My Spring Garden 



HENRY WOOD, 

 Le com-- School, High Fifth Grade 



At the beginning of the term I found 

 my garden in a pretty bad siiape. There 

 were a good many weeds and the plants 

 were very crowded. 



The first time we went out to our 

 gardens we took out the weeds and 

 thinned out the plants. The ground 

 was wet. so we could not do any culti- 

 vating. 



We thinned out the lettuce plants 

 and had a sale at which we made 

 nearly $2. We sold most of the plants 

 to the mothers of the children. We 

 used some of this money to buy seeds 

 for the sweet pea contest. 



There are still things to do, such as 

 cultivating, pulling more weeds and 

 transplanting, but it is still too wet to 

 do much. 



We expect to have a pretty good 

 crop later on in the term. 



Caterpillars 



Fifth 



My Sweet Peas 



JIMMY RHINEHART, 

 Oakland, Franklin School, R 

 Grade 



My home garden consists of a little 

 plat of sweet peas. On Saturday, Janu- 

 ary »j, I broke the soil. I dug it one 

 and a half spade blades in depth. On 

 January 8 I bought the seeds and put 

 them to soak in a cup of lukewarm 

 water. 



The next day, January 9, I made 

 a trench the length of my plat and 

 five inches deep. Next I put the seeds 

 in the ground about an inch apart and 

 put one inch of soil over them, leaving 

 the other four inches open. 



The seeds came up on January 19. 

 Every day. as my little plants grow, I 

 gradually fill up the trench. A few 

 days ago I thinned out the plants about 

 a foot apart. My sweet peas are up 

 about four inches now. 



JANE REILLY, 

 Le Conte School, High Fifth Grade 



One day a girl in our room brought 

 three caterpillars, which our teacher 

 put in a jar. Soon after, when we 

 looked at them, instead of caterpillars 

 there were three cocoons. After that 

 two of the caterpillars formed crysa- 

 lids but the third died. The one that 

 died I am going to tell you about. 



First a fly, named ichneumon, 

 stung him in the back and laid its 

 eggs there. After that the eggs .turned 

 into grubs. The caterpillar then died 

 and shriveled up, but the grubs grew 

 larger. Soon after he was dead some 

 brown pea shaped crysalids rolled out 

 of his body. In a few days, when we 

 went to look into the jar. instead of 

 crysalids there were two flies. 



These flies were the ichneumon flies. 

 The ichneumon fly is one of the cater- 

 pillar's enemies. 



Sweet Pea Contest at School 



BROWNIE FRANCIS, 

 Le Conte School, High Fifth Grade 



When we started our plat we first 

 dug it up about two spades deep. Our 

 plat is at the southwestern corner of 

 the building. The sweet peas will 

 climb up the side of the school build- 

 ing* 



There is a lot near the school where 

 some of our boys got some fertilizer. 

 Tnis we spread over the plat. We also 

 used a bone fertilizer. These two we 

 dug into the soil, mixing them well. 



We did not do the seed planting un- 

 til a few days after. The girls planted 

 the seeds. They first made a trench 

 about two inches deep. Then they put 

 the seeds in about six inches apart. 

 We expect to make a success of our 

 sweet pea growing. Our seven varieties 

 are Countess Spencer. Prima Donna. 

 Hon. Mrs. E. Kenyon, Mrs. Willmott. 

 Lady Grisel Hamilton. Dorothy Eckford 

 and King Edward VII. 



A Word with the Teacher 



We hope that you have school gardens, not for the sake of the gardens 

 alone, not because school gardens are fashionable, but because of the larger 

 lessons toward which the gardens point. The school garden is a funda- 

 mental factor in education. It should be potential in giving new direction 

 to the old subjects. Its activities should be woven into the school work. 

 Also, you should teach by experiment the principles underlying agriculture. 

 Follow the classroom experiment into the garden, then into the community. 

 Capillary action at work in glass tubes in the schoolroom is the same force 

 which the boy gardener and the farmer must in like manner take cog- 

 nizance. Far too much farming is being done by rule and not through the 

 application of principles. Will you not give this new agricultural movement, 

 which is so fundamental to our welfare, your close attention and study? 

 It depends on you, the regular teachers, not on the university, not on the 

 supervisors, for its success. You have done considerable this term. Plan 

 to conserve the work indefinitely. The way of least resistance is to follow 

 and to teach the lessons which are printed in The Junior. 



It is a task on the university division to print and to mail out 5,000 

 copies of The Junior Agriculturist; will you not see that the paper is read 

 by the Juniors? Let it be used to give new direction to the composition 

 work. Read and discuss the editorials with the children. Make a study of 

 the "famous" pictures as they are issued. Have the children perform the 

 experiments and recite on the lessons. 



