152 
THE PLANT WORLD. 
from a pear thicket, was sufficient to furnish all the roughage for 
ten head of cattle for six months. If a harvest of this character 
could be secured once every five years, this would be the equiva¬ 
lent of the coarse feed for one head per acre the year round. 
There are few acres of farm land in any section that yield more 
than this. The office of Grass and Forage Plant Investigation in 
this department are now conducting extensive investigations on 
methods of propagation, yield, food value, and methods of feeding 
cacti. Bureau of Plant Industry bulletin No. 74, just issued, 
gives the results of preliminary investigations conducted last 
season. 
THE SPRING FLOWER SHOW AT THE ORCHARD 
STREET SCHOOL. 
Several times a year the hearts of the children living in flower¬ 
less sections of the city of New York are made glad. On May 
16th, 17th and 18th the pupils of school No. 42, at the intersec¬ 
tion of Hester, Orchard and Ludlow Streets, presided over by 
Miss Harriet Field, failed to recognize their playground, it having 
been transformed into a veritable fairyland by the tireless energy 
and love of Mrs. J. Northrup and her able assistants, Mrs. 
Ricketts, Miss Field, Miss Cohen and Miss Strassburger. I11 
this congested foreign quarter flowers are very rare and few of 
the children have been to the parks; or even ridden in a street 
car. The teachers have attempted to take some of them to green 
fields, but car sickness has proved too great a bar. So the moun¬ 
tain has had to came to Mahomet. Blooming branches of apple 
and dogwood trees and the snowy bells of the snow-drop tree 
( Halesia ) covered and beautified the pillars in the playground. 
There were also branches of flowering box, Judas tree, spice 
bush, hickory, hazel, chestnut, white and red oak, elm, horse 
chestnut,Norway and sycamore maple, the beautiful copper beech, 
birch, staghorn sumach with last year’s fruit, the plum-leaved 
and other viburnums. Thorn, bladder nut, pink-flowered dog¬ 
wood, Southern magnolia, honeysuckle, Japanese quince, bay- 
berry, blue, black and raspberry, gooseberry and wild grape. 
