31 6 NATURE STUDY AND AGRICULTURE 



ing plants, should be those that require their seeds to be 

 started in a hot bed or greenhouse. If neither of these is 

 accessible, the seeds may be grown in the schoolroom 

 window garden and transplanted into the school garden. 

 In some places the garden is too small to make it practi- 

 cable to grow all the different plants suggested above. If 

 the area is so small that it requires several grades to work 

 together, some valuable work may still be done. Vege- 

 tables, some flowering plants, and a few of the most im- 

 portant industrial plants may be grown. The work should 

 be made progressive from year to year instead of from 

 grade to grade as in larger gardens. A small corner should 

 always be reserved for the simple plants grown by the little 

 children. In the fall a portion of the ground may be cleared 

 off and set out in tulip and hyacinth bulbs for spring 

 blooming. The same bulbs may be used year after year if 

 they are taken up two or three weeks after the plants are 

 through blooming and stored in a cool, dry place for the 

 summer. Even in a small garden a portion of the ground 

 may be devoted to geraniums and coleus, from which the 

 children may make cuttings to take home for winter 

 blooming. 



Proper arrangement and planting must be followed by 

 care and cultivation of the plants. The children must 

 learn when and how to water transplanted plants, how to 

 distinguish weeds from the crop plants; that the best time 

 to pull weeds is when the soil is moist; and that the ground 

 needs hoeing and pulverizing even if there are no weeds to 

 kill. Every school that attempts gardening should own 

 the tools necessary to carry on the work. These are a few 

 shovels, several rakes and hoes, not too heavy, some hand- 



