369 
Appendix 
gardening. Almost everyone in later years is interested in one part of 
gardening or another, and the remarks one hears passed about this plant 
or that crop show the stupendous ignorance of people whom one would 
expect to know better. But it is impossible to supply the land, &c., so 
that every scholar may get some practical training. However, if gardening 
is correlated with most of the other subjects, many of the other children 
may be frequently taken out into the school garden to watch the progress 
of the crops, noting any peculiar condition, such as the effects of drought, 
or of too much rain at certain times, the effects of frost, or what happens 
when the plants are attacked by insects or disease, &c. 
Many subjects in school can be correlated with gardening, and when 
this is done the teaching of gardening is greatly improved, while the other 
subjects are what one might say “endowed with life”, they have a real 
meaning. 
If we wish to correlate arithmetic with gardening we can put the 
young children to calculate the cost of manure, seeds, pea-sticks, labels, & c., 
or to estimate the prices of the various crops, and then as the children 
become older they may be given harder sums to do, such as finding the 
area of the garden and of the plots, paths, &c., or the amount of manure 
required to the pole or acre of both natural and artificial manures. 
Bookkeeping should also be correlated with gardening. If one gives 
children the actual prices, and allows them to see what is being priced, they 
can then grasp more fully the principle of keeping books. If they sell 
their produce they know they ought to mark it down or they will forget 
what money they have taken for it, and they will understand why at the 
end of the year they should go over their accounts and see if they have 
spent more than they have received, when it would be a loss, or if they 
have received more than they have spent, when a gain would have been 
made. In these cases bookkeeping becomes quite simple; it will come 
naturally to the children, and they can grasp the principle of it in a way 
they could never do when using figures in relation to things of which they 
have little idea. 
Reading can, and should, be correlated with gardening. The children 
can study the methods of cultivation of their various crops, and what good 
writers have written about the soils, manures, growth of plants, insect pests, 
diseases, &c. The reading lesson then becomes more interesting, because 
they are reading about something which they desire to understand. At first 
the children may, perhaps, think more of the subject than of the reading 
itself, but in reading it over again they begin to appreciate the style of 
( C 525 ) 25 
