FORESTRY FOR SCHOOLS 



By E. A. SANDERS 

 Teacher of Botany, Steele High School, Dayton, O. 



This topic of national importance offers some peculiar advan- 

 tages as a subject for a practical botany course in that it is new in 

 both city and country, interests all classes, acquaints the boy 

 with the principals of a new and uncrowded profession if he cares 

 to follow it further and in any case gives him scientific manual 

 training for good citizenship. 



To test the above theory a class of boys was organized in the 

 fall of 1908 at Steele High School, Dayton, O. The results, in 

 the opinion of the author t> fully justified the experiment and 

 demonstrated the value of the work. 



The class included boys from both city and country, the stu- 

 dious type and the careless athletic-loving type, all of whom with 

 one exception were deeply interested and thoro-going in their 

 work. Two of the boys are definitely looking forward to forestry 

 as a profession and all have shown an awakened interest in the 

 conservation of our forests and waterways. 



The work usually consisted of two lectures, two field trips and 

 one written or oral test per week. Laboratory work on wood 

 structure and physical properties was introduced after Christmas 

 and symposium reports on assigned topics occupied some atten- 

 tion. Lecture, laboratory and test periods were of 45 minutes 

 each and field trips after school of two to three hours. The 

 greatest defects were, lack of complete organization of the course 

 and inability of all students to be present at all field trips. I 

 append below a syllabus of the topics taken up. 



Syllabus of Forestry Course 



A. Identification of trees (70 species) 4 weeks 



Field and lecture work. Leaf keys and collections. 



References. — Kellerman, Apgar, Hough. 



B. Identification of woody vines and shrubs 1 week 



A study of undergrowth and forest cover. 



References. — Schaffner, Keeler. 



C. Forest Ecology 4 weeks 



A study of collections of trees. Effect of environment on forest types. 



Type maps, Plant Societies. 



References. — Graves, Schimfer, Schenk. 



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