Miscellaneous. 



,58 



[July, 1908. 



school gardens have not been successful 

 at St. Kitts. On the other hand, at 

 Nevis, they have had greater success, 

 and at the Agricultural Shows the 

 schools have always been well repre- 

 sented. 



The Education Committee of the Con- 

 ference reported that the evidence avail- 

 able from the different colonies testified 

 that opposition on the part of the 

 parents to their children working in 

 garden plots has now practically died 

 out. Lack of interest in agricultural 

 teaching on the part of the teachers in 

 some of the colonies is probably ac- 

 counted for by the smallness of the 

 grant allotted to this subject. 



"With the view of assisting in the 

 work of establishing gardens for teach- 

 ing purposes, a special pamphlet, en- 

 titled "Hints for School Gardens" was 

 issued by the Imperial Department of 

 Agriculture in 1901. In this the hope 

 was expressed that the time was not far 

 distant when every primary school in 

 the West Indies would include elemen- 

 tary agriculture in its curriculum, and 

 that to all such schools a garden should 

 be attached where the pupils might 

 learn by actual practice the best way to 

 carry on the more important details of 

 gardening work. This, it was considered, 

 would afford a valuable opportunity of 

 training the powers of observation of 

 the pupils in a way not attainable by 

 mere book learning or even by watching 

 the wox'k done by the teacher. 



In cases where a suitable area for a 

 school garden was not available, it was 

 recommended that the cultivation of 

 plants in pots and boxes might be 

 adopted as likely to supply, in part, the 

 training obtained from school gardens. 



In 1907 a new and enlarged edition of 

 "Hints for School Gardens" was pub- 

 lished. As showing the considerable 

 growth of interest that was taken in 

 starting school gardens, this edition was 

 exhausted within a few months, and now 

 a revised edition (Pamphlet No. 52*), con- 

 taining fifty-five pages and a plan is 

 placed within the reach of all who are 

 interested in the subject. 



In the introduction to the revised 

 edition, it is stated that instruction in 

 school gardens is not given merely for 

 the purpose of showing how to grow 

 vegetables, any more than the ordinary 

 teaching in schools has for its object the 

 winning of prizes. It derives its value 



* "Hints for (School Gardens," Pamphlet Series, 

 No. 52. Price 4d. Free by post, 5d. On sale by all 

 Agents of the Imperial Department of Agriculture. 



from its usefulness in training the in- 

 tellectual faculties, especially those of 

 observation and correct inference, and 

 its power to do this is the best indication 

 of its true worth. Knowledge useful to 

 the agriculturist is gained incidentally, 

 and the material profit arising from the 

 produce of the soil may be an incentive 

 to painstaking efforts on the part of the 

 learner. 



Pupils should be put through a good 

 course of box and pot culture, aud 

 should thoroughly master the principles 

 underlying it before they are allowed to 

 proceed to the cultivation of plants in 

 plots. The latter is a repetition of the 

 elementary work on a large scale, but 

 does not serve so well as a means of 

 imparting knowledge connected with 

 plant life, as its processes are not under 

 such immediate control. Its main object 

 is to show how the methods adopted in 

 practice naturally have their founda- 

 tion in ideas derived from careful and 

 accurate observation and to provide 

 exercises in actual agricultural pro- 

 cedure. At all stages, the teacher should 

 seize every opportunity of demonstrat- 

 ing the processes of nature, so that the 

 course of instruction may include also 

 facts concerning animal life, -especially 

 that of insects. 



In the revised edition of the pamphlet, 

 considerable attention is devoted to pot 

 and box cultivation, and details are 

 given in regard to the preparation of 

 boxes and pots, the manner in which 

 seeds are germinated, the necessity of 

 water, air, and shade for young seed- 

 lings, the effect of the age of seeds on 

 their germination, the use of plant food 

 in the seed to the growing seedling and 

 the best means for raising plants from 

 leaves and cuttings, the care of orna- 

 mental pot plants, and the treatment of 

 plants with the object ' of producing 

 flowers and fruit. 



With regard to garden plots, full 

 particulars are given as to selecting the 

 site, preparing the ground, xolanting 

 hedges, laying out plots, and the succes- 

 sive operations necessary to establish 

 a well- equipped and successful school 

 garden. 



The latter part of the pamphlet is 

 taken up in affording special instruction 

 in regard to twenty-six of the principal 

 vegetable crops grown in the West 

 Indies. The concluding pages contain 

 simple and useful hints in regard to 

 the various processes of budding, graft- 

 ing and training garden plants. — Agri- 

 cultural News, Vol, VII., No, 155, April, 

 1908. 



