AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



children in a distant school building would also 

 like to own one. They were quite sure that a 

 hedge like theirs would be much appreciated. 

 The curator of the school gardens then explained 

 that if the Watterson children were willing, besides 

 giving the cuttings, to do a little work for those 

 distant schoolmates, the latter could have a hedge. 

 They cheerfully agreed to help. For busy work, 

 they stripped the leaves. Then, they gathered 

 the cuttings into groups of twos and threes, of 

 fives and tens, and then into fifties. These 

 large bundles were sent to another school where 

 the children would lend their cold frames to 

 **bank" or house the cuttings during the winter 

 and to give them an early start so that the new 

 hedge would be ready as soon as possible to 

 make rapid and sturdy growth. Some of the 

 children in the Watterson school were given the 

 stripped leaves, with which they were told to lay 

 out on their desks designs of any shape. Later, 

 there was a little nature study talk upon the con- 

 struction of the leaf and how it serves the parent 

 plant, and attention was called to the difference in 

 color of the upper and under sides. The children 

 were asked to remake their designs using the two 

 shades for color effect. They were promised that 

 they would be shown how the young plants had lain 

 dormant through the winter and how they started 

 into life in the early spring, and were told that 

 they could visit the other school to see the hedge 

 which they had prepared for its boys and girls. 



56 



