THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED PRIMARILY TO ALL SCIENTIFIC STUDIES OF NATURE 

 IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 



Vol. 6 April, 1910 No. 4 



AGRICULTURAL NATURE-STUDY AS EXEMPLIFIED IN THE SCHOOL 



GARDEN 



By FRED L. CHARLES, University of Illinois 



For some years the writer has been interested in adapting 

 for pupils of the fourth grade and older, experimental studies 

 with plant varieties and with fertilizers, of such a character 

 that definite scientific results should be achieved both for edu- 

 cation and for agriculture. It is his contention that a thorough 

 working knowledge of a subject, together with a thorough 

 working knowledge of children, will make it possible for the 

 fundamentals in almost any field of science to be satisfactorily 

 presented in the nature-study course of the elementary school. 

 The present article will give somewhat briefly the method and 

 results of some garden studies made bv a fourth grade class in 

 the training school of the Northern Illinois State Normal 

 School at DeKalb. 



The point in vegetable gardening for profit is to get into 

 the market early. In the school garden, likewise, it is desir- 

 able to grow crops which will mature before the end of the 

 spring term, thus avoiding the vacation problem. To be sure, 

 certain crops which do not mature until fall and which de- 

 mand a minimum of cultivation, may be grown without serious 

 difficulty under usual conditions, but such quickly maturing 

 vegetables as the radish, lettuce, pea, spinach, chard, cress 

 (pepper grass) and beets (for greens), are perhaps best for work 

 with younger pupils. 



The essentials in market gardening, as in other forms of 

 agricultural pursuit, are a definite plan, good seed, good soil, 

 a good season, good sense, and something of the science of ag- 

 riculture. 



(i) A definite plan involves a drawing of the garden 

 plat to scale, indicating the planting scheme, the varieties to be 

 planted and the area devoted to each. In a class where gen- 



