Just as the individual members strove for excellence among themselves, so did the clubs and the schools. The school having the highest average among the garden club members attending it was given a banner. This banner is the first in a series designed with a similar idea as that carried out in the buttons awarded to the individual prize winners.

This plan of premium awards always leaves something open to be achieved. It is inexpensive and makes possible the awarding of many merits. This in turn gives every child an ample chance to start toward the final goal. If a pupil does good work but does not stand first, he is given something to show for his efforts and something as a basis to work on in the future.

Meeting places.-The meeting place of each club gathering was determined by the object of the special meeting. The preliminary

planning and ordering of seeds was done in the schoolhouse. Demonstrations in garden preparation, seed sowing, and cultural methods were held in back yards and vacant lots. Street corners were used as meeting places for starting trips to the surrounding commercial trucking region. Two of the older groups met in one of the school yards several times to aid in the construction of hot beds and receive instructions for building them.

INSTRUCTION.

The methods of instruction varied in accordance with the season. During the late winter and early spring the classroom method was followed. Necessarily the work done at this time was varied. Some of the time was spent in talking over the different garden practices

and methods, some in seed-testing demonstrations, and some in drawing plans and working out schemes for the summer's work.

Just as soon as the ground could be worked demonstrations were held to illustrate the problems which would be met by the children when they started to work their gardens. With the least experienced children, and there were many with no experience, the most difficult task was to teach them how to handle garden tools. The handling of tools combined with their many uses comprised a problem difficult to the small beginners.

Along with the classroom work and demonstrations, postcards and circulars of different kinds were found valuable. Several short leaflets on timely subjects were written and distributed by the supervisor. Publications of experiment stations, and one of a seed firm, were also used.

ALL SEEDS PLANTED ARE CAREFULLY LABELED.

A still broader view of vegetable gardening and agriculture in general was afforded the children through automobile trips into the rural districts. Englewood lies near some of the best vegetable, fruit, poultry, dairy, and general farms of New Jersey. Many of these were visited. The trips proved to be greatly enjoyable and inspiring, as well as instructive to the children.

Without doubt the most valuable instruction of all was that offered to each child individually. As in all cases of practical agricultural teaching, the school garden instructor, when dealing with a class, must treat his subject for the most part in general terms. It is difficult for anyone to put these generalities into practice under a variety of unexpected conditions. For the child it is next to impossible. Consequently, a question answered at school or on the street

was of particular value to the work, but most satisfactory were the instructions given in the individual gardens.

Vegetable gardening, on a larger scale than is usually possible in the back yard of a city lot, was taught by means of a demonstration garden. Since it served as an ideal for many people, and offered experience of a rather extensive sort to a considerable group of boys, it will be described somewhat fully.

The demonstration garden.-About an acre of ground located on one of the main streets, just opposite a school building, was used during the summer as a demonstration garden. This was planted with three varieties of sweet corn, three of tomatoes, two of egg plants, two of peppers, two of turnips, three of radishes, endive, and potatoes. It served as a working place for several boys who were chosen

on a competitive basis to do the work. The chief value of the garden came as an object lesson to the community.

The planting was done by the school janitor and the instructor, with the aid of several of the boys who were more than glad to lend a hand. At the time of planting, the ground was in rather poor condition, as the weeds which were previously growing on it were not entirely covered in plowing. Thus by the time the crops were large enough so that hoeing and weeding could be started, they were nearly hidden with weeds. Some of the daisies were actually in bloom. This made an excellent opportunity for trying out prospective workmen, although the conditions for a successful garden were far from perfect. The garden had to be gone over several times during the first cleaning, whereas once would have been sufficient if the land had been more carefully plowed and harrowed.

During most of the summer there were but two boys working on the garden at one time. These were selected from a large number who originally applied, by a competitive system based mainly on the amount and quality of work which they accomplished while not under supervision. At the time, they did not know that they were being watched, although they did realize that if their work was good enough they would be given permanent employment. In this way trustworthy boys were chosen, and as a result very little supervision was needed to carry on the work successfully. The part of the project which required the most time on the part of the instructor was the supervision of the marketing.

The size of the project made possible a great deal of instruction which would have been impracticable on a smaller plat of land.

The boys were taught to operate wheel hoes, as well as to remove weeds, and to make a dust mulch with their hands and a garden hoe. They were taught to tie tomatoes in several ways and to compare the results with those which were not tied at all. A small sprayer gave them an opportunity to learn about spraying, the mixing of spray materials, and the function of each ingredient. When the crops were harvested they learned something about salesmanship. All work done during the day was recorded at night.

The boys who worked at the garden were paid 15 cents an hour, except for selling, for which they received a commission of 20 cents on each dollar's worth of vegetables they sold. In this way the boys, all of whom ranged in ages from 10 to 15 years, were able to earn good wages. The plan was so satisfactory to the boys that 33 such gardens were started in the spring of 1917 as individual undertakings.

Assignment of plats.-With the exception of the children living in the congested part of the city, most of the garden club members had their plats in their back yards. The children who lived in the tenements and in other buildings of the same neighborhood were provided with plats of a reasonable size near their homes. These were located in two vacant lots. One was occupied by boys and the other by girls. The vacant lots were staked off into plats of different sizes to meet the needs of different children, and each plat was surrounded by a path 2 feet wide. Each child was assigned to a plat of his own in the spring, which he was required to spade, plant, and care for throughout the season. Any child neglecting to care for his garden and the surrounding paths in a satisfactory way was deprived of further use of it.

PRELIMINARY WORK, SOIL PREPARATION, PLANTING.

Garden planning.-Actual operations went hand in hand with instruction, which was in most cases very minute. This was especially true while the children were drawing to scale preliminary working plans of their gardens. A great deal of individual instruction was necessary at this time for two reasons: First, because of the varying knowledge of the subject among the children; and, secondly, because of the completely different problem which each child had to solve. Many children had never had any garden experience at all; some had helped their parents who were experts, and were familiar with the growing habits of plants, garden equipment, and the use of fertilizers and sprays. These differences of gardening knowledge, combined with just as great differences in knowledge of arithmetic and drawing, shown by the children in putting on paper the plans for