THE ANNUAL MEETING. 157 



rules simply formulated, laying down the more essential requirements of good 

 taste in the laying out, preparation, and planting of such grounds. A state- 

 ment of its dictates also, in the location, laying out, and planting of the vil- 

 lager's and farmer's shrubbery and flower garden may very properly find 

 expression in such rules. 



Under the inspiration of our efficient and earnest secretary some good and, 

 we trust, effective work has been done in awakening an interest in the orna- 

 mentation of country school grounds; and we learn that the offer of seeds by 

 D. M. Ferry & Co., to be planted in school yards, has borne some fruit, of 

 which the secretary will doubtless tell us something in his report. This move- 

 ment will doubtless extend itself (as it certainly should do) to the rendering of 

 our school architecture, including the relative location, attachments, and more 

 immediate surroundings of the buildings and their approaches more appropriate 

 and tasteful. 



Little, we imagine, that shall be either effective or satisfactory can be reason- 

 ably anticipated from a movement of this character till the fountain head shall 

 be reached, and by legislation or otherwise teachers shall have become inter- 

 ested in the effort, and even district officers become conscious how important 

 and beneficial an educational influence upon scholars may be thus exerted. 

 So important, and indeed radical, does this necessity seem to me, that I am 

 impelled to repeat my suggestion at one of our previous meetings — that if need- 

 ful the legislature be invoked to provide for teaching at least the essential 

 horticultural principles involved to prospective teachers at our State normal 

 school ; and further, that teachers applying for certificates may, if they so 

 desire, be examined as to their qualifications in this particular; and if found 

 satisfactory, be entitled to a certificate specifying such qualification. It was 

 also proposed, as a means of creating the desired interest on the part of the 

 officers and people of school districts, that any district expending a given mod- 

 erate sum in such ornamentation, after having constructed a suitable school- 

 house, upon a lot of suitable size, be entitled to receive a similar sum as a bonus 

 from the township, county, or State treasury, the same to be expended in the 

 farther ornamentation of such school grounds. Such may not prove the pref- 

 erable means of reaching the desired results, but to us the hope of success must 

 be based upon reaching the source of power in the district, and at the same 

 time providing in the teacher or district officers a competent head to conduct 

 and supervise the needful processes. 



That such effort may very appropriately include not country school grounds 

 only, but public buildings and grounds in general as well, will seem obvious to 

 those who may have occasion to observe the utter disregard of taste and even 

 propriety which so frequently characterizes them. In all matters of this char- 

 acter, respecting either public and private buildings and grounds, architecture 

 properly occupies so prominent a position that it may well be thought desirable 

 to the society to invite cooperation on the part of experts in that specialty. 



The rapid destruction of Michigan forests under the joint and insatiate efforts 

 of both lumbermen and farmers has for a considerable period attracted the 

 anxious attention of the thoughtful and observing meteorologist, as well as the 

 economist. How severely this reckless vandalism has now twice been visited 

 upon portions of our State will long be feelingly remembered ; but so gradually 

 and stealthily are its climatic results made manifest that there is great danger 

 that little will be thought or feared respecting the result till the calamity shall 

 be past help, the remedy impossible, and the State largely given over to the 

 severities of a prairie climate, without their compensations. 



