REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON SCHOOL GARDENS, ETC. 305 



on exhibition at the Mechanics' Fair. Every pupil at the end of 

 his study wrote a composition on ferns, and it remained an uncor- 

 rected first draft. 



Various classes in the school during the autumn studied 

 composite flowers and the distribution of seeds, by means of the 

 material obtained in the school garden and by visiting it. The 

 dahlia tubers and gladiolus corms have aided two classes in the 

 fall study of roots. 



The garden has been established five years, and the size, 

 beauty, and vigor of the plants must be ascribed no less to proper 

 time in which plants can grow than to good care and changing 

 them to suitable conditions. During these five years an attempt 

 has been made to carry out the instructions of the Committee, 

 namely, to stock the garden with wild native plants and economic 

 plants, to illustrate the actual use made of the garden by means 

 of children's graphic work, and to present photographs of such 

 plants as would give the Committee a somewhat adequate idea of 

 the contents and condition of the garden. 



Some cultivated plants, although not required, have been 

 introduced to play a minor part, chiefly for the ornamentation of 

 the grounds and the decoration of teachers' desks. The cultivated 

 plants have not been named, but each native wild plant bears a 

 oopper-wired tree-tag on which its name is written. 



No attempt has been made to arrange the wild native plants, 

 such as asters, golden-rods, and ferns, in decorative or ornamental 

 beds ; first, for the reason that the Committee in their instructions 

 have expressed their disapproval of mere ornamental beds ; and, 

 second, for the reason that beds of any considerable size have 

 been found to be of little use for practical work. When fiftj^-six 

 pupils at a time are to study growing plants the plants must be ae- 

 <3essible, and therefore scattered as much as is consistent with other 

 conditions, especial!}^ that of caring for the plants and mowing 

 the grass about them. Three or four times as many children can 

 examine twenty plants set in rows as can examine them arranged 

 in a bed ; and the work of weeding the plants and cutting the 

 grass in the former arrangement is not half as much as in the 

 latter. 



During the long summer vacation the janitor of the school 

 building weeds and waters the plants and cuts the grass period- 

 ically. In spring and autumn he wheels in and spreads fertilizing 

 9 



