THE SCHOOL GARDEN. 



hundreds of years, and only the school that is the 

 school garden can bring about a general and thorough- 

 going change. 



A third point of view which should lead school boards 

 to promote the spread of school gardens, is the neces- 

 sity of combating our degenerated meteorological and 

 climatic conditions. The fearful consequences of the 

 increasing devastation and rooting out of woodlands, 

 as well as the reckless drying up of ponds and marshes, 

 increase from year to year in a frightful measure. In 

 the first place stands the withdrawal of water from 

 our springs and flowing rivers. Then comes the weeks 

 and months of alternate, persistent, devastating droughts, 

 and equally destructive rainfalls. 



WHY TREES SHOULD BE PLANTED. 



If Schmall's theories of the world-wide fluctuations 

 of the surface of seas are correct ; and if the scarcity 

 of water is increasing in the whole northern hemisphere 

 in consequence of an inexorable law of nature, this 

 fact must spur us on with double force to combat the 

 deficiency of water that threatens us with ruin. It is 

 not to be overlooked, that the impoverishment of Spain, 

 Sicily, Greece, the Kars (a domain just north of Trieste), 

 Turkey, Egypt, Mexico, and even of some islands, is 

 due to this destruction of forests in those countries. 



In late years even Austria has brought to mind in a 

 staggering manner that this evil must be met quickly, 

 and with comprehensive measures, if ruin is not to en- 

 sue, and if many a landscape is not to be obliterated 

 in the course of a few years. For instance, in a part 

 of middle and eastern Bohemia. The means of redress 

 are not difficult to find. They consist, apart from the 



