EXTENSION OF HORTICULTURE 51 



ing. Small orchards of apples, peaches, plums and cherries are started, 

 and a selected list of ornamental shrubs and hardy perennials are being 

 grown under clean cultivation. This list will be materially increased next 

 year. An effort will be made to determine what ornamental shrubs and 

 hardy perennials can safely be planted by the farmers in the region to be 

 grown under good farm conditions. 



The University also attempts to maintain a high class of instruction 

 in horticultural lines for all students desiring this instruction and makes 

 this a part of the required worlt in the School of Agriculture. At the 

 present time no adequate building is available for giving this instruction. 

 The University hopes to ask the coming Legislature for a building to 

 house the department of Horticulture, Agricultural Botany and Forestry. 

 Such a building should be the equal of any building now on the grounds 

 in architecture and construction and convenience for work. If fire-proof 

 in construction it will cost about $100,000. The request of the Regents 

 from the last Legislature for a $40,000 building failed to pass when the 

 total appropriation was scaled and the building above mentioned should 

 in my judgment be made the principal item in the request for permanent 

 improvements by the University. When such a home is provided, the Uni- 

 versity should be able to provide instruction equal to that offered in any 

 Western institution. Our University should be foremost in sending out 

 young men and women trained in the practical problems of horticulture 

 and in the aesthetic side of home building and this cannot be done with- 

 out adequate facilities for instruction. 



A line of education which might do much for the cause of country 

 life and incidentally for the extension of horticulture is the promotion of 

 nature study, school gardens and simple agricultural instruction in the 

 country schools. If the teachers of th'e State could have the training 

 which would give them the proper point of view relative to country life 

 :and the technical education to enable them to explain some of the similar 

 agriculaural questions to their pupils, being careful above all other things 

 to inculcate in the mind of the child a love for the country and for 

 rural institutions, we would see a wonderful change in the attitude of the 

 ■farming class toward these things. 



The school-garden is a well-developed feature of the German and 

 other continental schools and many schools in this country. In Germany 

 most of the teachers are men, who have practically a life tenure of office. 

 They are given a large garden to be operated by the school to help out 

 their meagre salaries. This garden furnishes the laboratory where any 

 study of plant growth can be demonstrated, and these studies become a 

 leading feature in the school. In America, where the school garden idea 

 has been tried it has been universally successful in arousing the interest 

 of the pupils in nature. In many city schools the children have continued 

 to care for their little plat of ground after the school had closed for the 

 summer, each pupil being anxious that his plat of land should present a 

 ^ood appearance when the teacher returned in the fall. Equal interest 



