Appendix 363 
follow; but in gardening there are practically none, because what will 
do in one place will not do in another. Some soils suit one crop, some 
another; what is done in a cold wet spring cannot be done in a dry, hot 
spring, and so on. Therefore, to garden successfully, one must think for 
oneself, and to teach it successfully the children must be taught to think 
what they are doing and why they are doing it. 
There are many things the children require to learn about their 
garden; the nature of the soil and the effects of the various methods of culti- 
vation of it; seeds and seed sowing; germination of seeds; plants; parts of 
the plant and their uses for reproduction, for the food of animals, &c. Then 
there are the insect pests in the garden: how they make their appearance 
almost at once, and apparently from nowhere, and how to get rid of them. 
The plants are also subject to the attack of many diseases, as we have seen 
in chapter XVI. The children should be specially trained to detect the 
earliest signs possible of these diseases and how to eradicate them. 
The time of the first year of the pupils in a gardening class will be 
taken up with learning thoroughly the methods of handling the tools, of 
cultivating the soil, of manuring soils, of sowing seeds, of thinning crops, 
of weeding, of harvesting the crops, and of generally tidying the garden or 
plot, together with all the manual work in the garden. In wet and unsuit- 
able weather the instruction given in school should bear generally on those 
elementary principles, and thus establish a thorough foundation for the 
more advanced work in the second year. 
In the second year, if the elementary principles have already been 
thoroughly grasped, both instructor and pupils will feel free to go more 
thoroughly into the reasons why certain operations should be done in 
certain ways, such as the digging of some soils in spring, the trenching of 
other soils in autumn, the bastard trenching or double digging of still other 
soils, &c. The methods of manuring certain soils with certain manures, 
and why — such as horse manure for heavy soils and cow manure for light 
ones; the method of sowing various seeds, thick and thin sowing, the 
advantages of each, the germination of seeds, the thinning of crops, and 
the reasons for such work, the reasons why weeding should be done 
thoroughly, &c., may all be taken during this term. 
The harvesting of crops, how they mature, when they mature, and the 
methods of taking up and storing may also be taught. In the second year 
also a general idea of insect pests and diseases of plants should be given 
to the pupils. On wet and unsuitable days for work in the garden the in- 
struction given in school should bear more on the reasons why the manual 
