396 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



means whereby vmder the present statutes existing woods may be preserved 

 and land suitable for forestry acquired, and the financial and other provisions 

 necessary for a comprehensive scheme of afforestation. 



A recent consular report states that through the influence of the Touring 

 Club of France a manual of elementary forestry has been introduced into the 

 primary schools of that country. This club has also published a IManunl of 

 Forests illustrating the advantages of preserving the forests of the country and 

 containing a constitution and by-laws for tree-planting societies. 



Agricultural Education. — A writer in the London Times says: To one very 

 important condition of success both advocates and opponents of la petite culture 

 in England pay, we suspect, too little regard — namely, the improvement of agri- 

 cultural education, for the heads as well as for the rank and file of the industry. 



In too many of our country districts it is hardly yet realized that education 

 is necessary at all. Landowner and tenant farmer are alike disposed to lay 

 blame for the rural exodus on such education as is given, to the laboring 

 classes — an education which it may be admitted has not always been best 

 adapted to fit them for a ccmntry life and pursuits. But they forget that educa- 

 tion is, after all, but an incident of the great social and economic changes that 

 have come over English life in the past half century, and that if all our ele- 

 mentary schools could be restricted to-morrow to teaching " the three R's " 

 and all boys sent out to farm work at 10 or 11 years of age there would still 

 remain the daily newspaper, the bicycle, and the excursion train to give the 

 laborer that wide outlook and " progressive desii'e " which is what really draws 

 him away from the land. 



So far from there being, as Squire Oldacre and Farmer Ilodge are apt to 

 think, too much education already, what is needed is nuich more of it, but of a 

 different kind ; education in the elementary school that will bear directly on 

 country life and inspire some taste for it ; education continued afterwards in 

 evening schools or technical instruction classes to widen the knowledge and 

 sharpen the wits of those who are to cultivate the soil and to instill into them 

 at least the beginnings of scientific method. The day of rule-of-thumb is over, 

 in agricultural as in other industries ; the day of science — that is, of trained and 

 organized knowledge — has begun, and the nation or class that despises it must 

 fall behind. 



It is not undue treatment in freight charges nor unpatriotic preference for 

 foreign goods that enables the small Danish butter farmer, for instance, to un- 

 dersell the Englishman on his own markets, but superior education and scien- 

 tific method applied to the organization of his industry ; and we may be sure 

 of this, that it will be useless to keep a man on the land, or to bring him back 

 to it, bj" the inducement of ownership or any other attractior unless we can 

 educate him to do the best for himself and for the land, in an age which calls 

 for cultivated intelligence and scientific method. — The London Times, quoted 

 in Hcience. 



First Agricultural High School in Michigan. — The first county school of agri- 

 culture and domestic science to be organized under the Michigan law of 1907 

 was opened at Menominee on November 18. The two-year course recommended 

 by the State superintendent of public instruction will be followed. J. F. Wojta. 

 formerly of the Minnesota School of Agriculture, has been chosen superin- 

 tendent. 



A New County School of Agriculture in Wisconsin. — Bulletin No. 1 of the 

 Winnebago School of Agriculture and Domestic Economy has been received. 

 This school is located at Winneconne, Wis., and was opened to students Novem- 

 ber 4. K. L. Hatch, formerly superintendent of schools at Waterloo, Wis., has 

 been elected principal and teacher of agriculture. The courses in agriculture 

 and domestic economy will be very similar to those offered by the schools in 

 Dunn and Marathon counties. 



