74 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



meiided. that each school select three divisions of the subject; 

 that the selection include soils, field crops, and one of the 

 three remaining divisions. ^^ e iind that nearly all schools 

 select horticulture as one of the divisions. 



In the rural schools, horticulture is taught as a correlated 

 subject under the head of nature study, home geography, and 

 agriculture, the nature study work being given in the primary 

 grades, the home geography work in the intermediate grades, 

 and agriculture as applied to the state of Nebraska, in the 

 eighth grade. What we aim at in the work in the public 

 schools is to interest the child in such phases of jDlant and 

 animal life as are concerned in his environment, and to lead 

 him to the study of such phases of the subject as will enable 

 him to conduct his study along right lines. For this reason, 

 we begin with the plants and aniumls with which the child is 

 concerned in his home and in his community, going from 

 thence to more general fields in which the child should be con- 

 cerned in order that he may have a better appreciation of those 

 phases of the subject which are under his immediate obser- 

 vation. 



Agriculture is a comparatively new subject with us. Our 

 teachers have been preparing as best they could to teach the 

 subject, but we are not yet in a position where it can be 

 handled as effectivelv as it should be because of the lack of 

 means of thorough preparation on the part of public school 

 teachers. Conditions, however, are growing better each year. 

 Our normal schools have put in special departments for teach- 

 ing agriculture, and our normal training high schools, which 

 turn out hundreds of teachers for the rural schools each year, 

 must maintain a course in elementary agriculture. This will 

 soon supply us with teachers who have had some training for 

 the work and will lead to better preparation of teachers, 

 hence to better teaching of the subject. As it is now, we aim 

 at only very elementary work, and encourage the student to 

 make original investigations, to read as extensively as pos- 

 sible from state and national bulletins and other sources 



