AMEBICAN INSTITUTE. 113 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



Dr. Waterbury made some pertinent remarks upon this subject, and 

 sbowed its advantages by a series of drawings, exhibiting the structure of 

 several destructive insects, pests of the farm. He showed the great lack 

 ■of the rigbt kind of education in our common schools to teach the most 

 practical things of life. He stated that not only students but teachers are 

 frequently ignorant of the distinction between an insect and a worm, a but- 

 terfly and a bird. What., said he, is the education of ^irls ? Are they ever 

 informed of a i5ingle fact regarding the animal or vegetable world ? What 

 is an agricultural college ? One that will do a good work. It is simply 

 brains, not fine buildings a-ad endowed professors. The great work must 

 be done in our common schools, Tbe real theory of discussions in this 

 club is the theory of the structure of the animal and plant kingdom. The 

 doctor proposed at the next meeting to discuss the peculiarity of the seve- 

 ral Insects illustrated by the diagrams on the wall, and show how tlie lower 

 orders of living things, which are soraetinaes very destructive, are sustained, 

 liow multiplied, and, ineideataiiy, how their ravages may be prevented. 

 The whole tenor of his remarks was to give iastfuctioa of the most useful 

 kind, such as would be useful to every child and to most adults, and he was 

 Rinanimoasly invited to oontiuue the subject next Monday, 



•Solon Robinson — I hope the club will now dispense with other business, 

 and hear Dr. Ward upon a question of deep interest, not only to every 

 citizen of New York, but to a vast number of the owners of land in the 

 vicinity who do or might grow fruit for market. 



VARIETIES OF STRAWBERRIES, 



Dr. Ward, of Newark, N. J., exhibited seme twenty sorts of strawber- 

 ries, to show what can be done in ordinary fruit culture with improved 

 varieties. In his remarks u2>on the subject Dr, Ward said, the first and 

 most important thing about fruit culture, that he would speak of, was a 

 spring )x)x for carrying the berries to market, without the least injury to 

 the most tender fruit. It is the iiiveintion of Osgood, Worcester, Mass. 

 It is a box suspended in a frame by elastic straps, so as to take oif all hard 

 Jars from every direction. 



In relation to the strawberries exhibited. Dr. Ward said the main object 

 was to show what great iujprovements could be made by cultivation ; and 

 for this purpose he exhibited the original tyj^e and the several most 

 approved seedlings. He did not intend to exhibit the largest, but the 

 average, and those shown were a fair sam.ple of what could be done in field 

 culture. 



As profitable for cultivation as market berries, Mr. Pardee has named 

 six kinds, one of which — the extra red — is too acid for market purposes ; 

 but of thirty varieties that I have cultivated, twenty-three of which are 

 here represented, I will only speak briefly of some of the most prominent. 

 The one much cultivated at Cincinnati, called the Iowa berry, is only good 



[Am. Inst.] 8 



