358 
Garden Work 
The care of the tools should be one of the first considerations. 
Sufficient time should be allowed for each boy to clean his tools 
thoroughly. For this purpose a large vessel of some kind should be 
procured — an old trough or disused small bath — for holding water, so that 
several boys may wash their tools at the same time. Old rough brushes 
should be at hand also, if possible, for taking off the rough soil — after they 
have been scraped with a piece of wood. When they are thoroughly 
washed they should be dried and rubbed with an oily rag, to prevent 
rusting. This should be done under the personal supervision of the 
teacher. He should also stand at the shed and see that the tools are all 
put into their proper places. One boy may be inside the shed to take 
the tools at the door from the others and hang them up. The shed 
should afterwards be swept out. All this seems to take up considerable 
time, but it is only when such details are carefully attended to that the 
highest educational value is obtained from gardening. 
The arrangement of the crops on the plots or garden should also 
receive careful attention, and should be considered long before planting 
or sowing time arrives. The first consideration, of course, will be the 
nature of the crops, and their position in the plot or garden to ensure 
their highest development. As a secondary consideration, the appearance 
of the garden should be taken into account, and where the garden can be 
improved by placing a certain crop in a certain position — without inflict- 
ing any injury on other crops — this should not be lost sight of. For 
example: sow Beetroot, with its purple foliage, behind a row of bright- 
coloured annual flowers. It was desired to make a vegetable bed effective 
as well as useful. It measured 36 ft. by 7 ft. Accordingly, a row of 
Parsley was sown all round it, 1 ft. from the edging stones; then a row 
of Beet, 1 ft. inside that; and two lines of Carrots in the centre, connected 
at the ends. The various coloured foliage had quite a good effect. 
The rotation of crops must be arranged for as far as is practicable 
in the small area of ground available. This, of course, can be much 
better carried out on the common plot. Sometimes this matter is carried 
to excess. Plots have been set aside for a single vegetable, such as a plot of 
Beet, one of Cabbage, one of Cauliflower, one of Carrots, one of Turnips, 
and so on. Now, undoubtedly the system of rotation can be carried out 
perfectly in this way, but it is done at the expense of the loss to the 
children of a general knowledge of the cultivation of garden crops. As 
the same boys or girls seldom stay more than two years in the gardening 
class, at the end of this time they would know all about the management 
