i 64 gardens and their meaning 
not refer to manual skill alone, or even to technical garden 
lore, but to skill in some other matters not so self-evident. 
To illustrate: he must master the art of figures, of measure- 
ments, and of calculation. In trying quickly to get the ABC 
of a business situation the bearing of mathematics upon his 
present task all at once dawns upon him. What does it 
signify if up to this time arithmetic has been the most cor- 
dially hated subject in the curriculum ? The exercises that 
teach him exactness must be mastered. Upon this ground, 
if on no other, mathematics justifies itself even in the mind 
of the beginner. Certain parts of the arithmetic get learned 
from the very pressure of pure interest. 
Not all the subjects included in the school arithmetic would 
probably be needed in the gardening of a single grade during 
the season ; square root, for instance, would hardly be re- 
quired. Look through the textbook and check off one by 
one the various subjects that have been dealt with as the 
result of the demand of a garden ; it is a surprise to find how 
many are included. A committee of teachers, who lately met 
to compare their experiences, unanimously agreed upon two 
points : that a curiously large proportion of the arithmetic 
usually assigned to a child’s school course is positively re- 
quired in garden work, and, on the other hand, that the gar- 
den furnishes an extraordinary number of practical problems 
illustrating mathematical principles and rules. One teacher 
gives her experience in these words : " The correlation of 
arithmetic with the garden work is positively necessary. The 
large garden has to be divided into individual gardens whose 
areas are alike. As these may be square, oblong, or triangu- 
lar, it takes quite a bit of arithmetic to equalize them. Then 
the problem work used in the class can be based on the pro- 
ductions, the outlay, and the gain. To have the problems real 
makes the reasoning processes easier.” 
