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classes. During January a selected group of 52 children was 1n- 
vited Saturday mornings for, work in the Club Room in connection 
with the library. These children were from seven to ten years 
of age. The work was supervised and dealt with the children’s 
own manifested interest in nature books, and in the nature ma- 
terials in the room. 
A special point has been made of exhibits in the Children’s Club 
Room. An exhibit was set up weekly by the instructor, Mrs. 
Bartlett, with the help of groups of children. These exhibits 
covered a range of interests, such as decorative house plants, 
twigs for early forcing trees, plants for Christmas decoration, 
different types of indoor gardens, etc. 
The outdoor garden classes spent rather more time than usual 
on flower gardens and notebooks. 
Seed Work 
Over 550,009 penny packets of seed were distributed to children 
through the schools during 1928. 
Nature and Plant Material Supplied to Schools 
More than 800 requests have come to us from schools for nature 
material in one form or, other. This figure includes the requests 
from schools which have been supplied with over 18,000 living 
plants, for classwork and for purpose of decoration, and about 
30,000 seedling plants, which have been raised by our classes, 
for use in school and home gardens. 
Over 70,000 children have received help through the nature 
material sent to schools for use in the classroom. 
It might be of interest here to state that our three greenhouses 
given over to instruction, out of which annually thousands of 
plants go to schools and to classes for instruction purposes, are 
maintained almost entirely by work done by this Department and 
by children. Increase of stock is carried on through. cuttings 
and seeds, and each season ferns are supplied through the work 
of the Resident Investigator, Dr. Benedict. Most of our plants 
for desert gardens, and some other specimen plants are supplied 
by the Horticulturist, Mr. Free. Very few stock plants are ever 
bought. 
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