US THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [i, 3, may 1905 



Petunia, mixed varieties ; slow in starting" but a rapid grower 

 and always covered with bloom ; does well only in sunny windows. 



We all admire the beautiful plants that the florists grow in their 

 greenhouses, and no one questions but that they raise the moral 

 standing and develop the esthetic taste, the love for nature and 

 things beautiful. It would not be wise to try to grow some of 

 the delicate plants that the florists have, but the above are excel- 

 lent substitutes for the window garden which is the teacher's 

 greenhouse. 



A WILD-FLOWER GARDEN 



BY ISABELLA G. DIGGINS 



Teacher of Grade V, Upsala St. School, Worcester, Mass. 



To have a garden in our school-yard seemed almost beyond 

 possibility. The soil was sand and gravel overlaid with cinders, 

 making a hard surface. It was necessary to procure rich loam 

 to cover the cinders in order to provide for our plants. All the 

 children in the building from the first grade to the seventh, wil- 

 lingly carried all the loam they could procure, bringing the earth 

 in baskets and boxes, old dishes, handkerchiefs, and any old bits 

 of paper, cloth or crockery that would hold a handful of dirt. In 

 three days we had enough loam brought in to begin work. We 

 chose a strip three feet wide along the east fence which was one 

 hundred and ninety-two feet long. Then we spread the loam, 

 with a borrowed shovel, to the depth of several inches, and after 

 sodding the border were ready to begin planting. 



We planned to have three types of wild plants : creeping vines, 

 herbaceous plants and shrubs. The only vine procured was wood- 

 bine, but we made up for our lack of vines in our fine assortment 

 of herbaceous flowering plants. Among shrubs we procured 

 azalea, sheep-laurel and wild cherry. The azalea lived only long 

 enough to blossom, because it was transplanted too late in the 

 spring. The wild cherry is thriving yet. But of all the shrubs 

 the sheep-laurel grew best. We procured sixty varieties of wild 

 flowers, and they all lived and blossomed. Some of these flowers 

 were transplanted from the woods, while others were grown from 

 seeds. Those which were transplanted gave the best results, the 

 most successful being the violet, white daisy, cone flower, buttercup, 



