JAMAICA. 



BXJLTjBTIiSr 



OF TIIR 



DEPARrMENT OF AGRIOULTURK. 



Vol. II. JULY, 1904. Part 7. 



SCHOOL GARDENS. 



By T. J. Harris, late Agricultural Instructor, Tlope Gardens. 



Most elementary school teachers in Jamaica are aware that a school 

 garden is maintained primarily for the purpose of affording material 

 for the lessons in nature study and elementary science given to the 

 school children; few, however, have realized the importance of such 

 work, even though they know ttat the prosperity of the country de- 

 pends entirely upon the skill and energy evinced by the agriculturist 

 and these again upon the amount of enlightened interest 'aken in the 

 comm< n phenomena of every duy life both as regards plants and animals. 



It must be remembered by the teacher that the conditions that ob- 

 tain in Jamaica are very different from those of Hritdn, America and 

 the European continent, where, in the large towi s, hundieds of boys 

 and girls attend one large school, who are not expected to go to the 

 land but are trained with a view to making useful men for the great 

 factories and woikshops, and thoroughly domesticated women for the 

 myriads of little homes. It is the country lad who g'^es on to the land, 

 whomakesthemostsuccessful farmer. Comparehis youthful experience 

 with that of the town lad ; the country boy on bis journey to and from 

 school is daily confronted with varying phenomena of bird, animal, 

 plant and in^iect life, and on arrival home in the evening h;is accumu- 

 lated numberless questions with which to bombard hisp:irents; who 

 are invariably careful enough to answer the questions correctly and to 

 encourage the lad to ask more. 



The poor town lad sees nothing of the beautiful and wonderful ob- 

 jects of nature, hes-es nothing but huge factories and warehouses^ 

 bricks and mortar, pavements and traffic; little wonder that he be- 

 comes more and more a machine when later we find him carrying our 

 his life's work amidst the deafening roar of machinery. 



It may be a' gued that the country-side boy of Jamaica has the same 

 or equivalent advantageous surroundings as the northern boy; this is 



