CHURCHILL] NATURE-STUDY 371 



In the garden and plant lessons, again, while the sole object 

 is education of the child, rather than material product or crop, 

 still material results may be our best test or evidence of mental 

 excellence. But if only one plant lesson can be used, let that one 

 be the game of trying to rear some single plant BEST. This 

 lesson always has been and forever will be the central problem of 

 plant industry — to produce the best possible specimen of any 

 particular plant. Then, by proper culture and breeding we may 

 produce a better specimen the next season, and so on. In the 

 preceding tables the plants deemed to be suitable for this game 

 are printed in black face, but any plant may be used, the same one 

 used in all grades, if desired. The method of procedure is simply 

 to distribute seeds at the proper time, and let the pupils see who 

 can raise the most perfect plants. This will be a test of honest 

 effort, patience and perseverance and keen intelligence, compared 

 with which a written examination is insignificant. The best prize 

 plants — ^record hill of potatoes, record wheat plant of all standard 

 or new varieties, the record plants of com, oats, alfalfa, barley, rye, 

 etc., should become the property of Oregon, and should be 

 turned over to the specialists in the Agricultural College or Uni- 

 versity for scientific study and for experiments in plant breeding. 

 (Example: A single hill of Burbank potatoes was raised in a 

 school garden in Puyallup, Washington, that produced 103 tubers, 

 weighing 40 pounds and 12 ounces. This may be the record hill 

 for the world for 19 13. Who will excel this record in 19 14?) 



The garden is essentially the core of interest for the entire 

 course, and out of it flows naturally interest in the insects and 

 weeds and fungi that attack it, and in the birds and bees that 

 protect and help it. Every child ought to be induced or re- 

 quired to have a garden of his very own — at home or at school 

 — purely for the education and moral training it should afford, 

 and the half, or even the whole of his grade or standing in this 

 subject might to advantage be figured from the actual condition of 

 his garden at the close of school in June, the beginning of school 

 in September, and the record of production from the garden for 

 the entire season. The garden records should give accurately, 

 size of plot and list of amount and value of products. And in 

 connection with the garden work, soils, soil fertility and physical 

 condition of soils, conservation of soil moisture and fertility, 

 rotation of crops and utilization of manures and fertilizers shouUl 

 be studied in all grades. 



