Waterbury evening Democrat., 1905-08-23
HORTICULTURE SCHOOL
Fifth annual School Garden Exhibit
 to be Held September 4.t.

The fifth annual school garden eX- hibit of the school gardens connected with the school of horticulture, at Hartford, will be held on the after noon of September 4. from 2:30 until 6 o'clock.
 While. school gardening is becoming very popular, and gardens are being connected with many schools through out all parts of the United States and even of the civilized world, there is probably no place where the gardens are any more systematically conducted than those connected with the school of horticulture at Hartford.
 The first year boys begin their gar dening about the 1st of May, and have a garden 1Ox30 feet. Each g;Adener receives systematic instruction in the class room, and after receiving his seeds he passes with the instructor to the tool room and then to his garden, passing by many observation plots, which are explained and studied. In the garden the instructor is present to show the youngsters how to properly carry out the theoretical training that they received in the class room. The land is thoroughly ploughed, narrowed and fertilized and staked out before the boys begin their work; but when once a boy is assigned garden he must take the entire charge of it, and no one but himself, or his substl- ute. takes any care of the garden plot or the walks surrounding his garden. The second year boys begin their work in March. They study the mix ing of the soil, planting seed, pOtting and re-potting the plants, raising all of the tomato. verbena and pansy plants for all the other gardeners. About the 1st of May they begin with their garden lessons. which include a garden 1OX4O feet. in which they grow all the crops that are grown by the first year youngsters. and few addi- tional that are a little more difficult to haudle.
 The third year boys begin their work in February, and during the win ter study root grafting, hot-bed con- struction, spraying, pruning and work of that character until the season opens, when they begin work on a gar den 10x60 feet.
 The fourth year pupils begin in Jan. uary, and learn to make hotbed mats of rye straw, hotbed construction and manage ment. the care and repairing of sash. pruning, mechanical anaylsis of soils, plant foods, and study seeds, planning and laying out gardens, spad- ing, cleft grating and the like. When the season opens these boys have garden 1oXS0 feet which they plan and plant themselves.
 The fifth year work consists of a systematic study of the formation, texture, physical nature of soils, soil moisture atmosphere, temperature, ir- rigation and tillage, including the study of soil bacteria and the nitrogen traps on the leguminous plants, plant foods and crop rotation. This begins the 1st of January.
 Besides the gardens belonging to 100 or so of the gardeners in the various courses, one sees upon visiting the school of horticulture nearly 300 ob servation plots where all of the mar ket, garden, farm and forage crops are grown, the fibre plants, medical and pot herbs, fruit trees and small fruits. These. are all plainly labeled. with the common English names, sQo that any one can plainly understand and learn much by simply walking through these plots. The children are conducted through these plots and study them in a systematic way so that they bcome familiar with the crops as they are growing, and learn of the commercial value of each crop and of its impor- tance in the United States.
 Among the plots which are of the most interest are those upon which eight of the common legumes are grown. Each plot is thirty feet square and one-half of each plot is planted with seed which has been inoculated with the nitrogen forming bacteria, while the other half has not been in- oculated. This new process of fertiliz- ing the ground by the use of this bac- teria may revolutionize the farming in- dustry. If the scheme is of any value every farmer certainly ought to visit the plots and see for himself how i'm portant these bacteria are. If it is not of any value he should certainly visit the plots so that he will not be tempted to buy and spend money for that which will give him no return.
 While many of the plots show very little difference, the plot of peas which has just been harvested yielded just double the amount of peas on the in- oculated half of the plot that it did on the uninoculated half. This would seem to indicate that for a farmer to double his crop he had simply 10 in- Oculate the seed with the nitrogen forming bacteria.
 Among the interesting things to he seen at the exhibit besides the gar dens and plots and the exhibit of pro- duce grown and arranged by the chil- dren gardeners, will be the fibre plants, spinning wheel and a hand loom in operation. and the hOeing and spading contests which will take place during the afternoon, beginning at 3 o'clock.
 The school of horticulture is situated in the northwestern part of Hartford. little more than half a mile from the Blue Hills trolley line. To reach it by trolley one must leave the Blue Hills car at the corner of Blue Hills and AL bany avenues and walk out Albany avenue taking the first entrance to the right after passing the bridge over the North Park river. On the day of the exhibit. however. buses will meet the ears after 2:3D o'clock. So that no one | oe .ha