194 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



result has been for the advantage of both the society and the 

 children. The same course was pursued at a recent farmers* 

 institute at Topsfield with promising results. The Society should 

 look into this matter careful!}, and wherever it sees an opportunity 

 to elevate the education of children it should improve it. It has 

 already done much in shaping opinion in regard to the cultivation 

 of flowers, especially in New England, — perhaps more than we 

 realize. That flowers are cultivated as much as they are from 

 northern Maine to the southern boundarj- of Connecticut is largely 

 due to the influence of this Society. Whatever we can do to 

 improve the cultivation of fruits, flowers, and vegetables, especially 

 among children, let us try to do it. 



Francis H. Appleton said that as a member of the State Board 

 of Agriculture he should be glad to promote an}- movement which 

 the Board might make in the direction indicated by the last 

 speaker. This State has been a pioneer in education, but perhaps 

 some other States are now in advance of us in the special depart- 

 ment under consideration. 



John S. Martin, by request, related some experience in regard 

 to the subject before the meeting. When a young boy he was 

 transferred from the public schools in this city to one in Maine 

 where the schoolhouse was very different from those in Boston. 

 Near it was a piece of woods belonging to the school grounds, and 

 in this a patch was cleared and planted by the boys and girls with 

 flowers which they collected in the woods and elsewhere. This 

 place the children made their playground and ate their dinners 

 there, and there were no quarrels among them, but great comfort 

 and enjoyment. No bad language was heard, and the speaker 

 did not believe there was a happier group of children in the State. 

 He felt much interested to have school gardens in Boston if 

 possible, for there is nothing more desirable as an educational 

 influence. 



Henry L. Clapp, principal of the George Putnam School in 

 Roxbury, and author of the paper which had led to this discus- 

 sion, said that while he thought highly of school gardens, such as 

 had been described by the preceding speaker, his purpose was to 

 have plant culture for educational purposes. He had known school 

 gardens to be robbed, and he would not cultivate in them such 

 flowers as would attract robbery, but ferns and grasses and similar 

 plants. His idea was that time now given to the study of plants 



