186 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



secured in the professionally conducted garden. I would recommend 

 that the school garden teacher get his or her knowledge of gardening 

 from the professional gardener. 



There are special garden courses, or courses in general horticulture now 

 being established in various schools; and we may expect that in the future 

 these will give some opportunity for the training of school garden teachers. 

 Various academies are now enlarging their work so as to include agri- 

 cultural and horticultural courses. Yet for thorough work in school 

 gardening these secondaiy schools can hardly furnish the proper grade of 

 teachers. In looking for such teachers it is somewhat natural to turn 

 toward the larger institutions which are better equipped for this sort of 

 work. Of course I am prejudiced in this matter — a prejudice which I 

 freely admit, but there seems to me to be no fair question but that the 

 best opportunity for teaching horticulture in this neighborhood is to be 

 found at the Massachusetts Agricultural College. We have at college 

 many acres of orchard, garden, and woodland, as well as fields devoted 

 to general farm crops, and fields devoted to special experiments, all 

 managed as well as circumstances allow. All the various agricultural 

 activities of this country and climate are rather fully exemplified. And 

 while that material up to the present time has not been used for 

 the education of school garden teachers it is easily capable of being 

 turned to such account. There are some of our graduates who now 

 leave college to teach. They must be to some extent prepared for 

 school garden work; but teachers who look forward to real teaching and 

 real school garden work need both normal school training and agricultvu'al 

 college training. It would seem therefore the natural and the best way 

 to arrange this matter through some form of cooperation between the 

 normal schools and the state agricultural college. It seems both wise 

 and convenient that normal school graduates who wish to take up school 

 gardening should go to the agricultural college for their instruction in 

 horticulture; and it seems equally proper that students of the agricultural 

 college who intend to take up teaching should go to the normal school to 

 secure their teaching methods. I see no difficulty in arranging some plan 

 of cooperation between these institutions. Already steps are being taken 

 at the agricultural college with the help of funds to be provided by the 

 state for beginning some work of this kind. I understand that some 

 negotiations are already underway looking toward such forms of coopera- 

 tion as I have suggested. We may fairly expect therefore that in the 

 near future we shall have opportunities of a large sort here in Massachusetts 

 for those teachers \\ho wish to prepare themselves well for school garden- 

 ing. This may look like a large contract; for at present we know that 

 not all teachers attend the normal schools even, and it may be expecting 

 too much to ask them to attend the two colleges. Nevertheless if the 

 present plans are carried out I am sure it will not be hard for more ambi- 

 tious ones at least to get a great deal more training in the future than has 

 been available in the past. The great problem in school gardening is to 



