SCHOOL GARDEN- REPORTS. 207 



the first contract. The plan has proved practical in our experience and 

 we commend it to others. 



The measure of success we have attained has been in the face of diffi- 

 culties rather than in view of uniformly favorable circumstances. 



Report of the School Gardens, Fairhavex, Mass. 



BY MISS AXX.\ BAILEY TROWBRIDGE. 



Second Prize, Class B, 1906. 



Although school gardening is now accepted as part of the training of 

 the boys and girls in the grammar grades of Fairhaven, yet the interest 

 and enthusiasm aroused four years ago has never waned, and each year 

 the results of the youthful gardeners attract more and more attention. 



In reviewing the work of the past season we feel that a more thorough, 

 practical knowledge has been gained in the contact with the soil than 

 ever before; pupils have worked out for themselves the causes of success 

 or failure in their little garden plots; over-abundance of moisture, sterility 

 of soil and drought have been encountered, discussed and dealt with in 

 the most feasible manner. In this miniature farming village good-fellow- 

 ship has existed at all times, and intense seriousness emphasized the work 

 of the season just closed. 



In the verj^ early spring, ))efore labor could be assumed out of doors, 

 a definite series of lessons, relating to gardening and illustrated by experi- 

 ments, w-as carried on in the school room. A study of soils was made, 

 the essentials of germination considered, the effect of moisture, depth 

 of planting, and kindred topics debated upon. Notebooks were kept 

 showing drawings which served to illustrate the experiments performed 

 by the boys and girls during their laboratory period. With the month 

 of May work was begun in earnest in the open air. The plan of the gardens, 

 as shown in the report of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society for 1905, 

 was carried out as usual, the method of planting still the same. The east 

 border was devoted to flowers and vegetalales, and where a row of zinnias, 

 phlox, or lettuce failed to develop for a young worker, there was an abun- 

 dant supply to be obtained from this well-stocked border. Thus trans- 

 planting was taught and effected. 



Some of the native shrubs as clethra and viljurnum which were placed 

 in the gardens last spring by ambitious boys bloomed profusely and that 

 moisture-loving shrub, the RJwdodendron viscosum, adapting itself to its 

 new environment offered us its fragrant blossoms. 



A study of our most common weeds was carried on through the spring 

 and summer months. First, it was necessary that every boy and girl 



