STATK POMOLOr.ICAL SOClKTV. 99 



THE DEXTER MEETING. 

 Hon. Stanlkv Plummer, Dexter. 



I was interested in what the gentleman who has just taken his 

 seat said about nature study in the pubHc schools, about begin- 

 ning this educational system in regard to horticulture and agri- 

 culture m these great lines of business, which are so important to 

 our State, with the children themselves, in the earliest days. I 

 will say so far as this state is concerned that in my youth there 

 was a text-book introduced here called Hooker's Child's Book 

 of Nature, and it was studied in our public schools under the old 

 system of using text-books, which we in this State are fast out- 

 growing ; but that did a good work, suited to the time and the 

 circumstances of the occasion. Since then in our normal schools 

 and teachers' institutes, stress has been laid upon the teaching 

 of nature study, and the thing begins very early in the education 

 of the children here in the State in most of the towns, especially 

 where normal graduates are employed and where the kinder- 

 garten system is in vogue. W'e in this town have two kinder- 

 gartens in operation today. 



I have learned a great many things here. I have attended the 

 sessions here. I have been very deeply interested. I feel, as a 

 citizen of Dexter, very much, gratified that this meeting has been 

 brought here. I know it will do a great deal of good, and not only 

 to our people here but to this whole community, because it will 

 awaken an interest in these things. I have learned that it is a 

 good thing to cut ofif a bough on which caterpillars get and to 

 burn it up. not to throw it in the road to be driven over by the 

 passing carriage, and I have learned a great many other things 

 of practical benefit. This matter of packages to put up fruit so 

 that it will go on the market is an important one for us. Why, 

 here in this vicinity we have been ransacking right and left to 

 get barrels, old discarded flour barrels, to put up our fruit in. 

 We have had to pay extravagant prices in order to get them. 

 We have been unable to find any sort of package to market our 

 fruit in. 1)ecause we depended on these second-hand barrels. 

 This is all wrong, it is a crude condition of things and it should 

 be rectified. A fruit grower ought to be able to go somewhere 

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