REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON SCHOOL GARDENS, ETC. 343 



Most of the ferns were collected in Maine, and contributed to 

 the garden by Miss Katharine W. Huston of this Committee. 



By the aid of the boys, a fernery was made last fall in an angle 

 of the north wall of the school-building. They took hand-carts, 

 went into the woods, and collected leaf-mould, which they mixed 

 up thoroughly with loam, and then assisted in taking the ferns 

 from scattered places in the garden, bringing them together, and 

 locating them by genera. The name of each species was written 

 on a flat stick, which was stuck into the ground near the specimen 

 to which the name belonged. 



These specimens, added to other species of the same kind in the 

 garden, will furnish material for the study of ferns Many lan- 

 tern slides of fern fronds have been made, and many more will be 

 made, from negatives which were taken with a hand camera in 

 Maine and Canada, during the summer of 1894. The slides are 

 of three kinds : first, of the reproductive organs of ferns, photo- 

 graphed from plates in books belonging.to our library ; second, of 

 pressed and mounted fronds of ferns ; third, of fern fronds grow- 

 ing in their native homes. This series of slides will be of the 

 greatest service for class instruction during the winter, and will 

 lead to an appreciation of the interesting developments to appear 

 in the fernery' and school garden in the coming spring. 



The bright anticipations of the fourth season of the garden have 

 been more than realized, and the fifth season is anticipated with 

 no less interest and hopefulness. 



Henry L. Clapp, 

 Principal of the George Putnam School. 



KEPORT ON THE ROBERT G. SHAW SCHOOL GARDEN, 

 SEASON OF 1894. 

 This school made its first attempt in the line of school-garden 

 work the past season. The original plan was, in addition to 

 planting the garden vegetables and flowers, to transplant from the 

 fields and woods of West Roxbury and vicinity the ferns, and the 

 more interesting flowers and shrubs, and, in coming years, to 

 introduce from other places such plants as might seem desirable. 

 Owing, however, to the fact that the city is soon to regrade the 

 school grounds, it was thought best not to set out any perennials 

 this year, but to give our chief attention to garden vegetables and 

 annual flowers. 



