AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



Utilized, especially those gathered immediately 

 after the snow of winter has gone. They con- 

 tain some manure mixed with a soft muck, rich 

 in humus, that has sifted through the snow. 

 There is more than one successful school garden 

 whose only available fertilizer was such street 

 refuse. Some people object to such material as 

 containing too many weed seeds. Undoubtedly 

 there are a great many, because no food for horses 

 can be wholly free from them, and birds also 

 carry and drop them. Such means are among 

 nature's methods for spreading green things over 

 the earth. But cultivation and thorough weeding 

 during the first six or eight weeks of a school 

 garden should leave it in such condition as to 

 require very little attention during the long sum- 

 mer vacation. The several days' work scattered 

 through the summer, or a few minutes each day by a 

 paid attendant will give the garden a presentable 

 appearance and a fair showing of fall crops when 

 school begins and harvest days are at hand. 



There is a city backyard garden 45 x 100 feet 

 that twenty years ago, at the death of the master 

 of the house, had, besides hardy perennials and 

 a variety of annuals and roses, more than four 

 hundred species of wild flowers. During a period 

 of perhaps a dozen years, flowers had been col- 

 lected from the country round about. The owner 

 was a well-known scientist and botany was his 

 side interest. Each plant had been carefully 

 taken up with a ball of earth so large as not to 



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