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276 ORKAMEKTAL GARDKXIN-a. 



Mr. Peter Henderson, in writing to the ''American Ag- 

 riculturist " of the fine gardens connected with the State 

 hospitals for the insane, Mendota, Wis., says: ''But 

 the most important feature of the garden operations at 

 this asylum is the employment of the patients as work- 

 men. An average of fifteen are employed in the summer 

 months during the growing season, who work on an 

 average six hours each day, and Mr. Schatzka, who is 

 evidently a careful and intelligent observer, assures me 

 that the effect on the health of the patients is marked. 

 The result is that a greater number of the garden hands 

 have been discharged as cured in proportion to numbers 

 than of others. Mr. Schatzka manages, by the aid of 

 hot-beds, to fill numerous beds that are laid out in the 

 lawn in front of the hospital with flowering plants. 

 These he quaintly terms an ' eye pasture ' for the 

 patients. These beds give enough flowers to form bou- 

 quets for the sick wards during the summer months, and 

 thus are a source of great pleasure to scores of the un- 

 fortunates within. Believing in the soothing effects of 

 flowers on some species of insanity, a gentleman recently 

 left a fund of ten thousand dollars for erecting a winter 

 garden or conservatory, to be used as a promenade 

 ground for the patients at an insane asylum in Ohio. 



" Such a garden might be attached with profit to vari- 

 ous other kinds of public institutions, for in nearly all 

 cases the labor could be mainly done by the inmates, not 

 only without cost, but to their physical, mental, and 

 moral advantage. The grounds surrounding the various 

 public buildings on Blackwell's Island, New York, and 

 at Flatbush, Long Island, are, and have been so for 

 many years, models of excellent cultivation, and reflect 

 credit on the management ; but there are many others 

 in the suburbs, and hundreds in all sections of the coun- 

 try, where no attempt whatever has been made, and in 

 others it is so feeble that it has amounted to nothing. 



