in a group of schools or in those of neighboring towns. Frequently, where school gardens are started in connection with schools, the question of salary is disposed of because the work is divided among the teachers. So, too, the need sometimes for a man's strength about the garden can be met by employ- ing the janitor, or hiring a laborer, or utilizing the volunteer help of the larger boys instead of paying a gardener the average salary of $60 per month. The question of salaries aside, the next most costly items are fencing, preparation of ground, and tools. Where it is necessary to guard against depredation, a fence of some sort, an open fence, is necessary. It should be open, whatever its material, so that the garden can easily be seen and may become an object of interest to the com- munity. A hedge is preferable where it will serve, and is cheaper than an iron fence. While the hedge is growing, there may be guard rails to protect both it and the garden. If these are angular instead of flat or round, the hedge will be safer from the swinging feet or the falls of those 118 COST OF EQUIPMENT who might find the rail a good perch or resting place. There are many low priced wire fences on the market. The cheapest that I have seen and one that served well its purpose was a 5 foot woven Fourth Grade Boys Fixing FtNCE, Normal School, Louisville. Ky. wire fence (close mesh for a foot from the ground) stretched on round posts at the corners and gate- way and on half sawed posts between. It cost 6 cents per running foot. This fence is not orna- 119 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS mental but it will last for a term of years and has the advantage that it can be set wholly or in part by boy labor. All wire fences when festooned with vines will lose much of their ugliness. A serviceable light iron fence or one with iron posts is desirable and is an excellent investment when the garden site is sure to be permanent. Where feasible, let the fence be low enough for the plants to be easily seen, or even have a top bar for people to comfortably lean upon while they watch the garden. In regard to tools, in some localities children can be asked at a pinch to furnish them from the home supply, but this is usually unsatisfactory all round. Good tools are expensive, and they must be good whatever their size. For many gardens it is better to get what is known in the trade as ladies' size. They have shorter and slimmer handles which make them easier for the children to grasp. They are not altogether desirable where big boys are working large size plots, but for the average child from the sixth grade to the sixteenth year cultivating a plot from 4x8 feet to 10 x 60 feet or even 10 x 100 feet they will do admirably. There should be a few larger tools for general use. The ideal outfit is a hoe, rake, weeder and line for each child, bearing his own number or name and having its own place in toolhouse or shed or nearby barn or cellar. (Every garden should have its toolhouse even if it be only a chest or box.) Hoe and rake should have five-foot handles 120 i COST OF EQUIPMENT which it is well to mark off by painted lines into feet of which the first shall be divided into halves and quarters.* A longer handle in unskilful hands is likely to ram one's neighbor. Children's tools, except for very little children (and then only if of good make), are valueless. Nor is the combination rake and hoe to be recommended except in handling very light soils. It is too liable to bend or break. Hoes of the heel shape or "half-moon" type are better because they lack sharp, straight edges; with them children are less likely to cut outlying roots or sprawling vines. Rakes should not be over a foot wide; better ten inches with eight or ten teeth so as to move easily between rows planted but a foot apart. There is one rule which should be vigilantly and eternally and omnipresently enforced: No child should be allowed to lay down hoe or rake except with its edges or teeth resting on the ground. A first lesson in the handling of tools should en- force this rule. It should be shown how easily the handle of either, if accidentally stepped upon, when the tool is not face down to earth, springs up to strike any one nearby — and not always the careless person. It should also be drilled into the children that to step on the sharp edge of the hoe or teeth of the rake is often a painful thing if one wears shoes; that it is a dangerous and some- ♦ It is better to burn in the marks, which may be done by ringing them with several strands of string soaked in kerosene and setting them afire. 121 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS times a fatal thing if one is barefoot. One little gardener has paid for her carelessness with her life. Weeders may be had at from 15 to 25 cents. The first are often of cast iron and apt to break. The small weeding forks are excellent and for little children on tiny plots are a sort of universal tool. Garden lines can be made by the boys. This set of tools, hoe, rake, line and weeder, will cost at re- tail from $1.00 to $1.25 for each child. One might also figure on a watering can (preferably with the long spout and rose spray*) for each 10 children where there are 50 or more working together, for all would not need to use them at the same time, and the garden hose could help out. Then, in addi- tion, except for the grand days of preparation in the spring and fall (when more could be borrowed) only a few spades would be needed, one or two spading forks and shovels, an occasional wheel- barrow and a garden tape of steel. Other tools and the use of those mentioned may be considered later. After a garden is once equipped, the ex- pense for repair of tools is slight, and both repair and methods of sharpening should be a part of the instruction among older children. To make an estimate, the surest way is to figure on the cost apart from the instructor's salary. One might say, " I want so much money to start a gar- den, and also, if we have paid teachers, a reasonable salary such as any fairminded man or assembly of * See illustration opposite page 231. 122 COST OF EQUIPMENT men and women would gladly give for good work." Workers differ, so does the amount of labor, as well as the knowledge required of them. Here is what one writer says of a supervisor: "She should be a woman that is capable of supervising and directing the work of preparing the ground, laying out the plots and erecting buildings, as she will necessarily have to plan the laying out of the garden and direct both chil- dren and work. Some knowledge of surveying, plowing and drafting is indispensable. Upon the supervisor also falls the duty of engaging workers and the responsibilities of overseeing each step. She must make estimates and pur- chases of seeds and plants, and the whole govern- ment of the practical gardening is to be planned by her. In addition to this, she should give daily nature study talks which must be adapted to the varying ages of the children. As harvesting progresses, accurate records of produce per child, the attendance of said child, and the effect of work upon his physical, mental and moral being must be registered. All of these steps are worth while because gardening (in this country) is yet in its infancy, and because statistics must be obtained with which to convince those who are as yet unwilling to embrace the idea of its merit. Such individual records kept for 250 children to be afterward added, balanced, and the average found, more than fill the teacher's time during the hours in which the children are at school. 123 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Many interruptions to this work occur, in the form of visiting classes, to which the supervisor explains the work of the garden. To have seeds planted and brought to maturity means an early start to the garden. The proper period for a garden is from May 1 5 to October 1 5 in latitudes from Washington to Maine. The work of the supervisor, however, begins the first of May or even in April, with the original planning and plotting and extends until about a week after the garden closes. It is only finished when a record of each day of the summer's work has been com- pleted.''* Such a teacher may get $150 per month or more. She should get at least I125 and probably cannot be obtained for less than $100. If she has charge of a system of gardens, that is another matter. Such a one does not come under con- sideration in the cost of starting the first school garden in a locality. f Principals in charge of a garden or under a general supervisor, receive in one city $420, their work during April, May, June and September being from 9 to 12 and 2 to 5.30, while in July and August it is from 8 a. m. to 12.30 p. M. The season is from April 7 to October 7. Their assistants must be graduates of normal schools or colleges of good standing. They work from 3.30 to 5.30 during April, May, June and * Bennett, H. C: School Gardening in Great Cities. I Supervisors of well organized systems of gardens receive from $1200 to $2000 for eight to ten months' service. 124 COST OF EQUIPMENT September, and from 8 to 12.30 during July and August, for I240 per season. Another city pays each principal |i8 for a period (i. e. three hours' work) for five days each week during the season, and the assistants $12. In several cities, where few hours are required, a rate of 75 cents per hour is paid or from I2.25 to I4.00 per day. Assistant teachers for all-day work average I65 and $75 per month. "The assistant teacher, as a rule, is needed only in the afternoons and on Saturdays during spring and fall when the children attend only after school hours; but during the vacation period, she may be needed for half the day or the entire day, ac- cording to the custom of keeping the garden open."* Evidently the matter of salary is a local one, which each community must adjust to its own needs or purse. Similarly, the question of a gardener or laborer is local; undoubtedly there should be one or the other in every large garden. "Trained teachers are more valuable than agriculturists without knowledge of pedagogical methods. Teachers not versed in agriculture may be supplemented by a gardener; if, however, teachers do understand gardening, a laborer may take the gardener's place. This man occupies ♦ An ideal ratio of assistants to children would be one for every seven or at most ten. Twenty or 25 children is the utmost that should be in any one class or division. England forbids her teachers in gardening to have more than 14 children in a class. 10 ,25 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS an important position in the work; he supplies the place of a janitor and assists the children in any work that is too heavy for them, such as working up earth with a pickaxe or managing a 50 foot hose. During the early summer and fall when the children are at school most of the day, he acts as a watchman; and during this time, when weeds grow rapidly and the children's hours of work are few, he also assists in keeping the garden clean." Such a man may be a necessity or a luxury; if the first, count him in your estimate; if a luxury, count him out as far as possible and enlist in the service the helpful, knightly element in your big boys. If the garden must be started on a small appropriation from the school or park officials or on voluntary subscriptions, and expenses must be cut down to the lowest sum, cut them down in a dignified way; no cut rates or wages, whether for laborer or teacher. Moreover, the reduction would probably have to come on the teacher's salary, because of a lack of appreciation of the required services, and because of union regulation of laborers' wages. "Anybody can dig in a garden" seems to be the popular sentiment. Anybody can dig, but anyone cannot grow plants, nor still more, develop children. No cut rates, but all the voluntary service — if of a good intelligent order — that can be secured. But let the matter be distinctly understood whether 126 COST OF EQUIPMENT the service is wholly a freewill oflfering or part is paid and the other given for love of the cause and faith in its demonstrable value. In many places, gardens must start with just such labor. Hence, the main purpose of this chapter is to try to show with how little a school garden can be started; how like the proverbial grain of mustard seed it is in its possibilities of growth and virtue. IIazhlwood Park School GARDtN, Pittsburgh, Pa. In computing the cost of a given garden, make a good, sound estimate, one that will cover all details and leave a margin for the unexpected; but if occasion requires, count in the least possible material as necessary, and count out all that could be arranged for, or for which substitution, however inexpensive or humble, could be made. 127 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS For example, land rental might not have to be considered or might be limited to paying taxes where outright loans of the ground could not be obtained. In some localities fertilizer, one of the big expenses, might be contributed by one or more persons as a gift or in preference to a cash contribution. A fence, that other considerable item, may already exist. There must be one. Without it, respect for property and honesty will be difficult to teach; impossible if outsiders be- come vandals. In a crowded city, in a tiny 15x8 foot garden, the boys made their own picket fence for the " Farmers' Club," so determined were those school children at least to make a beginning. If a fence already exists and is of solid boards, rip out some of them so that the public may feel that they are invited to watch the children. Again with reference to expenses, the needed shelter and toolhouse* may be already provided. * "One of the most useful accessories to the school garden is the garden shed, which is useful for storing tools and produce, and for carrying on work not suited to the classroom, such as preparing pickets and labels, analyzing soils, assorting seeds, arranging plants, etc. The average cost of the garden sheds (in Canada) is about $75. A popular plan is one 10 x 20 feet with an extension on one side about 5 feet wide, and finished as a greenhouse. This obviates the necessity of having special hot-beds. The garden tools are disposed along the walls of the shed in places numbered to accord with the numbering of the pupils' plots. Along one side of each shed is a bench or table of plain boards, about 18 inches wide, running close to the wall, along which are several small windows giving abundant light to pupils engaged in practical work." — Cowley, R. H.: The Macdonald School Gardens. 128 COST OF EQUIPMENT Moreover, a large piano box costing |i.oo can be made weatherproof and serviceable for the keeping of tools. A I25 tent can be made to take the place of the more costly portable house. A shelter from the hot sunshine may be a canopy of quickly growing vines.* if a tent is used, it must have a fly or it will be worse than a gridiron in hot weather, and give little protection in storms. Section of Wooden Pergola One can, perhaps, get along without a water supply, but sometimes a 4-inch hydrant and hose is almost a necessity. Then again, in many places the water supply is furnished. Tools can be les- sened in number by giving different groups of children one kind of tool to use at a time, and ex- ♦ Posts driven into the ground and connected by wires to support quick growing vines will form the sides of a shelter that might have a double canvas and rainproof top. 129 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS changing for different ones as their need requires. There may also be some improvised substitutions. Children enjoy making things for real use. If some of the suggested substitutes seem inadequate, try them. Recall how much more enjoyment and benefit there is in the homemade toy or improvised tool provided it does its work well. Moreover, in several well known cases school gardens that nearly failed the first year, when too much of the preparatory work was done for the children, flourished the second year when the same children felt the gardens to be their very own because they had done all the work upon them that they pos- sibly could. Here is another opportunity to lessen the expense of hired labor, particularly in clearing up.* A half dozen children by the use of ropes and crowbar, if wisely directed, can safely accomplish much clearing that might seem to require adult strength. Equipment can be di- vided into fundamental and accessory, limiting the latter according to the amount of nature study, housewifery and elementary science that is to be undertaken in connection with the garden. By substitution, also, one can lessen somewhat the cost of both the fundamental and accessory material. Let us consider a garden for fifty children. In the first place, if one person is to supervise them, * Sort the rubbish into piles of different materials. The stones and bricks and rocks may be handy for paving purposes; old wood for carpentry; old cans and bottles for plants and experiments. 130 COST OF EQUIPMENT the pupils should be divided into at least three sections for class or special work. As soon as convenient, they should be placed under some system of monitors or helpers or sub-instructors drawn from among themselves.* This will lighten the general daily work of the garden. It may be well to insist that such discipline as is necessary should be almost military. The children like it better, provided the spirit is not that of the martinet, but one of mutual help- fulness expressed in firm, gentle, unyielding yet sympathetic manner. There should be no cod- dling, no pets, no excessive demands upon the child, no injustice through confusing the adult's and the child's point of view. There should be as little of the school atmosphere as possible, but prompt obedience coupled with the utmost pos- sible liberty. In a first-year garden the individual beds would probably be 4x8 feet or 5 x 10 feet, with none over 10 X 20 feet. An arrangement could be made to accommodate children of varying ages, and in the following year, the garden could be graded either from the standpoint of size of plot or from that of quantity or quality of work. The amount of fundamental equipment necessary would include first of all, spades, rakes, hoes, weeders, watering cans, and the few other tools already named. An estimate of cost of the most essential tools might read: ♦See report of class secretary, page 45 '3' AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS I dozen rakes (8 or lo inches wide, to use easily between rows one foot apart, and with 8 or lo teeth of strong malleable iron) . $4.80 pei I dozen hoes (Harper's half moon 4 or 5 inch blade) 4.75 " " I dozen weeders — at 25 cents each for substantial steel ones 2.50 (weeding irons can be got at 1 5 cents each) 3 watering cans — at I2.00 each 6.00 (Punch the rose holes outward to prevent clogging) 3 spades with foot guards at |i 2 per doz 3.00 Total $2 1 .05 Several of the best gardens allow 50 of the first three tools named to 300 boys (that is, one to six) and find them ample for daily use even where there is an excellent average attendance. This ratio of one to six gives a supply of 1 50 of these tools and there should be in addition some dozen spades, two dozen watering cans and a few other imple- ments to draw upon. Another garden has 40 sets of tools with sometimes 60 boys present. Com- puting in the above ratios for the smaller garden of 50 children, would leave only about a tool apiece should every member be present at the same hour. But it gives a full set of three tools each to every child present, if the children be divided into work- 132 COST OF EQUIPMENT inp^ groups of twelve. Work can be arranged so t one group can use the weeder while another the rake and still another the hoe. But for Good Tools comfort, the smaller garden would actually need a proportionately larger number of tools,* so that ♦The Canadian estimate is "for each two children in average attendance, a rake, hoe, and hand weeder; for each six a spade or 133 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS it would be better to spend more for these first tools, adding two spades, a half dozen each of rakes and hoes, and several weeders. To con- tinue the estimate: Low Fuller Estimate Estimate For rakes, hoes, weeders . . . . |2 1 .05 $30.33 Wheelbarrow, Boys' size 3.00 3.00 One steel tape, 75 ft 4.75 4.75 25 feet rubber hose 3.00 3.50 50 note books at 2 cents each 1 .00 i .00 Flag, rollbook, blackboard, hammer, saw, nails, sun- dries 10.00 10.00 50 membership cards 1.50 1.50 Stake and labels 2.00 2.00 3 forks, J dozen trowels, which are $5.00 a doz... 5.50 5.50 Seeds and plants 20.00 25.00 Cord, raffia, etc. (cotton awning line costs 30 cents per lb. 10 lbs. will make 50 garden lines) 3.00 3.00 74.80 89.58 To these must be added as accessory expense at least I5.00 for pans, glass, paper mounts, pins, etc. if any experimental work or insect work is fork;" and two shovels, three transplanting trowels, loofoot line and reel, 1 66 foot tape line, a wheelbarrow and lawn mower, would make the cost of tools for a group of thirty children where they work two on a plot (senior and junior) about I30. Cost of seeds about I4. For quantity, see Appendix A, Note 8. 134 COST OF EQUIPMENT to be undertaken. Further accessory equipment may be obtained by having homemade trellises, root cages, racks for soil testing, flats, homemade barometer, rain gauge, sand boxes for planting (or for the entertainment of the tiny child visitors whom the older "little mothers" sometimes have to bring), rubbish boxes, bed markers, butterfly nets, and numerous other sub- stitutes that save expense. With small children, in their first year work, or on plots not over 8 X 10 feet, the weeders (also the hoe and rake) can be supplanted in part, or wholly, by the cultivating stick. In the remote districts of Italy, a plow is still frequently only a tough forked limb of a tree pushed or cultivating Stick pulled through the ground. A cultivating stick is merely a piece of soft wood, or lath, one-fourth of an inch thick, one and a half inches wide, and 12 inches long, shaped to the hand and pointed at one end, which may be hardened by charring it. Held in the hand like a dagger and thrust into the dry, hard earth until the fingers strike the soil, it cuts each stroke to a uniform depth of between two and three inches and leaves in its wake a fine mulch.* In untrained hands, it is less likely than hoe or weeder to cut or damage I am indebted to Mr. Henry G. ♦ For this useful substitute, Parsons. 135 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the plants, and it is as effective as either in loosen- ing the soil and uprooting the weeds. The child at the end of the short cultivating stick is much nearer to the ground than when using the long- handled tool. He can and will at close range take far more interest in noticing color and form and the differences in both whether in weeds or in plants; for example, the similarities and dissimilarities between the weed purslane and its cousin the flowering portulaca; between the grass blade and the blade of corn; between the redweed and the tiny seedlings of the beet. The wheelbarrow is for general and large use. For daily weeding in the individual plot, each child, or every two children, may have a basket, or better, a small wooden box (or a soap box cut in two) with hoop handles attached. In this they should carry the weeds from their gardens to the compost heap. In large gardens where the paths are wide enough, children may be taught to bury the weeds, but this custom is better among the older children. The buried weed helps to fill up hollows and supplies humus to the soil when, in the future, paths and plots change places in an occasional rearrangement of the garden. From lathing can be made large labels, stakes, plot markers, root cages and racks. Two culti- vating sticks can be made for each child, one bearing his name or plot number to stand at the head of his bed when not otherwise needed. 136 COST OF EQUIPMENT The other, similarly marked, with a hole bored in it, is used to wind the garden line upon, and when not in use should hang in the toolhouse. When the line is used its loose end can be quickly tied to the other cultivating stick. Lines are best made of four-strand braided twine, and should be long enough to go easily around the child's entire plot.* They should not be left out in the weather to rot. A saving can be made in the matter of seeds, by getting them from the government and by buying penny packets for very small areas. For larger plots, buy in larger quantities and put them up in packets holding enough for each child. Com- pute much more closely than the seedsmen do for general gardening. Seedsmen sell a "nest" of seed measures, but one can calculate the quantity to use by the length of row and distance apart, allowing some margin. A test tube with an elastic band to mark the amount of seed needed can be employed after the amount is learned. In transplanting, trowels will be found con- venient. Dibbles can be homemade from an old broom or tool handle. Fork and shovel are oc- casionally great conveniences even in a small garden. A hand plow is a luxury. One with several attachments, such as rake and weeder, can be had for from $3.25 up to $7.00 according ♦This twine can be bought in balls. If each child is thus pro- vided, only a few of the longer, more expensive garden lines will be needed. 137 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS to the number of parts. Number all tools so as to keep track of them and of the care the children give them. In regard to care of tools, every one should be returned to the toolhouse dry and clean. The loose dirt should be wiped off with an old cloth, or better, with a strong brush such as plumbers use. Every particle of dirt between the tines of a fork, the teeth of a rake, along the grooves on the back of the spade, as well as on the handles should be removed. In the fall, before putting them away, any rust should be cleaned off with emery, all handles oiled, and iron parts thoroughly wiped with a cloth smeared with tallow. The tools should then be put away in a dry place for the winter. Linseed oil on handles keeps them mois- ture proof and smooth so that they will not dry out and splinter. The tallow prevents rusting of the metal parts. The illustration opposite page 171 shows the position of the rake in use. Such grasp of the tool calls into play the most strength with the least effort and avoids fatigue. In hoeing, the un- loosened ground should be attacked from the edge nearest the worker, who should stand in the path. The reason for this is that in so working each stroke cuts a clear, clean slice off the ground in front of the worker leaving a clearly defined line between the soft earth that has been hoed and the hard, unloosened soil. Then there is no danger of skipping parts of the ground as there is 138 COST OF EQUIPMENT when hoeing from the center of a bed towards one's self; unhoed portions are frequently cov- ered by the forward pull of the loosened earth. in any kind of garden, beds are seldom over 10 feet wide, a measure that gives an adult an easy reach in hoeing from either edge to the center and in raking from the center to the edge. This avoids stepping into the bed or upon the loose earth. (Where much hand weeding has to be done, six feet in width is better.) There should be no trampling of spaded earth or mulch. Rak- ing should break the coarser lumps and leave an even, level surface. If necessary, trampling must be avoided by spading or hoeing in sections of a width within easy arm's reach. Follow this by raking the same area and, that section completed, a new one may be begun. In all three operations, hoeing, raking, spading, the work should be done in straight, even lines so that if obliged to leave it suddenly, it will be completed up to the point where left and present a tidy, finished appearance. Section work gives an opportunity for division of labor among groups of children using different tools. Let one gang under their appointed or chosen leader follow the other, as in. clearing a lot, spading and raking it. Spading should be done properly. It then cannot harm, and will delight, the children. Even the smaller ones should be allowed just a few moments of it. But care must be exercised to see that children do not reach the fatigue point 139 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS and that they use both the tool and their muscles properly. The strong, shallow spade is not a crowbar to pry with nor is it a shovel which is made to lift earth from place to place. The spade is to loosen relatively soft earth and to turn it over. To use the spade, start with one hand grasping the top of the handle, the opposite foot Proper Use of the Spade on the blade, and the other hand holding the handle a fifth of the way down. The weight of the body should be used to drive the blade its full length into the earth; the hand should be slid down nearly to the blade as you lift and with a light toss ahead completely turn over each spade- ful of soil. When returning the spade for the 140 COST OF EQUIPMENT next cut, strike lightly with its back the lumps of earth just turned as they are falling to the ground. Straighten the back between each spad- ing and rest a moment. The brief rest saves the stooped back, and avoids the quick oncoming of fatigue. In the work of lifting, depend upon the muscles of the back and legs, feeling the ten- sion to the toes and lifting, as it were, by that. If the blade be turned very slightly when inserted in the earth, the side edge will act as a wedge and carry it in more readily. If hardened earth or a stone be met, moving the spade gently back and forth will give a better purchase and enough leverage to dislodge fair-sized stones. (Later, the principles of the lever may be illustrated and the reasons for so applying muscular strength.) Spading and raking as well as ploughing and har- rowing if properly and thoroughly done are really more beneficial for many soils than the appli- cation of fertilizers. In using the wheelbarrow, demonstrate that the load piled well to the back is the easier to trundle; also the respective values of the grip close to the barrow and of that nearer to the end of the handles. A substitute for the wheelbarrow is the improvised litter carried between two chil- dren, or they may play they are Indians with the savage drag made of crossed poles tied together. To sum up: To make an accurate garden esti- mate, or even an approximate one, all conditions must be known. One way to go about it would be 141 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS to make a list of things that must be done and must be had; then to decide how each is to be obtained and estimate the total cost. The list would include: A teacher, salaried or unsalaried. Cost of rental of ground. Preparation of ground, including labor and fer- tilizer. Tools as per estimate. Flag, roll-book, blackboard or blackboard-roll (to be hung to post or tree). Shelter for tools. Shelter for children. (?) Seeds and plants. Water supply. Sundries, including a few carpenter's tools, as saws, hammer, whetstone, nails, etc., and a small "first aid to the injured" box to treat accidental cuts or hurts which, however, rarely occur. 142 CHAPTER V PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN CHAPTER V PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN " Begin early, early enough to stir up enthusiasm before it is time to stir up the soil." "With hand on the spade and heart in the sky, dress the grounc and till it." TO get the best effect of light and to avoid shadow3 upon the plants, buildings should be placed at the west end, or occasionally at the extreme east if the garden is a part of a park or playground. If this be done, the sun from April to October, after 8 a. m., will strike the plots. The afternoon sun is less scorching and, in foggy regions, the western sunlight is the more important. Consequently, no large trees should be to the west or south of a garden; they should be to the north or east. Where a garden adjoins or is part of a park, if the larger paths are left as broad strips of turf the effect is much more beautiful. To give crops a good early start, it is desirable that the garden should be on a sunny slope to the south, for such a location will have the advantage o^^ others of giving some 40 per cent more light and warmth. If possible, let the location be M5 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS decided upon in the fall so that the soil may be examined and carefully prepared for use in the spring. The ground should _be_fairly eyen, so that the slope of the lay-out may be either all one way or from one or two central lines or ridges only, as from the top to the bottom, or center to the sides of the garden. Such an arrangement would usually settle the question of surface drainage by the slope and crowning of the paths. If, however, the ground is markedly uneven, it is important to have a system of paths and beds that shall drain it well. If the soil be wet and heavy, it may even be necessary to introduce tiny ditches. If the region be one of scant or infrequent rain- fall, irrigation ditches must be considered. Still, a unity of plan must be kept throughout, and the laying out of both paths and plots subordinated to it. It is impossible to give specific directions for every site. Various plans must be studied for the arrangement of the garden, for its shelter or arbor, its toolhouse and other buildings. Only general suggestions are possible. A garden should have a name. Bird-houses add a pretty feature, and special guide posts or signs interest the children. Sometimes they like to name the paths and the summer house. Fences, arbors, even trellises for small plants, are best painted green. (It is worth while to buy the very best green paint.) This color wears well and harmonizes with nature's coloring. A garden plan must provide easy entrance and 146 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN exit. Nearly all designs show some central place for observation of the work carried on in all parts of the garden. This may be either the center of the garden itself for pergola, arbor or shelter, or else some commanding point from which a view of the whole may be had. From such, the plots are laid out in straight lines giving rise to larger ^k^tiMm 1 W ' 1 Ei J^ ^ ^' 4 i%#^^ .,r^ V ^; Courtesy oj XiZlional Associolion of Audubon Soi t'flifs A Garden Should have a Bird-box squares or rectangles, or they may be made to radiate from the center. Re ctangula r plots are preferable to round ones, as they can be worked more easily from the paths; also because they more readily become component units of a whole. Farmers' Bulletin No. 218 approves a garden plot 5x16 feet as most readily worked without need '47 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS or danger of tramping down the bed. Except in "training gardens" or where there is a graded course of work, children's plots are seldom larger Flower Bed 3 6 ■* s ■S lO Flower Bed | | Flower &eJ ID 1 [Flower Bed ] | flower D€%^^^^i^^f Flower B«a Flower Bea | 2 - .. ^1 >36 at •7 a«. -37 »o tS 33 ^» .* =■5 -35 e.3 ^o 3o " Flower Ded 5fe opposite page iji Plan of Doan School Garden (Showing Teacher's Table and Class Bench) than this, and 4x8 feet or 8 x 10. feet is the more frequent size.* * Experienced teachers maintain that children under fourteen should not have plots over lox 15 feet. Small beds tend to waste space by requiring many paths. Dividing a garden into spaces of 5 or 10 feet is frequently easier and, by giving a decimal unit, makes many problems less troublesome for the children to compute. 148 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN Assuming the ground to have been cleared, plowed and harrowed, or spaded and raked for or by these would-be farmers, the teacher should calculate its area, study its possibilities from the aesthetic point of view, and roughly map out her plan. Beginning at the center oflhe plot or the central point, she should lay out a bed for flowers, or a space sufficient to build the small arbor, pergola or shelter which is to have vines trained and flowers arranged about it. Such shelter might have a circular seat and table to convert it at will into a small classroom ^ for talks or experiments. It will also provide a reception or resting room for visitors to the garden who wish to watch the children or to hear about their work. From this point the main paths 3 to 4 feet wide should extend or should radiate north and south, east and west, and these should be cut by narrower paths running at right angles. These main paths must make every part j of the garden easily accessible from the entrance. The lesser paths should be from i to i J feet wide, if the grounds are very, large, the few main paths may be 5 feet, those separating sections of the garden 3 feet wide.* For convenience let us assume that we wish the center of the garden to be also the center of (^ work and interest. To plot the garden, find its * Paths I foot wide between the individual beds give a more businesslike look which the children prefer, for they enjoy doing"* things as "grown up farmers" would. 149 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS center, and stretch two garden lines across the whole length due north and south, and two in like manner east and west. Keep these lines always the exact width of the proposed paths apart, say 3 feet. Lay out the central flower bed, or the outlook, with the center of its — MO ! & 3BHnC '.«.H, «. OPIW APUtt Arbob # £ ^* W*h Garden of Francis W. Parker School. Chicago i6i AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS carefully noting results and percentage of germina- tion. Seeds should be clean, bright, plump, and range from 85 to 90 per cent in fertility. In distributing seeds for planting, they may be given out in envelopes or poured into the child's hand when he is ready to drop them into the ground. If the first method is used the envelopes should be distinctly stamped with name of seed, and perhaps in addition, with a brief cultural direction as to the depth of planting and distance apart.* For marking such envelopes a rubber stamp or alphabet costing about 75 cents will be found very useful. In some gardens the lesson of the day is written on the blackboard to be copied by the children into a class book, and the seeds in envelopes are given them as they pass to the garden. The books are left in the classroom. Some few boys copy planting directions on slips which they take with them; others depend upon comparing memory notes, watching others or asking the teacher. With third or fourth year boys in graded training, or older pupils, this method of blackboard lessons may be good, but with little folks it seems a weary effort and lost labor. For them a diary of what they do and what they see, kept as they choose, long or short, written or drawn (provided they keep it with a fair degree of neatness), is greatly to be preferred. ♦ Planting tables give the usual depth. See Appendix A, Note 10. Very wet weather decreases and very dry weather increases it by about half the depth of normal planting. 162 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN There are other preliminaries to " planting day " besides the planning of the garden. Children may be registered before the first planting lesson, — and should be if the teaching force is short- handed. Early in the season, notice should be given the school children so that they may apply for gardens. Out of such applications fifty, or the number desired, may be selected and others placed upon a waiting list. If there is a sufficient appropriation, membership cards may be issued, and later, some form of badge or certificate of membership or merit. The cheapest way is to notify the children by postal that they are to ap- pear for registration at the garden the day before it opens for classes. At that hour they can be marched about the garden, shown the toolhouse, allowed to get a general idea of the premises, and may be told a little about the work to begin next day. Then, one by one, they can be registered in the class book under nationality, school, age and home address. To each must be given some badge or card of membership. Denison express tags with name on one side and the above specifica- tions on the back may be used. Make the children understand that the tag or badge, and that only, carries the right to work in the garden, and to own- ership of the allotted plot. If lost, it will not be replaced; if transferred, it will probably be for- feited, and the garden given over to some one on the waiting-list. The children will probably tie the tags around their necks. These tags may also 163 I AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS bear a class or division number to help the child remember at what hour he must appear for instruction, though he may come at any of several allotted periods for the general care of the garden. The children are now ready to begin business on planting day, and, if one has to manage many of them, this preliminary work will prove a great help. When they arrive for the lesson, select one or two children in each division to help you if you should need any assistance. To help them, you should have all tools and seeds ready, and for Vm\vvv^mvvmw\wvv^\vm\\mvm\mmv^\vm^^^^^^^ -4"->^ -^<— 4" Bed Marker, or Marking Board first year first day s work, you would do better to have the furrows indicated at both ends of the beds. (This is quickly done with a marking board.*) Planting by the line might better come later. It can, however, be introduced on beds 8x 10 feet and over, by stretching the lines across the initial markings which will help to determine them. Thus you will avoid, on the very first planting day, the delay and confusion likely to ♦ See photograph and drawing. A board i foot wide. 4 feet long, beveled strips of wood nailed at distances indicated. For convenience it may have a long handle attached as the boy has made it. ,64 J PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN SOME FORMS OF REGISTRATION No. FAIRVIEW GARDEN SCHOOL. Register Card. Fill out and Return This Card to Office. What is Your Name How Old are You What School do You Attend What Grade are You in Where do You Live Have You Ever Been a Member of the Garden School Before A. Application for a Garden THE FAIRVIEW GARDEN SCHOOL Fairview Street and Ridge Avenue, Yonkers, N. Y. Membership Ticket. Season of 1909. Garden No Name Bring this ticket with you when you pay your dues. Edw. Mahoney, Superintendent. B. Membership Ticket Dues Record of Payments, cts. per week. Garden No. April 24 May I May 8 May 1 5 May 22 | May 29 June 5 June 12 June 19 June 26 | Ju>y 3 July 10 July 17 July 24 July 31 Aug. 7 Aug. 14 Aug. 21 Aug. 28 Sept. 4 1 i Sept. 1 1 Sept. 18 Sept. 25 Oct. 2 Oct. 9 Remarks C. Reverse of B 165 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS occur when eager children rush to possess their farms or first begin to make practical application of figures and measurements. If there must be a large amount of planting in a limited time, the Eight-year-old Boy Who Made His Own Marker long garden line can be stretched across a section of individual plots and the children may use it as a guide for the complete planting of one kind of seed; then, moving it for the next furrow, plant 66 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN the second row of seed and so on. Lines of planting should be even and continuous. The rows, though broken by paths, should run way across the garden, both for aesthetic reasons and for easy comparison of individual plots. The question arises, shall all the planting be done at once? If there are large areas to plant, or the children come every day, it may be divided; but if they come only once or twice a week, the sooner the seeds are in, the safer and better, and the less likelihood of the work dropping behind and of consequent discouragement. If possible, finish the planting the first day. In all small plots this can usually be done. By working diligently, three-quarters of an hour or less even is sufficient to plant a 4 x 8 foot plot with seven vegetables. The work of the first day should consist of an object lesson in planting in a model bed, given by the teacher, with the class at attention in an open square about her.* An hour's instruction in the garden including this lesson is long enough for the first work with little people. The teacher should do exactly what she wishes the children to repeat and should accompany the action with a brief, clear story of what she is about. When she has finished, the children should march directly to their own section of the garden and scatter to the beds bearing numbers corresponding to those ♦ This lesson may be given indoors by using a small box of earth to represent the plot, but it is better given outside. 13 167 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS upon their cards. They should take their places, all standing on the same side of their respective plots. On the first day, it is better for them to fmd their tools in the middle of each plot. At word or signal of command, they should take up the hoe, and with it mark their first furrow, as they have seen their teacher do. Then they should stand at attention and await the order to make the next furrow a foot to the left or to the right at the required depth, unless they have the seed for the first furrow and are told to place it. Usually it is best for the teacher to inspect each step of the work, the placing of the seed, its cover- ing and firming with the back of the hoe, and to do this in the case of each variety of seed planted. One span of the child's hand may be counted at four inches as a measure in planting. The seed may be distributed from bottles, any number of which, for convenience, may be placed in a box or basket. Collect all seeds which the children do not use and return them to the bottles. In larger plots, each row of seed should carry a label bearing date of planting and name of seed. When the planting is completed, a 4 x 8 foot plot will require 8 full measures of a 6-quart watering can, or 48 quarts of water to 32 square feet of ground. If the children are to have the fun of watering, a water line should be formed to preserve order. The one all important rule in watering is to soak the ground to at least the depth of four inches, and to water infrequently, 168 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN perhaps only once a week. A little water only helps to start evaporation and consequent loss of ground moisture by capillarity and is worse than none. If there is to be a water supply, try to locate it centrally and have a basin of stone work. Plot 4X8 feet. W. s. Radish i" deep, i'' apart Beans 3" deep. S" apart' Beets 2" deep. 2" apart Carrots sprinkle 1" apart Lettuce to be trans- planted later 1 Onions, 8 or 10 seeds, every 12'' , Label N. D Path 18' E. Plan of Planting used by Teachers' Class, Henry G. Parsons, Instructor, New York University, Summer of 1908 however amateurish, to catch the spilled water and soak it up so as to prevent wet feet and pud- dles. A 4-inch hydrant will furnish good working force, if fitted with two or more cocks for inch or two-inch hose. The hose itself had best be one- 169 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS inch pipe because it will be 7 pounds lighter for each 25-foot section than the usual i f inch piping. It will wear out less quickly from being dragged about, and the children are less likely to do dam- age with the smaller stream. A general rule for planting flower seeds is to scatter very fine ones on loose earth, cover with a board, and stamp into the ground. For conven- ience with children, the very fine seeds may be mixed with fine earth and then scattered in rows or broadcast to be firmed into the ground. All small seeds should be planted the depth of their greatest diameter and larger seeds like nastur- tiums four times that depth. Very hard seeds, such as castor oil bean and those of some gourds, should have the end opposite the little root stock cut with a sharp knife. Seeds like parsley, known to be long in germinating, may be soaked for twenty-four hours in warm water. Lettuce needs abundant nitrogen. Cabbages, cauliflower, etc. are benefited by it if applied after they begin to head up. (They take phosphoric acid from the ground.) In sandy soils they would like some extra potash. Beets and turnips re- joice in extra nitrogen and phosphoric acid. Beans secure their own nitrogen through their colonies of bacteria. Carrots like barnyard ma- nure with a Httle additional potash. Tomatoes like a similar enrichment with a nitrate well mixed into the soil at transplanting time. Clay soil suits cucumbers and squashes, while muskmelons 170 L Plowed Ground ilMiii H^IkS^' :^ ^ :i^- ^^H^H .'a . «> 'M^^^^^B^S^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^BBBBBBI ^JH .^1 ^^^^^^^K^y^ ^- ' . Raking Smooth PLANTING OPERATIONS, I Lf Sa^ OF THE ^^NfVERSITY PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN and watermelons demand a warm, light, sandy soil. Excess of nitrate will cause any one of the four to grow too rapidly and give a poor quality of fruit.* Too rich a soil will send nasturtiums to leafage instead of to bloom. In addition to planting their own beds, enlist the children, as much as you can, to help plant the flower beds, sample plots, vines, etc. On the chart of the garden, not only the chil- dren's plots but all others should be indicated. What and how many they are, will depend upon the extent of the garden. There should be at least a number of flower beds, the commoner vegetables not grown in the children's plots, and if possible, the common grains, grasses, kitchen herbs, staple cereals and one or two things such as peanuts or cotton or sweet potatoes to pique the children's interest. There should be a weed bed with the seeds carefully destroyed just before they are fully ripe. " Perhaps you would like to know what flowers we raised. There was a most luxuriant growth of sunflowers, hollyhocks, gladioli and sweet peas. There were pansies, and pansies and pansies every- where. Then there were large double marigolds, calendula, which are even now in bloom, fifty- seven feet of petunias, the same of dianthus pinks, and nasturtiums -handsomer than any I had ever seen before. Our borders of mignonette were perhaps more satisfactory than anything in the ♦See Miller. Louise Klein: Children's Gardens, p. 174. •7« AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS whole garden, making the air rich with fragrance for a long distance. . . We now have on hand for next year some fine nicotiana and sweet William plants. F^ Ruse sPRAy TOP. wmrnmiTWTmimmwmk i M/IIN W/^TER P>PE Aquatic Garden with Fountain Cement basin with inside tub for clear water: approximate cost $15 to |20. Half barrels and nail kegs can be substituted. "We used petunias, pinks, pansies, mignonette, and sweet peas together with autumn leaves to decorate one of our churches. The yellow flowers we had saved for one of the other churches, but Jack Frost forestalled our plans. 172 PLANNING AND PLANTING THE GARDEN '* I shall be glad to tell you something of our potato field, for as much, if not more, of our in- terest centered there as in the flower garden. "The practical problems met in connection with the cultivation of potatoes were considered under three heads. First, the disinfection of seed by the use of formalin, to prevent scab; second, the relative value of different fertilizers, considered with reference to the needs of the soil; and, third, observation of the effects of Bordeaux mixture as a preventative of late blight."* In planning and planting a garden, Louise Klein Miller's "Children's Gardens" is extremely useful with reference to all garden work, especially for planning effects, and for suggestions as to nature study. It contains a list of trees for the arboretum, of shrubs for planting, and of ferns for the wild flower garden. For one entirely inex- perienced, H. D. Hemenway's " How to Make School Gardens" is most helpful. It devotes thirty-five out of ninety-six pages to explicit de- tails of planting, arranged in twenty-one lessons. These lessons are as simply told as if they were to be placed on the blackboard for children to copy. The book also includes some account of the common weeds. For work with little children, Frances Duncan's "When Mother Lets Us Gar- den" has many delightful hints. Celia Thaxter's Little Classic, "Peggy's Garden and What Grew ♦Palmer, S. T.: Vermont Circulars of Educational Information. No. XIII. (Describing school garden at Johnson, Vt.) '73 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Therein'' has become almost a text-book in many schools in connection with the school garden. "Children and Gardens/' an English book by Gertrude Jekyll, is suggestive, though written primarily for home conditions. "School Gardening for Little Children," by Lucy R. Latter, who did so much for the school garden movement in England, has chapters which were originally written for the Practical Teacher "in the hope that the experience set forth might en- courage other teachers to introduce nature teach- ing into their schools." It is very explicit, de- lightfully written, and full of helpfulness to both teacher and children. The " School Garden Book," by P. Emerson and C. M. Weed, is valuable. It outlines the work for each month throughout the year. Finally, of perennial interest, will always remain that pioneer, "The School Garden," by Dr. Erasmus Schwab of Vienna, the originator of this recent, happy means of making school and its studies delightful to children. 74 CHAPTER VI AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? CHAPTER VI AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? "It is of the utmost importance that children should acquire the habit of cultivating a plot of ground long before the school life begins. Nowhere as in the vegetable world can his action be so clearly traced by him, entering in as a link in the chain of cause and effect." — Froebel. "Give a child large interests and give them young." — Alice Free- man Palmer. LESSONS and experimental work in the gar- den will vary as it is or is not attached ■^ to a school, and somewhat according to the children's knowledge of outdoor life. There may be the difference between a review of some topics and a first presentation of them. When gardens come to be a part of the school cur- riculum, a very large percentage of the nature work now done indoors will be done outside. In this department surely the garden should be the "outer classroom of the school," to the great advantage of both children and teacher. Everywhere that the garden has been introduced in connection with the school, the universal testimony is that it stimulates the child to better intellectual grasp of his studies. Even where it 177 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS has been added to the routine of the school, the teachers say that the time required is a welcome break that is more than made up by the vim and expedition with which the pupils attack their other work. Where the individual beds are not over lox 15 feet, actual gardening would not require more than fifteen minutes or, at most, half an hour each A School Garden Class, Red Wing, Minn. school day; not over one and a half to two and a half hours per week. Because of the nature of the work, its period in the school program is frequently not a fixed one. Cultivation, or tillage of their plots, to be most pleasurable to the children, should be something that they can enjoy when they please, or be sent to as a delightful change from their routine work. This is accomplished 178 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? in many gardens by allowing the children a wide range in the hours assigned for the general care of their plots, within which time they may come and go as they please. When the garden is accepted as a part of the regular school routine, this period is sometimes arranged by the principal, who, knowing the time best suited for garden work, may interrupt any grade lesson to send the children out, perhaps to take advantage of the hour after a sudden shower to mulch their grounds, to grasp some fleeting opportunity to study in- sect life, or to note some passing state or stage of nature. "The grade work may be made up any time; showers and sun do not wait; the garden cannot," was the gist of one Canadian teacher's belief and practice. There should, of course, be some definite half hours set apart for possible outside work. Many times such periods will be suitable for it. When they are not, they can be filled by indoor work. Any suggestion that recess time be given over to gardening because it offers change of posi- tion, change of thought, fresh air and exercise for the larger as well as the smaller muscles; that in quality and quantity of work it may be adapted to all years, should be peremptorily vetoed on the ground that to be ordered to a task, however pleasant, is to take away the feeling of release from responsibilities, the sense of freedom, which is the very essence of a recess period. It should give the freedom to do as one pleases, to associate with 14 179 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS one's fellows as equals, and is essential to the child's welfare. A monitor might, however, be in the garden during recess so that any children who wish may go to their farms. Often, a shy or unsocial boy or*girl would prefer to do so. Whether the garden is correlated with school work or not,* there is a waiting time, after the planting, before the children can cultivate their plots. It will be a week or two before they may safely begin. If the children come but once a week their second lesson should be upon paths, and if the day is suitable, they should be taught to make them; it is essential that the garden from the first shall have an attractive appearance which will impress favorably all visitors. At the second lesson, in order to evoke greater interest in them, there should also be a little talk on seeds and what they are doing in the ground. Yet time should be left to set the outdoor housekeep- ing in order. In regard to the paths, the children should first, with the handles of their hoes, measure their plots exactly, to be sure that the stakes are still in correct position at each corner. Carefully pass the garden line around the whole bed about two inches from the ground, keeping it taut. Each child should make two of the four paths that surround his bed, say the north and west, or south and east. Impress upon him that from that time on he will be responsible for those by- * For chart of correlation, see Appendix A, Note i i. i8o '^ Of AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? ways; that upon them he is to stand whenever possible to do his work; and on them, not on his neighbor's, he is to throw his weeds or stand his weeding box or lay his tools. Children should be made to take certain paths in coming and going. A good rule is to follow the right hand path or paths to the nearest main one. In making paths, the child should begin with the gutter. With the point of the hoe draw a deep groove directly under the garden line along one side of the plot and then along the other, for each child is to make but two paths. This gutter should be from one to three inches deep, according as the soil is dry and sandy or wet and clayey. Having made the groove, the child will then, with the back of his hoe, bank the edge of the bed at an angle of about 50 degrees. Next, with his hoe, he will draw the dirt up and away from the groove until it becomes the middle of the little gutter. The loose earth is drawn into the center of the path, or upon its "crown." A good rule is to have the center of the path a smooth, level, even sur- face, equal in height to the center of the bed. Narrow paths may be hardened by having the children tramp them down and pound them smooth with the back of a hoe. Broader ones are much better rolled hard. An improvised roller can be made of a bit of drain pipe with a piece of very tough, strong wood, or an iron bar for an axle, held in place by a filling of stones and rub- ble, through which cement has been poured. A 181 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS team of children can be harnessed to draw it.* Where seeds may be sown broadcast, as in some of the observation plots, this roller will be handy to firm them, provided the soil is not clayey. If it is, you do not wish by rolling and compacting to create a layer of hard, soggy crust through which tender seedlings may not have the strength to penetrate. What are the seeds doing down in the dark earth? Are they all doing something, and in the same way, and why? These are the ques- tions the children ask, and the true answers you want them to determine, to think about and to discuss among themselves. The question why the seeds do so and so is one that we must frankly admit cannot be completely ans- wered. Nobody knows just why or how the seed develops. We see them do certain things and we say it is because God or nature put into each tiny seed a plan of life, and to that plan each seedling keeps, perhaps because it knows it ought. Anyway, each kind of seed clings to a definite plan of development through its whole life. Whoever has watched seeds of the same and of different kinds develop as far as they are able and then gradually die, knows that each one of them has one great purpose, which is to reproduce itself by seed, and to reach that * In order to have it roll, when filling in the stones and cement the axle must be protected by a collar of wood or tin or something that will prevent adhesion to it and leave just enough space for revolving. 182 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? end there seems to be no plant that does not do three things. It makes another Hke, or better than itself, that will continue its kind upon the earth; it helps to keep the earth beautiful and habitable with a covering of green things; and finally each plant fills a place of real use. Root Cage or Planting Frame. (Strings Stretched to Meas- ure Growth) as food, or as material to be made into cloth- ing or as a thing of use or beauty. The lesson of reproduction is taken up again when pollination begins. The usefulness of the plant should be the strong point in lessons at the harvest time. The plant's determination to make the best of itself in good or bad soil, in good or bad environ- 183 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS ment, is a daily lesson beginning with the baby seed. Accordingly, the children must see what is going on underground. It is not feasible for every child himself to conduct all the experiments, but as each should do as much work of that sort as possible, a number of experiments in germina- tion can be made.* First, let the teacher arrange a root cage with garden soil, and plant at the same depth as the children did, one seed of each of the dif- ferent vegetables. These will illustrate what is happening in the earth. But would every seed act alike? some child should be led to ask. By way of answer, let a group of children take a number of seed germinators and place a dozen or twenty seeds of one kind in each and later compare the germination in the testers with that of the same kind of seed in the root cage. Let each of the other children plant one or two seeds of each sort in different kinds of soil, sandy, clayey, etc., in moss, or even in sawdust. View of End Piece Showing Grooves Root cage, glass 8 inches X lo inches; frameof lath, 9 inches X 1 1 inches; end piece width of lath; strips of lath put on to form grooves. * In order to examine readily the very starting of germination, some seeds should be germinated on wet blotting paper placed on one plate and covered by another to keep seeds warm, damp and dark. They should be looked at each day, preferably under a microscope or magnifying glass, 184 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? Five or six racks containing chimneys or glass tubing cut in short lengths, would give nearly every child one bit of experimental work to watch and to record in his diary. The racks would not take up much room, and by turning them end foremost and using the first hole alternating with some other, each experiment with the same kind of seed could be lined up for easy comparative study. Similarly, other experiments with plants growing in dampness, darkness, or crowded as to roots, and also under opposite conditions, may be made. Suggestions and examples can be found in the United States Bulletins on School Gardening, in C. F. Hodge's "Nature Study," Osterhaut's " Experiments with Plants," and other similar books, such as Holtz's "Nature Study," and Coulter and Patterson's " Practical Nature Study and Elementary Agriculture." Attention may be called to the weight of the earth upon the seed and to the force with which the plantlet pushes through to light and air. A flower pot filled with beans with just enough water to cover them, covered with a pan and the whole tied about in all directions with strong, firm twine, if left to stand a short time, will show the enormous strength and bursting power of that seed. Bottles, if loosely covered with cloth to catch the flying glass, may be used by the teacher to show how seeds with lesser power expand. This lesson may be carried out to show how 185 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS rootlets pierce between and push aside the frac- tured rock particles which they meet. Attention may be called to the fact that even tiny moss or lichen roots, as well as the larger ones, give off a wee trail of acid that streaks the rocks and causes decomposition to set in along the trail. In many places, this is the first making of soil. The rock weathers enough to furnish food for the clinging plant, and, as the latter decomposes the hard surface, tiny seeds, blown by the wind or dropped by the birds, take root. Each plant as it lives and dies helps to form new soil until at last in the ledge of rock a tiny tree seedling may start and shoot upward, finding a fissure or crackllth rough which[to make its way; and thus by the roots which it pushes down in search of water, and the trunk which it urges upward in order that its leaves may get air and light, forces the rock apart. The story of the dropped seed suggests other rainy day talks upon seed travelers, stories which are told in many of the nature books that are now before the public. Such suggestions are found also in Cornell leaflets, and in Nos. 2, 4, and 10 of the Hampton Teachers' Leaflets procurable at 5 cents each. The natural development of many seeds comes so late in garden work that it may be well to antedate their season with some talks about them to fill in the days before the first of the little farmers' harvests arrive. Later, there may be reviews and special studies. Ex- 186 AFTF.R PLANTING, WHAT? periments showing the exterior and interior of seeds, their outer and inner coats, their various embryonic development, the pattern of the tiny plant, as well as its store of food for the seedlings, suggest themselves. The vitality of seeds fur- nishes many useful stories. So, too, do lessons on the different kinds of roots, these latter to be reviewed as the various root crops are harvested. Lessons on branching, budding and plant develop- ment generally, come naturally as talks while the crops are up and growing. Brief cooking lessons will suggest themselves when there are things to take home to eat. Some specimens of plants that are cultivated in the vegetable gardens for their roots or leaves, must be allowed either there or in the observation plots to go to seed so as to show that they com- plete the round allotted to all plant life, in the observation plots, however, the weed seeds must not be allowed to ripen. Some of the seeds gathered from last year's field and pasture may be used to show their methods of bursting forth for travel. Some attach themselves to an animal's fur or to clothing for free passage (as do "stick-me-tights" on children's stockings), while others, like the dandelion, or the milkweed which spreads its tiny sail to the wind, depend upon the air for transportation. The Department of Agriculture puts up for I2.00 apiece, two interesting collections of seeds of one hundred each. Some seed forms are so .87 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS curious that it is well in passing just to introduce them to the children as seeds, for they might not be recognized as such; some of the nuts in our stores, for instance, or the seeds of certain un- familiar kinds of fruit. There are the interesting black-eyed Susans and the pearl gray seeds from Hawaii, the '* Job's tears" of which necklaces and sometimes rosaries are made. Many stories of the ways and life of people are found in the plants. Nearly every child knows the story of Sir Walter Raleigh and the tobacco plant. Many know the history of the white or Irish potato; but few adults know which of our garden vegetables are very, very old, and how many are of recent development. Nor have they had a glimpse of the fascinating life of ad- venture and travel that brought us tea and rice from China and India; the radish and the onion from Asia and Egypt; and, far more re- cently, the tomato from semi-tropic regions of our own continent. A few of these stories do not come amiss and may be found suggested in botanies and in agricultural or horticultural encyclopedias. This is some of the work that may be scattered through the summer; with it comes the daily cultivation of the gardens. Cultivation may be- gin as soon as the plants are about two inches high, if it is carried to within two inches only of the seedlings. There will be also the daily care of paths; the daily work in company over all the 1 88 X h Q z < w 2; « h u < P til a ^^^ > UJ i -2 = 6 o 6 6 6 2 01 S ZZZ O . u 1 < •- J 1 g ji X .1 t§ -+» < o u u 5 s (A tfl O U> U UCL, /— s sps o £ 5 « pj w < ? < OhBJOW OS. u u. .;.-d rioo o 6 6 6 6 Z :zz2;z o H ,- z < isSs Ou UWUJH o z p « « fo'* 6 6 6 6 z zzzz ^ .89 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS common territory of main paths and observation plots; the occasional thinning of seedlings with the opportunities for teaching both plant and human hygiene and sanitation; the replanting of plots and lessons that may be introduced at Outfit for Insect Study Costly glass mounts can be replaced by a strip of cotton batting enclosed between two panes or sheets of glass, bound together by strips of surgeon's plaster. Net made of a loop of 12 inch wire bound to a handle of bamboo. To the wire loop a bag of mosquito netting may be sewn or lashed. such times on rotation and succession of crops. Finally, there are the lessons in the value of harvests, whether of flowers and vegetables on the little beds, or of the crops on the sample plots, or their relative values on the experimental beds. 190 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? In addition to lessons in plant life we have the story of the whole society of animal life that gathers in the garden. Toad and worm have their story as well as insect and bird. Insect life is good or bad, beneficial or injurious. Among insects, the helpful lady-bug; the harm- ful aphis or plant louse; the useful scavenger beetle, and the destructive potato bug; the striped beetle that troubles squash and tomatoes; the curious click beetle and the voracious cutworm and wire worm will demand attention. The cabbage butterfly will in a few short weeks give a typical life history in a completed round. It also will illustrate the reason why each year as a nation we lose so many millions of dollars through in- ^^^^^" ^''^^^^'^^ ^^"'^^ sect depredations, and why we need the birds to help us keep down their number. The parsley worm and tomato worm will develop for us into beautiful fliers, one a brilliant-edged swallow-tail butterfly, and the other a superb moth. On milk- weed may be found the caterpillar of the vivid Monarch butterfly, known in some places as the "Princeton" because of its yellow and black. Ihe bee, from a safe vantage point, may be studied as he visits the flowers and carries the pollen from one gay flag to another hung out ♦ See Appendix A, Note 12, for check list of 34 common butter- flies. 15 191 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS to tell him of hidden treasure; or his habits may be more thoroughly investigated if the garden is rich enough to possess a model hive. The visiting birds and the toad come in also for watchful study. Each teacher must plan her own outline of work and adapt her day to any special study its events may suggest. Set lessons may have to be used in handling large numbers of children, but the ideal would be friendly talks with little groups, apparently on the spur of the moment, yet having a line of sequence run- ning through the entire sum- mer's work. One good manual, like Comstock's or a book like Weed's on ''Insect Life," or United States bulletins such as No. 196 on the Garden Toad or Nature Leaflet, No. 18, Mass. State Board of Agriculture, on Aphids, will contain sufficient accurate information for the teacher who has had no train- ing in nature study or science. In the garden there are occa- sions for some of the florist's operations of seeding, potting, transplanting.* One graphic rule serves for transplanting as well as for thinning, and the chil- dren can more readily remember it than a number * See Appendix A, Note 13, for directions for these operations. 192 "Killing Jar." Cyanide or "killing jar" may be an ordinary pre- serve jar or any wide- mouthed stoppered bottle that may be tightly closed to keep in the poisonous fumes from the lump of cyanide. This should be set in plaster of paris. AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? of fixed distances. It is based upon the fact that plants should not interfere with one another, and that there is a general proportion between the size of root and leafage which can be illustrated. Thus, if the children, when ready to thin beets or trans- plant lettuce, are told to recall the size of the beet root or of the head of lettuce as they have seen each in the store; to draw roughly on the ground a circle of approximately the same size; and then to draw another similar circle just touching the edge of the first, they can see that the distance between the centers of the two circles would be about the distance apart that the plants would have to stand so as not to interfere with each other.* Such a rude estimate would cover all the common vege- tables; though in the case of unfamiliar growths, like corn and beans, the necessary distance would have to be given them. There are some details of the school garden that relate to the teacher more than to the child, which should be considered. Where a school garden has several members on its staff, they should be so selected as to work in perfect harmony and with loyal obedience to their head, who should be capable, generous-minded and considerate. He or she should be competent to superintend the garden and all its activities ; generous to give credit to the assistants for work well done or for helpful suggestions ; reasonable in planning the work for both children and subordinates, in ♦ This method is suggested by Mr. Henry G. Parsons. 193 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS sharing plans, present or future, with fellow work- ers, and considerate with assistants and children while they are carrying out the scheme of work outlined for them— for here, weather interrup- tions, human frailty and the unexpected some- times dislocate the best laid plans. Nowhere is Thinning his Plants there greater need for care in selecting the per- sonnel of a teaching staff; nowhere does char- acter count more than in the intimacy between children and teachers which the garden fosters. Tact, good judgment, justice, firmness, gentleness, directness, sympathetic understanding of child nature, normal sensibilities, a wholesome sense of 194 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? humor, tolerance, patience, ready forgiveness and large hopefulness are fundamental qualities for a teacher. These virtues allay antipathies, ward oflf hostil- ity and arouse gratitude in children and neigh- bors. It is well to remember in handling the chil- "The Father of the Man without a Job' dren, that they are frequently human barometers subject to the personal atmosphere of the garden or the home. Put yourself in the child's place, with his experience, his often incorrect knowl- edge and the prejudices of his environment. If he errs, reason with him for his good, not because of "95 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS your broken discipline or offended dignity. Each day clean the slate of his misdeeds. Have peace between you and welcome him each morning with a large hopefulness for his future. Be merciful, — for he may encounter only indifference or neg- lect or temper at home. These do not grow easier to bear by frequent experience, and in all classes. Normal Student's Home Garden, Washington, D. C. children receive occasionally the equivalent of the quick blow or the gruff command. The habitual courtesy of teacher to teacher and to child fmds itself reflected in deference and gentleness of mood in the child, though sometimes expressed in far from polished phrase or gesture. 196 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? Dress, too, has its effect. You are trying to cultivate the child. Old clothes, — clean, whole, unadorned, — have a rightful place when man or woman is grubbing in the ground. They may be more appropriate on some work days than on others when a simple suit with some style to it and, in case of a woman, with a touch of pretti- Writing up the Day's Diary ness, would not be injured and would eloquently preach a number of lessons. Not economy and adaptability, but slouchiness and disorder and lack of thrift are taught by the torn shirt sleeve, the broken shoulder brace, the skirt pinned and sagging at the waist band, and the old finery or gown or blouse "good enough for garden work." Jewelry, beyond ring and pin and watch, is an 197 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS abomination, and may become a temptation if carelessly laid down. A practical shirt-waist suit or wash dress, or clothes of a color that does not show the stain of dirt and soil, are needed. Even with the children there should be insistence upon cleanliness, upon neatness (with reasonable consideration of their social class), and upon proper clothing — if there is a tendency to over or under dress. Overalls and aprons are appropriate. Garden records should always be kept, both for immediate use and later reference.* They may be : 1. Child's records. a. Daily attendance. b. Daily weather report. c. General work each day. d. Daily harvest. 2. Records of visitors, or the Garden Guest Book. (This pleases the children, their parents and visitors.) 3. Principal's records. a. The day's work for the children, as prepared alone or in conference with the assist- ants. b. Work accomplished by the children. c. Record of each child's attendance, conduct, harvest. d. Record of visiting classes. e. Record of nature study material or of flowers supplied. * For types of records from School Gardening for California Schools by B. M. Davis, see Appendix A, Note 14. 198 AFTER PLANTING, WHAT? f. Miscellaneous records, of trips by the children to other schools, parks, experiment sta- tions, and of any events worth registering. Summer work in the garden will include some carpentry, such as repairing of tools and making of apparatus. It should include some cooking.* Even though there be no opportunity for house-wifery, a few simple cooking lessons can be given over an oil stove in an impro- vised and sheltered corner kitchen; or better, the cooking can be done with one of the steam cookers that range in price from $5.00 to I7.50. This method demon- strates economy in fuel, as would also a fireless cooker which is easily improvised. The cook- ing could be done in connection with a guest day. A vegetable dinner, a salad supper, or a ''green tea" is a great drawing card to interest the children's parents. In fact it is a good thing to have a "parents* day" regularly and frequently with either some such feature as just mentioned or ♦ See Appendix A, Note 15. 199 Home-made Breeding Cage A large chimney standing in saucer or flower pot or fitted into a block of wood, if its top IS covered with netting, will serve. AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS an interesting talk upon some topic connected with the garden. The parents represent the tax- payers and pubhc opinion, and when they approve the school garden sufficiently to demand it, the ward politician will get in line with the best educa- tional leaders who are doing all they can to push it. In order not to be swamped by guests, or embarrassed by financial problems, these social occasions can be apportioned among difi'erent groups of children, who will entertain their par- ents or friends at stated times. From the first day that the garden is open to the last, cultivate the good will of all in the neigh- borhood. It is much more creditable to elicit voluntary help, or even successfully to beg as- sistance, than for a teacher to accomplish every- thing by herself or through her coteries of friends. The garden is for the children and they are to feel that they own it; that they largely make it what it is; and it should be among their people, for their people, and enthusiastically encouraged by their people. 200 CHAPTER VII AN INTERLUDE: SOME GARDEN WEEDS CHAPTER VII AN INTERLUDE: SOME GARDEN WEEDS "One can imagine no more irrepressible rabble than these weeds of the garden. They seem possessed almost of a conscious life, and to push and shove and scramble for place like a hard-headed, thick- skinned, piratical crew." — S. D. Kirkham. SCARCELY thirteen years ago John Bur- roughs in a chapter on a Bunch of Herbs made an interesting sub-division, Weeds, and in the " long hst/' as he calls it, 42 were given. Today the United States Department of Agri- culture issues a "set composed of 100 samples of weed seeds — those most commonly found in the commercial seeds of cultivated plants." It "is intended for the use of educational institutions and seedsmen in identifying seeds by compari- son." Considered as the bane of a school garden a large proportion of these weeds may be omitted; not because they are not bold robbers of rich soil but because many of them belong to special areas of our country, and in their local haunts are as well known as is the dandelion everywhere. If they occur in the school garden it will be as iso- lated individuals or as a plant colony, and prob- 203 First Year's Growth of Yellow Dock AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS ably come up in the sample plot according to the seed that has been sown and that seed's most intimate enemy. In school gardens of from 5 to 10 acres where the sample plots are of consider- able size, or in gar- dens connected with agricultural schools or colleges, the weeds would be immediately recognized by the trained teachers in agriculture who are usually in charge. If they occur in the city school garden or the small rural one, they are often easily placed as to their name and his- tory by a careful study of the crop in which they appear. If local conditions supply no oppor- tunities for this kind of research, and helpful bulle- tins cannot be had from either Washington or the State Experiment Station, the weed will be iden- tified if sent to the latter. Moreover, your sample 204 JiMsoN Weed AN interlude: some garden weeds plot seed has probably been sown in drills or rows. (One can usually get as much or more on the same area and cultivate it more easily than when sown broadcast.) Seedlings and weeds will come up together, but only a very short time will be needed before the characteristic appearance of each will disclose its variety. Rarely is seed so adulterated that the weed equals or exceeds the plant desired. It is only the weed in the rows that need cause trouble, for proper cultivation between them should eradicate the foreign population when young. In its youth the weed is not sturdy, whether youth be considered in relation to actual age or to its appearance in a new locality. Beware of its second season. If it is an annual, though it die, it has first scattered its myriad children. If it is a perennial, it has not only done this but has firmly established itself, pre- pared to increase by its roots, by underground runners, by division of root, by rooting joints, by suckers or by more than one of these, or by all, so tenacious of life are weeds. "The most human plants after all are the weeds. 1 low they cling to man and follow him around the world! How they crowd round his barns and dwellings and throng his garden and jostle and override each other to be near him"* — and what good turns they sometimes serve him! If we look at weeds for their food value we find ♦ Burroughs, John: A Year in the Fields, p. 135. 205 I AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS first of all, perhaps, the dandelion and water cress; at least, these are the best known. In different sections of the country, different weeds maybe utilized. In old New England many were used that are still used occasion- ^ ally. The introduction of, and great improvement in our now common vegetables relegated the weeds to an obscurity out of which, today, several have been brought by the customs of dif- ferent nationalities among our poorer people. A school garden should strive, particularly in the cities, to in- troduce as varied a dietary as possible, by teaching the use of all garden greens and by calling attention to the edible ones among the weeds. Among these are milkweed, which offers in its young and tender shoots mate- rial for salads. These shoots preserved in layers of salt until winter time, shaken free of it and rinsed, will give greens for the pot. This use is common still in parts of New England. As a pot herb also may be used that scourge of the garden, Plantain Flowering spike of common plantain. Broad leaved plan- tain or hen-bread.* * From Bailey's Cyclopedia of Horticulture. the Macmillan Co. 206 By permission of AN interlude: some garden weeds purslane or "pussley." An eighteenth century writer speaks of it as being "little inferior to the asparagus." We can cheerfully consign it to the boiling cauldron. In the garden it is most perni- cious, spreading rapidly and re-rooting at every joint left carelessly in the shade or in damp earth. Its small yellow flowers open in the hot sunshine for only a few hours, but spread their seeds gen- erously. These are of so great vitality, that if deeply buried and years after accidentally brought near the surface, they will spring to life again. Its smaller leaves are used for salad and for garnishing. Purslane and its cousin, the portu- laca, have many habits in com- mon. Cape Cod peo- common Purslane or Portulaca pie use golden or Oleracea* marsh dock and seashore plantain or "Goose Tongue," while in- land folks use curled dock for a pot herb and oc- casionally the common plantain. The docks are cousins to the sorrel or sour grass. The family resemblance between the two is strong. There is a little garden weed called wood-sorrel, with leaves and yellow blossoms closely resembling the culti- vated oxalis and belonging to the same family. As children, we have all sampled peppergrass and ♦ From Bailey's Cyclopedia of Horticulture. By permission of the Macmillan Co. i6 207 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS used it for our children's parties long before we knew that some varieties of it were cultivated for salads. We readily accept beet tops, spinach and Swiss chard as greens, but question the use of the coarse pigweed whose tender shoots are as much sought for food in some sections of our land as were the young branchlets of the common nettle, which the early col- onists boiled for pot herbs. Some of the beneficial weeds or medicinal herbs are described in the "Thir- ty Poisonous Plants of the United States."* With the exception of the poi- son ivy and oak, they are not likely to injure man, but only animals that ac- cidentally crop them. In Farmers' Bulletin No. 28, Weeds and How to Kill Them, some ten weeds are considered as very obnox- ious from the farmer's standpoint and pertina- cious in their hold on life. An even hundred are listed and their characteristics tabulated. Of these, some 25 or 30 are fairly universal, appear- ing in cultivated fields and in the small garden. * Farmers' Bulletin No. 86. See also No. i88. Weeds Used in Medicine. 208 Couch Grass AN interlude: some garden weeds Some few are more common in the roadside colonies. The road is the place all weeds love, — as much as does the human traveler or tramp, —if they have means of their own by which to travel or fly or even if they must steal a ride to some new home by hooking on to coat of pass- ing man or beast. From the road, we would not wish to banish them. There, we who ride or tramp for pleasure appreciate their color, and their form, but less often know their queer and curious habits, and means of survival in the wayside struggle for life. When in some region we find what we may have known as a nuisance, safely cultivated as a flower, we are impressed with the truth of the saying " a weed is a plant misplaced." Weeds, then, are excellent from an aesthetic standpoint. In nature's plan they cover with a restful, cool mantle of green every waste place that man fails to cultivate; and there is a touch of grim satire in their luxuriance, as if " the rough muse" were bidding man discover how rich the earth for his own use, how costly his neglect to reap such wealth. In nature's realm, weeds — most prolific of seed bearers — have their economic value also. The despised ragweed, for example, holds its seeds until the birds in winter need them to satisfy their hunger. Fall brings the time when insects hibernate and our year-round birds become vegetarians on a diet of dry seeds, for which, as supply houses, the weeds figure largely. 309 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS But coming to the school garden on a hot sum- mer's day, the sight of a luxuriant growth of weeds may banish all their uses from our minds. Our mental attitude shifts and our only thought is of extermination. Many of our plant pests, par- ticularly those of foreign importation, multiply WooDBERY Garden, Baltimore. The Lot Before Cultivation SO rapidly that they sometimes take over en- tire fields. They love the land of room and liberty. Children love the black-eyed Susan or Dutch daisy and the white or ox-eyed daisy. Honesty compels us to count them among the farmer's worst enemies along with sorrel, wild mustard, 2IO AN interlude: some garden weeds wild carrot, hardback, chicory and cocklebur. Asters, goldenrod, milkweed and rag-weed are among the rank plants of our roads and fields. Asters and goldenrod we should sorely miss. Every country boy or girl knows the milk-weed with its juicy stems spilling milk at every crack W'ooDHi.RY Loi AiiiK nil ('.HiiDRHN Madf. Thf.ir School Gardln or break, its boat-like pods laden with silk of finest tissue, beautiful in texture as the precious fabrics brought from the Indies. Its deep reach- ing roots are as strong as its seeds are ephemeral. The ragweed loves to lift its handsome head with greenish-yellow powdered flowers, above the 211 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Pigweed* much branched stem and finely divided leaves, and to throw far and wide its acrid, unpleasant perfume. This is a cousin of the imperial Roman wormwood, the ''ambrosia,'' taunt- ing name to hay fever victims. In the garden soil there are layers upon layers of weed seeds of difi'erent vitality and constitutional needs. " If I uncover the earth in my fields, ragweed and pigweed* spring up; if these are destroyed, honest grass or quack grass or pur- slane appears; the spade or plow that turns these under is sure to turn up some other variety, as chick- weed, sheep sorrel or goose foot."! Let us add the pretty smartweed, * Known also as bacon weed, lamb's quarters. There is also rough pigweed. f Burroughs, John: A Year in the Fields, p. 137. 212 Carpet Weed AN interlude: some garden weeds the dainty, exasperating carpet weed, shepherd's purse, the thistle (it will be an English or Canadian or even Russian specimen, not our good American, which clings to roadside, swamp and wood), the bindweed (one of the wild morning glories), the wild cucumber (an excellent friend as a cover vine Leaf, Spike and Root of Broad-leaved Dock if its seed pods be picked before they ripen). Then there is the live-forever, out of whose thick leaves children make bags, by slowly and carefully rub- bing the tough skin until it loosens and forms a pouch. The jimson weed* with its large, curious * It is one of the night-shade family as are both black night- shade, a garden weed, and the common white potato, and is classed 213 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS and prickly seed-pod and its luxuriant growth, is liable to appear in any garden made from a vacant lot. Then there are the speedwell with its very tiny white flowers, the galinsoga, also with little white flowers and rough leafage, — new importa- tions that threaten our garden kingdoms, — while our own evil poison ivy frequently crops up.* On farms and large areas, special means may be used to eradicate certain weeds, as spraying for wild mustard. There are some chemical prepa- rations that used in small quantities will kill weeds in walks and grass and yet not injure the latter. The only absolute remedy since all gardening began is frequent tillage. On tiny plots the cul- tivating stick, on small beds the hoe; on larger plots the wheelplow and on large tracts of land the horse or traction machine are needed. "The weeds are not easily discouraged; they never lose heart entirely; they die game; if they can't have the best, they will take up with the poorest . . . . in all cases they will make the most of their under poisonous plants; consequently it is well to warn the children not to put any part of it into their mouths. ♦ See note at end of this chapter for this plant and for popular names of common weeds. 214 First Year's Growth of LEAVED Dock Broad- AN interlude: some garden weeds opportunities'** — and herein lies the only speck of moraHty in weeds. When you are fighting f- them, if you let them get the best of you they are a giant rabble, or a low-down, back-breaking, pestiferous crew. They even tell tales, for by their growth they tell the experienced eye what sort of discipline — or care — the garden has had. POISON IVY (Poison ivy, poison vine, poison creeper, mercury or markry and three leaved ivy, usually climbing or trailing but sometimes erect in growth.) Teach the children it has three leaflets while the wood- bine or Virginia creeper, for which it is often mistaken, has five. The ivy has masses of white berries standing out al- most straight from its stem; the woodbine has smaller clus- ters of deep purple berries that droop. Birds spread the ivy seeds so that it may ap- pear in the school garden in sections where it is common in fields and pastures or along the roadside. Poison ivy is harmless to many. Toothers it is a rank poison because of the non-volatile oil found in all parts of the plant even when seemingly dead. Consequently, it ought never Poison Ivv ♦ Burroughs. John: A Year in the Fields, p. 158. 215 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS to be burned, but be rooted up by someone who is not susceptible to the poison. It may also be killed by putting a half-teaspoonful of concentrated sulphuric acid on the stem every two or three weeks during the vigor- ous spring growth. The poisonous oil can be carried on the hands, clothing or towels from the immune to those who are not. Those who have to handle poison ivy should wash their hands several times — and their clothing in strong soapsuds. The common remedy for the poison is sugar of lead dissolved in 50 to 75% alcohol. Pure alcohol will kill it if applied to the first eruption, and if it is not spread by scratching. Various other remedies are often suggested. Light cases will usually cause more or less discomfort for a week or ten days; but ivy poisoning can be a very serious matter. For those who know themselves to be unusually suscepti- ble a daily rubbing especially of hands, neck and face, with a cloth wet with alcohol, may act as an armor against its attacks. To such, a crystal of citric acid, dampened and rubbed over the spots as soon as they appear, and repeated frequently, is a safeguard. Such treatment will usually cure in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. POPULAR NAMES OF COMMON WEEDS 1. Burdock, cockle button, beggar's buttons, hurr- burr, stick button, hardock and hardane. 2. Mullein, great mullein, velvet plant, velvet or mullein dock, blanket leaf, flannel leaf, feltwort, old man's flannel, Adam's flannel, Jacob's staff, Jupiter's staff, Peter's staff. Shepherd's club, candlewick, torchwort, torches, hedge taper, lungwort and hare's beard. A stalk has been known to have 60,000 seeds. 216 AN interlude: some garden weeds 3. Broad-leaved dock, little dock, blunt leaved dock, button dock and common dock. 4. Yellow dock, curled, narrow or sour dock. This, the broad-leaved and the yellow-rooted water dock are used in medicine. 5. Couch grass, dog grass, quick, quack or quitch Mullein Flowering Plant of Burdock grass, twitch or witch grass, wheat grass, quake grass Dutch grass, devil's grass, creeping wheat grass and various other names. Plough up the roots and burn them, for they are long and tenacious of life, oozing with vitality at every point. 217 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 6. Jimson weed, Jamestown weed, apple of Peru, thorn apple, mad apple, devil's apple, common stramonium. Mullein 2l8 I CHAPTER VIII THE SCHOOL GARDEN IN VACATION AND TERM TIME CHAPTER VIII THE SCHOOL GARDEN IN VACATION AND TERM TIME "The earth is here so kind, that just tickle her with a hoe and she laughs with a harvest." — Douglas Jerrold. "This movement is one of national importance — one that is des- tined to have a profound influence on educational thought and educational method in this country; it supplies one of the glaring defects in our system of elementary instruction." — W. J. Spillman. THE scope of the instruction in a school gar- den varies greatly, from simple cultural directions at one end of the scale to the full use of all that its vegetable and animal life may suggest to the trained school gardener or skilful teachers with which it may be connected. While trained school gardeners remain in the minority, gardens conducted during vacation time are likely to confine themselves to the simple cul- tivation of plants. Where they possess a trained staff, their activities are utilized to the utmost. Keeping in mind these variations in scope and purpose, the school garden will now be considered, first, as an occupation for the vacation time, and second, as an adjunct to or a corporate part of the school. 221 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Of school gardens which exert by far the greater part of their influence during the summer there are (i) those that belong to the vacation school;* (2) those that emphasize that phase of agricul- tural training known as truck gardening; and (3) those that serve a sociological rather than an educational purpose. They are actually social centers for the children, though they may or may not be centers from which radiate such activi- ties as properly constitute a social settlement. They may offer no more than the opportunity to cultivate a few flowers and vegetables together with directions for the use of insecticidesf to a group of children that it is desired to benefit by wholesome occupation. They may be conducted for every possible attraction that will enable them to hold and to mould children; to give the latter happy hours and cultivate their hearts and minds while training their hands to useful toil. Some vacation gardens hold the child's interest in grow- ing things throughout the fall and winter, by indoor study of nature, and by work among plants in a greenhouse or under sash. Further, such gardens sometimes supplement this work by courses in manual training preparatory in part to * School gardens belonging to summer students of normal schools or universities are a class by themselves, — often hybrids. They are wholly in the hands of adults or they are children's gardens receiving summer care; or, if children are connected with them, they are pupils from a vacation school or, more frequently, volunteers from among the school children of the vicinity. t See Appendix A, Note 16. 222 ' THE UNIVERSITY IN VACATION AND TERM TIME the employments of the garden; by elementary arts and crafts work, and by maintaining a winter playground and club house. Gardens in connection with vacation schools are likely to suffer from the fact that the school is open for a short season only, and also from the meagre and short-lived support which their share of the vacation school funds usually provides. Unless outside aid can be secured, the garden runs the risk of having to close before the crops are ripe, which is not fair to the children. Of the second class of gardens, three have already been mentioned; namely, the pioneer gar- den of the National Cash Register Company at Dayton, the garden of the School of Horticul- ture at Hartford, Connecticut, and the Training (harden of the Home Gardening Association of Cleveland. In each of these the work is planned preeminently to give a practical, serviceable, remunerative knowledge of truck gardening. Yet the underlying aim of Mr. Patterson and Dr. Goodwin, the founders of the two first named gardens, was the broad purpose of developing the boy through the labor performed, the special knowledge gained, and habits formed. The same desire to cultivate boys as well as plants, pre- vails at the Cleveland Training Garden. Be- cause its method of training is so individual and because the boys are encouraged to stay for play, this garden in a measure falls into the third class of vacation school gardens. 223 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS These three gardens give a graded system of work which, however, is only loosely defined at Cleveland and Dayton. In the former city, the boys are in charge of a superintendent and assistant teacher who take the greatest pains to make them realize the freedom accorded them in the garden. Each boy's development, as agriculturist and Comparing Crops embryo citizen, is watched over. The garden- ing program is not yet completed but the inten- tion is to develop a three years' course and, perhaps, to end it with a taste of nearly all the activities of a farm. At Dayton, a trained gardener, one fond of children, is employed to have the care of the gardens and flower beds, and to inspect and instruct in the boys' section. The Hartford 224 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME plan is different. Not so much attention is given to nature study. Easy, graded, outdoor lessons are given in horticulture and in some of the work in the greenhouse, together with the budding, grafting, and transplanting that can be done in the tree section, grapery and small fruit areas. The director, the superintend- ent of grounds and the assistant teachers have the work in charge. There is a progressive scheme of planting. The first year, the seeds are selected. The boys of the third and fourth years are allowed considerable latitude in the selection of their crops.* With such gardens as these three may be classed the many others which hold the child by the ap- peal to what he can make. The older boys from twelve to sixteen are past the age to play at being farmers. They want work and a relatively large area of crops to show for it. They are willing to work if they can have returns that seem worth while either as a frequent contribution to the family table or as a sum total represented by so much cash at the end of the summer. Experi- ence teaches that from a business point of view, the plot should be at least 8 x lo feet if the child farmer is to make any profit, while such a garden would require at least three half-hours a week for cultivation. The older boys, if they can give the time to it, want plots at least lo x 20 feet and better 10 x 30 feet. The rule that goes into effect ♦ See Appendix A. Note 17. 225 ^ OF THE '^ UNIVERSITY AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS at Hartford in 191 o is that plots for the first, second, third, and fourth year boys respectively ^•s^ 2>XO What Park Life Boys Plan A. Hedge, Thunberg's barberry (raised in nursery). B. Flower beds, bordering entrance walk; double beds lo feet x 20 feet for two beds. C. Entrance walk; D. Shrubbery at base of loggia. E. Loggia or roofed porch. F. Bungalow. G. Carriage turn. H. Rear entrance. L Norway maples. J. Shrubs and small trees. K. Evergreens. L. Stable or work house. N. Service road, 16 feet wide. O. Tents. P. Tool house. Q. Hot frame. R. Cold frame. Common, for drill, games, etc. shall be 8 X 20 feet, 8 x 30 feet, 8 x 40 feet, and 8 X 50 feet.* * SeeAppendix A.Note i8, for the returns from 34x8 feet garden, from one 10 x 30 feet, and one 8x16 feet. 226 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME Of the vacation gardens that are being con- ducted chiefly for their sociological value, several have been mentioned. They look to the develop- ment of the child, the social unit of the future, and to the immediate effect that his improvement may exercise upon his home and neighborhood. Some of the best-known examples follow: The work of the Boys' Brigade, Toronto, Canada, does not center in the garden, but the latter is counted one of the most valuable de- partments and its products are honored with many prizes at the annual fair which the boys hold.* Mrs. Henry Parsons' garden at DeWitt Clinton Park, New York, is a model of what a little ground can do each season for hundreds of chil- dren, giving them a safe place wherein to gather, and happy work together, with better ideas of life and its meaning. At Dubuque, Iowa, Park Life School Garden offers boys a new kind of school through the summer months, — an outdoor school of life. There must be provision for the boy's work and for his play; for his instruction through the ex- perience of others and through his own experience; and more important still he must learn the conduct of life. Accordingly, boy officers with the help of their adviser-in-chief manage Park Life School Garden and conduct their magazine, " Park Life." In the school garden, the boys are instructed in ♦See page 15. 227 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS cultivating the ground, in raising vegetables and flowers; in the near future they will also have practical work in tree and fruit culture. From the garden they must provide largely for their daily food, because for a part of each summer they live in tents on the high bluff upon which their garden is located. From the camp they can see far Park Life School Garden, Dubuque, Iowa up and down the Mississippi River and over into Wisconsin. Part of the summer program in- cludes a week of tramping or driving through the country round about, which is rich in historic and geological interest. A daily talk or lecture is given upon some phase of the boys' work, while the swimming pool and the joy of camping offset lessons and work. The gala week of the summer 228 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME is that when teachers of note are invited to the camp to instruct the boys, not formally, but by close companionship with them and by lectures or talks especially adapted to their day's occupation. Writing of his plan, Mr. B. J. Horchem, the Ad- viser-in-Chief, says: "Millions of dollars are given to endow colleges, but ninety-five per cent of the Thf. Daily Lecturh for Park Life Boys boys never reach college at all; the five per cent or less that do, are old enough to help themselves. The boy who enters Park Life is in the greatest need, because it is before his labors are worth anything, and at a time when he will learn to feel that he has a part to play in life, and that he will learn to know his part and play it well." 229 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, is now sup- ported by the people of that city. It was started about seven years ago by Miss Mary Marshall Butler, President of the Women's Institute of Yonkers. In 1909, the Fairview Garden School Association of Yonkers was formed to manage and provide the running expenses of the garden. Its call for $5.00 per boy was promptly responded to. The Russell Sage Foundation allows the Association to use the land, club house, and greenhouse at a nominal rental. A large building upon the estate was renovated and used in the winter of 1909-19 10 as a club house for boys and girls, a number of whom had had gardens during the summer. Its object is to provide normal social and educational activities through clubs, talks on outdoor life, stereopticon views and formal lectures, and as far as possible to relate the winter work with that of the garden so that interest in the latter may be continuous throughout the year. When the house was opened the children came in such crowds that they had to be divided into three groups, and these again subdivided according to age. Over 800 children are registered. The house affords accommodations for reading and game rooms, a Penny Provident Fund station, clubs and classes. A Junior Civic Club and a City History Club are projects of the future.* The Green Leaf Club and the Vegetable Class include children who had *See Appendix A, Note if). 230 OF yW, IN VACATION AND TERM TIME gardens last year. Members of the latter are carrying further the study of the vegetables they raised. They use their summer note books and add items from the winter course. Home work is encouraged and each member must grow at least one plant, even if the pot be only an old tomato can. The children are thus held together throughout the year by their play and social instincts and their delight in watching what they have planted come to fruition. As one of the vice-presidents of the Association expressed it, "continuity of work gives double efficiency.'* During the autumn the garden was used as a general playground, and in December it was flooded and converted into a skating rink. The public schools of Pittsburgh are under a decentralized system and each ward runs its own schools. Thus it happens that the Pittsburgh Playground Association receives an annual grant from the city to carry on its work, which includes schoolyard playgrounds, recreation park play- grounds, recreation centers (in summer, virtually vacation schools without their formalism), and the new department, established in 1909, of nature study and school gardening. Much at- tention is given to these two subjects. School gardens are to be located at each of the large rec- reation centers with their playgrounds, and in other suitable localities. A number are already well established. This is virtually social settle- ment work. 23' AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS One feature of the nature study work in Pitts- burgh is the tramps that the children take under experienced teachers. Any child may go on these. But the pleasure of handling his treasures and learning how to safely keep the things that he has brought home from such tramps, watch- ing what will happen to cocoon or caterpillar, and the joy of naming, pressing, and mounting FlIlbBLKGH CHILDRhN EnJUVING ThBIR ScHOUL GaKDLN specimens, with his comrades in the sunny room that is provided can only be earned by work on a small farm for the season. After all, farm- ing is unpleasant only when it is very hot. So think many of the children as they join the farmer's squad. They have even been known to leave the nearby playground deserted, preferring the attraction of their gardens. 232 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME In order to have the children's work of the best, the conductors of the tramping excursions are picked and especially trained teachers. That the garden work may come up to the same standard of quality, winter courses in nature study, psychology and pedagogy for the normal students and for teachers have been arranged by an exchange of services between the director of nature study and school gardening of the Pitts- burgh Playground Association and the professors of the University of Pittsburgh. The work in- augurated this year promises to send Pittsburgh to the front in school garden work along with Washington, Cleveland, Philadelphia and Yonkers. These four cities, in the individual character of their work, are doing on a large scale what many small communities are accomplishing elsewhere by faithful efforts along the same line. Coming now to gardens carried on in connec- tion with the regular school tuition, we find marked latitude in method and range, varying from voluntary work of children at recess and before and after school, under the guidance of their grade teachers, to regular teaching as a part of the curriculum and definite garden work in the classes through the year. Some illustrations may sug- gest an intelligent choice of method. One city gives this example of school gardening and civic improvement. The children of several schools situated in a colored quarter volunteered for garden work, each room or grade making 233 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS itself responsible for the planting and care of ten little garden plots in the nearby backyards. The neighbors gave the ground, the children did the work and met the necessary expenses out of Making the Most of a Small Space their school fund which they had raised in var- ious ways. Streets that had been scarcely more than alleys took on an orderly look; grass plots were trimmed, — even with a pair of old scissors 234 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME when there was no better means. Encouraged by their schoolmates' labor, the children and some of their elders planted a few small flower beds of their own. This city also set a squad of its school boys to work on a vacant lot, 70 x 150 feet, where they enjoyed growing a mixed crop, largely beans, for the local market. The experi- ment did them and the neighborhood good and all hoped that it would be repeated. In the same city one troop of school children made an excel- lent formal garden. Excellent results were obtained in Cincinnati, where the Woman's Club has encouraged garden- ing among the school children, chiefly at their homes, it distributed seeds and hired one of the university students to give talks, inspect the children's home gardens (over 1000 in 1908), and to supervise the work at the Douglas School garden, Walnut Hills. The gardens varied in size from a reasonably large backyard vegetable patch to a window ledge of cans with growing plants or to a tiny space made by taking up a few bricks in the crowded and densely populated districts where tall apartment houses and tene- ments elbow each other. Many neighborhoods having gardens were much improved. The Doug- las School garden, carried on throughout the summer by the colored children, collected from different parts of the city for this vacation school, is one of the brightest and trimmest and most satisfactory among the smaller gardens of .8 235 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the country. It is located on two sides of its school, and on one side runs far back. Its flowers were massed in the front, while long lines of vegetables stretched away in the back- ground. There were twelve rooms in the school and as in the spring, each class had planted and tended its own vegetable and flower plot, The Douglas School Garden, Cincinnaii SO in the summer time, each grade carried on the work, though with a different set of chil- dren. It showed good planting with sufficient uniformity and excellent results, and gave evi- dence of intelligent supervision and a recognition of those silent values that build character and develop a sense of citizenship. Its effect was 236 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME felt in the improvement of home premises. The gardens of several other neighborhoods could well compare with the much-praised improvements in those sections of Dayton influenced by the lesson of the Boys' Gardens of the National Cash Register Company of that town. The utilization of a garden in connection with two schools of New York city illustrates what can be done when there is a will to make a way. In one case a 3J foot border around a 90 foot play- ground was made by tearing out the concrete and carting in soil. The garden cost |8o. It grew in the spring cosmos, beans, lettuce, beets, nas- turtiums, radish and sweet alyssum; in the fall, one row each of daffodils and hyacinths and six of tulips were planted. Down town in Greenwich Avenue another small garden (see page 238) holds the interest of many little folks. Each grade and each division is represented by two young farmers who not only take care of their section in the garden but must be able to tell their classmates all about its growth. These lectures are supplemented by the nature-study teacher. Work in the garden is enjoyed by the drawing classes also. New York has no school gardens officially recognized as a part of her school system. There are a few in connection with the vacation schools. DeWitt Clinton Park School Farm belongs to the municipal park system. Though it offers nature study material to nearby schools and ob- 237 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS servation practice to visiting classes, it is a summer garden in that the greater part of its work is done, as has been said, during the vacation months. Many of the school teachers of Greater Conquering Difficulties, P. S. 41, Manhattan,* New York City New York are firm beHevers in the gospel of the school garden and to further it have formed The * In sections of the oval, the children raised peas, carrots and beans bordered by dwarf nasturtiums; lettuce and zinnias; balsam and radishes (the flowers blooming after the vegetables were gone); and one section of potatoes. In the border, the gardeners of the different grades raised daffo- dils, narcissus, hyacinth together with cypress and madeira vine; pansies, dwarf nasturtiums, sweet alyssum and scarlet runner bean; a rhubarb plant, a seedling oak and maple, a hydrangea, iris, mari- gold, zinnia and wild aster; day lilies, violets, lily of the valley, radishes and zinnia; while the sixth grade had a wild flower plot. 238 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME School Garden Association of New York, with a membership of looo. Their first annual report in the spring of 1909 showed over 80 school gardens carried on by the voluntary efforts of these public school teachers. The gardens just described are but loosely connected with the school life. Philadelphia, by contrast, correlates the garden work with that of the school "from the kindergarten to School Gardkn and Arsenal Park, Pittsburch, Pa. the senior class of the normal." During the school term, the classes from the kindergarten to the fourth grade inclusive visit the garden dur- ing school hours. There, they have a talk of fifteen or twenty minutes, and then, on the class plots, put into practice what they have heard, observing and working the rest of the period. The talks or lessons are progressive through these grades as are those for the individual plot holders 239 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS who come from the fifth, sixth and seventh grades to work in the garden after school from three- thirty to five o'clock. These last are children who ask to be farmers. At the end of the school year they surrender their plots to a new set of children who possess them during the summer, during which time the class plots become sample plots. The correlation of the garden work is left to the grade teachers. The summer lessons are distinct from those of term time and are also progressive. A summer's day is divided as follows: 8.00-8.20 A. M. Nature study lesson. 8.20-9.30 A. M. Individual plot work. 9.30-10.00 A. M. Work on borders and sample plots. The vacation classes are large and come three times each week, being subdivided into two sec- tions, A and B. The B section follows A and repeats the program from 10 to 12 a. m. The last half hour of the session is reserved for the teachers for the inspection and clerical work that ends the day. In Cleveland, the bond between garden and school is looser, while in Washington the garden work is minutely defined in every grade and each child has as regular work allotted to him in the garden, as in arithmetic or other studies. At the Whittier School of Hampton Institute (see footnote, page 21) the garden is closely asso- ciated with the work in nature study and draw- ing. Here, as in some other schools, exercises 240 IN VACATION AND TERM TIME consist of cutting silhouettes of garden tools and picturing little gardens by clippings from florists' catalogues. Strings and necklaces of seeds, seed pictures and twig stories, as well as furniture made of burdock burs, allow the children's hands to work out their own ideas. School- garden work of the same character must not be repeated through the grades. It must be adapted to the age and the experience of the children. This may be accomplished in several ways. An eastern Normal School, Hyannis, Mass., in its six years of school life offers gardening to the children practically during three years of the course, each being a full garden year. The school garden course takes its place in the spring in the second, fourth and eighth grades and in the fall in the third, fifth and ninth. Dr. W. A. Bald- win considers that the natural standpoint from which to view the school garden is as a farm that is to minister to human needs. Consequently, it is best seen in connection with a home. In such a garden each child performs his own labor and enjoys the fruit of that labor. At the gar- den in Hyannis every effort is made to conform to this idea. In the laying out of the vegetable beds of the fourth grade, it is planned to make the individual plots in long continuous rows of about twenty-five feet so that the general appear- ance would be that of a garden on an ordinary farm or on the child's home lot. Indeed, he is expected, with the co-operation of his parents, to 241 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS reproduce his school garden at home, on a larger scale. fe! ! i t ' I ! ^i ( ! ! tDDDDDD iDDDDDD tDDDDDD DDDDDD [IDDDDDD IE Ri! in[ a DDDDDD ; I I ! ;:e!zi a < 5fl I'l i CHAPTER IX SOME LAST THINGS "The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done some- thing for the good of the world. He belongs to the producers. It is a pleasure to eat of the fruit of one's toil, if it be nothing more than a head of lettuce or an ear of corn." — Charles Dudley Warner. ATI ME comes in every garden, carried on through the summer months, when interest flags. Usually this happens in August. The first joyous sense of proprietorship has quieted down into a full assurance of ownership of crops that are rapidly maturing. The weeds have been pretty thoroughly discouraged or the plants seem sturdy enough to hold their own against them. The daily harvest may be offering only slight re- turns outside of the now familiar supply of greens, like Swiss chard, or pickings of late sown radish and lettuce. It is still too early to plan for the day when the little farmers will present their exhibits at a county fair, a harvest home, or the annual fete that should close the growing season of the garden. It is the time when heat makes every one sluggish and when the swimming pool is especially dear; when ball games and picnics are being planned by parents and children because 20 263 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the summer is passing and vacation will soon be over. Then it is that teachers have anxious hours lest the children's interest fail; then brother or sister, cousin, friend or neighbor instead of the unpunc- tual owner appears with the words, " Please where is Benny's garden? I want to pick the stuff." And further explanation of the absent one's non- appearance follows which may or may not be convincing. The stranger goes to work energeti- cally with the surety of quick return for labor— for is not the harvest at hand? He is probably found doing exasperating and forbidden things, and his lack of experience and skill has to be guarded against. Moreover, why should he not pick the vegetables first and make sure of his pay for any amount of labor he may put upon the little patch before the unusual effort in the sun fags him? The other children have been trained to the habit of first work, then pay, the cultiva- tion of the plot and then its harvest, for that is the rule of the garden that ensures systematized work, easy supervision and an attractive appearance in which all may take a pride as the result of their joint labor. When the children's interest flags, a gala time should be planned to break the usual routine and to compete with the less profitable excitements that are pulling the children away from "organ- ized recreation," — as one garden calls its work. But in those gala days the children should be 264 SOME LAST THINGS as much a conscious factor as in any holiday outing. If the children have become familiar with flower, plant, weed and insect, with soil and the way it is made from rock, a field excursion may be planned to some good exploring ground, or better still combined, if possible, with a visit to some histori- cal site. A few playmates as guests of the entire company increase the delight with which the children enjoy making "finds" and explaining them. Apart from this counter attraction outside the garden, there are others for which more active preparation will be needed. By fete days, ex- hibitions and harvest homes the children testify to the value of school gardening, offering as evi- dence the work of their hands, the output of their gardens, and carefully worked out plans to enter- tain their guests. They like so well to do the latter that it is best to have several children at a time take turns in acting as guides to visitors to the garden. This gives a fine opportunity to develop courtesy. Not alone by their garden festivities do the children show their approval of the school garden. There are times when hard work unaccompanied by prizes and plaudits is their testimony. Good crops show careful preparation of soil and cultivation, but do not necessarily tell how much child labor and earnestness have gone into them, in one city, the children cleared off seventeen loads of rubbish in order to start their garden. 265 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS In a hot southern town, boys dug two 6x12 foot holes to a depth of 2 feet and brought good soil from a distance to fill them. On these two beds, they grew beans, onions, lettuce and radishes so successfully that the board of education purchased a lot in which they were offered 1 1 square yards for a garden. The plot was almost a plantation of rocks. The lads, however, worked until they had removed all and had sifted the soil for the garden. The following Saturday fifteen boys worked all day, some going dinnerless, to get their garden ready for planting. A group of Philadelphia mill girls spend their noon hour in the garden. Children of the Seward School, Rochester, havegradually developed a good scheme of school ground decoration from the native material on the large open lot next the school house. This is partially swampy, and has supplied willows, ailanthus, elderberry, dogwood and thorn apple for transplanting. Vines also were obtained. Where temptation existed for pupils to lean against shrubbery or to cut across the lawn, they decided to plant a young thorn bush. Their lawn was sown with grass seed sifted from the dust of their fathers' hay mows. A child gets profit and pleasure out of the gar- den in direct proportion as he puts himself into it, and inversely as the teacher does his work for him. It is so much easier, under the guise of showing a child how to use his tools, to do most of the work on the small farms. The teacher never, after the first lessons, should take the 266 i SOME LAST THINGS child's tools into her hands a moment longer than is required to show the correct hold and sweep in working. That many are heart and soul in their work is evident. Two boys astonished parents and teachers by appearing regularly at the garden, a mile or more from their homes and laboring steadily and faithfully over their plots when they had never before been known willingly to do any kind of work. One of them persisted in spite of a bad attack of ivy poison- ing. Two small colored boys appeared in the office of the industrial school which they were attending and begged to be promoted from their 4x8 foot plots to the farm squad. They had discovered pleasure where manyfmd only drudgery. The boy who for four years got up often with the sun, walked three miles to the Hartford School of Horticulture, did his own work and hung around all day begging for jobs, was at seventeen ready to begin the slow reconstruction of a run-down farm that his father bought for him near the city and to which the family of six removed. One small girl was so determined to have a garden that she utilized old cooking utensils as hanging baskets and suspended them from lines which she willingly took down once a week because they in- terfered with her mother's washing day. There are stories innumerable — real ones — often mirth provoking, often pathetic, often full of courage and conquering persistence. Children frequently express convictions of their 267 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS own about school gardens.* A little Cleve- land girl confided to her teacher, "I did not have St. Vitus dance this summer, nor last, since I have worked in the school garden." A Member of the "City Beautiful Club," Louisville A helpless cripple, dragging about on hands and knees, thought he had found heaven when he discovered the pleasure there was in growing ♦Some convincing opinions of educators may be found in Appendix B, page 321. 268 SOME LAST THINGS flowers. "Here I have found a joy in life/' he said. Later, as his infirmity grew upon him, he learned to note the habits of insects and then to mount them so well that he became self-support- ing by the work. Children who start home gar- dens frequently become enthusiasts. One eleven- year-old boy would allow no one else to pick a single flower in his garden, but he daily pro- vided each member of his family with one of his treasures. When two boys from three stocks of rhubarb got enough for their mother to make "many pies and thirty-three glasses of jelly and five quarts of rhubarb preserves" they felt satis- fied; they were proud because they had a goodly yield of other vegetables, including ten bushels of tomatoes from fifteen vines on a lo x 12 foot plot. When a certain school garden had to be closed, 228 requests came asking that another might be opened. Numbers of girls and boys, through the garden have found the work they want to do in life and have set themselves to mastering its details. One child in her composition is spokesman for many: Why Do 1 Like to Work in the School Garden We have great fun at the school garden every morning about eight o'clock. We enjoy the sun-shine and we don't mind if it rains because it makes the plants grow. I like to make and plant the beds and see the things come up. 269 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS I like the sweet-peas the best because it makes a pretty bouquet and is so fragrant. We learned they belong to the pulse family, a very useful family to us and the soil. We have learned that peas and beans contain a proteid and carbohy- drates for our food and that they make nitrogen for the soil to make it rich to grow wheat and apples. I like to get the enemies out of the garden. We have pulled thousands of weeds from the [garden], Eva Soderberg. B6. Agei2yr. The children of the very poor find working in a garden preferable to sorting at the public dump, hunting greens or minding babies at home. They prefer to bring the little ones to the garden and interest them in big brother's crops even to the point where little brother helps. One lad, not to be outdone, appeared one day with a bor- rowed child, saying stoutly, "every other fellow had a kid." ^ The girls like mothering the chil- dren where there are bright flowers and fresh air and a shelter from the summer heat, finding the garden a great improvement over the close tenement or crowded doorstep.; The gardeners also like the commercial side of their work, whether it comprises only the sale of 1 5 quarts of beans to an Italian eating house or $25 worth of produce, such as the 10 x 90 foot plots sometimes yield. They like the money for necessities or for pleasures, and best of all, for that most excellent abiding sense of power and self support that it brings. 270 SOME LAST THINGS It is a happy time for the little farmers when the products of the cherished plot weighed or meas- ured, the results entered upon the day's diary, are finally packed in basket, cart, or bag, and taken home to be carefully cared for until eaten. All this the children usually enjoy. Unless there is A Welcome Guest at Fairview space to encourage games and play in the garden, the time when the daily harvest is cared for becomes its social hour. Unconsciously, it is the practice period in training the judgment to an appreciation of standard vegetables, to a better understanding in the future of the rules and regu- lations laid down for competitive exhibits and 271 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS prize collections. An occasional word from the instructor is the lead which will be followed by children as they compare size, color, conformity to standard type, appearance of vitality and the desirable characteristics to be promoted by care- ful selection of seed; as they contrast the weight or measure of their respective crops, the careful- ness with which the produce is cleansed or Our Pumpkins — Lakeview School, Pueblo, Col. bunched, and its attractiveness when ready for home or market. If bunched, flowers and vegetables should be securely tied, but so loosely as not to look choked. A practical object lesson in the aesthetic value of grouping a few flowers, or in the beauty of a single blossom, together with some suggestions of the relation of color and form, or hints as to the ap- propriateness of the receptacle which holds them, 272 ^ OP THE ^>' UNIVERSITY ^ OF ,. SOME LAST THINGS should be given sometimes, even if there be no insistence upon the children's following the sugges- tions. Whether they do, or not, will depend in some measure upon the class of children and their homes. A single flower in a bottle may be more beautiful than a tight bunch in a vase. Again, the lesson in hygiene may be taught, not from the standpoint of how cut flowers must be cared for, to prevent the slime and bad smell of decaying stem leafage, but from the desire to have the precious flowers keep fresh as long as possible, and the knowledge that clean-stripped stems will help to this end. The illustrations opposite pages 265, 187 and 273 show what children can do in the way of harvesting and making exhibits. The first gives a group of about 70 boys, or a little less than a fourth of the lads in that particular garden. The girls are not included because the photograph was taken before 1909, at which time the garden was doubled in size and the same num- ber of girls admitted. The second illustration shows flowers, while the one opposite this page shows the vegetables raised by boys and girls in a number of school yards, small vacant lots and home grounds. The exhibits at the Annual Exhibition of Chil- dren's Gardens given in Boston by the Massa- chusetts Horticultural Society prove that the sum of$i 50 yearly distributed in prizes is well earned by the school children of the Bay State. The western 273 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS States at town, county and state fairs call upon their children to make these occasions successful affairs and are loyally answered. In the Bowery district of New York, in the crowded Bohemian quarter of a western city, in rural schools, and from city back gardens, children respond to the call for a flower show or harvest home. One school garden in the foreign section of a large city has for several years taken first prize against all competitors. In another school the noise of the street was left behind, as issuing from a dark hall-way the visitor sauntered through aisles made by green branches of shrubs and trees brought from the nature tramps near Greater New York. Here could be seen creditable flowers and vegetables raised by indefatigable children in a tiny school garden plot; also a few butterflies and their breeding cages; a wasps' nest brought from the country; a bit of aquarian and swamp life; and a collection of native and foreign nuts. These were concisely, often drolly, ticketed by the chil- dren themselves with explanatory label or para- graph. Much of this work belonged in the nature study course of the school, but the little garden had given greater zest and understanding to it. There is another city school which numbers 2400 pupils, almost all from within two city blocks, and all from within five, where careful systematic questioning brought out the fact that only a thousand had ever seen a tree. To these children, a school garden was given for the two seasons 274 SOME LAST THINGS between the tearing down of an old building and the building of a new. The garden made clear to them what seeds and plants really do, and, one season, a hen and five little chicks were an added source of wonder and delight. It is possible to overemphasize the requirement that a school garden should show excellent results in gardening. But the truth that the develop- ment of the child is more important than the successful cultivation of the plants is one that may defeat itself in large measure if we fail to remem- ber two things; one, that the opportunity to have any school garden at all another year may depend upon the attitude of those who see it from a utili- tarian or aesthetic standpoint; and another, that a goodly number of the qualities and habits which the school garden is to cultivate in the child are not taught by untidiness, carelessness, sickly-looking plants, spindling harvests and their consequent discouraging effect upon the child. Kept within limitations of size in area, of suitability in plants and of the right amount of labor among children, any garden should present a reasonable appearance of success and owes it to the neighborhood and to the children to do so. An intelligent supervision that will compel a high standard of excellence is of the first importance. So shall new school garden ventures be encouraged, difficult ones made to seem worth while, th^ beauty of well ordered life and the interrelation of its laws be made more apparent to the minds of children while they spend fruitful hours in the enjoyment of their gardens. 21 275 APPENDICES APPENDIX A NOTE I. PAGE 8 There had been gardens as schools of horticulture for boys of noble birth, as in Persia, in ancient times. But during the Middle Ages, love of beauty and curiosity rather than a love for accurate knowledge, led the Italians to gather into gardens the new and curious plants which travelers, at the time of the revival of learning, began to bring into Italy from all parts of Europe and Asia (later from America); to plant those mediaeval "observation plots" of which today the Island of Isola Bella in Lake Maggiore is an excellent example, where the tall cedars of Lebanon still flourish as when brought from their native Syria. The thirst for knowledge that seized up)on Italy in- creased the number of horticulturists and embryo botanists. In 1525, a wealthy nobleman, one Caspar de Gabriel, laid out a botanical garden on a large scale in Tuscany, and, within a comparatively few decades, all the leading cities of Italy and also many of the universities of France and Spain followed this example. Among the scholars visiting the univer- sities, there were a few who had a definite and earnest purpose in the use of the gardens. They desired a scientific substructure for the crude and chaotic mass of facts, observations and records then called botany. But the general interest in the mediaeval "observation 279 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS plots" was comparable to that of children's delight over some odd flower or leaf and their satisfaction at being told its purpose for use or ornament. It is a fact that the celebrated Jardin des Plantes, founded in Paris in 1626, was established for no better purpose than the expressed intention of furnishing new motifs, new floral designs for the embroideries upon the coats and gowns to be worn at the sumptuous court of the Medici. For this purpose, the Jesuit Fathers in far away Canada and the Mississippi valley, were bidden to make a careful report of the flowers they met, and, when possible, to send specimens to France. About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the German universities started their botanical gar- dens and began the earnest search for a few under- lying principles that should bind together all the seemingly unrelated forms in the vegetable kingdom. In 1735 Linnaeus, the father of modern botany and of the Linnean "artificial system" of classifying plants, a system in use for many years,* in his "Systema Naturae" framed the first rough chart and forged the key to the mysteries of flower and fruit and growing things. A little later, in 1789, De Jussien in his "Genera of Plants According to Natural Orders" founded the botanical system in use today. Broadly speaking, agricultural knowledge was differ- entiated by the university into botany or medicine, both of which were taught within its walls, and into practical farming, carried on by the monks and peasants. * Loudon's Encyclopedia of Plants, published by Longmans, Green & Co., London, 1880, a volume of over a thousand pages and several thousand cuts, has its first section arranged after the Linnean system. 280 APPENDICES To the learned, botany was a studious pleasure; to the monk, the tilling of the ground was a worthy humiliation. Thus, to the average mind, agriculture was a necessary labor but fitted only for monks, slaves and peasants. Yet, as early as 1695, August Francke y of Halle, Germany, discerned the educational value of a garden in connection with his orphanage. He was far ahead of his time. For many generations the educative value of garden work for children was re- garded as the idle prating of philanthropists and edu- cators like Salzman and Comenius, like Rousseau and Pestalozzi. The last named gave a concrete example of its worth by insisting upon field and garden practice as a part of his boys' and girls' daily tasks. Froebel founding his kindergarten in 1840, advised gardens "as a true school of happy occupations." NOTE 2, PAGE 18 Any Rural School Board or any School Board in a village that shall (i) provide a school garden of at least one-quarter of an acre in addition to the regular school ground area, adjacent to or convenient to the school; that shall (2) provide the necessary tools, im- plements and other requisites, and shelter for them; and also (3) one legally qualified teacher, shall be entitled to an initial grant not exceeding one hundred dollars, and a subsequent grant of twenty dollars out of any grant made for Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture by the Legislature, to be "expended in caring for such School Gardens, and for keeping the school grounds in proper condition." "Should the sum voted by the Legislature not be sufficient to pay in full the grants on the foregoing basis, the Educational Department 281 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS will make a pro rata distribution on the sum voted." If the instruction given be approved by the Inspector, said instructor shall be entitled in addition to the regular salary to a grant of $30 per year. (Circular No. 13, July, 1909, issued by the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, p. 5.) NOTE 3, PAGE s8 BOTANICAL GARDEN* ROSEDALE SCHOOL GARDEN, CLEVELAND. OHIO. 1907 Spermatophytes Angle >sperms Monocotyledons Order Family Order Family Gramineae . . Grass Smilaceae . .Smilax Cyperaceae . Sedge Amarillidaceae . . . . Amarillis Araceae . .Arum Iridaceae ..Iris Liliaceae . . Lily Orchidacea? ..Orchid Convallariaceae . . . Lily of the Valley Dicotyledons Order Family Order Family Urticaceae ..Nettle Papaveraceae . . . ■ ■ Poppy Aristolochiaceae . . Birthwort Cruciferae . . Mustard Polygonacea . . . . . Buckwheat Resedaceae . . Mignonette Chenopodiaceae . . .Goosefoot Sarraceniaceae . . . . Pitcher Plant Amarantaceas . . . .Amaranth Droseraceae . . Sundew Phytoiaccaceae . . . Pokeweed Crassulaceae . . .Orpine Nyctaginaceae . . . . Four-o'clock Saxifragaces . . . . . Saxifrage Portuiacaceje . . . . Purslane Rosaceae . . Rose Caryophyilacea . . Pink 1 Mimosa Ranunculaceae . . . Crowfoot Leguminosae . . . \ Senna Berberidaceas . . . . Barberry I Pea * Notice how all these families can be shown by typical plants that are common enough to be within easy reach. Vegetable garden at Rosedale teaches succession of crops; flower garden orderly arrangement, harmonious color effects and succession of bloom; botanical, plant families and economic significance. List by courtesy of Miss Louise Klein Miller. 282 APPENDICES Order Geraniaceje . Linace* Polygalaceje . Euphorbiace;s Malvaceae ... Hypericace* . VioIace» . . Cactacese . Lythrace* Onagrace^-e Araliaceae Umbelliferaj . . Primulaceae . . . Gentianaceae . . Apocynace* . Asclepiadacea? Family Order Family Geranium G)nvolvuIaceae . . . Morning Wood-sorrel Glory |ewel-weed Polemoniacea? .... Phlox Flax Boraginaceae Borage . Milkwort Verbenaces Verbena Spurge Labiatae Mint , Mallow Solanacea? Nightshade St. John's Scrophulariaces . . Figwort Wort Bignoniaceae Trumpet Violet Creeper Cactus Plantaginaceae. . . . Plantain Loosestrife Rubiaceae Madder Evening Valerianacea? Valerian Primrose Dipsaceae Teasel Ginseng Cucurbitaces Gourd Carrot Campanulaceae Bellflower Primrose ( Chicory Gentian Compositae . . . . < Ragweed , Dogbane ( Thistle Milkweed NOTE 4. PAGE 71 A seed grain competition was carried on by boys on farms all over Canada from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The main purpose was to improve crops by the use of seed improved by selection. Dr. Robertson will best tell the story: "In the summer of 1899 I put aside f 100— my own money, not public funds — to offer in prizes to Canadian boys and girls who would send me the largest heads from the most vigorous plants of wheat and oats on their fathers' farms. 1 had a wonderful response, and I paid that money in prizes with as much enjoyment as any money I ever spent. The letters 1 got from farmers, and from their boys and girls, were so encouraging that in the following winter 1 went to Sir William C. Macdonald and said: * Here is a great chance to do some educational work in progres- 283 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS sive agriculture.' ... I told him I would like to have him give me 1 10,000 for prizes to set this thing going and to keep it up for three years. He pro- vided the money with all good will, and my little |ioo came back a hundred fold. The prizes were offered to boys and girls to encourage selecting the largest heads of the most vigorous plants and growing seed from those heads on a plot by itself. There was a yearly competition for every province; and a main competition extending over three years. Any boy or girl living on a Canadian farm, who was under eighteen years of age, could enter as a competitor. In each province ten prizes were offered for oats and ten for wheat, the prizes in the yearly competition ranging from $25 for the first down to $5 for the tenth. Over fifteen hundred entries were received, of whom eight hundred satisfactorily completed their first year's work, and four hundred and fifty com- pleted the three years' course. "The competitor was required to pick by hand the largest heads from the most vigorous and productive plants in sufficient quantity to obtain seed with which to sow a quarter of an acre of ground, which became the stock seed grain plot, now called the hand-selected seed plot. Before the crop of this quarter of an acre was harvested, the competitor again selected the largest heads from the most vigorous plants in sufficient quantity to sow the quarter of an acre, which became the hand-selected seed plot for the following year. Out of the heads selected each year the competitor sent to me at Ottawa one hun- dred of the largest. A careful record was kept of the number of grains per hundred heads, and also of 284 APPENDICES the weight per hundred. From 1900 to 1903, the average increase in all Canada for spring wheat was 18 per cent in the number of grains per hundred heads, and 28 per cent in the weight. For oats the in- crease was 19 per cent in the number of grains, and 28 per cent in their weight. . . . "The main competition was based on the yields from those hand-selected seed plots. The competi- tors had to select annually out of these, from the most vigorous plants bearing the largest heads, 35 pounds of oat heads or 50 pounds of wheat heads. In this competition we paid 174 prizes, amounting to $5,425; so that altogether we paid $10,842 in prizes. The sum which Sir William C. Macdonald put into the bank, with the interest, brought me out square, plus a great deal of valuable information, plus much happiness in administering the work." — Robertson, J. W. : Education for Rural Life in Canada. NOTE 5, PAGE 71 In 1908 The Ontario Agricultural and Experi- mental Union instituted a Schools' Division with the general aim of adapting the work of the Union "to suit the capacities of school children and to organize it in such a way that teachers would be encouraged to direct the children in it and to use the many experi- ences arising in the practical work as a means of education in the school." This new plan aimed to bring the work directly to the schools and make it dis- tinctly for the schools. The work was divided into The Children's Garden- ing Section and The Schools' Experiment Section. One sent packets of seed to the children for their 285 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS school or home gardens; the other offered seeds free for four observation plots in the school garden or in adjoining fields. There was to be a plot showing seven different species of wheat (agriculture); one growing different maples (forestry) ; one with different kinds of onions (horticulture); and a plot to show different kinds of nasturtiums (floriculture). One hun- dred and sixteen schools, 150 teachers entered on the work and returns were made by 48 per cent of them. The work has thoroughly recommended itself by its good effect on the school discipline, and in bring- ing home and school together. Another year seeds will be sold to the children. Tree seeds and a special collection of vines will also be offered, and printed instructions will be given them as well as the teachers. — From advance sheets of Report of Schools' Division of Agricultural and Experimental Union. By courtesy of. Prof. S. B. McCready. NOTE 6. PAGE 73 "At the Macdonald school gardens children are to be taught three important matters in connection with agriculture; namely, the selection of seed, the rotation of crops, and their protection against blight and dis- ease. In six of the gardens the experiment of grow- ing two plots of potatoes side by side, spraying one not at all and the other three to five times in the course of the season, gave in the treated plots a gain in har- vest as follows: Knowlton, Que., 11 1 per cent; Rich- mond, Ont., 100 per cent; Carp, Ont., 85 per cent; March, Ont., 81 per cent; Guelph, Ont., 43 per cent; Brome, Que., 41 per cent." — Robertson, J. W. : Educa- tion for Agriculture, page 5. 286 APPENDICES NOTE 7, PAGE 107 PLANTS FOR ALL SORTS OF SOIL AND ALL KINDS OF GARDENS The letters in parenthesis give hints as to duration of each plant as follows: (A) annual herb; (P) perennial herb; (S) shrub; (T) tree; (B) bulb; (V) vine. Flowers for Drifting Sands Rose moss .... Portulaca grandi- Spurrey Spergula arvensis flora (A) (A) Sacaline Polygonum Sa- St. John's-wort Hypericum pro- cfialinense (P) lificum (S) Sunflower Helianthus spp. Swallow thorn . Hippophae rham- (A and P) noides (S) Sand Cherry. . . Prunuspumila(S) Flowers for Heavy Clay Forget-me-not . Myosotis palus- Zinnia Zinnia elegans tris (P) (A) Columbine .... Aquilegia spp. Lilac Syringa vulgaris (P) (S) Gas plant Dictamnus albus Rose of Sharon Hibiscus Syriacus (P) (S) Sweet pea Lathyrus odora- Shrubby cin- tus (A) qutfoil Potentilla fruti- cosa (S) Flowers for the Seashore Coboea scandens (.\) Swallow thorn Hippophae rham- Nasturtium.. .Tropjeolum spp. noides (S) (A) 1 amarisk TamarixChinensis Portulaca .... Portulaca grandi- Poppy-mallow Callirhoe involu- flora (A) crata, var. li- Zinnia Zinnia elegans (A) neariloba Red bearberryArctostaphylos Sacaline Polygonum Sach- uva ursi (S) alinense (P) Sand Cherrv. . Prunus puniila Sunflower . . . Helianthus spp. (S) (P) Flowers for the Rock Garden Baby's breath. Gypsophila spp. Rock-cress Aubrietia del- (A and P) toidea (P) Blue bells Campanula ro- Moss pink Phlox subulata tundifolia(P) (P) Carpathian Daphne Daphne Cneorum harebell Campanula Car- (S) patica (P) 187 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Flowers for the Rock Garden (Continued) Saxifrage Saxifraga spp. (A Crowberry .... Empetrum ni- and P) grum (S) Creeping bar- Mountain lau- berry Berberis repens rel Kalmia latifolia (S) (S) Flowers for Ponds and Water Gardens Arrowhead. .. .Sagittaria spp. Cape pond- (P) weed Aponogeton dis- Floating heart. Limnanthemum tachyum (P) lacunosum (P) Water-Hly Nymphaea spp. American lotus Nelumbo lutea (P) (P) Picixcc ITS i'Tzi:'^ |l| •pi SHE •^1 I -2 sa X ml oaQH H Z r-35 2 ^ if 295 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS NOTE 13, PAGE 192 PLANTING, PRICKING OUT, TRANSPLANTING AND POTTING Planting Seeds in Flats. — At the florists, earthen seed-pans can be bought or wooden boxes called flats. The first are expensive; the second can be easily made by teacher, by pupils in manual training class or by almost any child, from the pine boxes so largely used for packing canned goods, soaps, etc. These can be bought for five or ten cents apiece, and are sometimes given away. These boxes are usually 9 or 10 inches deep and can be cut in 3 inch sections with a rip saw. The top and bottom make two flats. The middle sections of two or three boxes put together will make another flat. Bore a number of i inch auger holes in the bottom of each flat for drainage. Soil: The flat may be filled with earth in the pres- ence of the children so that they may see how thor- oughly the soil should be prepared. From two boxes or piles, one of rich soil, the other of sand, take three parts sand and one part soil, and with the hands or a scoop (better hands) thoroughly mix them. Then, using an ordinary flour sieve, sift the mixture through it. First put into the flat a layer of broken flower pots, cinders or small stones, explaining that this is done so as to give good drainage and to prevent the water from settling into little pools and causing the seeds to rot or the soil to mould or become sour. Over the layer of broken stuff, spread the coarse screenings from the earth just mixed until the flat is about half full. Then add the finely sifted soil. See to it that the soil is pushed well into the corners 296 APPENDICES and up to the edges so as to avoid the danger of the washing out of seeds. This may be done with a flat piece of w(X)d or brick or "float." The florist's float, with which he compacts the soil in his hot bed, green- house or cold frame, is a piece of board 6 inches wide by 9 or lo long with a handle attached. Another reason for compacting the soil about seeds or roots is to bring close to them the fine particles of food in the soil and the invisible little films of moisture that must cover the food grains and dissolve them before the plant can feed upon them. Consequently, while the soil in the box must be fine and soft for the little plants, it must lie more closely together than if just thrown into the box, and so it must be "firmed" or pressed close to the edges and into corners, and the box filled as full as it will hold. If then the whole surface is gently pressed, there will still be room for the planting of all seed. Tiny seeds must be sown broadcast. Small seeds are better in rows where any irregularity in their coming up will show the relative value or quality of the seed. With a pointed stick scratch the lines for the seed rows or make a furrow say from i inch deep for seeds the size of a grain of wheat to two inches for those as large as the bean. While individual characteristics of seeds modify the depth to plant, there is a general rule that seeds under artificial conditions of planting should be put in the ground to a depth equal to their greatest diameter, and that, when planted in the open, the depth should be four times their diameter. Moderate size seeds should lie one-half inch apart. In all cases after sowing, the seeds should be covered with a layer of fine soil, and firmed. Those in flats should then be 297 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS watered very carefully so as not to dislodge them. One may sink the flat in water and leave it until moisture appears upon the surface of the soil. One may water with a fine spray directly, or upon a layer of thin porous paper, like tissue or newspaper. With a greenhouse, the flats may be placed under the benches, for the desirable thing is darkness, moderate warmth and moisture until the little heads break through the earth. Avoid too much wetness and gradually ac- custom the baby plants to the strong sunshine or they will damp off, rot at the surface of the soil and wither even more quickly than if allowed to perish for want of water. Greenhouse warmth is desirable because bottom heat draws moisture down to the forming roots while top heat tends to rapid evaporation and consequent drying out. Label and Date. It is better to have a uniform place for placing the label and to put on it date of planting, name of plant and the children's initials when they do the work them- selves. Pricking out Seedlings. — When the little plants have put forth their first or second leaves and perhaps have become too crowded, or when they have grown larger and it is still too cold to plant them out of doors, or when there are not a sufficient number of small flower pots for transplanting them, it will be necessary to "prick out the seedlings." Soil: The same as for seedlings and the flats filled in like manner. When moving the plants do not attempt to take them out one by one, but first wet the soil, then very carefully run the point of a trowel or a flat pointed stick down the side of the flat until it is below the roots. Take up an inch or two of earth 298 APPENDICES (if the seedlings be from seed sown broadcast) or a larger portion if they are in rows. Lay these on a board in a shaded place; carefully separate each plant and gently shake the earth from each before replant- ing it. Resetting: Begin at the left-hand corner of the freshly filled flat, the corner farthest from you, and with your fmger or a dibble make a hole deep enough to drop in the full length of the roots of the seedling so as to have it stand upright when transplanted and at a little lower depth in the earth than in its previous home. Firm the soil around the roots and stem. Set the plants about two inches apart, keeping the rows straight. Label Sprinkle well and set away out of the sun until the plant has had time to estab- lish itself; most plants will do this in twenty-four hours or a little longer. A small dibble can easily be shaped from a clothespin ; one of larger size for out- door planting from the end of a broom handle or the handle of a broken garden tool; if such tool has a handle, as an old spade, leave on for greater comfort in using. Potting Seedlings. — Soil: When the time comes for potting, the plant has become strong enough to require more food and to risk some dangers. As a seedling we treated it like a baby. We had to give it food, but we tried to do it so that if there was anything in the food that might disagree with it, any germs of the diseases that attack plants, or any insects, we should have as few as possible. We carefully sifted the soil that there should be no cut worms or other evil things that we could see to get rid of. We gave the little seed for its first food that which was well 299 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS fitted for it, and only enough, supplying it with clean sand that helped to hold the warmth for the seedHng and also to shed excess of water. Now the Httle plant is ready to make some resistance to disease and must have a larger pasturage for its roaming roots. So we will use one part sand instead of three as before, add one part of soil, and make up our whole by adding a third part of well rotted manure. If absolutely necessary, or for convenience in handling, its equiva- lent in commercial fertilizer may be used, and all be sifted together. For Pots: Use the one and a half inch or two inch pots. As they are very porous and would rob the plants of all the water with which they are wet the first time, the pots must be thoroughly soaked; they must also be thoroughly clean before using.* First, wash them lest they have any dirt or mould to harm their new tenants. Then in the bottom of each pot place bits of stone for drainage. Fill the pot about a third full of the prepared soil, using only the finer siftings. Lift the plant or plants carefully, taking one at a time, hold it with the left hand in the center of the pot, and fill in the soil evenly on all sides, press- ing it firmly until it comes to within about one fourth or one half inch of the top of the pot. Label. Water: It is better to do this by placing the pots in water and allowing the moisture to soak up through the pots. Set away in the shade or cover with a paper until the plants have established themselves. Shifting or Repotting. — Soil: Here again the soil * Many times the cheaper paper pots at small cost per hundred may be used. These may be later buried in the ground and allowed to decompose. 300 APPENDICES changes to two quarts sand, four quarts soil, four quarts well-rotted manure well sifted and having added to it one half pint fine ground bone. This, thoroughly mixed, makes a good food supply for larger plants. In any of these soil compositions, cow manure, a "cold" manure, can be advantageously substituted for well-rotted horse manure. The pots should change according to development of plant to sizes one half inch or inch larger, at each resetting. Method of Shifting: Have the earth in the f)ot from which the plant is to be removed slightly damp. It will come out easier, the soil will adhere together instead of crumbling, and the roots of the plant will be less disturbed. Remove the plant by inverting its pot and rapping it slightly on the edge of a bench or table. Meanwhile hold the plant so that its ball of earth will fall lightly into the left hand; crumble a little earth from the upper and lower edges of the ball so as to expose a fresh, clean surface. Remove any adhering drainage and reset in a pot one third filled with earth. Firm the soil well about the plant, keep- ing it erect and well centered. Label. Water and set away in shade for twenty-four hours. Transplanting. — An easy method of transplanting is to take any ordinary board i foot wide* and as long as the bed is wide. Space it off into squares 2x2 inches or 2 X 3 inches according to the distance apart the plants are to be set and bore a ^ inch hole at each cross and drive into this a pin that has been sharp- ened rather bluntly, that will project about 3^ inches. Lay the board on the bed pegs down and step on it. This will drive the pins into the earth making places for the plants. Then lift the board and move it back 301 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS its own width and stand on it and set the plants in the holes just made. Move the board as before and set plants and proceed in this manner till the bed is finished. By this method the earth in the bed is evenly firmed and the plants are put in perfect regu- larity. (Suggested by R. F. Powell.) NOTE 14, PAGE 98 TYPES OF RECORDS From School Gardening for California Schools, by B. M. Davis Teacher's Record Lessons Instruction and demonstration of garden preparation. Practical Work 1 Observations Garden prepa- Look for earth- ration, worms. Instruction and demonstration Plant radishes. Look for earth- of seed planting. worms. Instruction in making plant Plant carrots, records. beets. Child's Record Date Work Finished garden by breaking clods and raking. Planted radishes and lettuce. Planted onion sets. Planted carrots and beets. Observations Nov. 10 Nov. 1 1 Nov. 12 Found some earthworms Looked for earthworms, but found none. Nov. 13 Nov. 14 Nov. 15 Radishes coming up. Rain. 302 APPENDICES A Plant Record c i it i N'arivly 1 i S5 1 Kncmics Animals Kungi Remarks 55 h Z W 40 PC A Radish French Nov. lo Dec. ao .0 N<»ie 1 None Thinned Breakfast 1 out 10 plants Thinned Radish Scarlet Turnip Nov. lo )< 40 Dec. 18 18 •• None i None ! out 8 plants NOTE 15, PAGE 199 COOKING NOTES Such brief recipes as the following may be given children, especially those of foreign born parentage. (Do not forget the limitations of your pupils' homes. Give the simplest directions.) The One Constant Rule For Cooking Vegetables: All fresh vegetables should be plunged in boiling water. All dried vegetables should be placed in cold water and brought to a boil. (1) Spinach: Wash leaves thoroughly. Boil water, add salt, put in leaves; when tender, strain, eat with vinegar; or chop the leaves fine and add sauce, heat- ing the spinach in it. When ready, serve with slices of hard boiled egg as a garnish. (2) Swiss chard: Boil leaves until tender and eat with vinegar or add a sauce as for lettuce. (3) Beets: Boil the leaves when young and eat with vinegar or sauce, or boil the root, skin, slice and add vinegar. (4) Turnip: Wash the root thoroughly; cook in 303 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS salted boiling water, mash, season with butter, pepper and salt, or cut in slices and add sauce. (5) Lettuce: May be eaten with sugar and vinegar, with oil or with mayonnaise dressing made thus : Yolk of one egg beaten and add to it i teaspoonful of made mustard; pour in olive oil, beating until quite thick; season with J teaspoonful of salt and pepper and 3 tablespoonfuls of vinegar. This will be enough for two salads and will keep. Older lettuce: Take the best inner leaves, wash, put in boiling water; add a little salt; cook until tender, strain, cover with sauce made of melted butter and a little flour and salt. (6) Radish: Eat the root with salt; also with vine- gar. Teach the use of as many new greens for cooking as possible. Foreign children may be able to teach the teacher. New Englanders sometimes use the tender shoots of milkweed as a salad or salt them down so as to have greens in winter time. Purslane, dandelion, etc., are used. NOTE 16, PAGE 222 INSECTICIDES Injurious insects are divided into two great classes, the biting, gnawing, or chewing insects which actually eat some part of the plant they attack, and the suck- ing insects which slowly draw the juices from the plants. Common types of the first are beetles and grass hoppers; of the second, aphids, plant bugs and scale insects. Dose the first with something that will poison their food, generally some form of arsenical 304 APPENDICES poison, as Paris green. Give the second something that they will inhale and that will stop their breath- ing, like hellebore, pyrethrum, or something that will smother them, like emulsions of kerosene oil, whale oil soap, etc. Bordeaux mixture is good for blight. NOTE 17. PAGE 225 SCHOOL OF HORTICULTURE, HARTFORD, CONN. Plan of 20- foot Garden. ( 1 : it year) 43 Spinach North 42 20 Corn . 41 Tomatoes 19 40 Turnips 18 Beans (i8i) 39 ',1 3« Tomatoes (3 hills) 38 Cucumbers (4 hills) '5 Beans (15 J) 11 14 1 omatoes 13 Lettuce 35 Tomatoes (3 hills) 12 Peas 34 33 32 1 1 10 Peas Potatoes 9 3' 8 Parsnip 30 7 29 Potatoes 6 Carrots 28 5 27 Turnips (July 15) 4 Swiss Chard 26 Celery 3 25 Turnips (Julv 15) 2 Beets and Cabbage 24 23 22 Celery I Line Flowers Lima Beans South Flan 1 of 9 Peppers (5 hills) {4th year) 18 Peas 50 Corn (Hills 12 in. a part) 18 (later, transplanted cab- 4Q bage) 48* Beans '7 47 Corn and Squash mer) (sum- 16 Peas (later, transplanted cab- 46 16 bage) 45i Beans 15 44 Corn and Turnips turnips well) (Thin <4 •3 Egg-plant (5 hills) 305 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS School of Horticulture, Hartford, Conn. — (Continued) Peppers (5 hills ) Cabbage and Beets (Cabbage seed 1 2 in. apart among the beets) Swiss Chard Parsnips and Radish (planted together) Beets and Onion Sets (Sets 6" apart) Carrots and Parsley (every 12 in.) 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A Cleveland school garden, 1905. Produce on 10 x 30 foot plot, June 26th — Oct. 7th, The plot was planted May 1 rth, 18th, and 25th. Radishes and lettuce were picked before June 26th when this record began. June 26th July 24th Radishes 10 1 qt. Peas Turnips 1 1 qt. Beans Spinach J pk. 5 Carrots June 30th i pk. Swiss Chard Radishes 33 2 heads Lettuce Turnips 1 qt 143 Pansies Pansies 34 July 28th Verbenas 88 3 Peppers Lettuce i head 1 qt. Peas July 3rd I pk. Swiss Chard i pk. Spinach 2 qts. Beans I pk. (scant) Swiss Chard ^ pt. shelled Beans 24 Pansies i Squash July 5th 150 Pansies I pt. Peas 2 heads Lettuce i pk. Spinach July 30th July 7th 13 Carrots i pk. Swiss Chard 2 heads Lettuce 35 Pansies Aug. 2nd July 16th 3 Carrots 7 Beets Aug. 7th 1 head Lettuce 1 pk. Swiss Chard 63 Pansies 1 Squash July 17th 2 Cucumbers 2 qts. Peas 1 Pepper 6 Beets 1 Tomato 2 heads Lettuce 5 heads Lettuce July 21st I Carrot 2 qts. Wax Beans 100 Pansies i pk. Swiss Chard 317 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Aug. I ith 2 Squash 2 Cucumbers I Tomato 7 ears Corn 75 Pansies Aug. 15th 1 1 ears Corn 8 Tomatoes I head Lettuce Aug. 1 8th 6 ears Corn I Squash 4 Cucumbers ID Tomatoes 1 pk. Swiss Chard Aug. 22nd 2 Cucumbers 7 Tomatoes 3 ears Corn Aug. 25th 3 Squash 8 Tomatoes 4 Cucumbers 1 pk. Swiss Chard 10 ears Corn Aug. 28th 2 Cucumbers 3 Squash I pk. Swiss Chard Sept. ist 3 Tomatoes 1 Cucumber 1 pt. Peas A few squash were left in the garden. Horticulture, Hartford. Sept. 3rd i pk. Swiss Chard 2 Cucumbers 3 Tomatoes I Pepper 3 Squash Sept. 7th Dug the Potatoes 3 Squash 3 Cucumbers 1 pk. Potatoes 13 Turnips 7 Radishes 5 Tomatoes Sept. 15th 10 Squash 2 Tomatoes 12 Radishes 4 heads Lettuce 10 Turnips Sept. 22nd Q Squash 4 heads Lettuce Sept. 2Qth 3 heads Cabbage 4 heads Lettuce i pk. Swiss Chard 5 Peppers 7th 2 Squash I head Cabbage 6 Peppers Record of plot, School of Oct. The average yield from the plots of the school 8 by 16 feet, was 496 radishes, 21 beets, 2^ pecks of beans 15 heads of lettuce, 22 turnips, 202 tomatoes, and I quart of lima beans. One hoe was stolen, the only loss during the entire season. There were hun- dreds of applicants for plots for the next year. Gam- bling and rioting have disappeared from the neighbor- hood, there have been fewer arrests than before, and 3.8 APPENDICES the college settlement, a block away, reported that "never had there been a summer so peaceful." (Jewell, J. R., Agricultural Education, 1907.) NOTE 19, PAGE 230 YONKERS SCHOOL GARDENS SuGGtsTtD Program* Purpose 1. To retain influence on children through the year. 2. To make garden work continuous. Methods 1. Garden work — Greenhouse and cold frames. Slips, cuttings, bulbs, perennials, flats. All methods of propagation. Window boxes and potting. Gathering of seeds, roots and slips. Preparation for next season's work. Renovating of tools, markers, varnishing, etc. Sorting and measuring of seeds. Homemade envelopes. Help for home gardens, in measuring seeds. Lectures: Market product, commercial food stuffs, trees, farms, farming, domestic ani- mals, etc., pests, cocoons, etc. 2. Playground — The garden after closing in fall, to be at once ploughed and harrowed and used as playground for four months. Free play, group games, fair play. Football, slides, skating, snow forts and warfare. ♦Courtesy of Mrs. Arthur Livcrmore. AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Making of simple apparatus. Kite flying and making of flying toys. 3. Club House — ^To make Yonkers a Garden City. "Clean city" clubs: — Talks on use and care of parks and trees. Hygiene talks, illustrated by plants. Simple civics — simple sanitation. Sanitary League talks. Manufacture of "box furniture." Music. The Club House ist floor — One large audience hall^for lectures and lantern and music — pianola. 2nd floor— I. Reading room — papers, magazines and books. 2. Game room. 3. Model housekeeping room — Teach wash- ing, ironing, sweeping, dusting, cham- ber work, vegetable preparation and cooking. 4. Class rooms. 3d floor — For caretakers. 320 APPENDIX B ADULT TESTIMONY Mrs. Edith Goodyear Alger. **In a school garden properly conducted chil- dren become so deeply interested in accomplishing a certain, definite, near and understandable re- sult — the raising of flowers and vegetables — that they learn to work hard without being conscious of effort. This is a matter of the highest im- portance in educating children." — Vermont Cir- culars of Educational Information, No. XIII. The American Civic Association has "the firm conviction that there is no more potent influence for better civic conditions in America than the educated youth, in whom there is developed this critical discernment of beauty and excellence in nature and art, an abiding love for these things, and a feeling of personal responsibility for better civic conditions. Furthermore, its members are firmly convinced that there is no more efficient agency for the attainment of those high ideals in education than school garden work, properly correlated with other school work." jjl^ , -^ -^^ Dr. W. A. Baldwin, President Normal School, Hyannis, Mass. " I know of no form of work which has thus far been introduced into our schools that is helping 321 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS SO much as is the school garden, toward the development of the latest and best thought in pedagogy. Schools are not to teach a prepara- tion for life, but living itself, and that means the greatest unfolding of the soul through reaction upon environment, physical, industrial, social. The school garden gives many opportunities for such unfolding. Certainly the school garden is an instrument of sound education. " If it is to accomplish all that it should, it must be work not play; it must be to the child, in some degree, what the farm is to the farmer; it must be planned and conducted with the idea that it is to yield a fair return for the labor that is put into it, and that the child who does the work is to reap the reward of his labors. Such a garden will make the child industrious, thoughtful and sym- pathetic."— Hyannis Normal School Catalogue, 1907, page 30. Miss Mary Marshall Butler, President of the Women's Institute, Yonkers, N. Y. ''Our School Garden has convinced me that this form of outdoor education is a rational and proper sequence in the development of manual training. As some one has aptly said, 'we need the shop, the kitchen and the garden to cover completely industrial education.' The necessity for indus- trial or manual training, not only because of its practical application to life but also because of its stimulus to the brain, needs no argument. 322 APPENDICES "Our Yonkers garden has convinced me that it is a blessing to the child and to society, and that it contains many elements of educational, social and economic value." — Letter. Dr. Otis W. Caldwell, Chicago University. Founder of the first school garden in Illinois at the Charleston State Normal School. "One of the most important relations that the garden bears to natural history work in general exists in the opportunity it presents for organizing a considerable part of the materials of natural history. . . . It offers, furthermore, an intro- duction to nature, first through economic plants, the ones best known and most closely associated with the home and social life." — The Normal School Bulletin, Jan., 1908. Charles L. Coon, Superintendent of Education, North Carolina. "The garden is necessary because it furnishes a combination of hand work and book work that pro- motes thinking and observation." "The School Garden." (Leaflet.) R. II. Cowley, author of Macdonald School Gardens. "Through the work of the school garden the pupil's powers of observation are turned into the orderly channels of cause and effect. His ever widening outlook toward the objects and forces of nature frees his mind from the power of sensory 24 323 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS illusions and his moral nature from superstitions. Habits of accuracy are formed in measuring the value of experiments according to the results ob- tained. In noting carefully and with deep interest both causes and effects, in assuming responsi- bility for work that he performs in equal oppor- tunity with his companions, in daily exercising his power of initiative, in constantly combining thought and action, he is steadily developing ele- ments of character that must prove of great value in after life. The good influence of the school garden on the discipline and moral tone of the school is remarked by all the teachers. Pupils hitherto troublesome have become orderly and docile. The percentage of regularity in attend- ance has increased, and a deeper interest is taken in all work of the school." — **The Macdonald School Gardens," in Queen s Quarterly, page 417. Professor J. G. Coulter and Miss Alice Jean Patter- son, Department of Nature Study, State Normal University, Normal, 111. "To relate nature study to human interest is sound pedagogy, for intelligence in what relates to living should be a fundamental in education. **The school garden, probably more than any other phase of nature work, seems to supply a natural demand irrespective of locality. It has a definite mission to fulfil in the city as well as in the village and rural school." — The Normal School Quarterly, Jan., 1909. 324 APPENDICES Dick J. Crosby, of the Office of Experiment Sta- tions, Washington. "Experience has shown that devoting four or five hours a week, or even two hours a day, to nature study and gardening, if properly conducted, enables the pupils to accomplish more in the re- maining time than they formerly accomplished in the whole time spent in school/' — American Civic Association, Dept. of Children's Gardens, Leaflet No. i. Dr. Benjamin Marshall Davis, Miami University, formerly of the State Normal School, Chico, Cal., and author of "School Gardens for Cali- fornia Schools." "The greatest value of these gardens lies in making up to the city child somewhat for the fact that contact with nature is almost wholly left out of his life. They form the basis of the most prac- tical sort of nature study possible in cities. In many cases, no doubt, the amount of money spent for charts and other so-called aids to study, would be sufficient to cover the expense of a gar- den. But such an investment in a garden would be a clear educational gain because much of the illustrative material for geography and other subjects would be prepared by the children." — "School Gardens for California Schools," page 9. President Eliot of Harvard, says: "A leading object in education for efTiciency is the cultivation 325 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS of the critical discernment of beauty and excel- lence in things, and words, and thoughts, in nature, and in human nature." — " Education for Efficiency," page i8. George D. Fuller, University of Chicago. Direc- tor of the first Macdonald school garden in Broome County, Quebec. " In some schools there has been a very notice- able change in the attitude of the pupils toward the schoolroom and grounds, and they now take pride in beautiful surroundings and care for them where formerly they sought but to make desola- tion more hideous. *'As the pupils have planned their plots, have measured and staked them out, planted the seed and cared for the plants, they have become more skilful of hand and more accurate of eye, while working from a definite plan has trained the judg- ment and taught them to foresee the future. All these results would warrant the existence of school gardens, but more noticeable has been the re- sponse to the appeal made to the higher nature of the child." "The pupils' attention has been turned to a consideration of the beautiful to the exclusion of many baser thoughts, and the resulting moral culture has found expression in more orderly behavior." — ''The School Garden and The Coun- try School," pages 46 and 246. 326 APPENDICES B. F. Galloway, Chief of the Bureau of Plant Industry, United States Department of Agri- culture. "It is desirable, where it can be made a class exercise, that school time be devoted to this work, for when done after hours it is necessarily volun- tary, and those who do not volunteer are often the ones it is especially desirable to reach." — "School Gardens," U. S. Bulletin No. i6o. Office of Ex- periment Station, page 43. " In the school garden the fact should always be kept prominent that the pupil is to be the most active factor. We can put things in his way to help him develop properly and keep him from some of the things that fail so to help him, but we cannot do his developing for him, and if he is to have a knowledge of the elementary principles of life, of industry, of mankind, of beauty and justice, he must grow into these things by means of first hand experience with them. To obtain this growth and to eliminate some undesirable things in the school, the school garden should certainly prove efficient." — "School Gardens," U. S. Bulletin No. 160. The Gardening Association of America, "or- ganized for the development of school gardening and other activities tending to occupy the people and train them to the best use of land for their intellectual, material and physical betterment" 327 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS includes in its membership both individuals and associations that are interested in promoting home and school gardens. It includes in its board of governors such people as Mr. Bolton Hall, Pres. Haines of the Home Gardening Association, Cleve- land; Mr. Samuel Fels, Dr. C. F. Hodge, Miss Louise Klein Miller, Mrs. L. L. Wilson, of the Philadel- phia Normal School; Dr. Crapsey, of Rochester, and Mr. R. F. Powell, of the Buffalo Vacant Lot Association. Dr. C. F. Hodge, Clark University. *'The same thinking, willing, doing, the same patience that enter into care of the plant or the fledgling bird will later enter into the care of home and children."— Speech at Session of Con- ference on Prevention of Infant Mortality, New Haven, Nov. ii, 1909. "A school garden can also supply ethical culture where it is most needed." — ''Nature Study and Life," page 130. E. A. Howes, Principal of Macdonald Consoli- dated School, Guelph, and Director of the first Macdonald School Garden at Bowesville, Ontario. " I am ready to put myself on record as saying that the school garden has relieved much of the drudgery of the school work to which I was always accustomed. This year we had our school garden 328 APPENDICES and it has been the pleasantest year of my school work. I would never again pass a summer with- out a school garden. The child's mind gets growth out of it because it is something it can understand. Not only does the School Garden serve well as a means of educating and training the child, but it supplies a class of knowledge that is highly useful and cultivates a taste for an honorable and re- munerative vocation." — ^.Letter. James Ralph Jewell, Author of "Agricultural Education including Nature Study and School Gardens." "The importance of school gardens is indicated by the impetus given them from so many sides, by the fact that they are not in any way the fad of some one class of people, but that they are used — and successfully used — by organizations with widely different purposes to further their own aims and to solve the problems of special interest to them." (Page 37.) '*The district nurses of some of our American cities report much better health among children at work in school gardens than before such work was undertaken — a thing of no inconsiderable im- portance to us as a people." (Page 121.) "College settlements in all the cities have lent their aid, and everywhere local agricultural and horticultural societies have given at least moral support. The committee of five of the National Educational Council has attested to the value of a 329 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS garden with every school. The American Civic Association has organized a department of chil- dren's gardens." (Page 38.) ''The American Institute of Social Science is conducting a propaganda for the establishment of schools for children of weak and undeveloped constitutions where power of resistance is small, where the buildings shall be surrounded by trees and where gardening shall be a particular feature.'' (Page 120.) — ''Agricultural Education." "Practical ethics are best insured by making every citizen, at least potentially, a producer. For example, a small, well-managed farm school has proved more successful than any other means for reforming boys with criminal tendencies." (Page 126.) "The ethical value of producing something cannot be overestimated; in this lies the only road to altruism open to the child, as well as a guaranty of his respect for the products of others." (Page 125.) "Country children have become interested in the science of their future life occupation, and so they have been taught to think for themselves and to respect their calling. Children have been taught through these gardens more about practical ethics than by any other means yet devised, besides learning something of the fundamental occupation of mankind — tilling the earth." (Page 46.) 330 APPENDICES " In rural schools where other forms of manual training are perhaps out of the question for the present, practical agricultural work supplies the motor training needed by all and essential to the motor minded." (Page 125.) "School gardens possess all these advantages of manual training, with the added ones, over some forms of this discipline, of their feasibility almost anywhere, of easier inculcation of the sense of ownership, of working with the fundamental instead of the mere accessory muscles, and of being essentially out-of-door work." (Page 41 .) "School gardens have the advantage over all other school work of promoting the health of the child, especially in cases of incipient tuberculosis." (Page 125.) Finally, to quote once more from Mr. Jewell's in- vestigation concerning agricultural educa- tion: "A study of the laws of nature may well teach one that 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,' in his life as well as from the soil, in working through a long season, side by side with others, the child gets his earliest and best instruction in social responsibilities, in what he owes to his neighbor, one of the most important things an individual of to-day has to learn." — (Page 118.) — "Agricultural Education." 331 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Miss Dora Keen, Vice-President, The Public Edu- cation Association of Philadelphia. " (i) To teach children to learn by observation, and to give them practical training by the eye and the hand. (2) To teach children to apply what they learn from books, as to nature study, mensuration, and other subjects, without the strain of additional indoor work. (3) To influence character by appeal to their love of nature. (4) To prepare children for citizenship by teach- ing, practically, the care of private and public property. (5) To mould character by demanding inde- pendence, each child being dependent upon him- self in a garden for the results of his labor. (6) To impress practically and theoretically the law of sequence, one event proceeding from another as its direct consequence. (7) To educate the emotions, by teaching care and protection of tender growing things. A GARDENER, no matter how excellent, will not be as competent as an experienced teacher to carry out these educational purposes of school gardens." — Report of the Public Education Asso- ciation of Philadelphia, 1905. A. W. Leech, Day School Inspector, Rosebud Indian Agency. "These people (the Indians) have never fol- 332 APPENDICES lowed agriculture and in their primitive state de- pended entirely on the chase, thus differing from many of the tribes of the east and the south. It is to change them from this manner of Hving that the school and school garden are instituted among them."— Letter. Edward Martin, Director Public Health and Charities, Philadelphia, writes: '*In the slums of Philadelphia^ I have found that in the houses where there are flowers — a result of our school gardens^there is neat cleanliness, although all around is squalor.'' "School gardens in the slums of a number of cities have taught more civic righteousness than all the police courts or college settlements have been able to do." -Quoted in Keen's "Philadel- phia School Gardens." Miss Louise Klein Miller, Curator of School Gardens, Cleveland, Ohio. "The work of gardening is all wholesome and conducive to making better, stronger boys and girls and more industrious, law-abiding citizens." ■ — "Children's Gardens," page 71. "Experience has taught that this is the best possible kind of work for this (defective) class of children, it opens a new avenue for future oc- cupation." — Letter. "It ministers directly to physical well-being; helps to establish habits of punctuality, regularity 333 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS and constancy; reveals executive ability in those who superintend; and arouses a desire to improve the home grounds/'^Home Gardening Associa- tion Report, 1906, page 9. Dr. James W. Robertson, President of Mac- donald College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, Canada. ''When a child does anything with its own hands, such as planting a seed, pulling up a plant, making examination of the changes which have taken place during its growth, making a drawing of it, mounting it and putting its name on it, he receives impressions by the sense of touch, he sees, he hears the noise of the movements he makes, and he smells the soil and the part of the plant with which he is dealing. Those impressions are definite and lasting; they add to the sum of sen- suous knowledge; they prepare for the perception of logical knowledge, in a common sense way." — "Macdonald Fund for Manual Training and the Improvement of Rural Schools," page 43. ''Since engaging in the work my boys and girls have been first in all examinations, competing with children from other schools, including city schools. The whole tone of the school has been improved morally, socially, and esthetically. Our boys and girls have now a reverence for life unknown before, and it has awakened in them, as 334 APPENDICES nothing else could do, a deeper interest in ail life around them." (Page 197.) "The best education in rural schools should make the people like rural life and also enable them to make it more profitable. The best way to make any workman like his work is to make him understand it. The school garden is one way of making rural life more popular as well as efficient." -"The Macdonald Movement for Rural Education," page 193. Erasmus Schwab, Vienna. Founder of the move- ment, and author of "The School Garden," 1855. "A proper school garden may, must and is destined to be the place where children are happiest; it must be the dearest spot in those hours which they do not spend in the schoolroom or occupy at home in work for the school." — "The School Garden," page 22. 335 APPENDIX C HOW TO PLANT A TREE* I . Dig the hole wider and deeper than the tree re- quires. If the tree just fits into the socket the tips of the roots will meet a hard wall which they are too delicate to penetrate, hold fast to, or feed in. W. Be sure that the surface soil is hoarded at one side when the hole is dug. This soil is mellow and full of plant food. The under soil is harder and more barren. Some rich garden soil can well be brought over and used instead of the subsoil. III. Take up as large a root system as possible with the tree you dig. The smaller the ball of earth, the greater the loss of feeding roots and the danger of starvation to the tree. IV. Trim all torn and broken roots with a sharp knife. A ragged wound below or above the ground is slow and uncertain in healing. A clean, slanting cut heals soonest and surest. V. Set the tree on a bed of mellow soil with all its roots spread naturally. VI. Let the level be the same as before. The tree's roots must be planted, but not buried too deep to breathe. A stick laid across the hole at the ground level will indicate where the tree "collar" should be. VII. Sift rich earth, free from clods, among the * Rogers, Julia E.: The Tree Book. By permission of Doubleday, Page and Company. 336 APPENDICES roots. Hold the tree erect and firm; lift it a little to make sure the spaces are well filled underneath. Pack it well down with your foot. VI 11. // in the growing season, pour in water and let it settle away. This establishes contact between root hairs and soil particles, and dissolves plant food for absorption. If the tree is dormant do not water it. IX. Fill the hole with dirt. Tramp in well as filling goes on. Heap it somewhat to allow for settHng. If subsoil is used, put it on last. Make the tree firm in its place. X. Prune the top to a jew main branches and shorten these. This applies to a sapling of a few years whose head you are able to form. Older trees should also be pruned to balance the loss of roots. Otherwise trans- piration of water from the foliage would be so great as to overtax its roots, not yet established in the new place. Many trees die from this abuse. People can- not bear to cut back the handsome top, though a handsomer one is soon supplied by following this reasonable rule. XI. IVater the tree frequently as it first starts. A thorough soaking of all the roots, not a mere sprink- ling of the surface soil, is needed. Continuous growth depends on moisture in the soil. Drainage will re- move the surplus water. XII. Keep the surface soil free from cakes or cracks. This prevents excessive evaporation. Do not stir the soil deep enough to disturb the roots. Keep out grass and weeds. 33: APPENDIX C TEN PRINCIPLES OF PRUNING* 1 . Pruning the roots lessens the food supply, and so retards top growth. 2. Pruning the top invigorates the branches that remain, the root system being unchanged. 3. Removing terminal buds induces forking, thus thickening the branching system. It checks wood production, and encourages the production of fruit and flowers. 4. Unpruned trees tend to wood production. 5. Summer pruning reduces the struggle among leaves and twigs for light and produces stronger buds for spring. 6. Winter pruning removes superfluous buds, in-" ducing greater health in those that are left to develop. 7. Dead wood should be taken out at any season and burned. 8. The best time to prune, generally speaking, is just before the growth starts in the spring. 9. Early winter pruning is undesirable because the healing of wounds must wait until spring. 10. Yearly pruning is better than pruning at less frequent intervals. * Rogers, Julia E.: The Tree Book. By permission of Doubleday, Page and Company. 338 APPENDIX D A HYMN FOR ARBOR DAY By Henry Hanby Hay God save this tree we plant ! And to all nature grant Sunshine and rain. Let not its branches fade, Save it from axe and spade, Save it for joyful shade — Guarding the plain. When it is ripe to fall. Neighbored by trees as tall, Shape it for good. Shape it to bench and stool, Shape it to square and rule. Shape it for home and school, God bless the wood. Lord of the earth and sea. Prosper our planted tree. Save with Thy might. Save us from indolence, Waste and improvidence, And in Thy excellence Lead us aright. -'5 339 BIBLIOGRAPHY BIBLIOGRAPHY I. A FREE SCHOOL GARDEN LIBRARY* UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE Farmers' Bulletins No. 218. The School Garden. 40 pages 195. Annual Flowering Plants. 48 pages 185. Beautifying the Home Grounds. 24 pages 134. Tree Planting in Rural School Grounds. 32 pages 1 57. The Propagation of Plants. 24 pages 25. Peanuts: Culture and Uses. 24 pages 28. Weeds: And How to Kill Them. 30 pages * G)pies will be sent free to any address in the United States on application to a Senator, Representative or Delegate in Congress, or to the Secretary of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. Many of the state agricultural colleges issue similar series, some- times for sale outside the states. To give a complete list would ex- ceed the limits of this bibliography, but on page 347 certain important pamphlets issued by the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture and by the Hampton Institute. Virginia, are given as indicative not only of the garden work done in these two localities but of the subject matter that may be expected from local state authorities. Title lists can usually be had upon application. The Home Nature Study and Rural School Leaflets of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., as well as the pamphlets of the Cornell Agricultural College, are available for residents of New York state, but the editions are limited. Some of these may be found in the larger libraries. 343 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS No. 54. Some Common Birds in Their Relation to Agri- culture. 48 pages 62. Marketing Farm Produce. 28 pages 77. The Liming of Soils. 24 pages 86. Thirty Poisonous Plants of the United States. 32 pages 91. Potato Diseases and Their Treatment. 12 pages 121. Beans, Peas, and Other Legumes as Food. 39 pages 127. Important Insecticides: Directions for their Prepa- ration and use. 45 pages '138. Irrigation in Field and Garden. 40 pages 146. Insecticides and Fungicides. 16 pages 154. The Home Fruit Garden: Preparation and Care. 16 pages 155. How Insects affect Health in Rural Districts. 20 pages 158. How to Build Small Irrigation Ditches. 20 pages 181. Pruning. 39 pages 188. Weeds used in Medicine. 47 pages 192. Barnyard Manure. 32 pages 196. Usefulness of the American Toad. 16 pages 220. Tomatoes. 32 pages 233. Experiment Station Work — XXXI. 32 pages Root Systems. 245. Renovation of Worn-out Soils. 16 pages 248. The Lawn. 20 pages 254. Cucumbers. 32 pages 255. The Home Vegetable Garden. 48 pages 256. Preparation of Vegetables for the Table. 48 pages 257. Soil Fertility. 40 pages 35. Potato Culture. 24 pages 344 BIBLIOGRAPHY No. 264. The Brown-tail Moth and How to Control It. 24 pages 270. Modern Conveniences for the Farm Home. 48 pages 275. The Gipsy Moth and How to Control It. 24 pages 278. Leguminous Crops for Green Manuring. 29 pages 289. Beans. 30 pages 295. Potatoes and Other Root Crops as Food. 47 pages 315. Progress in Legume Inoculation. 20 pages 318. Cowpeas. 31 pages 324. Sweet Potatoes. 39 pages 339. Alfalfa. 48 pages 354. Onion Culture. 36 pages 359. Canning Vegetables in the Home. 16 pages Bureau of Biological Survey Circulars 17. Bird Day in the Schools. 4 pages Bureau of Entomology Circulars 3. An Important Enemy to Fruit Trees: The San Jos^ Scale; its appearance in the Eastern United States; Measures to be taken to Prevent its Spread and to Destroy it. 10 pages 5. The Carpet Beetle, or Buffalo Moth. 4 pages 9. Canker Worm. 4 pages 1 1 . The Rose Chafer. 4 pages 38. The Squash-vine Borer. 6 pages 39. The Common Squash Bug. 5 pages 42. How to Control the San Josd Scale. 6 pages 345 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS No. 59. The Corn Root-worms. 8 pages 60. The Imported Cabbage Worm. 8 pages 98. The Apple-tree Tent Caterpillar. 8 pages 1 04. The Common Red Spider. 1 1 pages Office of Experiment Stations Circulars 60. The Teaching of Agriculture in the Rural Common Schools. 20 pages 73. Country Life Education. 13 pages 84. Education for Country Life. 40 pages 160. School Gardens.* Forest Service (Bureau of Forestry) Circulars 5. Arbor Day Planting in Eastern States. 4 pages II. Facts and Figures Regarding Our Forest Re- sources, Briefly Stated. 8 pages 96. Arbor Day. 4 pages Yearbook Papers 125. Some Edible and Poisonous Fungi. 18 pages (Reprinted from the Yearbook for 1897.) 233. Some Problems of the Rural Common School. 22 pages (Reprinted from the Yearbook for 1901.) 382. The Use of Illustrative Material in Teaching Agriculture in Rural Schools. 18 pages (Reprinted from the Yearbook for 1905.) * This is out of print as a free document, but may be had for 10 cents by applying to Superintendent of Documents, Washing- ton, D. C. A list of many valuable documents that are for sale at from 5 cents to 25 cents apiece, may be had upon application. 346 BIBLIOGRAPHY MASSACHUSETTS STATE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE Nature Leaflets (Address State House, Boston, Mass.) The leaflets usually contain 2 to 4 pages and are free within the state. They cost 2 cents each fo those outside the state. Among them are the following: No. 1. Canker Worms 2. Tent Caterpillar 4. Insecticides, Fungicides, and How to Make Them 5. The White Marker Tussock Moth 6. The Spiny Elm Caterpillar 8. The May Beetle, also Ants Indoors and Out 15. Bird Houses 17. Bordeaux Mixture 18. Plant Lice or Aphids 19. Edible Weeds and Pot Herbs 20. Massachusetts Weeds 22 & 25. Hints on Outdoor Bird Study 26. Browntail Moth 27. Gipsy Moth 28. The Garden Toad 29-32. School Gardens (Written by H. D. Hemen- way) A list of publications will be sent upon application. HAMPTON NATURE STUDY BUREAU (Hampton Institute, Hampton, Va.) Agricultural Leaflets 1. Plants 2. Soils 3. Farm Manures 4. Commercial Fertilizers 5. Plowing, Harrowing and Rolling 6. Notes on Seed Planting 7. Notes on Soil Moisture 347 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS No. 8. Rotation of Crops 9. Notes on Drainage Children's Nature Study Leaflets 1 . A Child's Garden 2. How to Make Friends With the Birds 3. The Winged Pollen Carriers Teachers' Leaflets 1. Nature Study 2. How Seeds Travel 3. Evergreens 4. Seed Planting Experiments 5. Cocoons and Chrysalids 6. Roots 7. Beautifying School Houses and Yards 8. Winter Birds 9. Soils 10. The Meaning of the Flower 1 1 . Plowing 12. Harrowing 13. Arbor Day Suggestions 14. How to Know Trees by Their Bark 15. School Gardening A complete list may be had upon application. They cost 25 cents per dozen to any one in the Southern States, hut 5 cents each or 50 cents per dozen (cheaper by the 100) to those outside. 11. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Reference Books Bailey, L. H.: New Cyclopedia of Horticulture, 6 vols. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1906. I20.00 348 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cyclopedia of Agriculture. Doubleday, Page and Co. $20.00 Botany, an elementary text book. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1901. |i.oo The Nature Study Idea. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. $1.00 Caldwell, Otis W.: Laboratory Manual of Botany. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1909. | .50 Crosby, W. M.: Common Minerals and Rocks. D. C. Heath and Co., Boston, 1909. | .40 GoFF, E. S., and Mayne, D. D.: First Principles of Agriculture. American Book Co., New York and Cincinnati, 1904. | .80 Gray, Asa: Manual of Botany, Edition 1909. Ameri- can Book Co., New York. $2.50 King, Franklin H.: Physics of Agriculture and The Soil. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1909. $ .50 and f 1.50 LiPMAN, Jacob G. : Bacteria in Relation to Country Life. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1908. Long, E. A.: Ornamental Gardening for Americans. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1909. $1.50 Maynard, Samuel T.: Landscape Gardening. John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1909. f 1.50 Parsons, J. S.: How to Plan the Home Grounds. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1905. 1 1. 00 Rogers, Julia E.: The Tree Book. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1905. $4.00 (Finely illustrated with explicit text) 349 >y AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Skinner, C. M.: Little Gardens, or How to Beautify City Yards and Small Country Spaces. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1909. I1.25 (See for choice and arrangement of shrubbery and flowers) Nature in a City Yard. The Century Co., New York, 1909. $1.00 Waugh, F. a.: Landscape Gardening. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1909. | .50 WooDHULL, J. F. : Manual of Home-made Apparatus. New Paltz, New York, 1888. $ .50 (Simple experiments for the schoolroom) 2. Books and Bulletins for the School Garden AS A Whole. Alger, Edith Goodyear: School Gardens. Circular XI n, Vermont Dep't. of Education, Montpelier, Vermont, 1902. (Excellent) Bailey, L. H.: Garden Making, nth ed., Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1906. | .50 Bailey, L. H., and Hunn: The Practical Garden Book. 5th ed., Grosset and Dunlap, New York, 1906. I .50 (Alphabetically arranged and "containing the simplest direc- tions for the growing of the commonest things about the home and garden.") Baldwin, William A.: Industrial-Social Education. Milton Bradley Co., Springfield, Massachusetts, 1907. (Chapter XIV — First year school garden work XV — Second year school garden work XVI — Correlation of school garden work with other studies ' XVII — Advantages of school gardens and suggestions about their management) BIBLIOGRAPHY ^ The School Gardens and their Relation to Other School Work. Dept. Children's Gardens. Pamphlet No. 2, American Civic Association, Union Trust Bldg., Washington, D. C. [1904.] 1. 10 Bardswell, F. a.: The Book of Town and Window Gardening. John Lane Co., New York, 1909. fi.oo (Window, roof and backyard gardens) Beal, W. J.: Seed Dispersal. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1909. $ .40 BiGELOW, E. F.: An Eggshell Garden. St. Nicholas, 1904. How Nature Study should be Taught. Hinds, Noble and Eldredge, New York, 1904. (One chapter is devoted to school gardens. Useful in helping a teacher to check up results) Brittain, J.: Manual and Outline of Nature Lessons. J. and A. McMillan, St. Johns, N. B. (The maritime provinces are the most advanced in school gardening work in Canada) Caldwell, Otis W.: The School Garden, I and 11 (1903- 1 908) The Normal School Bulletin, Charleston, 111. (Including an account of the first school garden in Illinois. It contains also (1) descriptions and illustrations of school gardens in Germany and a discussion of the differences be- tween European and American uses. A valuable contribu- tion to the subject) Corbett, L. C. : Annual Flowering Plants. Farmers' Bulletin No. 195. Free (Simple cultural directions. Illustrated) 35' AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Coulter, J. M. and J. G., and Patterson, Alice Jean: Practical Nature Study and Elementary Agri- culture. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1909. (Chapters on the school garden, and an account of the large and successful school garden at Normal, 111.) Coulter, Stanley: A Country School Garden. Na- ture Study Leaflets No. 9. Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., 1898. (One of a series of leaflets on nature study) Davis, B. M.: School Gardens for California Schools. A Manual for Teachers. Publications of the State Normal School, Chico, Cal. Bulletin No. I, July, 1905. I .50 (The bulletin is intended to give California teachers who desire to conduct school gardens the benefit of Dr. Davis's experience in such work at Los Angeles and Chico, and of his suggestions as put in practice in Oakland and San Diego. Though written for California conditions, its broad and thor- ough treatment makes its teachings useful elsewhere) Dearness, John: The Nature Study Course. The Copp Clark Co., Toronto, Canada, 1905. |i.oo (Excellent as showing the work done in schools and in school gardening) Duncan, Frances: Mary's Garden and How it Grew. The Century Co., New York, 1904. I1.25 When Mother Lets us Garden. Moffat, Yard and Co., New York, 1909. $ .75 (Delightful books to use with little children) Elementary Agriculture and Horticulture and School Gardens in Rural and Village, Public and Sepa- rate Schools. Circular XIII, July, 1909. Issued by Dep't. of Education, Toronto, Canada (Has charts and most useful data for starting gardens) BIBLIOGRAPHY ^ Emerson, Philip, and Weld, Clarence M.: The School Garden Book. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1909. fi.25 (Work month by month. Very helpful) Hays, Willet M.: Rural School Agriculture. The McGill-Warner Co., St. Paul, Minn. $ .50 (Exercises in agriculture and housekeeping for rural schools. Excellent problems to connect school garden and school work.) See Bibliography page 368 Hemenway, Herbert D.: How to Make School Gardens. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1903. fi.oo (Fifteen pages on school gardens; 3 1 pages devoted to 2 1 simple lessons on gardening; 23 pages on greenhouse work) Hints and Helps to Young Gardeners, 2d ed. H. D. Hemenway, Hartford, Cbnn., 1908. $ .35 Hendricks, E. L.: School Gardens at Delphi, Indiana. Nature Study Review — Feb., 1909. ^HoDGE, C. P.: Nature Study and Life. Ginn and Co., Boston [1902]. 1 1. 50 (One of the very best books for the teacher) HoLTZ, Frederick L.: Nature Study. A Manual for Teachers and Students. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908. fi.50 (Excellent. Chapter XVI, The School Garden) Jackson, C. R., and Daugherty, Mrs. L. S.: Agricul- ture through the Laboratory and School Garden. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1908 (Good) Jekyl, Gertrude: Children and Gardens. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908. I2.00 353 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Jewell, James Ralph: Agriculture Education includ- ing Nature Study and School Gardens. Bulle- tin No. 2, 1907. U. S. Dep't. of Interior — Bureau of Education. (Edition limited. A comprehensive report of work done to date) Keeper, C. A.: Nature Studies on the Farm. Ameri- can Book Co., New York, 1909. | .40 Kern, O. J.: Among Country Schools. Ginn and Co., Boston [1906]. 1 1. 50 (Chapter on school gardens; best discussion of needs of country schools) Kern, O. J.: Annual Reports on the Schools of Winne- bago County, Illinois. Rockford, 111., 1904-1909 (Well illustrated and always helpful) Laidlaw, Margaret C: School Gardens. Kinder- garten Review, Sept., 1904 Latter, Lucy: School Gardening for Little Children. Swan, Sonnenschein and Co., London, 1906. (One of the best books, especially for little children) Robertson, James W.: Macdonald Movement for Rural Education and Other Addresses. By the President of Macdonald College, Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, Canada. (Extremely practical and forceful arguments for improvement ^ of rural schools; for a curriculum suited to an agricultural community; and for the benefit to be derived from school gardens) Miller, Louise Klein: Children's Gardens. D. Ap- pleton and Co., New York, 1908. I1.25 (Really descriptive of gardens in connection with schools. One of the best books published. Miss Miller is Curator of Gardens in the public schools of Cleveland, and jointly with the Cleveland Home Gardening Association has initiated a far reaching and forceful work) 354 BIBLIOGRAPHY MoRLEY, Margaret W.: Flowers and Their Friends. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1897. $ .60 (Delightful stories for little folks about the morning glory, the geranium family, the hyacinth and the general structure of flowers) Seed Babies. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1896. | .30 (Catchy stories for little folks, such as "This is the flower so bright and gay" after "The house that Jack built") Parsons, Henry G.: Children's Gardens for Pleasure, Health and Fducation. Sturgis and Walton, New York, fi.oo (Announced for April, 1910) Parsons, Mrs. Henry M.: Report of the Children's Farm School of DeWitt Clinton Park, 1902 1904 Annual Reports of the Children's International School Farm League, 1907- 1909 Reports of Cleveland Home Gardening Association. Address the Secretary, 501 St. Clair Ave. ("The Home Gardening Association aims to make the city beautiful. It strives to interest larger numbers of people in the task. This is done through the distribution of seeds in penny packets, through illustrated lectures, through school, training and vacant lot gardens. Thirty thousand families in Cleve- land, as well as schools and civic organizations in more than one hundred other cities and villages participate in the work." See also in connection with these the reports of the Cleve- land Board of Education for school garden work in that city.) Schwab, Erasmus: The School Garden (1855). Trans- lated by Mrs. Horace Mann, 1879. M. L. Hol- brook. New York, 1879. | .50 (The eariiest boiik on the subject and by the founder of the school garden in Europe. Still a classic) r SiPH, Susan B.: School Gardening and Nature Study in Fnglish Rural Schools and in London. U. S. Dept. of .Agric, Office of Exp'm't Stations, Bulletin No. 204 (Showing what can be done under the hardest city conditions) ^^ 355 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Tree Planting: School Gardens and Schoolroom Deco- ration in Nebraska. Report of Agricultural Exp. Station, Lincoln, Neb. Bulletin No. 55 (Excellent) Weed, Clarence M.: Seed Travelers. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1902. $ .50 14 stories (7=The Wind as a Seed Distributor) (5=Seed Dissemination by Birds) (2=Seed Dispersal by Spines and Hooks) Wilson, Mrs. Lucy Langdon Williams: Nature Study in Elementary Schools. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1907. A Manual for Teachers. $ .90 Nature Study in Elementary Schools First and Second Readers. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1905- 1909. Each, $ .35 (Use these three books together in the first four years of school life and later according to the requirements of the children in the school garden. The first presupposes no special train- ing on the teacher's part nor special facilities for collecting material. The Readers lead to a love of good literature. Stories are arranged by months) 3. Books and Bulletins on Tree and Plant Life Blanchan, Neltje: Nature's Garden. Doubleday. Page and Co., New York, 1909. I2.50 (Flowers described according to color) The American Flower Garden. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. I5.00 (Gardens described according to character, as formal garden, rock garden, old fashioned garden, etc. Both books ad- mirably illustrated) Brown, Kate Louise: The Plant Baby and its Friends. Silver, Burdett and Co., New York, 1909. | .48 356 BIBLIOGRAPHY Cooke, Flora J.: Nature Myths. A. Flannagan Co., Chicago, 1909. Cloth bound, f .35; paper bound, I .25 Dana. Mrs. Wm. Starr (Mrs. F. T. Parsons): How to know Perns. 1909. f 1.50 How to know Wild Flowers. 1898. I2.00 According to Season. Charles Scribner's Sons. 1902. I1.75 Davey, John: The Tree Doctor. Saalfield Publishing Co., New York and Chicago, 1904 (Profusely illustrated) Davis, B. M.: Experimental Studies of Plant Growth. The Miami Bulletin, Series VII, No. i. Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 1907 French, Allen: Book of Vegetables and Garden Herbs. The Macmillan Company, New York, 1907. fi.75 ("Practical handbook and planting table for the vegetable gardener ') Hall, Bolton: Three Acres and Liberty. The Mac- millan Co., New York, 1907. fi.50 The Garden Yard. David McKay, Philadelphia, 1909. 1 .80 (Both show what can be accomplished on small areas of land) Harrison, F. C: The Weeds of Ontario. Dept. of Agriculture, Toronto (Good in part for the United States) Knobel, E.: Guide to find the Trees and Shrubs of New England by their leaves. Bradlee Whid- den, Boston, 1894. Paper covered, $ .50 (Trees classified by the outline of their leaves; the outlines illustrated) 357 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS LouNSBERRY, Alice : The Garden Book for Young People. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1908 (A garden book in the form of a story of a young boy and an elder sister who make so good a garden that it interests the older people of the neighborhood also. The book includes much practical knowledge of garden work and something about birds) A Guide to Wild Flowers. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1899. New Ed., 1902. $1.72 The Wild Flower Book for Young People. Fred- erick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1909. $1.50 A Guide to the Trees. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1902. $1.75 Southern Wild Flowers and Trees. Frederick A. Stokes Co., New York, 1909. I3.70 Mathews, Schuyler F. : The Beautiful Flower Garden. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1909 Familiar Trees and Their Leaves. D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1909. I1.75 Familiar Features of the Roadside (flowers, trees, insects, birds). D. Appleton and Co., New York, 1897. 1 1. 75 Familiar Flowers of Field and Garden. D. Apple- ton and Co., New York, 1909. $1.40 Northrup, Alice R.: Flower Shows in City Schools. Nature Study Review, May, 1905 Osterhaut, W. J. v.: Experiments with Plants. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1906. $1.25 (Most useful in suggesting and devising simple plant experi- ments) Powell, E. P.: The Country Home. McClure, Phil- lips and Co., New York, 1904 (Chapters on flowers and vegetables) 358 BIBLIOGRAPHY Hedges, Windbreaks, Shelters, Live Fences. Mc- Clure, Phillips and Co., New York, 1900. f .50 Roe, E. p.: The Home Acre. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1909. | .75 (Two chapters on the kitchen garden) Rogers, Ellen R.: Trees every Child should Know. 48 ill. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. 1 1. 20 (Interesting to children) ScHAUFFLER, RoBERT Haven : Arbor Day. Moffat, Yard and Co., New York, 1909. |i.oo ("Its history, observance, spirit, significance; with practical suggestions on tree planting and conservation and nature anthology") Smith, Eleanor: Songs for the Year. Silver, Burdett and Co., New York, 1909. 2 parts. Each f .15 Songs of Life and Nature. Silver, Burdett and Co., New York, 1909. f 1.25, also $ .75 Stone, Gertrude L., and Pickett, M. Grace: Trees in Prose and Poetry. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1909. f.55 (Poetry of the common trees) "^Tree Nurseries in School Gardens. Country Life in America, 1903, No. 6 Tree Planting, Methods of. Agr. Exp. Station, Lincoln, Nebr., Bulletin No. 56 Frees of Vermont. Agric. Exp. Station, Burlington, Vt., Bulletin No. 73 (Good for New England and New York) Weed, C. M. : Ten New England Blossoms. Houghton. Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1909. I1.25 359 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 4. Books and Bulletins on Animal Life in the Garden (a) Birds Babcock, Charles A.: Bird Day and How to Prepare for it. Silver, Burdett and Co., New York, 1909. $ .50 Badenoch, L. N.: Romance of the Insect World. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1909. $1.25 (Good for fourth to sixth grade children) True Tales of Insects. E. P. Dutton. I3.00 Blanchan, Neltje: Bird Neighbors. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1909. $2.00 BowDiSH, B. S.: Putting up of Bird Houses; How to make and where to place. Special leaflet, National Association of Audubon Societies. New York, 1908 Chapman, Frank M.: North American Birds. Double- day, Page and Co., New York, 1909. $2.50 (Color key to the birds. Has over 800 illustrations) Dickerson, Mary C: The Frog book, or North Ameri- can Frogs and Toads. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. I4.00 (Over 400 illustrations) Moths and butterflies. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1909. I2.50 DuGMORE, Arthur R.: Bird Homes. Doubleday, Page and Cb., New York, 1909. $2.00 Fifty common birds of Vermont. Dept. of Educa- tion, Circular XVI II, Montpelier, Vt. (Prepared for teachers and school officers) 360 BIBLIOGRAPHY Grinnell, Elizabeth and Joseph: Our Feathered Friends. D. C Heath and Co., Boston, 1909. Boards. $ .30 Birds of Song and Story. A. W. Mumford and Co., 1901. fi.oo Miller, Olive Thorne: Bird Ways. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1885. f 1.25 First Book of Birds. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1899. $1.00 Second Book of Birds. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 190 1. $1.00 Little Brother of the Air. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1892. $1.25 In Nesting Time. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, i888. I1.25 Upon the Tree Tops. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1897. 1 1. 25 True Bird Stories. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1903. fi.oo Nash, C. W.: The Birds of Ontario in relation to Agri- culture. Dept. of Agric, Toronto Pearson, T. G.: Stories of Bird Life. Johnson Pub'g. Co., Richmond, Va., 1901. f .60 (b) Insects Butterflies and Moths injurious to our Fruit Producing Plants. Agr. Exp. Station, St. Anthony Park, Minn. Bulletin 61 CoMSTOCK, Anna B.: How to Keep Bees. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1905. f i.oo CoMSTOcK, John H. and Anna B.: Manual for the Study of Insect Life. J. H. Comstock, Ithaca, N. Y., 1906. I4.00 36, AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS CoMSTocK, John H.: Insect Life. D. Appleton and Gd., New York, 1905. I1.50 ("An introduction to nature study, and a guide for teachers, students and others interested in outdoor Hfe." Better than the Manual for the average reader) Holland, W. J.: The Butterfly Book. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1898. I3.00 Howard, L. O. : The Insect Book. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1901. I3.00 Insects Injurious to Shade and Ornamental Plants. Agr. Exp. Station, New Brunswick, N.J. Bul- letin No. 181 KiRKLAND, Arthur: Usefulness of the American Toad. Farmers' Bulletin No. 196 Knobel, E.: Day Butterflies and Duskfliers. Bradlee Whidden, Boston, 1895. Paper, $ .50 The Beetles of New England. Bradlee Whidden, Boston, 1895. Paper, | .50 (Books easily slipped in the pocket; mostly illustrations, and convenient for identifying, but not reliable for all names. Used with Comstock as an authority in names, they are help- ful) MoRLEY, Margaret W.: Bee People. A. C. McCIurg and Co. 1899. I1.25 Butterflies and Bees. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1909. 1.75 Insect Folk. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1903. f .55 Little Wanderers. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1899. $.30 Peckham, G. W. and E. G.: Wasps, Social and Soli- tary. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1905. $1.50 PiERSON, C. D.: Among Pond People. E. P. Dutton, New York, 1901. |i.oo 362 BIBLIOGRAPHY Reed, Chester A.: A Bird Guide. C. K. Reed, Wor- cester, Mass., 1905. 2 parts, each f .75 Part I. Water, Game and Birds of Prey Part II. Land Birds east of the Rockies (The books are in flexible cloth 2\ by 5! inches- and contain over 200 illustrations in color. A good pocket guide) Goldfish — Aquaria — Ferneries. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1909. $ .50 Rogers, Julia E.: Life in an Aquarium. Cornell Leaflet No. 1 1 Weed, C. M.: Insects and Insecticides. 2d rev. ed., Orange Judd Co., New York, 1908 Life Histories of American Insects. The Mac- millan Co., New York, 1906. $ .50 (Delightful stories to tell the children) Nature Biographies. Doubleday, Page and Co., New York, 1901. $1.35 ("The lives of some everyday butterflies, moths, grasshoppers and flies") Fungi and Fungicides. Orange Judd Co., New York, 1894. $1.00 Stories of Insect Life: Series i and 2, 20 stories. Ginn and Co., Boston, 1897. | .50 Wright, Mabel Osgood: Heart of Nature Series. The Macmillan Cb., New York, 1904. $ .50 (Including "Stories of plants and animals;" "Sto- ries of earth and sky;" "Stories of birds and beasts") 5. The School Garden in Periodical Literature The most complete bibliography of the school garden was issued by Dr. B. M. Davis, now of Miami University, in his "School Gardens for California Schools. " published by the Chico State Normal School. Cal., in IQ04. Two hundred and fifty scattered articles are there enumerated. Since then, many others have appeared. The older list contains numerous pamphlets which are no longer accessible to 363 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS the reader. Some are obtainable at libraries where files of Country Life, Suburban Life, The Garden Magazine, IVorld's IVork, the Reports of the National Educational Association (N.E.A.), copies of the Nature Study Review, of the Journal of Education, files of reports of the horticultural societies and similar publications, and, finally, of the United States Bureau of Education, are kept. From Dr. Davis's list I have selected a few that seemed most likely and best fitted to repay a search or a trip to a large library. The best method for obtaining access to the constant outcrop of pamphlets bearing upon school-gardening is to keep in touch with national and state publica- tion lists; publications of normal schools and colleges that are already known for excellent work; and those sent out by such societies as t the American Civic Association. (a) General references ^ American Civic Association : Suggestions for Beautify- ing the Home, Village and Roadway. Outdoor Art Dep't., Pamphlet No. 5 Window Gardening. By Herbert D. Hemenway. Dept. Pamphlet No. i. 1905 Babcock, E. B.: Suggestions for Garden Work in Cali- fornia Schools. University of California, Agri- cultural Experiment Station. Circular 46. Berkeley, Cal., 1909 Bowles, J. M.: A Flower Garden for Every Child. fV or Id's Work, May, 1904 ^ Coon, Charles L. (Editor) : Geography, Nature Study and Agriculture in the Elementary Schools. A Manual for Teachers. Teachers' Bulletin H. Raleigh, N. C. Davis, B. M.: What Constitutes Successful Work in Agriculture in Rural Schools. Report of Nat. Educ. Association, 1908 DoRNER, Herman B. : Window Gardening in the School Room. Purdue University, Lafayette, Ind., 1905 t/ Hemenway, H. D.: Hartford School of Horticulture. Nature Study Review, January, 1905 364 BIBLIOGRAPHY School, Rural, Study of Crops in the Fields. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture Yearbook, 1905 (Including agricultural study as aid to other school work; laboratory exercises and materials) X Window Gardening. American Civic Association. Out- door Art Department, Pamphlet No. i. Stout Manual Training School (Menomonie, Wis.): 1899. A Handbook for Planning and Planting the Small Home Grounds (b) From Bibliography by B. M. Davis , Addis, Wellford: Course in Agriculture in Higher 1889 Elementary Schools in France. U. S. Bureau of Education. Report of Commissioners for 1889-1890, Vol. 2, pp. 1007-1013 ^ American Park and Outdoor Art Association.* Report 1903 of special school-garden session of the 7th annual meeting. Vol. 7, Part 3, pp. 1-54 (It contains report of standing committee on school grounds, which states: "1. That the American Park and Outdoor Art Association acting through its committees, individual members, and affiliated organizations, lend its active support and encourage- ment to the beautification of school grounds and to the es- tablishment and maintenance of school gardens and play- grounds for children. "2. That, in pursuance of this end, the Association co-operate with city and school officials, local associations, and other organizations: and "3. I hat the Association encourage the establishment and maintenance of courses of study in normal schools, agricul- f * The American Park and Outdoor Art Association no longer exists under this title. At St. Louis, Mo., June 10, 1904. the American Civic Association was formed by the merger of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association and the American League for Civic Improvement. AH communications should now be addressed to American Civic Association. Union Trust BIdg.. Washington, D. C. 365 ^ AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS tural colleges, and other like institutions of learning, such as will prepare teachers for work of this kind.") (This report of special school garden session also contains reports on school gardens from twenty different states, and from Porto Rico and Hawaii) Bailey, L. H.: Hints on Rural School Grounds. Cor- 1889 nell University. Experiment Station Bulletin No. 160, pp. 271-290 1903 School Gardens. Country Life in America, Vol. 3, pp. 190-192. Doubleday, Page and Co. 1903 The Nature Study Movement. Journal of Pro- ceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A., 1903, pp. 109-1 16 Baldwin, W. A.: Industrial Training in Rural Schools. 1903 Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A., 1903, pp. 193-198 Bartholomew, A. C.: Gardening; Its Role in Prepara- 1900 tory School Life. London: British Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. 6, pp. 321-325 Barton, Nellie: Lessons in Nature Study. Glen- 1902 wood, la. Institute for Feeble-Minded Chil- dren, pp. 25-29 Beard, Annie E. S.: New Methods in School Gardens. 1904 The IVorld To-day, Vol. 6, No. 5, pp. 675-681 Bessey, C. E. et al.: New Elementary Agriculture. 1904 Lincoln, Neb. The University Pub. Co., 1903, pp. 10-194 ("The school laws of Nebraska require teachers to pass a satisfactory examination in the elements of agriculture, including a fair knowledge of the structure and habits of the common plants, insects, birds, and quadrupeds, for second grade county certificates and all grades above the second. This book has been prepared and published in answer to the direct demand resultant from the law quoted above.") Blair, J. C. : The Study of Horticulture: A series of ;^3 eight articles on various phases of the subject 366 BIBLIOGRAPHY adapted for use in public schools. School News, Taylorville, ill., Oct., 1902, to May, 1903. Re- printed in the form of eight-page leaflets by publisher of School News, and sold at one cent each in quantities of ten or more Brereton, Cloudesley: The Rural School of North- 190a west France. London: British Board of Educa- tion, Special Reports, Vol. 7, pp. 9-14, 1-224 Bright, Orville T. : School Gardens, City School- 1903 yards, and the Surroundings of Rural Schools. Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A., 1903, pp. 77-8$ Corbett, L. C: Plants as a Factor in Home Adorn- '90' ment. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. Yearbook, 1902, pp. 501-518 Crosby, D. J.: School Gardens. The Outlook, Vol. 71, '9°' pp. 852-861 Children's Gardens. Prospectus of the Depart- '9°^ ment of Children's Gardens of the American Civic Association, Washington. Department Leaflet No. i , p. 8 (" The department of Children's Gardens is one of the coordinate departments of the American Civic Association formed at St. Louis, Mo., June lo, 1904, by the merger of the American Park and Outdoor Art Association and the American League for Civic Improvement. The 'Prospectus' includes: Pur- pose of the Children's-Gardens Department, Educational Value of School Gardens, Work of the Department, Recent School Garden Publications. " Under Work of the Department the plans are set forth as twofold: (1) to furnish information regarding school gardens, (2) to conduct an active propaganda tor the extension of the school garden movement.") CuMMiNGS, Horace: Nature Study Leaflets. Salt >»97 Lake City, Utah: University of Utah, State Normal School; Monthly leaflets partly devoted to school gardens, published from 1897- 1902 367 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Davis, J. E.: The Whittier School Garden. The ^903 Southern Workman, Vol. 31, pp. 598-603 ^903 A Successful School Garden. Country Life in America, Vol. 3, pp. 192-194 Fowler, W. K., et al.: The Model School, Home and 1902 Grounds, etc. Lincoln, Neb. Bulletin of State Department of Education, School Buildings and Grounds in Nebraska, pp. 102-134 y Gang, E.: School Gardens. U. S. Bureau of Educa- 1899 tion. Report of Commissioner, 1898-99, Vol. i, pp. I 067- I 084 ("This is translated from Rein's Pedagogical Encyclopedia. It is one of the best short accounts, especially from a his- torical standpoint, published. Contents: Historical review; Sites and arrangement of school gardens; Different sections of school gardens; Manage- ment; Instruction in school gardens; Educational and econo- mic significance of school gardens. ") Georgens, J. D. : Der Volksschulgarten und das Volks- »873 schulhaus. Berlin. F. Henschel, 1873, pp, 6- 190 ("This was prepared by order of the Royal Land Commission of Prussia for the Vienna Exposition of 1873. It is of special interest because of its being one of the earliest books written on school gardens. Two pamphlets, however, in which school gardens received considerable attention, were pub- lished in Sweden previous to this time: Eckstrom, 18(55)56; Lindgren, 1866") N/ Georgil, Axel: School Gardens in Sweden. U. S. 1900 Bureau of Education. Report of Commissioner, 1899-1900, Vol. 2, pp. 1447-1448 Hatch, L. A.: The School Garden at the Northern ^^^ Illinois Normal School. School News, Vol. 16, pp. 466-467 Hays, Willet M.: Rural School Agriculture: Exer- ^9°^ cises in Agriculture and Housekeeping for 368 BIBLIOGRAPHY Rural Schools. Originally issued by Univer- sity of Minnesota, Bulletin No. i. Reprint by McGill, Warner Co., St. Paul, Minn. [1905?] (" Exercises in this Bulletin . . . have been prepared for use of teachers in the rural schools of Minnesota. Recogniz- ing the unavoidable lack of preparation on the part of the teachers, each exercise includes the information necessary to the teacher conducting it. . . The effort is to aid the teacher to lead the rural school pupils to gather facts, grasp principles, and receive impressions which will start them to earnestly study to improve the industries and life of rural communities.") HiATT, Edward: School Improvement. Riverside, '902 Cal., Department of Education. Riverside County, Cal., Leaflet, pp. 1-7 ^Hooker, Susan H.: The Planting of School Gardens. '9oa> Country Life in America, Vol. i, pp. 219-221 Hunt, Thomas: Rural School Agriculture. Columbus, '0°^ O. University of Ohio, College of Agriculture and Domestic Science, University Bulletin, Series 7, No. 22, pp. i-io Karal, John: School Gardens in Russia. U. S. Bu- 1898 reau of Education. Report of Commissioner, 1897-98, Vol. 2, pp. 1 632-1 639 Latta, W. C: An Experimental Farm for Young 1898 People. Lafayette, Ind. Purdue University, Nature Study Leaflet No. 22, pp. 1-8 1898 Points for Young Farmers' Club. Ibid. No. 23, pp. 1-8 Le Bert, Richard: School Gardens in Europe. U. S. '9°° Dept. of State. Special Consular Reports, Vol. 20, Part 2, pp. 159-221 Lukens, H. T.: School Gardens in Thuringia. Educa- »8w iional Review, Vol. 17, pp. 237-241 369 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS McKay, A. H.: School Gardens. Halifax, Nova ^900 Scotia: Annual Report of the Public Schools of Nova Scotia, p. 27 1901 Agriculture, Nature Study, etc. Halifax, Nova Scotia: Manual of School Law, pp. 66-67, 77~79 ^902 School Gardens, etc. Halifax, Nova Scotia: An- nual Report of the Public Schools of Nova Scotia, pp. 3, 57-60, 73, 98, 105-106, 124, 128 Medd, J. C.: Rural Education in France. London. T902 British Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. 7, pp. 247-310 NiESSEN, Jos.: Der Schulgarten im Dienste der Er- '896 ziehung u. des Unterrichtes. Dusseldorf: L. Schwann, 1896, pp. 9-176 ("This is one of the latest and best books in German on the subject of school gardens. There is probably no better treatment of the subject to be found in any language. All phases are covered in a definite, practical way by detailed working plans.") Parsons, Fannie G. (Mrs. Henry M.) : The First Chil- ^9°3 dren's Farm. The Outlook, Vol. 74, pp. 67-72 Phelps, Charles S.: Agriculture for Teachers in Pub- '903 He Schools. Journal of Education, Vol. 58, p. 224 PoE, Clarence H.: Farmer Children need Farmer 1903 Studies. IVorld's Work, Aug., 1903, Vol. 6, pp. 3760-3762 Powell, F. M.: School Gardens. Des Moines, la. 1899 Transactions of Iowa Horticultural Society, 1899, pp. 141-149 ^ ^902 School Gardens. Glenwood, la., Institute for Feeble-Minded Children. Institute Press, 1902/ pp. L-I3 370 BIBLIOGRAPHY RooPER, T. G.: The School Gardens at the Boscombe 1898 British School. London: British Board of Edu- cation, Special Reports, Vol. 2, pp. 224-231. Reprinted by U. S. Bureau of Education. Re- port of Commissioner, 1897-98, Vol. i, pp. 224- 227 »«°' School Gardens in Germany. London: British Board of Education, Special Reports, Vol. 9, pp. 357-404 ("An account of a few of the best German school gardens") RuLAND, Karl: School Gardens. (Translated from '890 Kolnische Zeitung.) U. S. Bureau of Educa- tion. Report of Commissioner, 1889-90, Vol. i, pp. 308-311. Article reprinted. Ibid., 1897- 98, Vol. I, pp. 224-227 SiPE, Susan B.: How the Children of the Franklin "»°'» School in Washington Improved their School Grounds. Country Life in America, Vol. 5 , p. 4 1 6 Skinner, Charles R.: Surroundings of Rural Schools. '"^^ Journal of Proceedings and Addresses of the N. E. A., 1903, pp. 89-96 Smith, C. B.: A German Common School with a Gar- i8w Jen (J 5 Dept. of Agriculture, Circular 42, pp. 1-7 1900 Agricultural Industries in France. U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, Yearbook, 1900, pp, 11 5-130 Smith, H. W.: School Gardens and Agriculture. 1903 Truro, Nova Scotia: Annual Calendar, Pro- vincial Normal School, 1903-04, pp. 13-14, 21-22. 33 Southard, Lydia: School Gardens as an Educational '0°' Factor. hJew England Ma^a{ine, Vol. 26, pp. 675-678 '7 371 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS ToLMAN, W. H.: Landscape Gardening for Factory 1899 Homes. Review of Reviews, Vol. 19, pp. 441- 444 TowNSEND, G. A.: The National Cash Register Boys' 1902 Gardens. American Park and Outdoor Art Association, Vol. 6, Part 3, pp. 27-31 Troop, James: A Children's Vegetable Garden. La- 1898 fayette, Ind. Purdue University, Nature Study Leaflet, No. 21, pp. 1-8 Van Dorn, Charles: Possibilities of a Country School. ^903 School News, Vol. 16, pp. 396-398 1898 Instruction in Agriculture in Rural Schools in France. U. S. Bureau of Education, Report of Commissioner, 1897-98, Vol. 2, pp. 1 6 14- 1 621 1898 School Gardens in Europe. U. S. Bureau of Edu- cation, Report of Commissioner, 1897-98, Vol. i, pp. 224-230 ^902 School Gardens in Rochester, N. Y. Country Life in America, Vol. i, April, 1902 6. Essays — Stories — Poems Relating to a Garden The following titles are merely intended to be suggestive to the teacher by broadening thought that centers in the garden work and offering frequent opportunities for new stories that shall give the children glimpses of the garden as a part of life and literature. The writings of Thoreau, Emerson, John Burroughs, John Muir, Schuyler Mathews, of Hamilton Gibson and Dr. Henry Van Dyke and others suggest themselves. Many of the nature study courses arranged by the educational departments of the different states give scattered poems such as those of Wordsworth, Shelley, Long- fellow, Bryant, Whittier, Tennyson, etc. Some compilations have already been mentioned. The poems of Emily Dickinson and of Christina Rossetti hold numerous dainty, musical and ennobling sentiments touching on the garden. The Poetry of Nature, edited by Dr. Henry Van Dyke, prides itself upon selecting only those poems which are in all respects true to nature, though seen with the eye of the poet. 372 BIBLIOGRAPHY Arnim, M. a. B. von: Elizabeth and her German Garden. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1900 Deland, Margaret: The Old Garden and Other Verses. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1889 Earle, Alice Morse: Sundials and Roses of Yester- day. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1902 Old Time Gardens. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1 90 1 EwiNG, J. H.: Mary's Meadow, and Letters from a Little Garden. Little, Brown and Co., Boston, 1900 Flint, M. B.: A Garden of Simples. Charles Scrib- ner's Sons, New York, 1900 Freeman, M. E. Wilkins: A Gatherer of Simples. (In A Humble Romance.) Harper and Broth- ers, New York, 1887 A Lover of Flowers. (In A Humble Romance.) Harper and Brothers, New York, 1887 Graham, David: The Wind in the Willows. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1908 KiRKHAM, Stanton Davis: In the Open. Paul Elder and Co., San Francisco and New York, 1908 Jewett, S. O.: The Country of the Pointed Firs. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston and New York, 1897 Maeterlinck, Maurice: Old Fashioned Flowers. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1905 The Double Garden. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1905 The Intelligence of the Flowers. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1907 Life of the Bee. Dodd, Mead and Co., New York, 1901 373 AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS Paine, A. B.: A Little Garden Calendar. H. Altemus Co., Philadelphia, 1905 SiEVEKiNG, Albert Forbes: Gardens Ancient and Modern. J. M. Dent, London, 1899. "An epi- tome of the literature of the garden-art" Thaxter, Celia: My Island Garden. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1904 Peggy's Garden and What Grew Therein. (In Stories and Poems for Children.) Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1896 Warner, C. D.: My Summer in a Garden. Houghton, Mifflin and Co., Boston, 1898 Wright, Mabel Osgood: The Garden of a Commuter's Wife. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1901 Descriptions of Gardens from Famous Books Addison, Joseph: The Spectator. June 25, 1712, and Sept. 6, 1 712. [137]* Bacon, Francis: Essays: Of Gardens. [73] Goldsmith, Oliver: The Citizen of the World. [189] Hawthorne, Nathaniel: The Old Manse. [267] House of the Seven Gables. Homer: The Odyssey. Book VII. [3] Irving, Washington: The Sketch Book. (Rural life in England.) [249] Lamb, Charles: Essays of Elia. [238] More, Sir Thomas: Utopia. [38] Paget, Violet (Vernon Lee): Old Italian Gardens. (In Limbo and Other Essays.) G. Richards, London, 1897 * Figures in brackets refer to the pages where these references are quoted in "Gardens Ancient and Modern" ("An Epitome of the Literature of the Garden Art") by Albert Forbes Sieveking. 374 BIBLIOGRAPHY Pliny thh Younger: Letter to Apollinaris describ- ing the Tusculan garden. Translated by Wm. Melmoth. [15] Thoreau, Henry D.: Walden. [275] Wharton, Edith: Italian Villas and their Gardens. The Century Co., New York, 1904 375 INDEX INDEX (Figures in heavy type indicate that an illustration of the subject appears on that page) A B C of landscape gardening, 64 Agriculture in the school garden, 257 Air for plants. 94. 95, q6, 106 spaces, 107 Amherst Agricultural G)llege, 22 Aquatic garden, 172 Arbor day hymn, 331) Art and the school garden, 256 Assistants, children as. 45 in school gardens, require- ments for, 44, 124 salaries of, 124 Audubon School, Dubuque, la.. 67 Bacteria, 96, 108 Baldwin, W. A., 241 Baltimore, Md., Woodbery School Garden. 210, 211 Beans, 96, 1 58 Bed marker, 164, 166 Beets, I $8, 170. 247 Bellevue Hospital, school garden- ing at, 62. 63 Bird-houses, 146, 147 Blight, 173 Bloom, increase of, 106 Bone meal, 90, 106 Books, 173. 174. 185 Bordeaux mixture, 173 Bowesville (Canada) school grounds, 17 Box, first aid to the injured, 142 Boys' Brigade, Toronto, 227 Breeding cage, 199 Broadview gardens, Toronto, 15, Brown, Sir James Crichton, 59 Buckwheat, 96 Bulb planting, 5 Burdock, 217 Butterflies, check-list of thirty- four, 295 Cabbage, 71, 170, 247 butterfly, 71, 91 Canadian school garden. 1 13 school gardeners, require- ments for, 281 Capillarity of soil, 98, 99, 169 Capillary water. 91 Carbon, 95, 107 Carbonic acid gas, 95, 107 Carpenter's tools, 142 Carpet weed, 212 Carroll Robbins School Garden. Trenton, N J., 250 Carrots, 157, 170 Cauliflower, 170 379 INDEX Chart garden, 65, 171 Chautauqua Assembly, 22 Chemistry in the school garden, 256 Chicago, 111., Francis W. Parker School Garden, plan, 161 Children as assistants in school gardens, 45 Children's co-operation, 45 Cincinnati, O., Douglas School Garden, 235, 236 City school gardens, 46 Clapp, Henry Lincoln, report of, 7 Classification of school gardens, 52 Clay, 85, 87, Q2, 93, 94, 95, 106, 170 Cleveland board of education, 23 Home Gardening Associa- tion, 23 Ohio, school gardens of, 23, 233, 240 Clover, 96, 106 Coal ashes, 95 Cobbett School, Lynn, Mass., 66 Cold frames, 152, 155 Color intensity, 106 list, 154 Compost heap, 152, 155 Concord Normal School, Athens, W. Va., 75 Connecticut, school garden, 1 1 5 Continuous bloom, 1 54 Cooking, 187, 199, 303 Co-operative labor, 6 Corn, 155, 157, 248, 250 contest, Nebraska, 74 contests, 74 Cornell Agricultural College, 23 Cornell Home Nature Study Course, 23 Rural School Leaflets, 23, 186 Correlation of school garden work, 24, 37, 38, 248, 249 with agriculture, 257 with art, 256 with chemistry, 256 with domestic science, 256 with history, 257 with industrial training, 257 with language, 256 with manual training, 257 with mathematics, 256 with nature study, 254 with physics, 256 Correlation chart, 294 Couch grass, 208 Coulter, J. M., J. G., and Patter- son, A. J., 185 Cover crop, 90, 96 Cow peas, 96 Crichton-Brown, Sir James, 59 Crimson clover, 96 Crippled children, 29, 60, 268 Crops, 145 Cucumbers, 170 Cultivating stick, 99, 107, 135, .36 Cultivation, 100, 107, 188, 264 Curator of school gardens, 23 Cyanide jar, 192 Decorative effect, 152 Detention schools, gardening at, 61 380 INDEX OcWiil Cliiilon I'ark, N. Y., Schoo Farm, 28, 29, 48, 61, 63. 160. 227. 237. 353 Dibble, 137 Disintegration, chemical, 107 Ditch, 95 Dock, broad-leaved, 213, 214 golden, 207 marsh, 207 yellow, 204 Domestic science in the school garden, 256 Douglas School Garden, Cincin- nati. O., 235, 236 Drainage, q^ Dry farming, 97. 99 Duncan, Frances, 173 Dust mulch, 99 Earthworms, 97 Egg shell garden, 68, 246 Emerson, Philip, 174 Enthusiasm of the children. 265-270 Equipment, accessory, 130, 134. '35 fundamental, 130, 131, 132, •34 Exchange garden, 57 Exhibits, 273, 274 Experimental gardens, 69, 70, 71 72i 73. 79. 80 plots in Philadelphia gar- dens, 293 " Experiments with Plants," 107 Experiments with seeds, 183, 184 with soils. 98, 99 Fairview Garden School, Yon- kers, N. Y„ 29, 165, 230, 255 Fall ploughing, 89 " Farmers' Club," 128 Farming, dry, 97 intensive, 97 Felmley, David, 76, ^t, 246 Fencing, 1 18, 119, 128 Fertility of soil, 85, 87, 89. 96 Fertilizers. 97, 100, 107, 173 artificial, 86. 90, 99. too. 105, 106 commercial, 86. 90. 100. 105, 106 natural, 106 Field excursion, 228. ^65 First aid to the injured, 142 Flower list, 154, 255, 292 Flowers, 171, 238 arrangement of, 272 for high planting, 155 for small garden, 121. 155 love of, 42 Fork, 137 Formal garden, 54. S5 Formalin. 173 Forms of registration, 165 Francis W. Parker School, plan of garden. 161 Fruit crop. 106 Fundamental type of garden, 5 1 Fungus, 94 Garden, 100, 145 aquatic. 172 color sketch. 153 diary. 162 eighteen-cent. 111. iia estimates, 1 14-117. 142 38. NDEX Garden estimates, for fifty chil- | dren, 130 | expenses of, 1 13-1 17 : for fifty children, 130, 131, formal, 54, 55 | fundamental type of, 5 1 laying out, 149, 153 line, 120, 134. 137, 155, 157, 164, 166 , plan, 146, 148, 150, 153, I 161, 162, 294 records, 198, 302 rule of, 264 season, 124, 159 size of, 1 13 tape, 122 Gardener, duties of, 126 Gardening, time required for, 178, 179, 247 Gardens for special purposes, ' 57 George Putnam School, Roxbury, Mass., 66 Germination, 160, 170, 183, 184 Goodwin, Rev. Dr. Francis, 26, 27, 224 Government seeds for schools, 32 Graded work, 148 Grade work in the school garden, 243, 246, 250 Grading, 88 Grass, 92 Gravel, 85, 93 Greenhouse, 26,47, '28, 222, 230 Ground, sour, 94, 95 Ground bone, 105, 106 Ground water, 91, 169 Group garden, 53, 53, 250 • 38 Hampton Leaflets, 186 Hampton, Va., Whittier school garden, 21, 240 Hand plow, 137 Harrowing, 88, 89, 90 Hartford School of Horticulture, 26, 27, 223, 226 Hawaii, 7 Hedge, 118 Hemenway, Herbert D., 27, 173 History, and the school garden. 257 of school gardening, 3-38, 279-28 1 Hodge. Dr. C. F., 62, 185 Dr. Richard, 103 Hoe, 120, 121, 132, 134, 135 Hoeing, 138 Holtz. F. L., 185 Home Gardening Association, Cleveland, O., 23, 58 seeds distributed by, 24, 25 training garden, 24, 223, 224 gardens, 24, 247, 250, 258 Horchem, Benjamin J., 229 Humus, 85, 93, 95, 100, 108, 136 Hyannis, Mass., school gardening at, 20, 241, 242, 243, 244 Hydrant, 96, 129 Hygroscopic moisture, 91 Illinois, school gardens in, 75 Imbecile children, 59 Individual beds, see Plots. Industrial training in the school garden, 257 Insect study, 190, 191, 192, 199 Insecticides, 304 INDEX Intensive farming, 97 Iron, 107 Irrigation, 96 Ivy, poison, 2x5 Loam. 86. 87 I Los Angeles. Cal., 21 Louisville, Ky., 21 Janitor. 118 Jekyll, Gertrude, 174 "Jimson" weed. 204, 213 Johnson. Vt.. normal school. 21 school garden, 173 Joliet. 111., 21 Kearney. Nebr.. school garden, 74 Kern, O. J.. 7s Killing bottle. 192 Kindergarten work, 152. 251 Knapp, Dr. Seaman A., 74 Land, rental of, 1 13 i Landscape gardening, A. B.C. of, 64 Language in the school garden. ! 256 Lathing, uses of. 136 Latter, Lucy R., 174 Leafage, 106 Leaves. 95 Leguminosje, c>6 Lettuce, 158. 170 IJght. 145 Lime. 107 Line and stake, 137 Liquid manure. 105 Literature, school garden. 73 Litmus paper. 95 Load of earth. sho\elfuls in, S3 Macdonald Q)llege, 13, 14 Consolidated School and gardens. 35 fund. 13 Institute, 13. 16 movement. 14 school gardens, 13-20, 85, "5 Sir William C. 14 Magnesium. 107 Manual training in the school garden, 257 training, value of, 59 Manure. 86. 89, 90, 95, 99, 103. 104. 170 Market gardeners. 89 Marking board, 152. 164, 166 Massachusetts Horticultural So- ciety, 7, 26. 273 Mathematics in the school gar- den. 256 Maturity, early. 106 Measure in planting. 168 Menomonie. Wis.. 21 Mental power increased. 85. 177 Mental training by motor ac- tivity, 8. 13. 59. 85 Milkweed, 21 1 Miller. Miss Louise Klein, curator of Cleveland school gardens. 23, 58. 173 Model plot. 152 school garden. 47, 48. 150 Moisture. 95, 96. 97. io8 hygroscopic. i)i 5H) INDEX Mold, 94, 104 Monarch butterfly, iqi Mullein, 217 Muriate of potash, qo Muskmelons, 170 Nasturtiums, 171 Nathan, Miss Stella, supervisor of Philadelphia school gardens, 29 National Cash Register garden, 20, 85, 1 14, 223 Native plants for transplanting, 66, 67. 80 Nature study, 232, 254 in the school garden, 254 material, 134 Nebraska corn contest, 74 New England, school gardens in, 26 school house, -]■] New Jersey, school garden, 115 New York City, School Garden Association of, 239 New York University, 22, 160, 169 Nitrate of soda, 90, 105 Nitrates, 96, 105, 106, 107, 171 Nitrogen, 96, 107, 170 Normal, 111., State Normal Uni- versity, school garden, 244, 245, 246, 247 Novelties, 153 Ontario Agricultural and Ex- perimental Union, Schools* Division, 285 Organic matter, decaying, 95 Osmosis, 92 Osterhout, W. J. V., 107, 185 Oxygen, 106 Observation work, 152, 187 Ohio, school garden, 1 16 schools, 76 Paint, 146 Parents' day, 199 Park Life, 226, 227, 228, 229 Parsley worm, 191 Parsons, Henry G., 135, 160, 169. See Bibliography. Mrs. Henry, 4, 28, 227 Paths, 95, 136, 146, 149, 180, 18! Peas, 96, 1 06, 158 Pennsylvania, University of, school garden, 22 Penny-packet seeds, 112, 137 Pergola, 129 Philadelphia, gardens, experi- mental plots in. 293 mill girls, 266, 267 school gardens, 233. 239, 240 Phosphate, 105, 106 Phosphoric acid, 170 Physics in the school garden, 256 Pigweed, 212 Pittsburgh, Pa., school gardens, 127, 231, 232, 233, 239 Playground Association, 231, 232, 233, 239 Plan of garden, 146, 148, 150, 153, 161, 162, 294 : Plantain, 206 I Plant elements, 106 384 NDHX Plant food. 91. 92, 1)5. 106, 107 Planting, 167 day, preliminaries of, 162, .63 depth of. 162, i6q, 294 first lesson in, 167 measure in, 168 operations, 2C)6 plan. i6t), i8f), 294 rule for, 170 seeds for, 162 Plants, for all places, 287-292 for all soils, 287-292 sickly. 106 Plot, model, 152 Plots, size of, 6, 63, 1 14, 11 5, 1 16, 117, 120, 131. 139, 146, 147, 225. 252 Plotting the garden, 149 Plowing, 88, 8t), c)o, 113 Poison ivy, 215 Porosity of soil, 98, (>t) Porto Rico, 7 Potash, 105, 106 Potatoes, 173, 286 Potting, 299-301 Pricking out seedlings, 298 Productivity of soils, 86 Providence, R. 1., school garden plan, 79, 294 Pruning, ten principles of, 338 Purposes of school gardens. 222 Purslane, 207 Quicklime. 93 Radish, 158 Ragweed, 209. 211 Rain, 108 Rake, 120, 121, 132, 134, 135, 137, 170, 171 Recess period, 179 Records, garden. 198, 302 Registration, forms of. 165 Requirements for Canadian school gardeners, 281 Robertson, James W., 13 Rock garden, 67 Roller, improvised, 181 Rood, Stanley H.. 27 Root cage, 136. 183 crops, 106 fibres. 91, 92, 96 nodules, 96 Rosedale Garden, Cleveland, O., 58. 282 Rural school gardens, 46, 63 et seq. school house, 78 Kussell Sage Foundation, 230 Rye, winter, 90 St. Louis, Mo., 21 Salary, question of, 118. Salt Lake City, Utah, 21 Sand, 85, 87, 92. 93, 94. 95 pea, 96 School farm, first children's, 4 School garden, aims, 222 and boards of education, 34 as a farm, 241 as a social center. 36 assistants in, 44 definitions of, 3 description of, 49-51 economic value of. 9 exhibits. 273. 274 385 NDEX School garden, farm, 51, 64 fundamental type, 47, 5 1 instruction, 221, 247 in the school, 233-251 movement, scope of, 33 size of, 3, 63 staff, personnel, 193-198 teaching, Canadian require- ments for, 18 threefold teaching in, 4 value of, 35, 36, 37 virtues taught by, 4 work, quality of, 275 See also School Gardens. School Garden Association of New York, 239 School gardening at Bellevue Hos- pital, 62, 63 at detention schools, 61 for cripples, 60, 61 for deaf mutes, 61 for defectives, 59 for little children, 243, 246, 251, 252 for tuberculous children, 62.63 School gardens, and civic im- provement, 233 classification of, 52 ethical value of, 258 experimental work of, 69, 70, ?•' 72,73 group work, 250 history of, 6-38 in Austria, 9 in Belgium, 9 in Canada, 13-20 in England, 11,12 in France,- 10 in Germany, 9 School gardens in New York City, 237, 238 in Russia, 10 in Sweden, 9 in Switzerland, 12 in vacation schools, 222, 223 maintenance of, 43 of Philadelphia, 29 of the District of Columbia, 30 organization of, 43, 46 purposes of, 46 sociological, 222, 230, 231 truck gardening in, 222, 223 School ground decoration, 4, 24. 54, 55, 64, 65, 69, 80, 266 native plants for, 66, 67 School yard, clean, 68 Schwab, Erasmus, 174 Season of garden work, 1 24 Seed, competition, 283 measures, 137 testing, 160 Seeds, 187 choice of, 1 56 collection of, 187 cost of, 292 germination of, 160 government, 1 1 1 in flats, 296 list of, 292 penny packet, 112, 137 plump, 106 selection of, 159, 160 Sheep manure, 90, 105 Shelter, i 13, 129 Shovels, 122 Silt, 85. 93 386 INDEX Silver Lake. N. M.. 21 Sipe, Miss Susan B., supervisor of school gardens, Washington, D. C, M, 30 Size of garden, 113 of plots, 63, 114, 1 15, 116, 117, 120, 131, 139, 146, 147. 225, 252 Soil, capillarity of, 98, qq definition of, 85 depth of, 88, 89 fertility, 85, 87, 89, 96, 171 finely divided, 8q, q6, 108 for children's garden, 87, 89 grains, 94 improvement, 106 mellow, 96 particles, 92 poor, 96 porosity of, 98, 99 sour. 95 test of. 91, 146 Soils, according to formation, 86 according to productivity, 86 according to texture, 85 exhausted, 97 heavy, 88 light, 88 Sorrel, 207 South Dakota, school garden. ««5 Spades, 122, 132, 134, 140 Spading, 89, qo, 139, 140, 141 fork, 122 Spreading board for insects, 191 Squashes, 170 Standard vegetables, 271. 272 State agricultural colleges. 22 28 Stockton, Cal., school garden. "5 Stories of plants, 188 Storrs Agricultural College, 22 Street sweepings, 99. 102. 103 Subsoil. 88 Sulphur. 107 Sunlight. 108, 145 Suj)erphosphate, 90 Supervisor, work of, 123 Supervisors, salaries of, 124 Supply plot, 152 Swiss chard, 156 Tap roots, 96 Teachers of school gardening, re- quirements for, 83, 84, 85 Teaching of school garden, 4 Technical High School, Cleve- land. O.. 58 Tent, 129 Test of soil, 91 chemical, 91 mechanical or physical 92-94 simple, 91 Texas, school garden, 1 1 5 Thaxter, Celia, 173 Tillage, 107. 178, 188 Toledo, O., school garden, 114 Tomatoes, 170 Tomato worm, 191 Toolhouse, 120, 1^, 181 Tools, 120, 129. 132, 133, 134, 138 cost of, 132, 134 Top(^raphical garden. 65 Top-soil. 88. 8q 387 INDEX Toronto, Broadview gardens, 15, 227 Training garden, 148 Cleveland, O., 58 Transplanting, 137, 152, 192,301 Tree, how to plant, 336 Trees, 145 Trenching, 95, 106 Trenton, N. J., Carroll Robbins School Garden, 250 Trial gardens, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 79.80 Truck farming, 24, 89, 97 Tuberculosis, school gardening for, 62, 63 Turnips, 170 U. S. Bulletins, 32 Bureau of Plant Industry, 30'3'.74 Department of Agriculture, 30.73 Office of Experiment Sta- tions, 31 Value of small garden plots, 253 Vegetable soil, definition of, 85 Vegetables, eight quickly matur- ing, 159, 160 for small garden, 112, 155, .56 list of, 255, 292 Waiting list, 151 Washington, D. C. normal school, 21, 30 D. C, school gardens, 233, 240 Water, 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 105, 107 films, 96 quantity of, 168 supply, 169 Watering, 168 can, 122, 132, 134 Watermelons, 171 Watkinson Farm School, 27 Watterson School, Cleveland, O., 55. 56, 58 Weed, C. M., 174 Weed garden, 152, 171 Weeder, 120, 122, 132, 134, 137 Weeding fork, 122 Weeds, 107, 136, 203 common names of , 216-218 eradication of, 214 food value of, 205 Wheat, 92 Wheelbarrow, 122, 136, 141 White bean, 96 Wild flowers. See Native plants. Willimantic, Conn., normal school, 21 Wood ashes, 105 YoNKERS, N. Y„ Fairview Gar- den School, 29, 165, 230, 233. 255 ^T C LT^ ETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT pMJ^ 202 Main Library DAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE ALL BOOKS AAAY BE RECALLED 1 -month loans may be renewed bv month loans may be recharged by brine Renewals and recharges may be m DUE AS STAAnrciy »i^i.www crs 405 :ulation Desk due date FEB 17 197b OCT 9 1980 ' m 9 1 980 15 Dm.; II iQi Ok^-^ ■Mrtt — -6ft MUV 20 1979 J AUG is '97 '9*.^2^ MAY 2 200Q ^ 2-d JAN 1 5 2007 HukV Af^ \i^ 3RM NO DD 6 40m 10 ' 77 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELF' BERKELEY, CA 94720 YB 44643 U C. BERKFIFYI IBRARIES niiiiiiiii UNIVERSITY OF CAUFORNIA UBRARY