446 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In 1890 there were nearly eight thousand school gardens — gar- 

 dens for practical instruction in rearing trees, vegetables, and fruits — 

 in Austria. The Austrian public-school law reads : " In every school 

 a gymnastic ground, a garden for the teacher, according to the cir- 

 cumstances of the community, and a place for the purposes of agri- 

 cultural experiment are to be created. School inspectors must see 

 to it that, in the country schools, school gardens shall be provided 

 for corresponding agricultural instruction in all that relates to the 

 soil, and that the teacher shall make himself skillful in such instruc- 

 tion. Instruction in natural history is indispensable to suitably 

 established school gardens. The teachers, then, must be in a condi- 

 tion to conduct them." 



In France gardening is practically taught in twenty-eight thou- 

 sand primary and elementary schools, each of which has a garden 

 attached to it, and is under the care of a master capable of imparting 

 a knowledge of the first principles of horticulture. No one can be 

 appointed master of an elementary school unless qualified to give 

 practical instruction in cultivating the ordinary products of the 

 garden. 



In Sweden, as long ago as 1871, twenty-two thousand children 

 received instruction in horticulture and tree planting, and each of 

 two thousand and sixteen schools had for cultivation a piece of land 

 varying from one to twelve acres. 



Still more significant is the recent establishment of many school 

 gardens in southern Russia. In one province two hundred and 

 twenty-seven schools out of a total of five hundred and four have 

 school gardens whose whole area is two hundred and eighty-three 

 acres. In 1895 these gardens contained one hundred and eleven 

 thousand fruit trees and two hundred and thirty-eight thousand three 

 hundred planted forest trees. In them the schoolmasters teach tree, 

 vine, grain, garden, silkworm, and bee culture. They are supported 

 by small grants of money from the country and district councils. In 

 the villages, small orchards and kitchen gardens are connected with 

 many primary schools. This movement has also widely spread over 

 different provinces of central Russia. 



If the establishment of school gardens in the country is a wise 

 step, the advantages of such gardens in cities should be apparent at 

 once. 



Since 1877 every public school in Berlin, Prussia, has been 

 regularly supplied with plants for study every week, elementary 

 schools receiving specimens of four different species and secondary 

 schools six. During the summer, at six o'clock in the morning, two 

 large wagons start from the school gardens, loaded with cuttings 

 packed and labeled for the different schools. The daily papers 



