New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1910-05-14
VEGETABLES TAKE A BOOM
Mrs. Sage and Others Give
Farm Garden to P. s. lit.

Fifty-five small girls, in ffty-fve st!fny
starched sunbonnets. and one hashful 1T
tie fat boy with Tapping straw hat tied
under his chin, dug ffty-six troweI5 into
fifty-six smooth brown beds OF earth, each
exactly four feet by four feet in size. II
was a thrilling moment. F'ifty-six troweis
made ffty-six fundamentally straight lit
tie drills across the southern ends Of the
beds and hfty-six eager little hands scat
tered radish seed carefully Ia. The plant
ing at the new school farm garden. at
Public School III was begun.
Tt isn't a spot where anybody would
expect TO find a garden For Public School
III is at the corner OF Market and Monros
streets. with crowded tenement houses el-
bowling 1t on every side and the ap-
proaches 10 the Williamsburg Bridge
frowning at Il. Nor was there a garden
there a few months ago. only hard gray
concrete where yesterday the children
! planted seeds. But Mrs. Henry Parsons
1 and Henry Griscom Parsons, her son, and
! other officers OF the International Chi
| dren's School Farm League resolved
that the twenty-four hundred children
/ of this school. many OF whom never
saw the green country and don't know
that potatoes grow In the ground.
should have a chance to plant things
and watch them growing Seven per-
| sons Interested in the work of the
| Ieague-Mrs- Russell Sage Mortimer Schi1.
| Isaac Selisrnan. John HuyIer, Felix War
burg, Paul Ws-burg and Y Everit Macy
contributed 800 for the work: earth was
| brought from Woodside. Long Island.
enough to cover q part of the concrete
schoolyard fifty yards square. 20 the depth
| of eighteen inches; perforated pipes for
F-.41 r-fy
earth blanket. and the newest school gar
den was fact.
There are ffty-eisht classes in PUhrr
School III, mostly girls, and all but two
| are represented in the allotment OF the
plots Vast excitement reigned all tha
week among the lucky little girls chosen
| 10 do the planting. Each one had 20 make
! her own sunbonnet. and wash il and iron
it. and each had to stencil her badge. the
bit of ribbon bearing the number OF her
| plot
| The principal Miss Mary T. Brady, says
| the school has been trying for seven years
| to get a farm garden So interested vera
| the teachers when they knew they we->
going 10 have that several OF them. in
| Guiding Miss Maude r. Osborne. took a
course in the training class in gardening
| conducted by Mr.. Parsons at the New York
University.
I'VE think this garden is going 20 be .
power in the neighborhood," said Miss
Brady yesterday. See the rear windows Of
those tenements that look down on us?
Since we began working in the garden one
by one the old rags. broken boxes, bottles
and rusty boilers in the windows and on
the fire escapes have disappeared, and now
that building looks quite respectable. We
hope these gardens will do much toward re-
Iieving the problem of congestion. too. BY
waking in the children, and through them
in their parents, a desire TO live in the
country.
I'D like the country In summer" said .
curly haired jewish girl. patting down the
earth around q pansy. But. my. 7 should
think it would be lonesome IN winter
Beans, carrots, radishes, onions. 1ettucs
and corn are planted in each bed Their
there are big beds Of geraniums and pansies
in the centre Of the garden and long oh
servation bed around the edge. in which. ~
the plants turn out we'll the children viii
have an opportunity of seeing how cotton.
peanuts. sweet potatoes, etc, look when
they growing.
Most of the city departments cooper
ated with us in doing this said Mrs Par
sons yesterday. 1--WE had 10 get seven per-
Inits before we could start-from the De-
partnlent OF Highways, the Bridge Depart
ment and others Some loaned US carts TO
haul the earth in and others helped "a in
various ways. As for the Board of Educs-
ton, it built that concrete wall TO keep the
garden from falling downstairs on tbs
kindergarten in the basement