1906] NaTurE StupY—No. 32. 235 
NATURE STUDY.—No. XXXII, 
THE SCHOOL GARDEN AND THE COUNTRY SCHOOL. 
By Gro. D. FULLER, Director of School Gardens, Macdonald Rural Schools, 
Knowlton, Que. 
The place the school garden is to occupy in connection 
with the country schools of Canada is yet an unsolved problem. 
We are told of its advantages and are beginning to realize some- 
thing of its possibilities as a field for nature study, as the labora- 
tory for the student of natural science, and as a training school 
for the progressive farmers of a coming generation. Certainly 
its advantages are great, but there are many difficulties to be 
surmounted before the school garden can become recognized as a 
necessary part of the equipment of every rural school. 
The solution of this problem has been begun in a systematic 
way inthe Macdonald Rural schools, which have been endowed 
by Sir William C. Macdonald, and are being directed by Prof. Jas. 
W. Robertson, and perhaps there is no better way to indicate the 
progress made, to tell of the difficulties encountered, ard to enlist 
the co-operation of others, than to describe one such school gar- 
den and tell what it has done for one country school. Such an 
account may point the way to teachers who wish to test the bene- 
fits of a school garden and may help them to surmount the diffi- 
culties and avoid some of the failures others have encountered. 
In the spring of 1903, at Brome, Quebec, a little red school 
house, dull and dingy, seated with hard plank benches, was occu- 
pied by a teacher and some 25 pupils. Although in the country 
surrounded by large farms and farm houses with attractive 
grounds, the school yard was only four rods square, so that the 
wood shed crowded the school house almost into the road. For 
play ground there was the smooth, well travelled road. The 
poorest houses in the vicinity were less bare and uninviting. For- 
tunately the soil was fertile, well cultivated and with good natural 
drainage, so that the problem was not complicated by the ques- 
tion of moving to a locality where soil suitable for a garden 
could be obtained. 
