Small Agriculture: A National Agricultural Library Digital Exhibit

Educational School Gardening and Handwork

National Agricultural Library

school gardens

The school garden should be situated as near the school as possible. It will thus be much more useful and valuable than if at a distance.

The size of the garden cannot always be regulated, but if possible it should contain sufficient land for plots for the scholars: also a Common Plot, an Experimental Plot, a Fruit Plot and a Flower Border. The main consideration of course will be the plots for the boys. These should be, as far as can be arranged, long and narrow, say 10 yards by 3 yards. This shape allows a larger number of rows than is possible with a piece of ground of shorter length and greater width. One or two boys may work each plot. If two boys work a plot, then a senior and a junior boy might well work together. Fourteen boys working on seven plots can be supervised better and with greater ease than the same number of boys working on separate plots.

A plan of a school garden as laid out under the direction of the writer is shown. This garden was measured, pegged out, paths made and edging put to the main pathways by the boys themselves. The work of laying out the ground would not often come in the life of the school, but when it does come I think the scholars should take their share in it — it thus becomes essentially “their garden.”

Brewer, G.W.S.

Introduction by Henry Hobhouse

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

1913