INTRODUCTION 21 



rooted and are ready to be brought to the warmth and light 

 for flowering. Many people enjoy seeing them push up their 

 leaves, bud and blossom, who have neither time, skill, nor 

 patience to give the care necessary to start the bulbs. They 

 will pay so liberally that the school need be at no expense for 

 the bulbs and supplies it keeps for its own use. Here again 

 the plan of raising plants for sale leads to the purchase and 

 care of so many bulbs of a kind that every pupil may be given 

 'ample practice in their culture. 



Text-bookj Class-room, and Garden 



Study, teaching, and training should be closely related in 

 school gardening. The garden supplies materials and experi- 

 ence as a basis for class-room sketching, discussion, and com- 

 position. The experiments and discussion of the class-room 

 make clear the principles of plant nature upon which success- 

 ful culture is founded. Portions of this text form a manual 

 of directions for field experiments in the garden as a labora- 

 tory. Other pages best follow the garden work and class- 

 room consideration of the simpler features of special topics. 



A good plan to use as an introduction to the study of dahlia 

 types, for example, is the display of a collection of dahlia 

 flowers before the class. Frequently the children can bring 

 many varieties from their homes. Local gardeners will 

 gladly contribute blooms of the varieties they keep for sale, 

 and many commercial growers of dahlias will send a box of 

 the blooms marked with their variety names, if a school will 

 pay the express, since future orders will well repay the trouble. 

 When secured, place each variety in a vase or bottle. Have 

 the children arrange them in groups according to the char- 

 acter of the blossoms. Then give them the names for the 



