DEPARTMENT REPORTS. 49 



technical and more higlily specialized training-. The first great division 

 of our work that should be emphasized, and ultimately to the extent of 

 giving it departmental standing, is landscape gardening. The new course 

 provides for special training in this subject in the senior year, besides 

 the general course given to all horticultural students in the junior year. 

 The divisions of horticulture that we propose to emphasize most at 

 present are pomology and landscape gardening. 



Methods of Instruction. — The greatest difficulty that this department 

 meets in presenting certain subjects to students is the fact that they 

 leave college in June, when the orchard and garden operations have 

 barely begun, and return in late September, when the season's work is 

 practically over. Horticulture cannot be taught successfully out of 

 books; learning by doing is the only practical method. This means that 

 many of our students graduate with but little experience in doing sum- 

 mer work, which is, of course, the most important work. Several solu 

 tions of the difficulty are possible. The students may be required or 

 advised to spend one or more of their summer vacations on "accredited 

 farms" working for pay to learn the practical side of it. This method 

 has been tried by several agricultural colleges and schools and has not 

 usually been successful, chiefly because the student is apt to be con- 

 sidered merely as a laborer, and no effort made by the farm owner to 

 explain and direct. 



A second method, and the only really satisfactory one, is to require 

 horticultural students to stay here for a summer session of six to eight 

 weeks, during at least one of the summer vacations. In order that this 

 may not work a hardship on those who are obliged to earn money in the 

 summer to pay their college expenses, it would be imperative that the 

 students be paid the regular student wage — 15c an hour— for this time. 

 They would be expected to do all the regular work connected with the 

 department orchards and gardens, but a field class would be held daily 

 to point out the important points. This is an extension of the present 

 policy of hiring several horticultural students to work for the department 

 during the summer, but with the difference that classes would be held and 

 the boys would study as well as labor. We should expect the board to 

 recompense the department for the wage of these students, in so far as it 

 would exceed the sum that the department would have had to expend 

 for labor if it had not student help. 



The Changed Function of the (h'eenhouses. — Within ten years there 

 has been a decided change in the function of the college greenhouses. 

 Formerly they existed chiefly for two purposes — to grow flowers and 

 plants to sell, or to give to the friends of the college ; and to grow a large 

 collection of exotics for the edification of visitors as well as for the en- 

 lightment of students. Primarily they were conservatories; their use 

 for purposes of instruction were secondary. 



The new and growing demand upon the greenhouses is that they be 

 used for purposes of instruction and investigation. This demand is due 

 partly to the growing interest in greenhouse industry and the increasing 

 importance of glass-farming in this state. But it is due much more to 

 the necessity for using the greenhouses as a laboratory for the horticul- 

 tural course as a whole. I have pointed out that the students in horti- 

 culture are at a disadvantage in that the}' are not at the college during 

 most of the growing season, and have suggested a partial solution. 

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