80 GARDENS AND THEIR MEANING 



cutting a number in the handle of each tool, so that it may 

 easily be kept in place. 



Devices of all sorts for keeping the tools in order and in 

 good shape will be suggested by the pupils themselves. This 

 is one way of developing responsibility. At any rate, they 

 should make their own rules and suggest their own penalties. 

 Children may be chosen by vote to regularly inspect the tool 

 room. How the tools were cared for in his class is told by 

 a boy of thirteen in an exercise in written English : 



OUR GARDEN TOOL HOUSE 



The tools of the young boy gardeners of the Rice School are kept by 

 a committee of boys called The Tool Committee. Their duty is to keep 

 the house where the tools are kept in perfect condition and to provide 

 the boys with tools. If a tool breaks or comes apart, there is a boy who 

 volunteers to repair it. 



When the boys come to work in the garden, they form a line near 

 the tool house and ask one of the committee to give him a certain tool 

 which he needs for his kind of work in the garden. When a boy asks 

 for a spade, he must need it for digging up the soil, or if he asks for a 

 hoe, he must need it for gathering up the rubbish, and when he asks for 

 a rake, he probably needs it to take the rocks out of his garden. Then 

 there is a scratcher to pulverize the soil or to dig around some roots, and 

 then there is a trowel to make holes in the ground and a water can to 

 water the gardens. We try to have the tool house as clean as possible 

 and see that everything is in its right place. 



One season's experience will prove how great an advantage 

 it is to associate with the gardening some instruction in 

 woodwork. Not a day will pass without a frantic call for the 

 carpenter. A few labels are unexpectedly needed ; the han- 

 dle of a shattered spade is to be cleverly sharpened into a 

 useful dibble ; a support must be devised for the hop vines 

 before nightfall. Plenty of stakes and raffia should be always 

 on hand for tying up vines and high-headed plants. Raffia 



