Botany as an Experimental Science - In Laboratory and Garden

Lilian J. Clarke

• Publisher: Clarke Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781528760720
• Topic: Biowissenschaften
• Subtopic: Wissenschaft Allgemein

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

THE BOTANY GARDENS

VII

HISTORY AND ORGANIZATION

‘God Almighty first planted a garden. And indeed it is the purest of human pleasures. It is the greatest refreshment to the spirits of man, without which buildings and palaces are but gross handiworks.’BACON.

THE Botany Gardens of the James Allen’s Girls’ School, Dulwich, were begun in 1896 and, as far as is known, were the first gardens in a secondary school in England to be placed in charge of the pupils and used for the purpose of teaching botany. At that time many natural orders (now usually called families) were included in the botany syllabus of some examinations corresponding to the School Certificate Examinations of the present day. In order that there should be a first-hand knowledge of the plants belonging to these ‘orders’ between twenty and thirty ‘order’ beds were made. The ‘order’ beds soon formed only a part of the botany gardens. Plots for soil experiments (development of root tubercles in leguminous plants), plots for experimental work in carbon assimilation (as photosynthesis was then called), and plots for pollination experiments were added, also arrangements for climbing plants. A small cornfield was made, a small sand dune, a salt marsh, a chalk bed, a wood, and a bed for alpine plants, some addition being made in most years.

For fifteen years there was no grant of money for the botany gardens and the mistress and girls obtained some of the commoner plants. For some time there had been a great desire to have a lane in the school grounds, and in 1909 the Governors granted £10 for this purpose. The lane was made, and has been of great service as well as a great pleasure. (See Chap. IX.)

Other developments were needed, the cost of which could not be met by the girls, and application was made to the Board of Education for a yearly grant. In 1912 the Board arranged to make a yearly grant for at least three years. At the end of three years it was renewed, and has been given every year since, thus making it possible to have still further developments. These developments have included a large pond, a smaller pond, freshwater marshes, salt marshes, more pollination beds, a larger heath containing a peat bog, a larger wood, a larger sand dune and pebble beach, a plot representing a meadow, a cornfield, plots for Mendelian experiments and manurial experiments, all added by degrees.

In 1926, the first year a census was taken, there were 591 species present in the botany gardens.

As already stated the work in the gardens is, and always has been, voluntary. It is done in out-of-school hours. The school is a day-school, and the chief time during which girls work in their gardens is the dinner-hour recess. For the last twenty years the average yearly number of girls in charge of botany gardens has been nearly 300. In many years every girl learning botany has had charge of a garden.

In the early days teacher and girls sometimes came in the holidays to help make new gardens. If it had not been for the enthusiasm shown by the girls, and the voluntary work done by them, the botany gardens could not have been made. At the present time girls, if they wish to work in the holidays, are allowed to do so at stated times, and many do come.

In term time the girls work in pairs and choose their partners from the same class. They have charge of a garden for a year, and are entirely responsible for it. Having put their hands to the plough they must not look back. Within certain limits the girls choose which gardens they will have, but the girls of the class, for example, studying water plants, must have charge of the ponds and marshes, but they settle among themselves how the parts shall be allotted.

The work is so arranged that a girl in the School Certificate form, who has moved up steadily through the school from the time she was about eleven, has had charge of parts of the lane, wood, pond or marshes, heath and bog, and also a pollination plot and an ‘order’ bed, in various years.

The botany gardens, in addition to being of immense help in botanical and zoological work, are a great source of pleasure in themselves to teachers and pupils.

The aesthetic aspect of the gardens has always been studied, not only for the sake of the girls in charge of the various parts, but for the sake of the school as a whole. In spring the lane and wood with leaves of shrubs and trees unfolding, and primroses, bluebells, campions, and violets in flower; in summer the pollination beds and ‘order’ beds often masses of colour, the ponds and marshes with water-lilies, purple loose-strife, and meadow-sweet; in autumn the heath with heather and heath in flower, all help to make the gardens beautiful. If some plants belonging to a family are particularly beautiful, the girls in charge can grow as many specimens as space and the claims of other plants permit.

Tools and tool sheds. Before 1912 the tools were generally supplied by individuals, but one of the conditions of the Board of Education grant was that the girls were not to bear any part of the expense of the botany gardens.

FIG. 27.

As regards use and care of tools, the most satisfactory arrangement is for each girl, or pair of girls, to use during the year the same t...