October, 1912 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



111 



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Such a table as thus can be usea Dy the children for 

 their plant experiments 



or dry on top, and when in flower water 

 every day or so with tepid water. If the 

 water is hard a teaspoonful of ammonia to 

 a gallon of water is good for them. Use 

 ammonia in the water only about twice a 

 month. I always buy the best bulbs. I 

 have had as many as twelve flower stalks 

 from one bulb. I plant the pan hyacinths 

 in bowls or jardinieres. They do not 

 require bottom ventilation except a few 

 lumps of charcoal. I pot them the same as 

 I do the Romans. 

 Texas. Alice Scales Steger. 



School Gardens in Indiana 



EXTENSIVE inquiry reveals the fact 

 that the cities of Indiana are doing 

 very little in the way of organized school 

 garden work. On the other hand, many 

 of the consolidated township schools, espe- 

 cially in Central Indiana where the richest 

 farming communities are found, have 

 definitely organized courses and are secur- 

 ing splendid and practical results. 



An encouraging note comes from the 

 principal of a township consolidated high 

 school. He says, "Better work in the 

 other high school subjects has been the 

 result, for they realize the need for Latin 

 in technical terms, mathematics in ditching, 

 and English to produce an acceptable 

 note book." 



This school is at Smartsburg, near 

 Crawfordsville, Ind., which is surrounded 

 by an excellent farming region. The 

 principal, Mr. G. R. Blanchfill, has fitted 

 up all the available space in a four room 

 building for laboratories. In the basement 

 is a large emergency room used for storage 

 and mounting. In these laboratories, by 

 means of reading and experiments, are 

 worked out the theories which are later 

 tested in the actual soil of the school yard. 

 There are two lecture and three laboratory 

 periods each week. More of this work 

 will be told in a later number of the maga- 

 zine with diagrams showing the experi- 

 mental work done. It is work most sug- 

 gestive for rural schools. The grade pupils 

 have been formed into agricultural clubs 

 by high school pupils. The patrons are 

 thoroughly interested and have a club which 

 meets monthly at the school house to discuss 

 progressive agriculture. One boy belong- 

 ing to the corn club succeeded in producing 



ninety-nine and one half bushels of corn per 

 acre. County Superintendent Otis Hall 

 heartily supports the work of Principal 

 Blanchfill. Several other progressive 

 county superintendents in Central Indiana 

 are pioneers in this work. 



An entirely different plan was tried in 

 East Chicago last year. Situated on the 

 south shore of Lake Michigan we have a 

 pure sand soil. To have a garden or lawn 

 involves much labor and considerable 

 expense for black soil. In February, 191 1, 

 the writer, as chairman of the Educational 

 Committee of the Indiana Harbor-East 

 Chicago Commercial Club asked the club 

 to offer prizes as follows: 



A. For the greatest improvement in any 

 home, irrespective of original cost, by means 

 of planting trees or gardens, sowing grass, 

 etc. 



B. For the best kept home. 



C. For the best flower garden. 



D. For the best vegetable garden. 



E. For the greatest improvement in 

 vacant lots by cleaning and planting. 



Three prizes of $5, $3 and $2 were offered 

 in each class, making a total of $50. Con- 

 testants were to be pupils in the schools. 

 Judges were appointed by the Mayor, 

 School Board and Club. Many children 

 entered the contests and several of the 

 teachers gave valuable help and encourage- 

 ment to the pupils. The President of the 

 club arranged with the congressman for 

 government seeds, while the Civic Improve- 

 ment Committee of the Club arranged for 

 reasonable prices on trees and black soil. 



There are many vacant lots but their 

 use is not practicable because of the 

 expense in securing black soil. The gar- 

 dens were therefore all at the homes of the 

 pupils. Home gardening was not only the 

 practical thing in our case, but in my judg- 

 ment, it is the best thing in most cases. 

 It can be done outside of school hours, 

 develops a commendable home pride, and 

 the child is directly interested in keeping 

 up his work during the summer vacation. 



One good result was the formation on 

 several streets of civic improvement clubs, 

 which looked after the lawns, vacant lots 

 and alleys. The judges spent considerable 

 time going over the city viewing the work 

 of those who entered the contests. The 

 results, while not remarkable, were sur- 

 prising. Edwin N. Canine, 



Superintendent of Schools. 



An Outdoor Experiment 



A CONCRETE, local example does more 

 to make a school subject live than 

 years of work with books. It happened 

 this way in my biology class. 



There are four, fine sycamore maples in 

 our campus at the Morris High School. Last 

 September these trees were nearly stripped 

 of foliage. This was the work of the white 

 marked tussock moth. The bark of the trees 

 was covered with cocoons and egg masses. 



We talked it over and a number of boys 

 volunteered to do the work. They met one 

 Saturday morning in November. 



For two hours each boy used knife and 

 hook, until pockets were crammed with 

 cocoons and egg cases. Finally the rescue 

 expedition had collected a large jar of very 

 interesting material. After the ladders 

 were replaced in the basement, the jar was 

 brought up to the biological laboratory. 



Each boy with a pile of debris in front of 

 him carefully counted the creamy egg 

 cases, which for the most part were con- 

 spicuously attached to the previous year's 

 cocoons. The latter were weak structures 

 thinly woven from the long irregular hairs 

 of the larvae, and empty save for the dry 

 cast of the larva skin. 



A total of 160 egg cases was not par- 

 ticularly surprising, but it was soon found 

 that more than five minutes was required 

 to count the yellowish-white eggs of a 

 single case. Five apparently average cases 

 contained respectively 231, 512, 361, 333, 

 and 502 eggs, so nearly spherical that there 

 was some difficulty in controlling the count. 



It began to dawn on the boys that their 

 mild endeavors had borne large fruit and 

 they were mute witnesses as they saw the 

 average number of eggs in a case, 3S8, mul- 

 tiplied by 160, grow into the amazing 

 number of 62,080 eggs. 



The next step was to make these facts 

 available to every pupil. They might easily 

 duplicate these results and save their own 

 and other shade trees, thus sharing in both 

 the biological and civic interest of such an 

 undertaking. The essential facts were an- 

 nounced to the school in assembly and then 

 placarded and displayed with the material 

 in a museum case in a prominent corridor. 

 It is a safe estimate that over 3,500 stu- 

 dents are already familiar with the details 

 of this experiment. It has convinced me 

 that such prophylactic activities can 

 vitally interest students and tax payers 

 alike wherever applied. 



P. B. Mann. 



With the assistance of its pupils, the Morris High 

 School cleared its trees of the tussock moth 



