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THE GARDENERS' CHRONICLE OF AMERICA. 



SCHOOL GARDENS, THEIR BEARING ON THE 

 FUTURE. 



No\v-a-days, when the cry of "back to the land" is 

 heard on every side, it may be as weU to take a peep at 

 the work which has been, and is still being done in the 

 school gardens throughout the country. 



Not many years ago, when school gardening was in 

 its infancy, there were many people, and among them not 

 a few professional gardeners, who rather deprecated the 

 idea of teaching gardening in our elementary schools and 

 wondered where all the boys would get jobs in gardens. 



These people looked on the wrong side of the picture. 

 School gardening was never meant to train all the boys 

 to be gardeners ; far from it, the idea was to provide an 

 educational asset. The work being practical, it provides 

 both manual and mental training, it encourages the chil- 

 dren to observe accurately, and arouses their interest in 

 nature. Experience has shown that the teaching of gar- 

 dening causes not deterioration in the general school- 

 work. On the contrary, it is found to promote a more 

 intelligent interest in the ordinary school subjects by 

 showing their practical utility in the processes of every- 

 day life. Subjects with which it can be profitably cor- 

 related are, composition, mensuration, nature study and 

 drawing, thereby enabling the scholars to describe the 

 various operations in which they have been engaged. 

 How does this bear upon the future? The majority of 

 school gardens are to be found in rural districts, and it 

 is there where the practical benefits will be seen. 



If we visit the average laborer's garden, say two or 

 three times a year, we can easily trace the old rule-of- 

 thumb method still in practice as in generations ago. 



True, he often gets good results, but that can generally 

 be traced to his having stumbled, as it were, onto some 

 good method. The old saying runs, "The boy of today is- 

 the man of tomorrow," and when the boy does reach the 

 manhood stage and has a garden of his own to attend, 

 it cannot be denied that he, with his early grounding in 

 gardening, will be better able to cultivate his garden more 

 successfully than his father before him. The early train- 

 ing will in most cases have taught him to look upon his 

 garden as a valuable asset to cherish it, and also to look 

 upon it as a commercial enterprise. — Exchange. 



THE PANAMA-PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL 

 EXPOSITION NURSERIES. 



This photograph shows a portion of the Panama- 

 Pacific International Exposition nurseries. In addition 

 to these nurseries, located on the Presidio reservation 

 close to the grounds, thousands of cuttings are being 

 grown in the San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys. 

 When the buildings are finished an army of landscape 

 gardeners and workmen will begin setting out upon the 

 grounds and in the courts trees, flowers, palms and rare 

 shrubs ; these include innumerable orange trees, bulbs 

 from Holland, giant tree ferns from Australia, rhodo- 

 dendrons from at home and abroad, and banana plants 

 from General America. Thousands of cuttings are being 

 raised in the exposition greenhouses. The landscaping 

 around the service building, the first completed structure, 

 is finished. The exposition palaces will be set as in a 

 semi-tropical paradise ; in the vast inner courts wonderful 

 floral eft'ects will lend warmth and color and beauty to 

 the colossal gruujiing of statuary and huge colonnades. 



THE NUR.SKKIKS OF THE P.W.AM.^-P.ACI FIC INTERN.-\TION".\L EXPOSITION ON THF, PRESIDO RESERV.ATIOX, (ALI FORMA. 



