170 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



a description of it. The school garden would furnish most of the 

 material necessary for the winter's work, — seeds, buds, bulbs, 

 tubers, corms, fleshy roots, pressed leaves and flowers, and other 

 material. 



Already much of such material has been used for a number of 

 years by the pupils of the George Putnam School. Pupils of the 

 fourth class make beautiful designs of pressed leaves, which they 

 are accustomed to collect. Each pupil draws from five to twenty 

 or more designs, according to his skill and interest, during the 

 school year. The work goes on almost of itself, and the children 

 are delighted to handle and adapt plant material to purposes of 

 ornamentation. 



Here are fifty-seven sheets of designs, representing fifty-seven 

 pupils of the fourth class. These designs have been drawn 

 recently from natural leaves. The pupils of the first class have 

 made many pen-and-ink drawings of various kinds of grasses, 

 such as timoth}', red-top, Bermuda grass, knot-grass, wild oats, 

 wild rye, wheat grass, panic grass, etc. Under the skilful direc- 

 tion of their teacher, who is a member of this Society, these 

 pupils are learning to see as never before ; are acquiring facility 

 and power in representing objects that will add much to their 

 usefulness and happiness in life, and at the same time are working 

 toward horticulture, — not away from it. 



Here are four hundred and eighty-one drawings of grasses, 

 recently made from natural specimens, by the pupils of the first 

 class. In addition they collect, press, and mount wild flowers, 

 to serve as material in drawing and language work. Their 

 written descriptions of man}^ varieties of wild asters, and charac- 

 teristic drawings of the mode of growth of each variety, serve the 

 legitimate purposes of school work and continually suggest 

 Nature. The derivation of specific names and other words from the 

 same roots is made a valuable study. Such work connects 

 Nature with the school ; it directs the attention toioards plant life 

 rather than away from it. 



The school garden is a place for children to be liappy in." 

 Many a child will remember it with affection, when he reaches the 

 adult age, and we may naturally expect that when he acquires 

 wealth he will remember it in a substantial way. At all events it 

 is reasonable to suppose that many men and women will return to 

 the pleasures of horticulture when tliey have earned a competence 



