INTERESTING THE YOUNG IN HORTICULTURE. 383 



INTERESTING THE YOUNG IN HORTICULTURE. 



( A Discussion.) 



The President : I want to say something- further to the young 

 men. The suggestion was made some time ago, earlier in the ses- 

 sion, that we must go after the young men and interest the young 

 men in order to keep the society and the interest in it. It reminded 

 me very forcibly of the first meeting I ever attended of the Min- 

 nesota Horticultural Society. I think the meeting was called to 

 order with an attendance of about a dozen. It was not more than 

 twelve years ago, I think, and of that dozen there were fully ten gray 

 heads in the number, and as I look over the faces and heads of those 

 present this morning I am very much impressed with the fact that 

 we are getting hold of the young men, and I think it is one of the 

 most encouraging features of our society, and I want to encourage 

 the young men in their presence with us. 



Mr. Dolan : The matter of getting after the youth is all right, 

 but the proper and practical thing to do is to get after the younger 

 ones still. The most of our children grow up and go through our 

 public schools, high schools and colleges, and I do not believe that 

 fifty per cent of them have any idea of landscape work. They 

 scarcely know how to plant a tree. I think the proper place to reach 

 the young men and women is to begin with the children in our 

 schools. It is not necessary to devote a large portion of the school 

 hours for this purpose. If our teachers would occasionlly make 

 requests of the children to make sketches of their farm grounds, 

 the location of the buildings and diagram of the farm, it would 

 give them a start ; they would become interested in it in the course 

 of time, they would compare their little notes and plans, and I be- 

 lieve a great deal of good work might be done in some such way. 

 The older people have become set in their ways, and while they may 

 admire the finished product it is a difficult matter to arouse their 

 enthusiasm, but with the young it is different if we would only be- 

 gin in time. 



The President : There is one thing we are apt to overlook. It 

 is this, that our education does not come from the schools. I yield 

 to nobody in my admiration of the .work done in the public schools 

 of this country, but all of the educating is not done there, and some 

 of the very best education that we get anywhere we get outside of 

 the schools. The young people that come in here and are set to 

 thinking are getting a better education than they could anywhere 

 else where they memorize and repeat the thoughts of others from 

 memory. Mr. Loring, I have not a doubt, will say, to be a good 

 landscape gardener a man must have an education. He may not 



