480 



HORTICUL T \i RE. 



October 12, 1907 



HORTICULTURAL SCHOOLS AND 



EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



Read by Di-. A. C. True, United States 



Office of Experiment Stations, at the 



Hoiticulture Congress, Nor- 



fclli, Va. 



In the United States education ami 

 research in horticulture are mainly 

 carried on in connection with the 

 State agricultural colleges and experi- 

 ment stations and the United States 

 Department of Agriculture. Some hor- 

 ticultural work is done by all of the 

 sixty experiment stations in the conti- 

 nei.tal United States and in Alaska, 

 Hawaii and Porto Rico, except in th-3 

 State of Wyoming whose station is 

 located moie than 7,000 feet above sea 

 level and has thus far undertaken 

 work in only a few restricted lines of 

 plant production. As reported to the 

 Office of Experiment Stations for 1906 

 the stations employed 101 horticultur- 

 ists. The station work in horticulture 

 covers a very wide range. It includes 

 all branches of horticulture! and a 

 gieat variety of horticultural plants, 

 both in the greenhouse and in the 

 field. It ranges from an attempt to 

 select and develop plants suited to arc- 

 tic conditions, as in part of Alaska, 

 to experiment with mangoes, and nu- 

 merous other tiopical plants, as in 

 Hawaii and Porto Rico. Practically 

 all kinds of horticultural plants suited 

 to temperate and semi-tropical condi- 

 tions are receiving some attention. As 

 regards its character, the work varies 

 from scientific research of a high order 

 on fundamental problems for the de- 

 termination of general principles or 

 underlying causes, to the simplest 

 practical tests of varieties and cultural 

 methods. In addition, our stations are 

 doing considerable work in chemistry, 

 botany, vegetable pathology and 

 entomology directly relating to horti- 

 culture. 



All but seven of the stations are or- 

 ganized as departments of the agricul- 

 tural colleges and are thus brought 

 into close relations with, and in fact 

 are usually in organic union with, the 

 horticultural departments of instruc- 

 tion in these colleges. The methods 

 and resiults of station horticultural 

 work are therefore easily and natural- 

 ly brought to the attention of horticul- 

 ture in these institutions, and many 

 of these students have some participa- 

 tion in the station work. The progress 

 of agricultural research in horticulture 

 in foreign countries, as well as in the 

 United States, is sj stematically repor- 

 ted every month to our horticultural 

 investigators, teachers and students 

 through ihe Experiment Station Rec- 

 ord so that on its information side at 

 least there is little excuse if instruc- 

 tion in horticulture in this countrj' 

 does not keep pace with the progress 

 ol horticultural research throughout 

 the world. 



Practically all the agriculural col- 

 leges give some instruction in horti- 

 culture. The extent and scope of this 

 instruction varies greatly in different 

 institutions. We have yet at least 

 one living example of such a mon- 

 strosity as a professor of agriculture, 

 hortlcullure and botany, and in a num- 

 ber of colleges, even in a University, 

 one man has plenty of room to recline 

 at full length on the settee of two 

 such vast subjects as horticulture and 

 forestry. But we are doing better than 

 we used to in this respect, and in re- 

 cent years the general movement for 



the diifereiUiation aud specialization 

 of agriculluial subjects and instructors 

 has affected and greatly beneiitted 

 horticultural courses in our colleges. 



Fourteen colleges announce four- 

 year horticultural courses in connec- 

 tion with which an effort has been 

 made to systematize instiuetion in hor- 

 ticulture and co-oidinate the work in 

 this subject with that in other sub- 

 jects in the curriculum so as to make 

 a more or less satisfactory technical 

 course. In addition, several State uni- 

 versities have broad elective courses 

 and offer a sufficient nu'nber of courses 

 in various branches ot horticulture to 

 enable the students lo arrange quite 

 thorough technical courses and even 

 to specialize to a considerable extent 

 in some horticultural line to which he 

 proposes to devote himself as a pro- 

 fession. In some of the colleges the 

 course which horticulture students 

 must pursue in seeking a bachelor's 

 degree is proscribed during two or 

 three years and electives are offered 

 in the third and fourth years in sucn 

 a way as to enable tbe student to spec- 

 ialize in horticulture at least to a cer- 

 tain extent. Short courses in horticul- 

 ture are offered by 19 colleges. These 

 courses vary in duration from two 

 years to two weeks. 



.\t the University of Illinois, where 

 the elective system prevails, 29 courees 

 are offered under the head of horticul- 

 ture, besides a somewhat elaboi-ate 

 profes,sional course in landscape gar- 

 dening. Five of these courses are of 

 a general and somewhat elementary 

 character, 19 are for advanced under- 

 graduates and graduates, and 5 are 

 exclusively for graduates. Among the 

 special courses in this list are those 

 in spraying, viticulture, nut culture, 

 evolution of horticultural plants, ex- 

 perimental horticulture, amateur flori- 

 culture and landscape design. Two 

 courses in forestry are also included 

 under horticulture. The horticultural 

 faculty proper includes one professor, 

 three assistant professors and one in- 

 structor. There is no professor of 

 horticulture, but a professor and as- 

 sistant professor of pomology, assistant 

 professor of oleric-tilture, assistant 

 professor of landscape gardening and 

 an instructor in floriculture. The pro- 

 fessor of botany and two field assist- 

 ants in pomology also take part in 

 the horticultural instruction. 



Cornell University offers 13 courses 

 in horticulture and the horticultural 

 faculty consists of one professor, one 

 assistant professor and two instruc- 

 tors. The University of Missouri of- 

 fei-s 9 courses, given by one professor, 

 one assistant professor and two in- 

 structors. Michigan Agricultural Col- 

 lege offers 17 courses (two of which 

 are especially for women), given by 

 one professor and four instructors. 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College of- 

 fers 9 courses, given by one professor 

 and three instructors, and is malving 

 special effort to develop work in land- 

 scape gardening. The University of 

 California, with a horticultural fa- 

 culty of two professors, two assistant 

 professors and one instructor, offers 8 

 courses, two of which are for graduate 

 students. The University of Ohio and 

 the Texas Agricultural College, with 

 one professor aud one assistant pro- 

 fessor, offer 13 courses in horticulture. 



While there are certain advantages, 

 as regards the higher line of work, in 

 the organization of horticultural 



courses in connection with colleges 

 and universities, the instruction in 

 such institutions will inevito.bly be 

 largely cf a theoretical and severely 

 technical character. It should, there- 

 fore, be supplemented by the estab- 

 lishment of special horticultural 

 schools in which young men and 

 women may be trained for the practi- 

 cal business of horticultare. Some, 

 attempts have lieen made to do this in 

 this country, but we have not as yet 

 any horticultural schools of this char- 

 acter which will compare with those 

 at Ghent and Vilvorde in Belgium, or 

 the National School of Horticulture at 

 Versailles, France. 



The station horticulturists are doing 

 a large amount of useful work and 

 they enjoy in large measure the confi- 

 dence and esteem of practical horti- 

 culturists. With the increase f>f the 

 resources of the stations they are get- 

 ting better facilities for work, and 

 are enabled to speciali::e more and to 

 undertake more substantial enterprises. 

 They are now giving more attention 

 to problems connected with a broader 

 organization of their work and with 

 the conduct of more fundamental in- 

 vestigations. On the one hand they 

 desire to cover more completely the 

 field of horticulture and on the other 

 to establish the practice of horticul- 

 ture mere securely on a rational and 

 scientific basis. To accomplish the 

 first of these objects the necessity for 

 more workers and increased speciali- 

 zation is apparent. To attain the sec- 

 ond there will be required the multipli- 

 cation of more thorough investigations 

 and the acquirement more largely of 

 the scientific spirit and attitude. 



Besides the special etudies made 

 by individual workers, there should be 

 a broad inquiry, preferably by some 

 organization of horticulturists, with 

 a view to determining in a general 

 way the scope aud limitations of scien- 

 tific horticultural work. In other 

 words, there should be an organized 

 effort to define and establish a science 

 of horticulture, differentiated from 

 but indissolubly linked with the prac- 

 tice of horticulture. This is all the 

 more important because the great body 

 of practical horticulturists embraces 

 more intelligent and progressive men 

 than any other great group of woikers 

 in the general field of agriculture. I 

 have lately heard one of our leading 

 scientific horticulturists expressing his 

 difficulty in keeping pace with the pro- 

 fessional advancement cf piactical hor- 

 ticulturists and doubting whether there 

 were any subjects to be discussed 

 among scientific horticulturists which 

 might not be just as well discussed in 

 assemblies of practical horticulturists. 

 I do not believe that he expected to be 

 taken too literally but there is food 

 for thought in this remark. 



To achieve and maintain leadership 

 the experiment station horticulturists 

 must be able to do certain things bet- 

 ter than the practical men, and as I be- 

 lieve must chiefly depenii on their 

 ability to establish principles, to work 

 out methods and to discover causes or 

 the rationale of practice. When they 

 leave this field and put themselves in 

 competition with commercial horticul- 

 turists they run great risks of failure. 

 It is only in rare cases that experiment 

 station horticulturists are likely to 

 h.ave the means to make tests and se- 

 lections and to do other things done 

 in commercial practice on as broad 



