MISCELLANEOUS SUGGESTIONS. 



Tools. Select a place for storing tools. Either ask the children to bring- 

 tools from home or purchase them. Call upon the board of trustees, your 

 parental club, or purchase the tools with money raised through school enter- 

 tainments and the like. Buy man-size tools with the exception of the spade. 

 Use the so-called "woman's spade." You will need a hoe, a rake, a spade in 

 each set, one set to three pupils. 



If sprinkling pots are acquired, take off the sprinkling attachment. Use the 

 trench method in irrigating. Do not sprinkle except to prevent the soil 

 drying out before the seeds have germinated. If it is necessary to sprinkle 

 at this time, see that the soil is moistened to a depth of several inches. 



Seeds to plant. In the primary grades grow hardy, rapid gerrninating 

 seeds that will mature in a few weeks, such as bulbs, lettuce, radish, and 

 the like. 



For the grammar grades, select plants of larger economic value, corn, 

 potatoes, cotton, sugar beets, etc. The plants grown in the community 

 should determine largely the trend of the school garden. 



Vacation time. The children living near the garden should care for the 

 plants during vacation time for a percentage of the output. In the country 

 some one, child or adult, can be found who will give a little time now and 

 then to further the work. If possible plan to mature crops which need care, 

 before the close of the school. ^ 



THE WIDE SCOPE OF THE SCHOOL GARDEN AND ITS USE. 



The school garden is a miniature world patterned after the universe. In 

 the garden practically all of nature's forces are at work. Here the children 

 may obtain fundamental background experiences with plants and animals 

 which are necessary to afford a foundation upon which to build the super- 

 structure of literature, art, biology. Children must needs get this back- 

 ground, for life is a continual reaction with nature and her forces and the 

 interpretation of the same. The school must not concern itself alone with 

 tools and agencies for interpretation, arithmetic, geography, history and the 

 like, but must carefully build the foundation. These definite, typical, clear- 

 cut experiences obtained in garden work offer exercise to the agencies, 

 arithmetic, drawing, painting, oral and written speech. Through the garden 

 the children may be brought in touch with the work and problem of their 

 community. 



The garden should become a unifying center for the study of plants and 

 animals. In the preparation of the seed bed, earthworms are encountered. 

 Study them. As the plants mature insect pests are met. Study them. Now 

 is the ideal time. The children have a vital interest in the cabbage butterfly 

 since it is a question of its destruction or the loss of their cabbages. Every 

 garden hour brings a surprise. 



It is a short step from the garden pest to the big problem of the com- 

 munity, of the state, in controlling insect pests. 



Let the garden offer real problems to be solved through the aid of figures. 

 Arithmetic takes on a new. meaning. Astounded, the child realizes that 

 arithmetic is a tool to ease one's way rather than "another subject" taught 

 at school. 



Experiences with birds and insects met in the gardens should offer subject 

 matter for art, for drawing. 



School garden experiences should help to interpret geography, history, civil 

 government. Establish a "garden city" where boys and girls may receive 

 actual training in civic life. See chapter 17, "Principles of Agriculture 

 Through the School and the Home Garden." 



To make gardening most potential, clear, definite instruction with practice 

 should be undertaken. Fundamental principles underlying success in growing 

 plants should be demonstrated to the children. The children should know' 

 the "why" of each garden practice. Why cultivate soil? Why use the trench- 

 method in irrigation? and the like. This question will be discussed more fully 

 in a later issue of the Supplement. 



