This means that he must start his garden work in January or 
February, instead of April or May. This means that he must 
come to the greenhouse, start his egg-plant, tomatoes, or pep- 
pers, that he must sit down and draw his plan and submit 
that for approval. The longer that boys and girls work at vege- 
table gardening, the more independent they desire to be, and no 
garden which is not based upon individual progress can go very 
far educationally. 
It would have been of the greatest interest to educators to 
have seen a group of fifty or more high school and upper grade 
boys and girls making their plans for their war gardens last 
spring. Each was given a piece of land 10 by 20 feet, and each 
could plant what he or she desired for the needs of the different 
families represented. No twogardens were alike. Some of those 
boys and girls found themselves at mid-season tied up with 
serious problems of pests because they had no chosen crops 
which lend themselves easily to insect or fungus depredations. 
This is another phase of work which is representative of an ad- 
vanced stage in garden practice. 
The usual method of discovering a cabbage worm and then 
inviting the one hundred or more children in the garden to come 
and look at it, does not carry very far; but when a lad finds a pest 
in his own garden, takes his books, or goes to a library and 
makes it his business to study that out independent of instruc- 
tion, and then posts up his simple research work upon the bul- 
letin board, or goes about through the garden explaining to his 
companions what he has found, what harm it does, and how he 
can get rid of it — this sort of work represents thought, indepen- 
dence of action, and ability to spread knowledge. 
As seasons of work go on, some of our older gardeners hand 
in requests for larger areas for special purposes, such as the 
growing of corn, peas, winter beans, etc. Corn is not a crop 
which is raised in small areas, and so it is saved for special work, 
because it requires special attention. One of the problems has 
been to try out different varieties of corn in different years to 
find out the best seed for our special conditions of soil and 
climate. The ravages of corn worms, the picking of corn when 
it is exacty right to be picked, methods of crossing, the tying up 
the corn in shocks — these are not pieces of work for eight-vear- 
old children, any more than partial payment and cube root are 
arithmetical lessons for the second or third grade. 
Various plans have been tried out in the general layout of the 
gardens. For instance, one season several boys and girls worked 
together, combining a number of gardens into one, thus wasting 
no space in cross paths. They planned together, measured and 
strung long cords of lines through this area. The general effect 
was that of a young market garden. Each boy or girl had his 
own special number of feet in this section. It was only a matter 
of co-operative working in the first preparation and planning. 
Others have devoted themselves to potato problems, using 
different methods of cutting, and keeping records of the crops 
resulting from such plantings. 
The last step in garden lessons is that of individual original 
work, either on some crop, or using a piece of land for a special 
purpose, to wring out of the land all that is in it. For instance, 
a problem still unsolved is this: can a certain area of land, using 
the same crops as the younger children use, be worked by a boy 
so that he may take a much larger crop from it than any of the 
first year children could possibly take? We have worked on this 
for some time, and during" this last season one boy doubled the 
amount of crops taken from a garden of the same area as that 
