Extension Work in Hoeticultuee. 169 



The most exact work which has been done in extension teaching, 

 however, is in the holding of certain meetings wliich we have called 

 " horticultural schools." These are designed to carry the most 

 useful features of university extension methods to the aid of the 

 rural communities. The instruction is designed to be somewhat 

 fundamental in character, of such a nature that it interests the 

 listener in the subject because of its intellectual relish, and thereby 

 sets him to thinking. If the farmer thinks correctly, he then does 

 correctly. In the treatment of insects, for example, the listener is 

 asked to consider the anatomy, physiology, natural history, and 

 habits of insects, and little is said about the means of destroying 

 noxious kinds. He can read current literature the more intelligently 

 and with keener interest, for having even a little of the fundamental 

 knowledge, and he is very likely to carry the new habit of thought 

 directly into the field with him. Another feature of these schools 

 which has met with much favor is the training of the powers of 

 observation by placing specimens of twigs, fruits, flowers, or other 

 objects, in the hands of the participants, asking that they explain 

 what they see. It is true that most persons do not see what they 

 look at, and still fewer persons draw correct conclusions from what 

 they see. It has been our habit to enroll those persons who signify 

 a desire to attend all the sessions of a school, in order that they may 

 feel themselves to be intimately identified with the movement; and 

 the roll is generally called at the opening of each session. An aver- 

 age attendance of forty or fifty persons is suflicient for a successf al 

 school. The first school was held at Fredonia in the holidays of 

 1894. The enrollment was about 60 ; but the eft'ect of the teaching 

 was felt throughout a wide constituency. It is generally only the 

 most influential persons who attend such schools, and they spread; 

 the instruction far and wide ; and the teaching is perhaps all the 

 better for being second-hand and for being worked over into more 

 assimilable shape. The high-water mark in these schools was 

 reached at Jamestown, whei-e over 100 persons were enrolled, and 

 where the interest was at high tension from start till finish. Other 

 persons than those enrolled attend the exercises, and the evening 

 lectures draw a larger audience. 



The instructors in these schools were mostly teachers in Cornell 

 University, and each one provided printed synopses of his lectures 



