THE STUDY OF HORTICULTURE. 



BY J. C. BI.AIR, 



Professor of Pomology and Chief in Horticulture, University of Illinois. 



ISSUED MONTHLY. 25 CENTS A YEAR. 



_ ,Qne cent a copy in quantities of ten or more. Send all orders to 

 LiBRARY OF I C. M. Parker, Taylorville, 111. 



^^^'^¥hirp Series, No. 6. Whole No. 30. 



:opie8 Received » ^ ^ ^ 



^r.r\^ Taylorville, Illinois, February, 1903. 

 ] 27 1903 \ 



THE SCHOOL OAEDEN. 



■ ^ ^ ' ' ' "The garden is Nature's best school." 



T^at is a new thing to think about, isn't it? A 

 school garden! One might almost believe that we are 

 going to talk about Grerman schools where school gardens 

 are no novelty. But here in Illinois it will be an unusual 

 sight — this school garden — yet there are going to be 

 many of them in the course of a year or two; such a num- 

 ber that we almost dare to hope there may be ''enough 

 to go round" so that every schoolhouse shall have its 

 garden plot just as every homestead does. The best way 

 to bring this about will be to make the garden you under- 

 take in your district a success. Its fame will spread to 

 the next township and next year there will be a garden 

 over there possibly as good as your own, and so the 

 gardening interest will spread wider and grow deeper 

 until Illinois pupils and teachers will wonder why they 

 didn't think of gardens long ago. They may be the 

 means of increasing attendance, studiousness, and many 

 other school virtues which sometimes are in danwr of 

 being forgotten when daily tasks become lifeless and 

 uninteresting. 



It seems strange to be thinking and writing of gar- 

 dens when all out doors is covered with a thick blanket 

 of snow. For almost two months yet there will be blustery 

 weather when one's teeth would chatter at the mere 

 thought of working in a garden. But gardens to be a 



