April, 1 !> 1 i 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



179 



What Washington School Chil- 

 dren are Doing for the Capital 

 City in Gardening 



THE Treasurer of the School Garden 

 Association asked me to write on 

 "What Washington is Doing for School 

 Gardens," but the children are doing so 

 much more for Washington than Washing- 

 ton is officially doing for school gardens 

 that I feel justified in changing the title. 



School yards are extremely small in 

 this city and until, through civic pride, 

 the children began to improve them, they 

 were most unsightly. Congress appro- 

 priates the money for school buildings. 

 This appropriation has always been so 

 meagre that after the interiors of build- 

 ings were finished there has been little 

 left for the outside surroundings. Under 

 the direction of their teachers, the chil- 

 dren have done practically all school 

 ground improvement that has been done. 

 They have hauled manure and good soil; 

 built a fence of broomsticks when a more 

 up-to-date one was out of the question; 

 bought all the bulbs and seeds and most 

 of the shrubbery, and in many places 

 cared for the yards in summer time. The 

 school yards are not all beautiful but they 

 are strictly the work of children. A 

 simple plan is followed : — that of a 

 narrow border around the playground, re- 

 ducing the play space but little and mak- 

 ing the playground pleasing. Every class 

 in a building has a portion of this border 

 assigned it, so if the teacher carries out 

 the instructions given her, every child 

 puts a bulb into the grade garden in the 

 fall and seeds in the spring, which the 

 children pay for. Therefore the children of 

 the public schools are property owners. The 

 city authorities furnish a load or two of 

 soil to each bufiding annually, but this 

 is a small amount when compared with 

 what the children have hauled, hence my 

 reason for changing the title of this article. 



Bulbs and seeds are bought for home 

 planting at moderate rates from a local 

 seedsman. His sales this fall have been 

 phenomenally large, so there are thousands 

 of home gardens planted every year by 

 the children. Summer heat is intense 

 at the capital, consequently the number 

 of gardens that are brought to completion 

 is much smaller than the number planted. 

 Then, too, there is quite an exodus from 

 the city to escape the heat, so the gardens 

 suffer from neglect but approximately 

 6o per cent, of the gardens planted grow 

 until the frost cuts them dowm. 



Washington is a city of enclosed back 

 yards — yards enclosed with hideous board 

 fences six feet or more in height. Lima 

 beans have been extremely popular with 

 the home gardeners as a fence cover, 

 serving the double purpose of hiding an 

 unsightly object and affording financial 

 returns. From one back yard fence, a 

 family of eight had fresh lima beans 

 throughout the summer. The planting of 

 vines is one of the doctrines preached in 

 the public schools. Arbor Day is some- 



times changed to Vine Day for trees grow- 

 everywhere on Washington's streets but 

 vines do not. 



There are four community gardens in the 

 city where elementary agriculture is taught. 

 These are for the most part cultivated 

 by sixth grade boys while the girls of that 

 grade are at sewing school. In the spring 

 and summer of 191 1 two hundred and 

 fifty boys received such instructions, each 

 boy owning his plot for the time being 

 and controlling all the products that he 

 raised. Only one of these gardens, how- 

 ever, is on land owned by the schools. 

 The others are on land that may be 

 used for building improvements at any 

 time. The location of one garden was 

 changed every year for four successive 

 years. The greatest loss of land suffered 

 by Washington gardens was that on the 

 grounds of the Department of Agriculture. 

 Upon the recommendation of Dr. B. T. 

 Galloway, chief of the Bureau of Plant 

 Industry, the Secretary of Agriculture, 

 James W 7 ilson, five years ago, ordered three 

 acres of lawn to be plowed and put into 

 condition for children to cultivate. For 

 three years about three hundred and fifty 

 children had gardens on the grounds at- 

 tached to the office buildings, but the 

 construction of new buildings and green- 

 houses made it necessary to withdraw 

 this privilege. Through Dr. Galloway's 

 efforts, the student teachers in the Wash- 

 ington Normal School are instructed in 

 plant culture in one of the Department's 

 greenhouses and are thus enabled to supply 

 schoolrooms with potted plants and win- 

 dow boxes throughout the winter. 



The children at the capital have con- 

 quered much that was unsightly but 



there are worlds of the same kind still 

 to conquer. 1 feel safe in saying to school 

 gardeners all over the country that Wash- 

 ington, with great rapidity, is becoming 

 the most beautiful city in the world for 

 the public school children are assisting 

 The Congress of the United States in 

 making it so. Susan B.Sipe, 



Washington, D. C. Supervisor of Gardens. 



A Boy's Second-Year Garden 



I HAVE a much larger garden this year 

 than the one I had last year. It is 

 45 x 55 ft. and an extra space of 20 x 30 ft. 

 From this ground I cleared off burdocks 

 and planted soy beans for my cow. I 

 had a good crop of beans. The ground is 

 rich, and the vines were well loaded with 

 beans. 



I had about eight quarts of peanuts, 

 I should think. My beets also turned out 

 well. I have nearly two and one half 

 bushels. Many of them were very large 

 being eighteen inches in circumference. 

 I had a fair crop of broom corn: but it 

 was attacked by some insect that was new 

 to me. It never appeared on anything that 

 I had grown before. The bugs were light 

 colored and ate the leaves and killed some 

 of my plants. I put in three rows of beans 

 each fifty-two feet long, but they did 

 not fill out very well, on account of the 

 dry weather. I kept the ground well 

 w T orked and the garden stood the dry 

 weather pretty well. 



I set out sixty strawberry plants and 

 hope to tell you more about them next 

 year. I had plenty of radishes and lettuce 

 by sowing at different times. 



Ardonia, N. Y, Ferris Malcolm. 



An eflective sort of school gardening used in Washington. D. 0. Ground space being limited, the narrow 

 border with shrub and vine planting solves the garden problem 



