56 NATURE STUDY REVIEW [8 :2— Feb., 1912 



to his own will in the rearing of a plant. Furthermore it seems 

 to me impossible that one could be conscious of such power with- 

 out being made stronger, more independent, more resourceful as 

 a result of such consciousness. Indeed I believe that the sub- 

 jects to be found in the curriculum are efficient or inefficient ac- 

 cording as they give or fail to give such consciousness. Thus we 

 see that the garden begins to cultivate in the child very early in 

 life those qualities which the later man and woman must of neces- 

 sity possess in order to succeed. It would be, it seems to me, 

 a serious mistake to give a course in nature study which would 

 not make use of the garden in the way above indicated in the 

 realization of its most widely accepted aim. 



Secondly, and following as a result of what has been said 

 above, the proper use of the school garden furnishes the pupil 

 a most potent motive for the learning of the formal lesson" in 

 nature study. The boy or the girl who desires to grow plants 

 •successfully, and few of them when rightfully taught do not, are 

 given a powerfully compelling motive for the study of such things 

 as plant structures and functions and the relation which these 

 bear to the need of plants for light, air, heat, moisture, food, and 

 soil, as well as the relation of plants to each other. The fact 

 that his garden plant constantly needs moisture and that the sup- 

 ply of moisture needs regulation supplies the pupil with a real 

 motive for the study of the various uses which the plant makes 

 of water, the movement of water in the soil, the forms in which 

 the water exists in the soil, and the various methods by which 

 water is applied to and conserved in the soil. The two points 

 last named open up to the pupil in a natural and interesting way 

 the vvhole subject of irrigation and cultivation, and dry farming- 

 methods which are now coming into such general use. The 

 packing of the soil consequent upon certain methods of irriga- 

 tion paves the way for a desire to know the means by which the 

 soil may properly be aerated, and the great importance of aera- 

 tion of the soil in supplying the underground portions of plants 

 with oxygen, and also the function of air in the preparation of 

 available plant food generally. Continuous cropping with the 

 same crop for a series of years and the consequent reduction in 

 the amount of available plant food in the soil opens the way very 

 naturally to, and gives the child a desire to know something about, 

 the plant foods, the various forms in which these exist in the soil, 

 how soils become depleted of available plant food, and how the 

 supply of available plant foods may be renewed in the soil, the 

 need for the application of fertilizers both natiu'al and artificial, 

 the effect of crop rotation on soil fertility, and the relation which 

 tillage bears to soil fertility. 



