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The nights are invariably cool. The thousands of miles of 
temperate sea on every side make fluctuations in the weather 
rare. The climate can be “depended upon’’ to an extent un- 
known to the weather-suspicious Easterner, and gardening 
can be conducted with exceptional assurance of results. 
Gardening here is materially assisted by the remarkable 
ease and rapidity with which crops mature. In a well- 
ordered school garden, after the first few weeks, planting 
and harvesting go on continuously, hand-in-hand. A few 
examples, culled from the excellent report of Mr. Buch- 
holtz, a gardener on Hawaii, will suffice to elucidate this im- 
portant factor. Mr. Buchholtz’s garden is at an elevation of 
1,650 feet above sea level (differences in altitude are, of 
course, correlated with differences in the maturing period of 
plants). On his farm he secures four crops of potatoes in 
succession in the same piece of land in twelve months ; 
radishes become eatable ten days after sowing; cucumbers, 
tomatoes, lima beans, grow and bear all the year round ; 
onions grow very large, and mature in six months ; pump- 
kins and squashes bear abundantly for several years; etc., 
etc. It is evident that this is a land where plants grow easily, 
a contrast with the careful nursing and frequent disappoint- 
ments too common in the East. 
This region is unusual in the very great number of exotic 
plants that have been introduced, and that can be grown and 
studied in a school garden. In a well-organized garden the 
children are able to become familiar with a range of plant life 
quite beyond the scope of our Eastern gardens. All of the 
plants of world-wide economic importance can be raised 
here, and thus the garden work assumes a fruitful geographic 
and sociological aspect. The child who has cared for a little 
patch of rice will understand the Oriental far better than 
one who has not; and tales of the rice fields of India, and 
Japan, and Louisiana will have a new meaning for him. 
Pineapples, bananas, vanilla, mangoes, citrons, limes, cocoa- 
nuts, sugar-cane, coffee, sisal, rubber — plants of which the 
Eastern child has but a vague conception (being familiar 
with the commercial portion only) are common here, while 
the great quantities of fruit shipped in from California and 
the Northwest familiarize the children with mainland 
products. 
THE RACE FACTOR. 
A matter of great importance is the diverse nationalities 
represented in the public schools. These islands, inhabited 
at first only by a native population, are now occupied by 
many peoples — Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, 
American, British, Scandinavian, German, Porto Rican, Ko- 
rean, and every possible intermingling of these. The race 
