The star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1908-1909, 1908-09-17
SCHOOL PUPILS
RAISE BIG CROPS
ON THEIR FARMS
Splendid Weather Enables Little
Ones to Harvest Many
Vegetables.
THESE CITY GARDENS
PROVE SUCCESSFUL
Cultivation OF Soil to Become
Part of the School
Curriculum.
BY ADELINE STANLEY CARRICK.

The farmers in the country are moi
the only ones who are glad of this Won
derful Indian summer, with its full
crops and sunny harvest days.
There are a great many city farm.
ers, Of whom perhaps you have not
heard, who are just as pleased, more
pleased, in fact.
They are the little students of the
summer school gardens who have
worked industriously since July s, when
they opened, filling the soil. freeing il
from stones, planting, wedding, water
ing, ! training, guarding and finally
gathering, with a gleeful triumph that
well atoned for scratched hands and
tired backs.
The haryest season has made known
some wonderful results. Think of big,
even solid grains of corn, wax beans
fully six inches long. and beats fit for a
king. Think of radishes las is rad
ishes' and carrots that are like hand
paintin'," as one little girl described it
and youth know the why and the
wherefore of certain happy smiles in
certain quarters.
Children show Interest.
The school garden movement was
started by the club women of Newark
three years ago., with Mrs. S. Erwin
Manness as chairman. Spades, trowels,
rakes, hoes, wheelbarrows n other
implements were provided for the chill
dren, and the Board of Education was
persuaded to place teachers in charge
of the gardens. Great interest was
shown By the children, especially in
the garden adjoining the Eighteenth
Avenue School, where the experiment
was first tried. Last year several more
We're started. and then the manage
ment of the gardens was taken owe
by the board. When the new board
was installed the matter was over
looked, the new board taking it for
granted that the gardens were an
established institution.
The club women, who had by no
means lost interest in the gardens be-
cause they were virtually cut Of their
hands, became uneasy, and finally
logged the memory of the board mem
bers, with the result that the gardens
were put In operation nee more, but
just two months later than they should
have been. That Is why crops are late.
Next year, however, everybody's going
to do better.
The school gardens of his summer
are at Eighteenth Avenue, under the
charge of Miss Maude Gift; Lawrence
Street, supervised by Hoyt Tucker until
the opening of school: Hamburg Place,
supervised by Fred w. Fort; Bergen
Street. by Miss ]. Isabelle Warrender,
and Elizabeth Avenue, under the
charge of Miss Edith Simonson.
The Eighteenth Avenue garden has
ninety-three plots. with one pupil to a
plot. Each plot is AXIS feet in size, and
was planted with lettuce, radishes, wax
beans, bush and lima beans, corn. car
rots, beets and turnips. During the
past summer there have been gathered
about 400 radishes, 5000 leaves OF
lettuce, 800 turnips and $50 or 100 quarts
of beans. The seeds are provided by
the Board of Education. and each child
Is entitled to what he raises. The
little workers have been tireless. as
their large crops testify.
Their Educational Value.
That the school gardens are of great
educational value goes without saying,
Many of the little gardeners come from
the most crowded OF tenement homes
where a bit of growing green is never
seen. The gardens and the processes OF
growing of the various plants Is re-
garded by them as akin to miracles.