FAKMERS' INSTITUTES, 301 



Teach ing Ho rticiilture. 



The Juniors are taught eleven weeks by daily lecture, each an hour in length. 

 There are many things which it is impossible to teach by lectures in such a 

 manner that students sliall fully understand them. As the course is now ar- 

 ranged each student is taught in the gardens or orchards far more hours than 

 lie spends in attending lectures in the class room. The out-door instruction 

 is fully as important as that given in the class room. To pass the subject of 

 horticulture, each student must do enough of the out-door work to merit sev- 

 enty per cent of the marks for such work. The topics for this out-door in- 

 struction are as follows : if well done, each counts ten. Budding, grafting, 

 layers and cuttings, trimming hedges and evergreens, trimming drives, cutting 

 and laying sods, trimming apple trees, trimming grapes, fighting the curculio 

 and other orchard insects, trimming and staking raspberries and blackberries, 

 picking, assorting, and packing berries; picking and barreling apples ; mark- 

 ing out and platting an orchard ; taking up and setting trees ; taking up and 

 setting strawberries; managing hot-beds and cold frames; managing celery ; 

 managing seed drills, etc. ; testing seeds ; crossing flowers ; use of hoes and 

 weeders ; fighting insects in the vegetable garden; planning, cultivating, and 

 preparing the ground ; washing and bunching vegetables ; harvesting, storing, 

 and barreling onions, roots, etc. ; planning flower-beds. 



To give this outdoor instruction the juniors are taken out in companies of 

 about seven at a time. They take the tools in hand. They are shown how to 

 work. They are criticised, and have a chance to make suggestions and ask 

 ■questions. This teaching comes in the afternoon, in the season of the year 

 most suitable for the work to be accomplished. 



Until recently, this out-door instruction has never been systematically carried 

 out at the college. The value of such instruction has always been known, and 

 is too apparent to need arguments in a lecture like this. The reasons for not 

 sooner inaugurating this system are as follows: The teaching force has been 

 inadequate. It required all the time and energies of the professor and fore- 

 men to give the class-room instruction and superintend the ordinary routine of 

 work. We still find it hard to get sufficient teaching force to do our work 

 thoroughly and satisfactorily. Every one is expected to take up all he can 

 possibly carry. We have to perform double duty. 



Our seniors in the horticultural department are assigned to special duties for 

 the whole year. Each has a chance to try his skill in managing work. 



Making Experiments. 



The question is often asked why we do not make more experiments. I an- 

 swer, "Because we cannot get the money to make them.'' Tlie last legisla- 

 . ture was the first to appropriate money to make experiments in horticulture, 

 and all that was asked was 8500, and a part of this was to be used to hire a 

 man to teach classes which did not belong to my department. 



The report of the executive committee of the State Grange last December 

 took a high stand, much above that usually taken. It reads: "We have no 

 sympathy with tlie demand so often made that tlie college should be a paying 

 institution, or, in other words, should return to the State in dollars, dollar for 

 dollar, all all that it receives." J. J. Woodman, Master of the State Grange, 

 also implies the same when he says in his annual address, "If poor Sweden can 

 •afford to spend so much for the encouragement of her agriculture in schools 



