AMONG SCHOOL GARDENS 



team of children can be harnessed to draw it.* 

 Where seeds may be sown broadcast, as in some 

 of the observation plots, this roller will be handy 

 to firm them, provided the soil is not clayey. 

 If it is, you do not wish by rolling and compacting 

 to create a layer of hard, soggy crust through 

 which tender seedlings may not have the strength 

 to penetrate. 



What are the seeds doing down in the dark 

 earth? Are they all doing something, and in 

 the same way, and why? These are the ques- 

 tions the children ask, and the true answers 

 you want them to determine, to think about 

 and to discuss among themselves. The question 

 why the seeds do so and so is one that we 

 must frankly admit cannot be completely ans- 

 wered. Nobody knows just why or how the seed 

 develops. We see them do certain things and we 

 say it is because God or nature put into each 

 tiny seed a plan of life, and to that plan each 

 seedling keeps, perhaps because it knows it ought. 

 Anyway, each kind of seed clings to a definite 

 plan of development through its whole life. 

 Whoever has watched seeds of the same and of 

 different kinds develop as far as they are able 

 and then gradually die, knows that each one 

 of them has one great purpose, which is to 

 reproduce itself by seed, and to reach that 



* In order to have it roll, when filling in the stones and cement 

 the axle must be protected by a collar of wood or tin or something that 

 will prevent adhesion to it and leave just enough space for revolving. 



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