358 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
like intemperance and vice in all its forms. Whatever else may be attempted 
or accomplished, it is evident to me that greater and still more strenuous 
efforts must be put forth to keep the youth, from their earliest perceptions, 
busy in mind and body, by study and work upon all lines as displayed upon 
the varied pages of the voluminous book of nature. The active, observant, 
diligent and informed person, in the direction herein mentioned, will sel- 
dom become a subject to the grosser habits or evils, but the indolent, ig- 
norant and careless person will almost assuredly become a menace to the 
family, community and the state. 
During the time elapsing before the above specified centralizing system 
of our rural schools shall be adopted by us, which I verily believe and 
hope will soon be accomplished, what steps shall be taken to partially car- 
ry forward the suggestions already offered. Let the school board, parents 
and teachers counsel together and utilize the existing small plats at present 
surrounding the school houses to the greatest extent possible, with flowers, 
ornamental grasses, the smaller varieties of foliage plants, shrubs and run- 
ning vines, as the limited space will not permit the culture of fruit and forest 
trees, grass and grain plats, small-fruits, gardening and the larger shrubs, 
plants and vines. If the teacher has not taken a course in biology in the 
high school or elsewhere, and has not received a practical knowledge of 
gardening and fruit and forest tree planting and culture on the farm, she 
and the older scholars may read and study botany, Prof. Green’s “Ama- 
teur Fruit Growing,” “Vegetable Gardening,” and ‘‘Forestry in Minnesota,” 
Prof. Bailey’s “Nursery Book,” and Prof. McMillan’s “Plant Life in Minne- 
sota,”’ imparting to the younger ones orally as they progress with their 
studies; also, reading singly and collectively the writings of John Bur- 
roughs, John Muir, Thoreau and Horace Bushnell. Frequently all together 
take practical lessons in the yard, neighboring gardens, fields and for- 
ests, not in the manner of bad boys, without liberty, to destroy and steal, 
but by arrangement with the owner, for information and enjoyment, re- 
questing the owner to give them actual illustrations of skilled work in the 
yard, garden, orchard and shelter-belts. John Burroughs says, “Nature we 
have always with us, an inexhaustible storehouse of that which moves the 
heart, appeals to the mind and fires the imagination. To the scientist, na- 
ture is a storehouse of facts, laws, processes; to the artist a storehouse of 
pictures; to the poet, a storehouse of images; to the moralist, a storehouse 
of precepts and parables; to all she may be a source of knowledge and joy.” 
I have been informed that by planting a few castor beans here and there 
in the garden the cutworms will be destroyed. A lady friend planted a few 
of these on the south side of her pansy bed as a protection from the sun, 
and she found that she had accomplished more than she had intended, for 
in the morning when she went to look at her flowers she found numbers of 
cutworms dead on the top of the ground. It is thought that the worms 
eat the roots of the castor bean and find them fatal. 
Transplanting Beans.—We have been successful in planting lima beans 
in pans and boxes and transplanting them to the open ground. They need 
to be planted as early as possible in order to ripen before early fall frosts. 
A Desirable Flower.—One of the best entirely hardy plants we have is 
the new rudbeckia, Golden Glow. 
