48 STATE BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



course offered aside from the general training in horticulture that every 

 landscape gardener should have, was that given in the spring term of 

 the junior year to agricultural and women students, and lasting but 

 half the term. It has been necessarj^ to make this course elementary 

 and largely non-professional, since it is given for so short a time and 

 to a large class, most of whom are interested in it only from the point 

 of view of the home-maker, not of the professional landscape gardener. 

 For this reason we purpose, in 1907, to make this a course in the plant- 

 ing of home grounds, and to introduce more field work in connection 

 with the lectures, taking up practical problems in design and planting 

 as presented by typical home grounds in Lansing and near the college. 

 Two years ago Professor Hedrick strengthened the professional land- 

 scape gardening work in our curriculum by introducing special read- 

 ing courses for seniors who elected the work, and by providing for a 

 thorough course in landscape design drafting, given in the spring term 

 of the senior year by tli6 department of drawing and design. We pro- 

 pose, if the plan meets the approval of the board and of the faculty, 

 to give three hours a week throughout the senior year to professional 

 landscape gardening, this time to be a part of the ten hours a week 

 already assigned to the department. 



Horticultural Seminars. — The work done in the seminars, which were 

 begun the past year, is designed specifically to develop initiative and 

 original research in horticulture. Reports are made on assigned topics 

 and on current events in horticulture, followed by discussions. These 

 seminars continue through the winter and spring terms of the junior 

 year, and throughout the senior year. 



Spraying of Plants. — This course, hitherto consisting of five hours a 

 week of lectures, and ten hours a week of laboratory, has had the 

 laboratory hours reduced to six and the number of lectures to two, 

 which more adequately expresses the relative importance of this subject 

 to other horticultural work. The four laboratory hours have been used 

 for the seminar, and the three lecture hours are transferred to the 

 department of entomology for use in the parallel course in ''injurious 

 insects of the orchard and garden," which is shaped specifically for 

 horticultural students. 



The Literature of Horticulture. — It has seemed best to combine the 

 two closely related subjects, plant breeding and plant evolution, into 

 one term. This leaves one-half of the fall term, senior year, free for a 

 new course in the literature of horticulture, "a critical examination of 

 the books, bulletins and magazines of interest to the horticulturist, 

 with practice in library research." 



'' Experimental Horticulture'' hitherto confined to the spring term of 

 the senior year, we now give, when necessary, at any time in the course 

 when it seems best that the student should begin his experiment, credit 

 for the Avork being given, hoAvever, only in the spring term of the senior 

 year. We expect every horticultural student to make an experiment 

 that will yield results worth publishing; this often means that it is 

 necessary to start it in the junior year, so that it may be duplicated 

 or extended in the senior year. 



The course in forest tree propagation, offered to forestry students, 

 is not a horticultural subject, and is given by this department only 

 until the department of forestry has the facilities to teach it. 



