30 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1904. 



and other e very-day vegetables. Each kind of vegetable has 

 a separate bed. 



The company furnishes seed, fertilizer and tools. The boys 

 plant the seeds and care for the plants. The boys develop the 

 most lively interest in their gardens. They can take all the 

 vegetables. One boy last year produced enough vegetables to 

 provide food for a family of four and cleared five dollars. Others 

 were equally successful. 



The company offers prizes to the boys having the neatest 

 gardens, and those which produce the most. Three officers 

 of the company, who have no relatives in the gardens, are 

 judges, and once a week they inspect every garden, and at 

 the end "of the season prizes are awarded. 



President Patterson says it is a great success. Just before 

 he left the United States on a trip to Europe, the boys gave 

 him a banquet at a club of officers of the company. There 

 were about two hundred present, and all the vegetables used 

 were grown in the boys' gardens. 



Boys are allowed to use their gardens two years in succession ; 

 they are then given diplomas and their gardens turned over 

 to other boys. When the gardens were laid out, the land was 

 worth but $300 a lot, but now it cannot be bought for $900 

 a lot. 



On the outskirts of almost any city, one can secure land 

 at about $100 an acre. Get ten acres, and you would have 

 all the land necessary for a first class set of children's gardens. 

 The cost of buildings, such as a small conservatory, tool houses 

 and shelters, would be about $300. A head gardener could be 

 secured for about $500 a season, six months. 



At Hyannis, on the cape, there are children's gardens in 

 connection with a normal school. They are successful. There 

 is nothing like practical gartlening to assist in nature study, 

 geography, horticulture and other subjects. In connection 

 with these gardens, the study of bookkeeping is taken up. 

 The children keep account of the seeds they use, the hours 

 they work, and the time occupied in the growing of vegetables. 



When they sell vegetables, they make a record of the proceeds. 



