274 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
and therefore important for study next to trees, are flowers and vegetables. 
Last year, with a very different motive, the Improvement League had given 
vegetable seeds. The object then was to interest those of the older boys 
who were not especially interested in the culture of flowers and who, we 
thought, might become interested in the more practical work of vegetable 
gardening. The results were varied. Some were wonderfully successful, 
and admiring relatives in many families testified to the superior quality of 
these home grown vegetables. We did not see many of them, for they were 
eaten up as fast as they reached the proper stage of development. 
But, on the whole, the experiment was not as successful as the flower 
culture had been; there were many failures, owing to the lack of knowledge 
of how to plant and care for the vegetables. The question was, how to 
supply this knowledge? Miss White’s little pamphlet was the guide in the 
culture of the flowers, but we had no Miss White in the vegetable business 
and consequently nothing in way of instruction for the would-be agricul- 
turists. 
To make a long story short, we learned through the secretary of the 
State Horticultural Society of Professor Shaw’s famous garden, and as 
Secretary Latham assured us that Professor Shaw had never been known 
to refuse to help in any good work, it resulted in our bringing the matter 
before him and asking his advice and help. The rest many of you know. 
The little gardeners were invited to Professor Shaw’s home in St. Anthony 
Park, to an open air lesson beside his famous garden—this to be followed 
by a trip over to the Agricultural College to see the animals, and all that 
could be seen in one afternoon. The Twin City Transit Company most 
generously furnished chartered cars and free transportation for the children 
on three consecutive afternoons, three parties, consisting of eighty boys 
from the Washington school the first day, eighty boys and girls from the 
Peabody school the second day and a hundred and twenty-five from the 
Holland school the third day. Nearly three hundred children, in all, re- 
ceived the grandest lesson in nature-study they had ever known and spent 
the happiest half day of their lives. 
On the day following the excursion the children were unable to keep 
their thoughts upon their lessons and so were given permission to write 
letters. Many were written to Professor Shaw, many to the street car com- 
pany and many to the chairman of the flower committee. All are interesting, 
and it has been difficult to decide which to choose. All are just as they were 
written, each a perfectly natural, spontaneous expression of appreciation. 
Here are a few chosen almost at random: 
(These letters are printed verbatim, just as written.—Secretary.) 
Dear Mrs. Barnard:— : 
I enjoyed it very much down atthe stock farm, and Ihope you did too. 
I learned more about planting yesterday, than I have any other day in my 
life, for I did not even know that we should plough up the garden in the 
fall, or leave it humpy, so that the frost can act on it in the winter. And if 
it did not rain for two or three weeks I would turn the hose on and sprinkle 
the garden, but Prof. Shaw has showed us another way, and he said he 
hadn’t waiered his garden for two weeks, and yet he can keep his plants 
from dying. He told us to keep the earth on top fine, and that keeps the 
moisture in. He showed us how to keep the weeds out too, he said we 
should get a hoe and turn it side ways and hoe the earth up, and that will 
turn the roots of the weeds up and they will die. 
Then Prof. Shaw took us to a barn where some cattle were and talked 
