8 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-EXPERIMENT STATION 
soil to put into the box, and the best seed to plant with a view to 
transplanting at home. Encourage the idea of the “ school-home 
garden with the possibility of the school exhibit of plants grown at 
home. The “egg shell” garden especially appeals to children of the 
first two grades. Discussion of things that may be planted during 
the rainy season. When rainy season is over or winter has passed, 
discuss, when soil is dry enough to work, how to prepare the seed beds 
for sowing seeds or transplanting from window gardens or egg shell 
gardens. Why transplant? Show how this should be done. Do not 
try to grow too many different kinds. Emphasize one vegetable and 
one flower to be grown by young children at home, the products of 
which, either fruit or blossoms, may be exhibited at school the next 
fall. Suggest tomato or potato for the vegetable and aster or cosmos 
for the flower. Have a good seed catalogue, well illustrated, in the 
schoolroom and examine the pictures of garden vegetables and 
flowers. Children of this grade may plant seeds of gourds or some 
other vines to cover fence or screen outbuildings. 
Field crops .—Have children report the different field crops grown 
in the community. Why grown? Do the farmers grow all their feed 
for their live stock? If not, where do they get it. What is the prin¬ 
cipal cereal? If wheat, corn, or oats, name the different varieties. 
How is each crop harvested? How is it stored away for future use? 
If potatoes are not grown locally, where do people get their supply? 
What grasses, alfalfa, vetch, clover, etc., are grown by the farmers? 
How many families grow sugar corn or pop corn? How many grow 
pumpkins or squash in the fields? Begin to emphasize the value and 
need of a more diversified agriculture so that a community need not 
be dependent upon a single crop. 
