Teachers' Leaflet. 615 



class, send him some of your sandwiches. If he is a man with good digestion his 

 conversion will be immediate. 



The duplicate gardens at the children's homes may be made the source of de- 

 lightful Sunday eve lunches after a sumptuous two o'clock dinner. 



In the home garden, when the cool-loving vegetables show the deteriorating in- 

 fluence of the heat, a crop of string beans may supplement them. Beans belong to 

 the warm weather loving class. 



I fancy one of the most cheerful things that come into the life of an exile is 

 to have something to look forward to. Give the apprentice gardener the prospect 

 of a coming harvest to anticipate. Put it in the form of a festival to be made up 

 from the products of this garden. Let him build air castles over its grandeur. 

 Let the picture be something above the commonplace reception with scanty refresh- 

 ments, but rather a party supper, where all the guests go away well filled. Let the 

 apprentice not only furnish the materials for the menu, but learn the responsibilities 

 of host also. 



The pleasure of making an invitation list, and writing out the invitations may 

 be made the subject for "busy work" for a fortnight, preceding the event. If 

 begun early enough, the list will receive many revisions, particularly if each gar- 

 dener is restricted to a certain number of invitations. 



There is a bit of alloy in this scheme which is this : In most of schools the 

 children come from homes of wide difference in social standing. There will be 

 boys and girls from the homes of the plain people — in fact, of very plain people. 

 There will be hesitation and embarrassment on the part of parents from such homes 

 about accepting. The reasons may seem far-fetched to you, but it is a reasonable 

 reason to the mother with meager wardrobe and hands giving evidence of hard work. 



Let me suggest that such absentees be sent a neatly prepared package of the 

 good things of the feast, accompanied by kind messages endorsed by the teacher 

 and children host. Kind words are immortal — they never, never die — and are the 

 best of food for hungry souls. Try it and watch for the coming of a comfortable 

 feeling about your own heart. 



If you are a teacher of the Heaven-born kind — and I know >ou are if you take 

 up children's gardens — I am certain I may depend on you to make yourself eligible 

 to receive that blessing. 



In selecting the four vegetables — peppergrass, onion sets, lettuce and radish, I 

 have chosen those of the earliest cultivation to be found in the seedman's catalogues, 

 and ai the same time give a harvest before school closes in June. 



My advice is to abandon the school ground garden during the summer vacation, 

 but encourage the child to maintain the duplicate garden at home. 



Among flowers to give earliest blossoms I recommended sweet alyssum and 

 dwarf nasturtium. I say dwarf for the reason that brush or strings are not neces- 

 sary for supports. When supports are available for apprentice gardeners, I would 

 add sweet peas. All of these belong to the cold-loving class, and should be planted 

 not later than Arbor Day. It is not probable that any will blossom before the close of 

 school, and therefore, better be given a place in the duplicate garden at home. 



At a future time when I give instruction for the journeyman class, and after 

 that to the Master gardeners, I shall give direction in the management of a class 

 of plants involving larger varieties and greater complexities, and on the part of the 

 gardener greater physical strength and tenacity of purpose than I have given to the 

 apprentice class. 



"With best wishes, believe me, , Yours cordially. 



Uncle John, 



