128 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



(Abstract.) 



SOME THOUGHTS UPON HORTICULTURAL 

 EDUCATION. 



Prof. \V. I\L MuNSON, University of Maine. 



The standing of any business or profession depends upon the 

 character and quahty of the men engaged in it. This being the 

 case, the only way we can hope to maintain the dignity of work 

 pertaining to the cultivation of the soil, and encourage the rising 

 generation to look favorably toward this calling, is by showing 

 that there is quite as good an opportunity for the exercise of the 

 best powers of thought and business ability as in any other call- 

 ing in life. Mere platitudes regarding the freedom and inde- 

 pendence of the farmer, and the joy of being "near to Nature's 

 heart," have very little weight in these days of competition and 

 struggle and mental and social awakening. 



The claim is often made that the agricultural colleges of the 

 country educate the boys away from the farm ; that the farmer 

 cannot profitably spend four years in preparing for his work and 

 then go back and take up the burden which his father laid down ; 

 that as soon as the boys get out of college they will take up some 

 other line of work which will insure them an immediate return 

 somewhat larger than the old farm will yield. At first thought 

 there seems to be an element of justice in this claim. In a vast 

 majority of cases the farm boys who are graduates of the State 

 colleges of the country do follow some other pursuit than that 

 of agriculture. But is it their college education which induces 

 this change of sentiment or of occupation? In nine cases out 

 of ten the boy has been educated away from the farm while still 

 under his father's roof. He has seen that farming in the old 

 way is confining, is laborious, is slow of returns and is altogether 

 unsatisfactory. He enters college with the express purpose of 

 taking an engineering course or a scientific course or a classical 

 course, and thus fitting himself for some other pursuit. From 

 the very first time he enters the public school, his education is 

 all awa\ from the farm. 



