them away and their market value was not less than five dollars 
each. We drew on our nursery for Elms and Lindens to plant 
on the school parkway and gave away twenty or more others. 
If we had consistently added to our nursery stock each year we 
might duplicate this program year after year. 
The vacant lot serves largely for our experimental planting 
which means planting for information purposes. Here in plots 
three or four feet square are grown Wheat, Rye, Oats, Barley, 
Millet, Alfalfa, Sorghum, Broom-corn, Castor-beans, Peanuts, 
Cotton, Flax, Buckwheat, etc. Carrots and Lettuce are planted 
by kindergartners for sale at school at wholesale prices. Pupils 
buy bulbs for their home gardens and plant other bulbs in pots 
and store them in cold-frames in pits on the school grounds for 
forcing in the winter months. This season ten cold-frames were 
filled with Paper-white Narcissus, Hyacinths, Tulips, Daffodils, 
Jonquils, etc. Two fifth grade groups speculated in Hyacinths 
and Daffodils this time and sold about sixty dollars worth. The 
money was invested in library books. 
In October the pupils studying pioneer life usually store 
vegetables and Apples in a specimen dirt-pit. This is a project 
for third grade pupils. Another grade stores in leaf-pits 
Cabbages on their stalks, Beets, Carrots, etc., to be brought out 
in February and planted in large pots to see what will hnppen. 
A Cabbage head opening out and sending up a tall branching 
flower stalk three or more feet high in the school room is ' ' some 
sight. ' ' 
The school has a lean-to plant house which unfortunately 
gets only the morning sun. This is not sufficient during the 
winter months to make Geraniums thrive. So our softwood cut- 
ting experiments in September with the Geranium as the type 
cannot be carried on in a wholesale way as we more than once 
tried. We have to content ourselves with a few specimens 
wintered in the schoolrooms. About March first heat is turned 
on in the plant house and garden seeds are started in flats. We 
specialize in one vegetable, the John Baer Tomato, with Cabbage 
plants for a side line. Last season we started about March first 
with fifty flats planted with Tomato seeds and this year, on 
March sixth. The children make the flats, prepare the soil and 
plant the seeds. The Tomato plants are transplanted once in 
other flats and later reset in three to five inch pots, all this 
making much work for the children. By this time the plant-house 
is overflowing and ten or more cold-frames are used for their 
wards, the guinea pigs. The sixth grade pupils plant Field- 
corn in a large plat so that there will be a liberal supply of 
stalks for use when the Corn plant is studied, and, too, that there 
may be a shock of fodder for display at the autumn festival. 
The first graders plant Field-Pumpkins for Hallowe'en and 
Thanksgiving purposes, their ambition being to furnish a 
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