104 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



dreds that have not anything that would pass for a windbreak or 

 shelter from the winds of summer or winter. In a recent visit along- 

 the Great Western railroad I saw twelve schoolhouses that stood 

 facing the west, and only three of those twelve had trees about 

 them. After all this work j'ou are doing, after all this talk in the 

 teachers' institute and after all this hammering away at this sub- 

 ject of tree planting, there is a great deal of room for progress yet 

 in that direction. 



I want to most heartily commend all that has been said about 

 the teaching of forestry in schools. I want to say it has often 

 suggested itself to me that there should be teaching of forestry 

 outside the schools. I have noticed, speaking of these windbreaks 

 and shelter belts around the homes, that very rarely do you see any 

 around the schoolhouse, and it is the most dolesome, miserable, 

 repulsive looking scene that can present itself, and the traveler sees 

 as he travels through Minnesota a great number of schoolhouses 

 absolutely destitute of trees, with nothing to break the monotony 

 whatever. If I had the power I would compel the planting of groves 

 around the schoolhouses to be a part of the contrtct entered into to 

 build a schoolhouse. 1 would regard the grove around the school- 

 house as important as the roof that covers it, and would make it a 

 part of the school and have the pupils that go to that school realize 

 and enjoy the benefits of the trees that grew around it, and that 

 would be teaching the most effective lessons in forestry that could 

 possibly be taught. So I would say, as this society has not the 

 power to do that, it would be well for this society to use its influence 

 to compel by law the planting of groves around the common school- 

 houses of the state. 



Prof. Hansen, (S. D.): About horticulture in the public schools, I 

 will say that while the United States is ahead of the world in almost 

 all things, there is one thing in which we are Rity years behind 

 Europe. Four years ago I visited some of the leading horticultural 

 schools in Germany, and in some of those I happened to be present 

 over a week where a class of school-masters were taking a course in 

 horticulture. They had attended a two weeks' course in the spring 

 and had now come back for a two weeks' course to finish up. They 

 told me all about the German system. Connected with ever3' Ger- 

 man schoolhouse is a small orchard, nursery and garden. School 

 children from seven to eight years old are taught how to graft and 

 how to take care of trees, and all the details of horticulture are 

 taught along with the A, B, C. It has been the work of Dr. Stoll, of 

 Silesia, and it has been carried on for the past fifty years, and to a 

 large extent it has been broadened each year. It is now found in all 

 the schools of Germany and other countries of Europe. If we should 

 adopt European methods in this line, we might find many problems 

 worked, out for us. In this matter of teaching horticulture in 

 the schools, we are far behind the nations of Europe. 



