THE 
AGKK^ULTURAL mAGAZIHG, 
COLOMBO. 
Added as a Supplement Monthly to the " TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST.'" 
The following pages include ihe Contents of the Agricultural Magazine for 
December : — 
Vol. XIV.] 
DECEMBER, 1902. 
[No. 6. 
SCHOOL GARDENS. 
jE shall now proceed to consider the 
educational side of School Gardens. 
To understand their Talue as a 
means of imparting knowledge, we 
must think of them as a field for 
Nature Study. 
By Nature Study is meant the study of the 
world around us, as seen in animate and inanimate 
nature. Every natural object, whether bird of 
butterfly, plant or flower, rock or steam, has a 
story to tell us, and it is the object of Nature 
Study to enable the child to learn the story of 
every object that presents itself to the eye. It 
may truly be said of the generality of children 
that seeing, they see not, since they look with 
what may be termed the external eye and 
not with that inward eye that the poet 
speaks of. What they see passes before them like 
a panorama — a mere succession of pictures — 
suggesting nothing to the mind. Many people go 
through life with the idea that they are leading a 
kind of separate existence, having nothing in 
common with other natural objects around them. 
They know nothing of the interdependence which 
binds everything in this world together as elements 
in a universal and marvellously designed whole. 
Such ignorance it is that begets self-conceit and 
self-love. On the other hand the student of Nature 
knows his own worth, and shows us what true 
humility is. 
To know more about Nature, to understand the 
function of each natural object in the world's 
economy, is to put by in the mind a rich store of 
associations that should always supply the child 
with healthy mental exercise and -leave no room 
for idle thoughts, Hcf? familiar is the vacant 
look indicative of the mind that has no food for 
thought 1 Under ordinary systems of education 
the constant application to the written page brings 
about a revulsion of the mind, resulting in 
temporary mental aputhy, or, what may perhaps 
be better termed, mental atrophy. 
In Nature Study we see the direct opposite of 
ordinary methods of teaching. Instead of 
principles and rules the student deals directly 
with objects and phenomena, and, by observation 
and comparison, deduces in an intelligent, and 
indeed the only satisfactory manner, those truths, 
which when acquired merely as facts, are so much 
dead knowledge. In this way are grasped the 
principles which underlie natural science. 
A habit which is acquired in youth is, as we all 
know, difficult to give up. So that if we are 
helping to inculcate the habit of observing, to 
evoke an interest in natural objects — a love of 
gardening — a respect for order and method— an 
appreciation of the dignity of labour, and the other 
concomitant advantages derived from the new 
system of instruction, then we are surely 
performing a valuable service to future generations. 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
A gentleman who has grown cotton experi- 
mentaly in the Henaratgoda district is good enough 
to give us his experience in the following note : — 
" I grew two varieties, viz., the Egyptian and 
South Sea Island, both good, and I succeeded 
fairly well and had good crops, but the rats 
and squirrels made sad havoc of the pjds before 
they came to perfecLioii, and the heavy rainfall 
just as the pods were ripening damaged the 
remainder of the crop. I should think ic oughc 
to do well in the Jaffna and Batticaloa districts." 
