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Two of the boys who have taken work consecutively for the 
past three years in the conservatory and garden classes of the de- 
partment of public instruction have recently been placed in gar- 
dening positions by the curator; one boy with a local florist, the 
other with Mr. John Lewis Childs, at Floral Park, L. I. The 
first boy refused an offer of a clerical position paying seven 
dollars a week more than he receives from the florist. A number 
of boys who have found their chief life interests in our work for 
older boys and girls are planning to continue it in an agricultural 
school or college. 
Registration for plots in our children’s gardens for 1g18 are 
already being received; the first were by two high school boys, on 
September 20. 
On September 19, Public School 36 presented a mission seat 
for our children’s room. The seat was made entirely by three boys 
of the school in their manual training class. The acting prin- 
cipal of the school is Miss Johanna Becker, who completed our 
course for teachers of gardening in 1915. The gift was most 
timely and very greatly appreciated. 
Mi (Gos Ef. Pring, in charge of conser vatories, Missouri Botan- 
ical Garden, St. Louis, was a caller at our Garden on Septem- 
ber 14. 
Among rare plants in bloom in our conservatories during Sep- 
tember was the orchid, Stenoglottis longifolius. The specimen 
was received last spring from Mr. Harold I. Pratt. 
The Garden library has recently secured by purchase a steel 
engraving of Sir W. J. Hooker, the first director of Kew Gar- 
dens, England. The engraving is by H. Cook from the painted 
portrait by T. Phillips, R.A., and was published by Fisher Son & 
Co., London, 1834. Accompanying the portrait are five auto- 
graph letters of W. J. Hooker, and one of his illustrious son, 
Sir Joseph D. Hooker, the second director of Kew. 
