PEOGRESS IN AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 309 



important groups of plants, such as palms, ferns, orchids, cacti, 

 aquatics, and miscellaneous greenhouse plants. 



The course in landscape gardening includes not only a thorough 

 study of trees and shrubs suitable in landscape work and of the land- 

 scape use of lawns and vistas in relation to surrounding objects, but 

 also the drawing of plans, a study of types of landscape gardening in 

 relation to the natural scenery, vegetation, climate, and other factors, 

 and a study of the interrelations of the accessories in landscape gar- 

 dening. 



In addition to the special equipment for work in horticulture, the 

 students have access to the excellent botanical equipment of Smith 

 College, which includes separate laboratories for the study of plant 

 physiology, elementary botany, crj'ptogamic botany, and other divi- 

 sions of the subject, a botanic garden with over one thousand species 

 of hardy plants and a collection of about five hundred species of 

 trees and shrubs arranged on the campus in botanical sequence. 



THE SECONDARY SCHOOLS. 



From a recent compilation of data concerning the status of sec- 

 ondary agricultural instruction in the United States at the close 

 of the year ended June 30, 1909, it appears that there were 60 agri- 

 cultural high schools or definitely secondary agricultural courses in 

 colleges, between 300 and 400 public high schools and academies 

 teaching agi'iculture, 109 state or county normal schools, and 16 

 agricultural colleges training young men and women to teach the 

 more elementary phases of agriculture, and quite a number of private 

 colleges and schools giving instruction in agriculture of secondary 

 gi'ade or correspondence courses which are approximately of second- 

 ary grade, making in all about 500 institutions giving secondary 

 instruction in agriculture. There are probably more than 400 public 

 high schools giving instruction in agriculture, but the figures given 

 are based upon definite returns from schools on the mailing lists of 

 this Office. 



From these returns it appeared that out of 335 high schools send- 

 in data, 309 were teaching agriculture as a separate and distinct 

 subject in the course, while 26 were teaching it incidentally in con- 

 nection with other science work. Disregarding for the purposes of 

 this inquiry the schools teaching the subject incidentally, it was 

 found that 47 public high schools were giving four-year courses in 

 agriculture; 11, three-year courses; 38, two-year courses; 90, one-year 

 courses; and 123, courses representing various fractions of a year. 

 The average length of time devoted to agriculture was a little less 

 than 1.5 years These schools represented a total enrollment of 54,700 

 pupils, with an average of 177 to each school; and a total enrollment 



