53 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 -.2— Feb., 1912 



only of their own locality, but of other important agricultural 

 regions. Four thousand (4,000) requests were received for these 

 collections last year. Less than 3,000 were complied with. In fill- 

 ing these requests 350,000 packages of vegetable seeds, 200,000 

 packages of flower seeds and 36,000 packages of economic seeds 

 have been used. They have gone to every state and territory 

 in the United States but Arizona and Nevada; to Alaska, 

 Hawaii, Panama, Porto Rico and the Philippines. This bureau 

 has also published a general school garden bulletin treating of 

 methods and plans of school gardens, together with laboratory 

 exercises for both indoor and outdoor gardening. A second 

 bulletin has been published on window-box gardening. 



During recent years an efifort has been made to provide 

 planting plans for higher grade agricultural institutions. Con- 

 solidated schools offering instruction in agriculture as well as 

 agricultural high schools and colleges have been included in this 

 scheme. It is not deemed possible to extend the courtesy at 

 this time to city schools and small rural schools owing to the 

 limited force which can be assigned to this work. 



The Bureau of Plant Industry has also used the Normal 

 School at Washington and the public schools of the District of 

 Columbia to test the practicability of gardening in city schools. 

 It furnishes the Normal School with a greenhouse where the 

 student teachers are given a course in their senior year in plant 

 propagation. The material thus grown is used in beautifying the 

 school grounds of the city. Until two years ago it furnished 

 land in the park surrounding the office buildings sufficient for 

 350 children to cultivate gardens. The erection of the new ad- 

 ministration building necessitated the abandonment of this gar- 

 den, but a cooperative agreement has been entered into whereby 

 these two bureaus here represented still continue their aid to 

 the schools, and in return the writer of this paper makes an 

 annual report to the Chief of Experiment Stations, placing spe- 

 cial emphasis on any new features, and has inspected and re- 

 ported upon, without compensation, the status of school gardens 

 in New England and the Middle West, the states west of the 

 Rockies, and in England. 



The work in Washington stands preeminently for training 

 of its teachers through the Normal School ; for home gardens 

 both of its student teachers and children ; for systematically 

 teaching the subject in its graded schools by means of a course 

 inserted in the nature study course, and for the moral influences 

 of garden work. In this latter connection it is well to refer 



