28 The Nature-Study Exhibition 



HORTICULTURE 



This type of teaching was also well represented, exhibits 

 having been sent from all the well-known centres. 



The contribution, for example, of the Berkshire County 

 Council comes entirely under this heading, and has been 

 thus described : 



"The exhibit of this county council has not a very direct bearing on 

 Nature-study. It is the result of the Conference on School Gardens. 



"Nine groups of Continuation School Gardens have been started, and 

 of these all but one sent an exhibit that of Aldermaston (A. Higgs, 

 Local Instructor) secured the first prize in the produce section. 



" It is impossible to state better than Mr. Rooper did in his paper the 

 great and many advantages of these School Gardens the prevention of 

 the knowledge of words being mistaken for the knowledge of things, 

 the encouraging of a rural population, the study of living things, espe- 

 cially plants, the intimate connection of School Gardens with Agriculture, 

 their development of the qualities of order, method, industry, punctu- 

 ality, and general steadiness in young men at the most critical time of 

 life. 



"With its exhibit, each School Garden was requested to forward 

 copies of its time-table, scheme of cropping, plan of garden, boys' note- 

 books, and photographs. All did not comply fully with these requests, 

 but many interesting additions to the produce were sent. 



" The gardens are carried on all over the county upon one plan 

 under Mr. A. S. Gait, the County Instructor in Horticulture. In every 

 school there is a standard plot for boys to work to, and an experimental 

 plot where simple experiments are attempted. 



"A competition in accordance with definite conditions, Mr. W. 

 Iggulden, F. R. H.S., being judge, will be carried on in the week 

 beginning August i8th, and all other factors being constant, the 

 crops are very interesting experiments upon variations of geological 

 structure, soil, and climate. The soils vary very much being Coralline 

 Rag, Kimmeridge Clay, Gait, Upper Green-sand, Chalk, and London 

 Clay." 



Horticultural teaching has also been made a feature of 

 the Surrey County Council's educational scheme, and its 

 progress may be judged from the following paragraph: 



" If, when the teaching of gardening commenced on the Continuation 

 School plots in Surrey, any person had ventured to predict such results 



