PROGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, 287 



concrete examples in actual practice, including tree planting, hedge growing, and 

 herbaceous borders, with chapters on wild flowers, vegetables, window gardens, roof 

 gardens, propagation, grafting and budding, soils, fertilizers, insect pests, birds, and 

 implements. The appendix contains lists of shrubs, trees, and flowers for the wild 

 garden, and ferns, bulbs, etc., for cultivation. 



Progress in Agricultural Education, 1903. By A. C. True. (Wash- 

 ington: U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1903. Pp. 63, il. Free.) 



This article includes the report of the school garden committee of the American 

 Park and Outdoor Art Association, with additional illustrations and plans. It can 

 be had upon application to Dr. A. C. True, Office of Experiment Stations, Washington, 



D. C. 



AGRICULTURE. 



GROUP III. 



Pupils in Group III (grades 7 and 8) should continue to study and 

 compare weather conditions, soils, plants, animals, and other natural 

 phenomena and objects both within and beyond the limits of their 

 personal observation. As sources of information concerning things 

 not coining under their immediate observation or experience, the 

 pupils should use a well arranged up-to-date text-book of agriculture 

 and have access to good works of reference. If the nature study 

 work outlined for Groups I and II has been carried out in the proper 

 spirit — that is, if the pupils have been treated as seekers after truth 

 rather than receptacles for the teachers' overflow of mental pabulum, 

 they will not look upon text-books, bulletins, encyclopedias, and other 

 available agricultural publications as additional tasks to be mastered, 

 but as aids in extending their knowledge of things and affairs directly 

 related to their life work. Most country boys of 12 expect to make 

 farming their vocation ; many at this age have already begun to raise 

 small patches of pop corn or potatoes, or are the possessors of a sheep, 

 or a calf, or a colt. Such boys will need no prodding to induce them 

 to take up and study in an orderly way one of the attractive modern 

 text-books of agriculture. 



A text-book will be necessary in most cases as a more or less definite 

 guide for the teacher who will in all probability be without special 

 training in agriculture, and it will serve the further purpose of showing 

 to parents what such instruction really involves. At the same time 

 the limitations of text-books should be kept in mind. Publishers and 

 authors in attempting to put out text-books sufficiently elementary 

 for use in public schools, have been compelled either to treat the differ- 

 ent topics in a very superficial way, or to prepare a text-book suited 

 to a comparatively limited area. In either case it will be desirable to 

 supplement work with the text-book by a study of other text-books 

 and manuals, encyclopedias, agricultural journals, and the publica- 

 tions of the United States Department of Agriculture and the agri- 

 cultural experiment stations. Such supplementary study will also 



