8o THE SCHOOL GARDEN. 



few will probably take the trouble to send for these ar- 

 ticles to the Rural New Yorker, so much of them as 

 will contribute to the work of the adornment of our 

 school gardens will be given here. 



OUR WILD FLOWERS. 



It may not be known that several hundred plants 

 bloom in the fields in May, as many others "in June, as 

 many more in July, half as many more in August, and 

 a few in September. Some of our amateur botanists 

 have lovingly watched and recorded the birthday that 

 is, the flowering day of all these plants. From such a 

 list we select the prettiest, and those easiest of cultiva- 

 tion for the school garden. Mr. Falconer's love of his 

 science has gone so far as to induce him to divide them 

 by their colors, as if he knew school gardens were to be 

 the next things to be made in this busy world. He has 

 also preserved the familiar names, which are prettier 

 for children to know than the botanical ones. The kin- 

 dergarden, and primary school children at least, can 

 wait till the days of systematic botany come into their 

 curriculum, before learning the Latin words that are so 

 meaningless to them. The chief reason for putting 

 these wild flowers into the school gardens, is, that they 

 begin to bloom in April, and run through May and 

 June, while the annuals cannot be sown in our cold cli- 

 mate with any certainty of success until June, and many 

 do not bloom until July. No less than forty wild flow- 

 ers of all colors bloom in April and May, bloodr.oot, 

 anemones, violets, trilliums, dandelions, buttercups, 

 marigolds, uvularia, dog-tooth violets, hawthorns, co- 

 lumbines, ladies' slippers, geranium, Dutchman's 

 breeches, wake-robin, wild-rose, queen of the prairie, 



