Now, I hope that you can plant at least ten "hills" of corn, or, if you do not plant it in "hills," you may make two rows, each of them five or ten feet long. I want you to plant part of these hills (or one of the rows) in good rich soil. Perhaps your father will let you plant them in the best part of the garden along with the cabbages or other crops; or, perhaps, your mother will let you plant them at the back part of the flower garden. Then I want you to keep down the weeds and break or cultivate the ground often with a hoe or rake so that the soil is always loose. Then I want you to plant the other part of the corn in a poor or dry piece of ground, where the weeds grow. This part you need not cultivate. I think that before the summer is half over you will learn a very great lesson by looking at these two pieces of corn. Some of you will say that you know beforehand what will happen; but I want you to grow the corn nevertheless. By fall I hope you will be able to write me whether you can tell a rich soil when you see it, and also why you think it is rich. I want everyone of the Junior Gardeners to tell me that much when school opens. * * * * * _To the Teacher:_ We must depend upon your courtesy to help in reporting what has been done by you and your pupils in improvement of school grounds. In addition to this we hope it may be your pleasure to ask all the children who are able to write to tell us in detail, at some language period, what they have done. We are never able to get reports of all this good work. Many teachers feel that nothing but heroic deeds in the planting of school grounds are worthy of mention. This is a mistake. Some grounds may be more improved by attention to simple tidiness than by expensive planting, and they are equally worthy of mention. The attendance at some schools is small and the pupils are young. Small efforts from them are relatively great when compared with what is done by schools with ample facilities. We know a teacher who began her first teaching in the fall of 1902. The pupils were eight in number and most of them were small. The school was in the country. The interior of the building was shabby. The teacher was courageous and resolute. With her small handful of not over-competent pupils, she had school "exercises" and the children sold tickets. By this means enough paper was bought to cover the walls, and the teacher and the children put the paper on. Then they made other sales, for which they received as commission three pictures creditably framed. They were hung on the walls of the school-house. By this time, the tide of civic improvement in that community began to turn towards the improving of the school building and grounds. We are eagerly awaiting reports to know what was done on Arbor Day. Under such conditions, it was no small thing that the teacher and children accomplished. [Illustration: _Fig. 366. Making a school-garden in Massachusetts._]