84 THE NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [ 3 : 3 -mar., 1907 



There are many useful plants from the tropics that may 

 be grown in tubs. Some of these are coffee, tea, orange, lemon, 

 banana, pine-apple, rubber plant, date-palm and agave. Coffee 

 as an import commodity in the United States is exceeded only 

 by sugar. Coffee, sugar and tea are used in every home. The 

 citrus fruits, bananas and pine-apples are found on every fruit- 

 stand. One of the agaves yields a fiber ( sisal hemp) from 

 which Mexican hammocks are made. All of the tropical plants 

 are evergreen, and many of them are cultivated as house-plants 

 for their beautiful foliage. Plants of this order may be kept for 

 geographical study, at the same time to add beauty to the school- 

 garden, and variety to the plant collection. A study of these 

 tropical plants shows their peculiar needs, and how 7 they may be 

 adjusted to new climatic conditions. If the school can not keep 

 these tropical plants safely through the winter, then a local 

 florist will care for them in his greenhouse for a small con- 

 sideration. Sometimes a florist will rent potted plants for the 

 season. But school ownership means greater interest. 



A school-garden large enough to admit of trees should have 

 at least one of each of our native conifers : white pine, spruce, 

 balsam fir, hemlock, white cedar and tamarack. It may also 

 have a sugar maple, box-elder (the ash-leaf maple), a sassafras 

 tree, etc. 



The matured products of the school-garden should contribute 

 annually to the school-museum, and be used in geography teach- 

 ing and nature-study whenever they will illustrate such teaching. 



The classes in drawing will find wheat, corn, flax, hops, chic- 

 ory, the caster-oil plant, clover, and many other plants of the 

 school-garden both pleasing and profitable subjects for study. 

 The artist prefers single flowers to double, and the more familiar 

 plants to exotics. 



Many school-gardens are too small for the cultivation in one 

 season of all the plants here named. In such a case, let there be 

 rotation. "We have raised wheat, corn, flax, sugar-beets, tobac- 

 co, and timothy this year ; next year we shall raise rye, buck- 

 wheat, hemp, sorghum, hops and alfalfa." This will hold inter- 

 est through change of material, which in turn requires change 

 of methods of cultivation. 



