nal soil is very gravelly, or a heavy clay, some of it ought to be thrown 

 away and replaced with good earth. If you are very much in earnest 

 about making the school yard more beautiful you will not have much 

 trouble in having the beds dug up in the first place. After that you 

 will want to do all the rest of the work yourself. Now, what shall we 

 plant in these beds? I think I would take one small bed and fill it 

 with violets. Did you know that there are ten or eleven different 

 kinds of violets in Indiana? Probably five or six of them will be 

 found growing in your neighborhood. If you decide upon a bed of 

 violets, go out into the woods and study the violets in their homes. 

 Do you fj.nd them most frequently in the sun or in shady places? 

 When you have answered this you can settle the location for your 

 violet bed. Do you find violets most vigorous in dry soil or in wet soil? 

 When you answer this question you will know something about the 

 amount of water you must give them if you want them to do well. 

 Now, dig up your violets very carefully, keeping a good deal of the 

 home earth about their roots, and replant them in the bed which you 

 have made. You will find that they grow well and blossom all through 

 the spring and summer. In this bed you should have blue violets and 

 yellow violets and white violets; violets in which the leaves seem to 

 come directly out of the ground and those in which the leaves arise 

 from the stem, for all of these forms doubtless gTow in your neighbor- 

 hood. As the plants grow you can watch them every day, and if you 

 do, you will find they will tell you much of the story of their life 



Then, in another bed, T think I would put some phlos or "wild 

 sweet William," as it is called. You know it, of course, for the phlox 

 is very abundant all over the State, and its pink to red fl.ower3 are 

 very beautiful. There are several different kinds of phlox in the State 

 and you willprobably find two or three of them in your neighborhood. 

 Of course, before you plant them in their new home, you should know 

 whether they live in sunny or shady places, and whether in wet or dry 

 soils, for you want to keep the new conditions as much like the old 

 ones as is possible. If you do this, you will have little difficulty in se- 

 curing good results. 



The other beds I would make "mixed" beds, putting in them almost 

 any pretty flower that I could find. I would put in spring beauties, 

 and blood-root, and the yellow crow-foot, and anemones, and wild 

 geraniums; indeed, anything that was attractive in appearance. You 

 will be surprised to find how soon this mixed bed becomes very beau- 

 tiful. By watching carefully during the first season you can find what 

 flowers have a long blooming season and what ones blossom for only a 



