256 
THE @A RD EON) ae Zan 
MUAsYa,, 1690 
Glories of Rose Land 
described and pictured im the 98 delightful pages 
of our 1916 Rose and Floral Guide—14 in na- 
tural colors. AII guaranteed to bloom. 101 are 
C. & J. Star Roses—the most exquisite of the 
7 best grown roses for America—of choicest variety 
and largest size. Marked with a % in 
Our Free Rose Guide 
to help nee make a most beautiful rose-garden. Write 
for the Guide. We’lI also send ‘‘Fairies in Rose Land,” 
an enchanting picture, in natural colors, suitable for 
framing... Its price, 6 cts., includes a 25-ct. coupon good 
on first’$1 order from the free Guide. Send today. 
The ONARD EST GROVE 
; Cs Jones Co, & W Box 24 PA. 
Rose specialists—Backead by 50years’? experience 
BEES 
Have you ever thought of keeping 
bees? This is an interesting and 
profitable pursuit. All gardens and 
orchards should have bees to give the 
best results. We would be pleased 
to quote youonasmall Apiary. We 
have 700 colonies of bees, make a 
practical business of producing 
honey and would assist you to do 
the same. Booklet and catalog on 
bees free. 
If you could call, we would be 
glad to explain the subject. A gal- 
lon of pure mild flavored honey, 
delivered for $2.15. 
I. J. Stringham 
105 Park PIl., N. Y. Apiary, Glen Cove, L. I. 
GLORIOUS GLADIOLI 
Make liberal use of these beautiful flowers for garden planting 
and house decoration. Send us 25 cents and we will mail you 
12 bulbs of our Giant-flowering Gladiolus in a splendid assort- 
ment of colors and markings together with directions for planting 
and our general price list. 
SOUTHWORTH BROS. 
32 Nursery St., 5 Beverly, Mass. 
Put Life Into Your House Plants 
Your half dead, limp or wilty winter plants will brighten up, 
grow and blossom same as in summer if you use our scientific 
odorless plant grower and fertilizer. Its action is quick and 
helpful, enriches the earth and feeds the plants. Two sizes, 
25c and soc sent postpaid. Enough to last the average 
household a year. Write today. 
UNITED FERTILIZER COMPANY, 383-K Ellicott St., Buffalo, N.Y. 
MAILED POSTPAID 
OVER ~ 
5000 
SOLD IN j 
ONE CITY ALONE. 
SALESMEN WANTED 
Gardening for Young Folks 
Conducted by Ellen Eddy Shaw 
Gardening in the Elementary City Schools 
C. D. Jarvis, U. S. Bureau of Education 
Presented before the American Nature Study Society, Columbus, O., December 30, 1015 
O VITALIZE their school studies, or to 
facilitate the acquirement of a knowledge 
of the essentials in education, children need 
some kind of active experience in the affairs of 
life. Before the excessive centralization of pop- 
ulation such experience was provided by the 
varied activities about the home. Our school 
system has not conformed to the changing con- 
ditions under which people live. 
To facilitate the free choice of a vocation, 
children should be provided with a kind of 
training that will acquaint them with the ad- 
vantages and opportunities in the chief indus- 
tries. According to the 1910 census, 95 per 
cent. of our people are engaged in either agri- 
culture, industrial work, commerce, or trans- 
portation. Our present system offers little op- 
portunity for children to gain any idea of the 
character of these predominating occupations. 
If our boys and girls are to select from any of 
the occupations for which our schools prepare 
them, they must choose one in an alread over- 
crowded field. 
To train children in habits of thrift and in- 
dustry; to develop stronger-bodied children; to 
make it possible for children to remain longer 
in school and to escape the evils attending early 
confinement to shops, mills and mines; to make 
it possible for children to contribute to the sup- 
port of the family while attending school and 
to convince parents that it is worth while for 
children to continue their school work, boys and 
girls should be provided with interesting, whole- 
some and remunerative employment at an early 
age, and while attending school. 
To supply these needs for the benefit of chil- 
dren in towns and cities there is no more avail- 
able means than that offered by productive gar- 
dening. In most cities, there is abundant land 
in the form of backyards and vacant lots that 
should be used for educational and economic 
purposes. Where home backyards are available 
they should be used by the children of the fam- 
ily. For children who live in homes without 
backyards or without sufficient land, vacant 
land near the home usually may be obtained. 
Hach child, wherever possible, should be given a 
piece of ground equivalent in size to an ordi- 
nary backyard or as much as he or she can man- 
age. Hach of these assigned plots always should 
be regarded as the child’s home garden rather 
than a part of a school garden. In other words, 
the child should assume the responsibility, 
rather than the school. : 
In the congested areas of a few of the larger 
cities it will be difficult to find sufficient land. 
to conduct the work on such a broad basis, and, 
in such cases, we shall have to be satisfied with 
the small plot idea so commonly employed at 
the present time. Gardening on these small 
school plots offers an opportunity for children 
to acquire a limited knowledge of the phenom- 
ena and forces of nature and ‘affords a whole- 
some form of recreation, but does not give a 
child a fair idea of the possibilities of gar- 
dening. 
In order that children may get the most from 
their home project work in gardening, a teach- 
er, trained and skilled in gardening, should be 
provided for each school or for every 100 or 150 
children of the gardening age. ‘This teacher 
should be engaged for twelve months with pro- 
vision, if desired, for a vacation during the 
winter. Such a teacher may devote her fore- 
noons during the school year to the teaching of 
agriculture, nature study, elementary science, 
home-making, or other special subjects. Until 
the people come to believe that it is worth while 
to teach these subjects in the elementary 
schools, we may require a specially qualified 
grade teacher to instruct the children of the 
whole school in the subject of gardening. Some 
The Readers’ Service gives information about real estate 
cities now are engaging a good supervisor of 
gardening with a view to training and super- 
vising a number of their own teachers. The 
teachers selected for the purpose are engaged 
for twelve months and are given special remu- 
neration to compensate for the additional time 
and labor expended. 
The instruction afforded should be largely of 
a practical nature and should be given in the 
child’s home garden. The teacher, during the 
winter months, should be able to show the other 
teachers how the work of the garden may be 
correlated with other subjects, and she will need 
to make individual garden plans so that there 
will be no delay when the gardening season 
opens. : 
After school, on Saturdays, and during sum- 
mer vacation the teacher directs the work of 
gardening. After all preliminary preparations 
have been made and the planting season has ar- 
rived, she instructs the children in their own 
backyards. During the rush season she works 
with groups of about ten or twelve. For the 
benefit of the children within a restricted area 
she demonstrates, on one afternoon, the meth- 
ods of preparing the soil and planting the seeds. 
The next afternoon, she does the same thing in ~ 
another section for the benefit of the ten or 
twelve children there. This programme is con- 
- tinued until all the children assigned to her_ 
have seen these preliminary operations per- 
formed. She then demonstrates other phases of 
the work in the same way. Later in the season, 
and especially after the school has closed for 
the summer, she makes visits to the individual 
backyards and encourages the children to take 
good care of their gardens and to see that they 
keep up a continuous supply of vegetables for 
the home and market. 
Accurate accounts of costs, receipts and 
profits should be kept and the whole project 
should be put on a business basis. Children 
should be expected to pay for everything that 
they use. Lack of saolitearenit funds should not 
prevent any children from securing supplies suf- 
ficient to make a profitable home project. Some 
fund, from which children may borrow mone 
with which to buy supplies, should be provided. 
This affords an opportunity for a good lesson in 
the use of borrowed money, and in business in- 
tegrity. 
"The strongest inducement that we can hold 
out to children to conduct a project is to prom- 
ise and insure a profit in dollars and cents. If 
the work is not profitable, the children, sooner © 
or later, will lose interest. Some well meaning 
eople have tried to maintain the interest by 
Be tcinis up before the children the chance of 
winning a prize for good garden work. In most 
cases, such effort has resulted only in tempo- 
rary benefit, and in many it has actually de- 
feated the aims for which it was undertaken. 
Where prizes are offered, children focus their 
attention on the prizes and, too often, lose sight 
of the real advantages of the work. Whether 
we should give prizes to children for the pur- 
pose of encouraging them to do things that the 
ought to do for their own benefit, is doubtful, 
and the belief that it is all wrong is a.growing 
one. The use of achievement badges is de- 
cidedly a safer way to maintain interest, for 
such badges call attention to the achievement. 
itself. 
In conclusion, then, we believe that the work 
of gardening is of great benefit in the training 
of children in towns and cities. We believe 
that the work should be conducted on an inten- 
sive, businesslike and profitable basis. To in- 
sure this, qualified teachers should be provided 
for groups of children not exceeding 200, and 
such teachers should be retained throughout 
the summer. 
