SCHOOL GARDENS. ; \ '. ' ' '.. :\ 5 *'2 '''39 



his many cracks in it and is very dry. It has dried out lost its 

 moisture through these cracks and through many small openings. 

 If these openings are covered the evaporation is arrested. We 

 might accomplish this by covering the surface with straw or other 

 mulching material; but we may do it much easier by keeping a 

 thin, dry, dust covering which is secured by stirring the surface 

 once or twice a week with a rake. 



Our bed has been spaded and raked, what shall w T e put in it? 

 Something that will grow quickly and give us plenty of flowers. 

 We would suggest sweet peas first. They grow three or four te : et 

 high and should be placed in the background. The seeds are' 

 cheap and easily obtained. Plant them at least three inches deep. 

 They should be put in early in the season in the last week of 

 April or the first week in May, before the corn planting time. 

 Place the seeds an inch or two apart in the row and thin the plants 

 when they come up so that they will stand four or five inches apart. 

 They may either be planted in double rows six inches apart or in 

 little clumps. Sweet peas have weak stems and should be given 

 something to lean upon. Small branching limbs of trees will do 

 very well stuck in the ground behind the rows or in the center of 

 each cluster. It should not be imagined that one must use the 

 rather unsightly brush to hold up the sweet peas. Wire netting 

 does well, but this is more difficult to get and more costly to pur- 

 chase. Anyhow sweet peas may be grown without either brush 

 or wire netting. They take up a little more space if allowed to 

 tumble about unsupported, but will give nearly as many flowers as 

 if staked. 



There are many kinds of sweet peas. A slight difference in the 

 height of a plant or in the color of the flower allows the seedsman 

 to call it a variety and give it a name. Sweet peas are sold in 

 mixed packages which contain a variety of colors and in packages 

 of a single color only. The single colors will be found more in- 

 teresting. So let us buy some purples, lavenders, whites, pinks 

 and yellows. Seedsmen's catalogues describe each variety so that 

 selection is easy. Discuss the matter with the scholars, choose 

 the variety and raise the money by taking up a collection. When 

 the plants begin to flower remember that it is nature's work to 

 produce seed. If the flowers are picked off each day the plant 

 keeps on trying to produce seed by growing more flowers, and 

 thus the flowering season may be much extended. 



So much for sweet peas. What else shall we grow? The 

 sweet peas will furnish us an abundance of bloom during mid 

 summer but begin to wane in September. Asters bloom best late 



