May 5, 1897.] 



Garden and Forest. 



171 



GARDEN AND FOREST. 



PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY 



THE GARDEN AND FOREST PUBLISHING CO. 



Office: Tribune Building, New York. 



Conducted by Professor C. S. Sargent. 



ENTERED AS SECOND -CLASS MATTER AT THE POST-OFFICE AT NEW YORK, N. V. 



NEW YORK, WEDNESDAY, MAY 5, 1897. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Editorial Articles -—School Gardens and School Grounds 



Botanical Notes from China 



Second-growth White Pine in Pennsylvania 4. A". Mlodsiansky. 



Foreign Correspondence : — The Royal Horticultural Society W. Watson. 



New or Little-known Plants: — Sambucus leiosperma. ('With figure.) 



Plant Notes 



Cultural Department :— The Hippeastrums. — II H. Nehrling. 



The Hardy Plant Border A". Cameron. 



Summer Pruning the Raspberry Professor E. S. Goff. 



Plum-trees for Ornamental Plantings Professor F. A. Waugti, 



Work ot the Season IV. H. Taplin. 



Xerophyllum M. Abbott. 



Canna, America ..Professor F. A. Waugh. 



Correspondence : — The Red Cedar Robert Done. /.is. 



Maple Sugar in Vermont Professor F. A. Waugh. 



Scymnus marginicollis Professor T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Recent Publications 



Notes 



Illustration : — Sambucus leiosperma, Fig. 20 



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School Gardens and School Grounds. 



A FORTNIGHT ago we spoke of a leaflet sent out from 

 the Cornell Experiment Station, which invited each 

 of the school children of the state of New York to plant a 

 little garden of Sweet Peas and China Asters. The circular 

 contained brief instructions about selecting and preparing 

 the ground, planting the seed and caring for the plants, and 

 promised more complete directions to any who should 

 make request for them. All this was done under a law of 

 this state whose purpose is to broaden out the field of the 

 experiment station and give it something of the character 

 of the university extension work which is carried on now 

 in various directions. A correspondent writes to inquire 

 why the obvious plan of having a garden attached to every 

 school has not been suggested instead of encouraging 

 each child to have a garden of its own. In carrying out 

 the plan of "nature study" in the schools it is argued that 

 a school garden would always be ready to furnish material 

 for investigation in botany and horticulture ; it could be 

 made of immediate practical benefit in setting forth some 

 of the elementary principles of plant biology, and it would 

 enable young people to see the reasons for many of the 

 processes of horticulture and agriculture. No one would 

 expect that a school garden would make expert cultivators, 

 but with the aid of such an experimental plot many prin- 

 ciples might be learned which lie at the foundation of the 

 sciences upon which horticulture and agriculture rest. To 

 show that is not an impracticable suggestion our correspon- 

 dent points to the example of Europe where there are 

 school gardens by the thousand, where many of the coun- 

 try schools have botanical museums, entomological collec- 

 tions and cabinets of minerals, and some of them beehives, 

 for purposes of investigation. American children are 

 as apt to learn as any in the world, and yet few of them 

 can give the names of the trees and shrubs they find along 

 the road to school, and fewer still know anything about 

 our common insects and their habits, or the birds which 

 are filling the air with melody these spring mornings. 



All this is perfectly true, but before our children can be 

 taught effectively in this direction we must first teach the 

 teacher. Two or three months ago in an article on agri- 



cultural education we cited the instance of a primary school 

 in Belgium which was visited by a representative of the 

 Association of American Colleges and Experiment Stations. 

 When this visit was made, a class of boys and girls about 

 twelve years old were listening to some instructions which 

 were carried on with the help of simple chemical experi- 

 ments and skillful questions within their comprehension, so 

 as to stimulate their observation and broaden their knowl- 

 edge. The particular subject of this lesson was milk, and 

 it was reported that as the different members of the class 

 summed up what they had listened to and seen and thought, 

 it was evident that from this time forth their knowledge of 

 milk, its composition and uses, was considerably wider than 

 it would have been if they had never received the lesson. 

 Around the walls of this schoolroom hung pictures 

 of plants and agricultural implements, and adjoining 

 the school was a small garden in which many kinds of 

 plants were growing and in which different methods of 

 cultivation were tried for the instruction of the pupils. The 

 report went on to explain that this teacher was the secre- 

 tary of the local horticultural society, and in this capacity 

 he was helping in their business the fathers of the children 

 whom he was instructing. No doubt, these children will 

 be more inclined to avail themselves of the most approved 

 methods of scientific agriculture than they would be with- 

 out this special training, but this is not all. Their minds 

 will be more thoroughly trained for practical use, and they 

 will be stronger and more logical thinkers than they would 

 have been without this instruction. If, therefore, these 

 leaflets sent out by the Cornell Experiment Station lay the 

 foundation for any systematic preparation of common- 

 school teachers for giving practical lessons in the proper 

 method of studying natural objects, they inaugurate one 

 of the most promising ventures that have recently been 

 undertaken in the field of education. 



We should not counsel any teacher to wait before 

 establishing a plant garden until he is as thorough a gar- 

 dener as the Belgium teacher to whom we have alluded. 

 Any one who is apt to teach and who has enough experi- 

 ence to grow common plants with average success can use 

 a garden in connection with this nature study to good 

 advantage. A mere book-man will fail, but a teacher who 

 is competent to lead and direct his pupils in their personal 

 investigations of the mysteries of nature could find abun- 

 dant material for helpful illustration in a school garden. 

 We have heard it objected that American schoolboys, out 

 of mere wantonness, would destroy any planting of this 

 kind ; and it has been offered as a reason why school- 

 grounds are not more generally beautified with trees and 

 shrubs that the pupils would mutilate them. But, on the 

 contrary, there is the strongest evidence to prove that 

 wherever flowers and shrubs are planted on school-grounds, 

 and the children are invited to aid in their cultivation, 

 they soon acquire an affectionate interest in them, and 

 not only refrain from injuring them, but take pride in 

 protecting and developing them. Boys and girls need 

 playgrounds even more than they need gardens, and the 

 first adjunct to a school building ought to be some place 

 where they can play games — a plot that will answer 

 for an outdoor gymnasium. Few school-yards in the 

 country, however, are so contracted that there is no 

 room for vines or herbaceous plants along the walls 

 of the schoolhouse, and in many places it is possible 

 to have a real garden in which the children can take 

 an active interest and feel a responsibility — a garden 

 where they can learn lessons in order as well as in natural 

 science, and acquire a habit of observing closely the beau- 

 ties of structure and of adaptation in the different forms of 

 vegetable life. 



This is apart from the ordering of school-grounds with a 

 primary view to their neatness and beauty. A large pro- 

 portion of the children of the country spend many hours 

 of the day for five days in the week in the schoolhouse 

 or near it, and certainly if they live upon an unclean 

 floor, with stained and battered ceilings and decrepit 



