GARDENING 
FOR. 
YOUNG FOLKS 
CONDUCTED BY ELLEN EDDY SHAW 
The Month’s Work 
G ARDEN work should begin now. The garden 
may be far more effective if there are seedlings 
all ready to put into it when planting time comes. 
So gather together what is necessary for your work. 
Buy a sieve of not too fine a wire mesh, one of about 
a half-inch will be right. When fine seeds are 
planted they need fine soil conditions under which 
to grow. Make a mixture of the following: 3 parts 
of garden soil, 2 parts of leafmold and 1 part of 
sand. These soils should be sifted and then mixed 
together thoroughly with the hands. If you can 
squeeze a handful of this mixture into a ball, there 
is moisture enough in the soil; but soil that falls 
apart when thus treated, lacks moisture. Water, 
if lacking, may be worked into the soil. Five-inch 
pans or wooden flats may be used for starting the 
seedlings. Wet the pan to drive the air out of the 
crock and fill the air spaces with water. Cover 
the drainage holes with curved bits of crock and 
fill in the soil mixture; tamp or press this down 
with a tamping stick or the bottom of a small 
flower pot. Fill in the soil to within one inch of 
the top, scatter the seed over this surface and then 
sprinkle on a little soil— not more than an eighth 
of an inch in thickness if the seeds be fine ones. 
Place a piece of cheesecloth over the pot and water 
gently through this so as not to flood 
the seeds and the top layer of soil out 
of place. Such pans, pots, and flats 
of seeds should be placed in a warm, 
sunny window. Of course a green- 
house is the ideal place for the work. 
If seeds are started in low boxes, or 
flats, in a class-room and a piece of 
glass placed over the top, tilted so 
as to make a condition similar to 
that of a hotbed, very good results 
may be expected. 
In early March start seeds of pansy, 
begonia Red Erfordia, stock, lobelia 
Blue King, gloxinia and zonal ger- 
anium. Later in the month start 
Shasta daisies, verbena, hollyhock, 
dianthus, delphinium and pyrethrum. 
An interesting piece of work to try 
with the older boys and girls is this 
with dahlias. If you have some 
dahlia roots you can start these and 
then take cuttings from them. Growth 
starts from “eyes,” like the potato, 
so be sure your roots have eyes. Trim 
off the root at each end and lay it side- 
ways in a pot. Use 8-inch pans for 
this work and if the dahlia roots are 
not too large, three, at least, may go 
in one pot. One may use ordinary 
garden soil for this planting. When 
the shoots are about five inches high take the roots 
out of the pots and cut the shoot from the parent, 
taking with the cutting a heel or piece of the parent. 
Pot up these cuttings and plant outdoors late in the 
season. If the cuttings are not taken off these 
dahlia plants grow luxuriantly and make quite a 
showing. 
If vines are needed for the garden start seeds of 
Coboea scandens. These seeds are most interesting; 
they are large, with the germ spot very evident. 
Make a soil mixture of one half garden soil, one 
quarter sand, and one quarter rotted manure. 
Plant two seeds in a 3-inch pot, placing the seeds 
on end with the germ side down. Then cover with 
a quarter-inch of soil. The first and the true leaves 
are worthy of study, the first leaves are simple ones, 
the true leaves compound. The plants will grow 
rapidly indoors and start to climb, so they must 
have a support of some kind. These vines will grow 
to twenty or thirty feet in height. 
The end of February is the time to start seeds of 
vegetables, such as early cabbage, early cauliflower, 
kohlrabi, onion, tomato and self blanching celery. 
These may be started in pans just as the other seeds 
were and with a similar mixture of soil. 
Try forcing out the twigs of shrubs; these 
blossoming branches are beautiful and effective in 
the class room as well as at home. Cut branches 
about three feet in length, put these in jars of water 
away from the light in a cool place where the 
temperature is about 50 degrees. As the buds 
start to open bring them to a light place. The 
warmer this spot, the faster development goes on. 
These branches will begin flowering from three to 
six weeks from the time they are first placed in the 
dark. Try such shrubs as Deutzia gracilis (white 
blossom); forsythia, (yellow); weigela (pink); 
syringa (various colors); Spiraea Van Houttei 
(white); Prunus triloba (pink) and Viburnum 
plicatum (white). 
Shaftsbury Depot (Vt.) School 
O UR work of improvement began in November, 
1913, and has continued since that time. 
The school building is in a very good condition, 
it being a comparatively new one. The ceiling 
and walls were in a very fair condition, but being 
unadorned were not very attractive looking. 
In December we gave a fair, with the proceeds 
of which we purchased three pictures, “The Horse 
Fair,” “An Arabian Fight,” and “The Colosseum.” 
These are framed in dark brown stained wood. A 
Victrola was also purchased and thirteen double 
faced records. These are used during the opening in 
the morning and for folk-dances on the playground. 
Entertainments were given at different times to 
raise money. With this money we purchased 
bracket lamps, curtain rods and cloth, seeds for our 
gardens, and plants and bulbs for our flower gardens. 
The most substantial and important improve- 
ments were made out-of-doors. On the north side 
of the schoolhouse was a high sand bank, which 
not only made a bad looking yard, but gave the 
pupils very little room for play. We invited the 
farmers to help us and they responded very readily. 
They came early one Saturday morning, fifteen 
men and eleven horses, and worked for about seven 
hours. The hill was taken away, the ground 
leveled, good soil brought on for flower beds and a 
garden was ploughed and harrowed. 
The garden was 42 x 16 ft. and was divided into 
sixteen individual plots and vegetables planted, 
each child taking care of his own plot. 
After the yard had been nicely leveled, we found 
we had quite a quantity of stones, which it was 
necessary to remove. The little children picked 
up all the stones into piles and the older boys carried 
them away. The boys came to school early in the 
morning and stayed after school at night to work 
on the yard. And it was hard work, because the 
stones were heavy and they could carry only a small 
load at a time. 
After the yard was raked for the last time, forty- 
one pine trees were set out, making a border around 
the yard and around the drive. Some of these trees 
were obtained from the State Forester. Flower 
gardens were made in front of the building. Plants 
and seeds for the gardens were purchased out of our 
fund. These were carefully tended during the year. 
Our work of improvement is still going on. The 
children are more interested now even than before 
because our school has been improved so much and 
looks so attractive that they wish to keep it in 
condition. — Henrietta Walbridge, Principal. 
Mildred Knight, one of the pupils, tells about 
how the garden was planted: 
“One Saturday morning Miss Walbridge, my 
teacher, asked all the farmers from Shaftsbury to 
come and work on our lawn. After they had pre- 
pared a piece of ground for the garden, 42 x 16 ft., 
we divided it into sixteen plots, so 
that each child would have one plot 
to take care of. We made paths 
around the gardens and we planted 
lettuce, radishes, turnips, onions, corn, 
and transplanted tomato and cabbage 
plants. Around the large garden we 
planted a border of flowers. We de- 
cided that the best place for the flowers 
was in the middle of the lawn; so we 
made three gardens, a diamond-shaped 
one, and two circular ones. We planted 
double buttercups and pansies in the 
centre, with borders of stone. The beds 
were very pretty all summer.” 
My Home Garden 
M Y GARDEN is forty feet square, 
consisting of soil that is fairly 
rich. 
I laid out a hotbed three feet square 
and four feet deep, and constructed a 
frame with corner posts three inches 
in diameter, making the two corner 
posts of the back of the bed one foot 
higher than those of the front. I then 
nailed some planks to the corner posts, 
and filled the hole with stable manure 
mixed with leaves to within four in- 
ches of the top. Then four inches of 
loam was put into the bed. Three or four days 
later, I planted some tomatoes, beets, radishes, and 
lettuce. 
As soon as the frost had left the ground, I spaded 
up my garden and fertilized it with hen manure. 
I began my out-door garden the last of March, by 
planting some radishes, lettuce, peas, parsley, 
carrots, and onions. 
The first of April, I transplanted beets and lettuce 
from the hotbed to out-of-doors. 
In May, five dozen tomato plants were trans- 
planted to rows three feet apart each way. I also 
planted sweet corn and beans. 
I furnished a supply of vegetables for the family 
all season and sold quite a few to neighbors. My 
receipts were as follows: beans, $3.80; beets, $4.30; 
carrots, $3; endive, $1.75; lettuce, $6; onions, 
$.75; peas, $2; parsley, $1.50; rhubarb, $.60; 
radishes, $2.30; strawberries, $4.50; squash, $3; 
sweet corn, $4.15; tomatoes, $15; turnip, $.50. 
The total receipts were $53.15 and the expenses 
were $1 for commercial fertilizer and $1 for seeds. 
Providence, R. I. Howard J. O’Connell. 
Forty-one pine trees were set out by the children in the Shaftsbury Depot School. Even 
the superintendent had to do his share of labor 
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