=Plantations for Rural School Grounds.=--A paper on the Laying out and Adornment of Rural School Grounds, by Prof. L. H. Bailey, published as a Bulletin of Cornell University Experiment Station, lays down as a general principle in plantation that it should be in the main for foliage effects. “Select those trees and shrubs which are the commonest, because they are the cheapest, hardiest, and likeliest to grow. There is no district so poor and bare that enough plants can not be secured without money for the school yard. You will find them in the woods, in old yards, along the fences.... Scatter in a few trees along the fences and about the buildings. Maples, basswood, elms, ashes, buttonwood, pepperidge, oaks, beeches, birches, hickories, poplars, a few trees of pine or spruce or hemlock--any of these are excellent. If the country is bleak, a rather heavy planting of evergreens about the border, in the place of so much shrubbery, is very good. For shrubs, use the common things to be found in the woods and swales, together with the roots which can be found in every old yard. Willows, osiers, witch-hazel, dogwood, wild roses, thorn apples, haws, elders, sumac, wild honeysuckles--these and others can be found in every school district. From the farmyards can be secured snowballs, spireas, lilacs, forsythias, mock-oranges, roses, snowberries, barberries, flowering currants, honeysuckles, and the like. Vines can be used to excellent purpose on the outbuildings or on the schoolhouse itself. The common wild Virginia creeper is the most serviceable on brick or stone schoolhouses. The Boston ivy or the Japanese ampelopsis may be used, unless the location is very bleak. Honeysuckle, clematis, and bittersweet are also attractive.” Flowers may be used for decorations. * * * * *