Miscellaneous. 



320 



[May 1907. 



should publish leaflets and arrange extension courses for teachers. There should be 

 a practical class in gardening open to teachers in one or more places of eastern 

 Massachusetts. There are failures and much waste in the work now because of the 

 inability of teachers to grow plants with full success. 



CHILDREN'S GARDENS FROM FROST TO FROST. 

 (By Herbert D. Hemenway, Director, School of Horticulture, Hartford Conn) 

 Three things fix a man's value in the world. His knowledge or what he 

 knows, his ability or what he can do, his character or what he is. The school should 

 help in developing all three, and the school garden is perhaps the most potent factor 

 in developing the man. It increases his knowledge and his ability to do things and 

 develops his character. 



The school garden can be correlated with all other things taught in the 

 class-ioom. It takes away the drudgery of the school life. Children having some 

 outdoor work in the garden, generally, if not always, develop more rapidly mentally 

 as well as physically and morally. 



The school gardens at the Hartford School of Horticulture begin for the first 

 year in May ; the second year in March ; the third year in February ; and the fourth 

 and the fifth years in January ; and continue until Octooer. Tne children comes into 

 the class-room, where they receive their notebooks, and write down from dictation 

 or copy from the black board definite directions ; then with the instructor and 

 their seeds they pass into the tool room, where they receive their tools, and then 

 into the garden, passing by observation plots of all of our common agricultural and 

 market garden crops, flowers, and fruits. 



There are now about five hundred different kinds of things growing at the 

 School of Horticulture; all distinctly labelled with the common English names. 

 While an agricultural failure may not be an educational failure, we should try to 

 have the school gardens succeed, and have results from an agricultural and horti- 

 cultural standpoint. The moral value of success is very great, and wherever possible 

 the gardens should be conducted right through the summer, so they may never 

 become over-grown with weeds. In this way it will keep the boys occupied, or 

 otherwise they would be on the street learning nothing that was good, and 

 often sowing the seed of future crime. The gardens should begin early, as soon as the 

 frost is out of the ground, the land should be thoroughly prepared, and they should 

 continue right through the summer. We should have the gardens from frost 

 to frost, and the best possible results not only from a horticultural standpoint, 

 but from the development of body and character. It also has a money value. 

 The children learn something of industry and are able to work about the city, and 

 take care of lawns and make themselves useful, thereby increasing the earning 

 power of the family. 



SCHOOL GARDEN WORK IN CLEVELAND, OHIO. 

 (By Miss Louise Klein Miller, Curator of School Gardens.) 

 Miss Miller told of the work which had been done by the Home Gardening 

 Association, in conjunction with the Board of Education, in inaugurating school 

 gardening in Cleveland, and spuke very enthusiastically of the work which had been 

 accomplished and which they expect to do in the future. Cleveland land aspires to 

 be the most beautiful city in the country, and it is expected that the school garden- 

 ing work will do much to bring about this condition. The following abstract will 

 give a good idea of some phases of the work at the present time ;— 



The school garden work in Cleveland has now passed far beyoud the expert 

 mental.stage. Up to this year all the time devoted to the garden work has been out 

 Of school hours, but it is now planned to make the practical operations of the garden 



