The Breckenridge news., 1906-02-14

College, was secured as Director of the
School Of Horticulture. The buildings
were soon erected, and the School es-
tablished as the first public Handicraft
School OF Hartford. Besides giving
apprentice work, and a course In hor-
tculture and botany to the boys from
the Watkinson Farm School, the fol-
lowing season a course in school gar
dening was established. This course
was opened to the boys and girls from
the city sc-ools.
The school garden work at the
School Of Horticulture proved attrac-
tive and popular from the first, and
after one or two years of free work
tuition was charged for each person
who took garden. This tuition need
not keep any one from having a gar
den. as 100 hours OF work for the
School pays any boys tuition.
The school garden work has been
systematized, until now there Is a five
years course In school gardening for
boys and girls, as well as one to train
public school teachers, and one course
for adults which is largely taken by
clergymen Of the city.
One Of the reasons which has made
this work so popular is because of the
fact that the school shows results.
Every boy here, every person, for that
matter. who has garden gets a great
deal more in value from his garden
than the price of the tuition.
The first year the boys begin their
garden work the 1st of May. They
come ont cor a lesson one day a week.
They come into the classroom. where
each boy receives a notebook, marks
his own attendance, keeps a weather
report. and writes down from dicta-
ton. or copies from the blackboard,
detailed lesson for that day. With
the seeds they are given, they then
pass with the instructor to the tool
room, where each boy receives his
tools, and with these he goes to his
garden. where an instructor is always
pre-. ent to explain the things which he
learns in the classroom. In going to
his garden he passes by the observa-
ton plots. which are studied.
The second year the boys begin In
March, taking up the mixing of the
soil, potting and repotting tile tomato,
pepper, and egg plants that they have
in their gardens.
The third year they begin in Febru-
ary and take up roOt-grafting. cutting,
pruning, spraying. digging and setting
trees, spading and caring for grounds.
as we'll as the garden lessons.
The fourth year boys begin in jan
uary and take up the making of hot
beds, management Of hotbeds, prun-
ing, spraying, soil analysis, plant
foods, testing seeds, planting the gar
den, besides the garden lessons. and
In the autumn they have budding,
fruit culture, and asparagus culture.
The fifth year they take up system
atic study Of the soil, beginning IN
January. All gardens continue until
after the 1st OF October.
That the gardens pay is best shown
from record OF the garden yields dur
Ing the past summer. A first year boy
got 1895 worth, third year boy
$25.64, a fourth year boy S23.O3. and
/ one OF the clergymen $17.21 worth Of
produce in the gardens.
The first year the gardens are 10
30 It., the second year 10 40 IT,,
| the third year 10 60 IT, the fourth
year 10 K so IT. The clergymen have
| gardens 10 K 40 IT. Public school
teachers have gardens 10 K 80 and 10
x 40 IT.; the plan is to give them a
Il IN uNlNui lIulllluS Ill Iue UleluOu OF
training school children in the work
Already several schools Of Hartford
have established gardens in connec-
ton with the schools, and the School
Of Horticulture is furnishing instruc-
tors OF late; those that are giving in
struction were trained at the School
or Horticulture. But there is another
thing that the school does. It keeps
the children occupied during the sum-
mer months, keeping the boys and
girls or the city streets: because they
come to love their gardens and come
out to work in them, and to work out
their tuition. This is not ALL as soon
as the planting is done in the gar
dens the children take up the system
attic study Of weeds. they become IA
miliar with them and learn methods
OF destroying them. Also at the School
there are about 500 observation plots
containing many of our common
things, and the children learn to know
them In all stages OF development.
People are beginning to realize that
a boy from the School OF Horticulture
is better to work In their garden than
the average man they can get, be-
cause the boys will not pull up ex-
pensive seedlings as the men so often
do. Frequent calls are made upon Mr..
Herenway for boy to take care Of
a garden or lawn, and many Of the
boys are able to spend most OF their
spare time during the summer In this
line of work.