L. L. MAY & CO. 
ST. PAUL, MINN. 
Packet Filling Machines Where School Garden Packets are Filled 
Capacity 250,000 Packets Daily 
The children took to gardening like the proverbial duck 
to water. Little hands delighted in grubbing in the soft, 
moist earth; little muscles grew strong and hard froni digging 
and hoeing; little lungs expanded in the fresh air; little 
cheeks grew round and ruddy in the sunshine; and little 
minds, toniced by healthy little bodies, grew more alert under 
the stimulus of this fascinating new study. Vacant lots, near 
school buildings, were requisitioned, the owner's permission 
obtained, and the desert places made to blossom, 
Austria established school gardens in 1869, instituting 
them in connection with all schools in the country districts, 
and now maintains eight thousand of them, while Sweden 
has two thousand and France twenty-eight hundred schools, 
where practical gardening is taught; but it remained for 
America to use the school garden as an educational force 
among the children of her crowded cities. 
Henry S. Clapp 
started this movement in Boston in 1890; Women's Clubs in 
the various large cities took it up, and now it is almost uni- 
versal. Mr, E. F. Powell, Superintendent of Willard School 
Farm, Cleveland, Ohio, but formerly, superintendent of 
Vacant Lot Gardening in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, gave 
