CERTAIN USES OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN. ' 85 



Avhole afternoon. The children do the planting and the watering, 

 in fact, the actual work is done by them. The seeds are furnished 

 through a contribution made by the city. 



Robert Cameron said that he would like to know how the teachers 

 get the practical knowledge necessary in carrying on the garden 

 work. He had met a number and he had found them deficient, 

 as a rule, in the knowledge of practical gardening. He thought 

 it important that the teachers get the correct methods of garden 

 work at the first. 



]Miss Withington replied that the teachers get their knowledge 

 from practical gardeners and from other teachers. They often 

 feel inadequately furnished with the necessary knowledge in gar- 

 dening, and at such times they turn to the florists and gardeners 

 who are always willing to help with their advice and suggestions. 

 As the school garden movement develops there will be some syste- 

 matic training of teachers to this end. 



Mr. Cameron said that he had spent the month of Dec;^mber in 

 Jamaica and had visited the Hope Gardens there where agricultural 

 instruction was gi^-en to the school children. They have about an 

 acre of garden for the children to work in, and the director talks 

 to them about the soil, methods of planting, etc. They are shown 

 the correct way of planting the principal agricultural products of 

 the island, such as oranges, bananas, sugar cane, pineapples, and 

 giiava. On other days the chemist and the botanist give instruc- 

 tion in their respective lines. The aim is to train the children to be 

 agriculturists. They are ahead of our schools in practical work 

 and we ought to have something of the kind here. He believed 

 that the children should be taught agriculture and that the teachers 

 should be taught how to do their work properly. 



William B. Carpenter said that the city should supply practical 

 men to teach the teachers. He thought the movement towards 

 agricultural education one of the best features of the present day. 

 Among other things in the school garden he advocated a cereal 

 garden. There arc only eight cereals and all can be grown easily 

 in our gardens, thus showing the development of these important 

 plants and furnishing opportunity of seeing them growing side by 

 side. Not one in a hundred, he said, knows how wheat, rice, and 

 buckwheat look; the common things that are actually used in 



