REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON CHILDREN'S 

 GARDENS FOR THE YEAR 1907. 



BY HENRY SAXTON ADAMS, CHAIRMAN. 



The year 1907 has brought to your committee the fruit of its 

 previous work and experience. The entries for our various garden 

 contests have not only been greater in number but have extended 

 over a larger area, showing that not only is the children's garden 

 movement spreading, but that we have come into close touch with 

 the movement throughout the state. We had a total of forty-nine 

 entries from thirty-two different places. Let us note the progress 

 of the school garden movement during the year. 



A most successful School Garden Conference was held in Feb- 

 ruary as an all-day meeting of the Massachusetts School Super- 

 intendents' Association at Tremont Temple. This meeting was 

 divided into four sections, taking up at each section various phases 

 of the movement in its relation to the city, country, suburb, and 

 village. The Society was represented at this meeting by your 

 chairman. A large number of enthusiastic school superintendents, 

 teachers, and others were at the conference and from the interest 

 shown ii is evident that the school superintendents of Massachusetts 

 are seriously taking up the matter of school gardens. 



It is to be expected that the movement will gain a foothold in 

 many locations the present year, and there is no greater opportunity 

 for our Society to do good work than through the efforts of its com- 

 mittee on children's gardens. It is most interesting to observe 

 the results which our awarding of prizes to gardens has brought 

 about. In one case school gardening was taken up experimentally 

 on borrowed land. It was made enough of a success to be awarded 

 one of our prizes and thus encouraged and interested the trustees 

 of the institution where the experiment was made, purchased the 

 land, not only insuring school gardens but also adding materially 

 to the equipment of the institution. In other places our prizes have 



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