HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION. 193 



The Secretary also presented a letter from the Worcester 

 Agricultural Society, returning thanks for the invitation to appoint 

 a member who should have the free use of the Library' and Library 

 room for the purpose of preparing essays to be read before 

 Farmers' Institutes, and stating that Calvin L. Hartshorn of 

 Worcester had been appointed to enjoy that privilege. 



Mrs. H. L. T. Wolcott referred to the subject of Horticultural 

 Education for children, which formed the subject at the Meeting 

 for Discussion two weeks previously, expressing the desire that 

 something should be done by the Society to promote that object, 

 and moved that the subject be referred to the Committee on 

 Window Gardening. A discussion of the subject followed. 



Edmund Herse}' said that the future of the country depends 

 upon the proper education of the children, and if this Society can 

 do anything to get the children interested in the cultivation of 

 fruits or flowers or vegetables, it should do so. We are soon to 

 leave our places here, and if the Society is to prosper we must 

 take action to interest children in horticulture, so that they may 

 take our places when we are gone, and do better than we have 

 done. There are many difBculties in the way when we attempt 

 to make our ideas practical, but still we can do something. In 

 Hingham, where the speaker resides, the Agricultural and Horti- 

 cultural Society has a Children's Department, which strengthens 

 the society and improves the children." Working on these lines, 

 oflfering premiums for the best fruits, flowers, and vegetables grown 

 b}' children, will be a step in the right direction. Another step 

 suggested is that since this Society is affiliated with the State 

 Board of Agriculture, and whatever the Board requires societies 

 to do they must do, there being seven members of the Board who 

 are also members of this Society, can the}' not influence the Board 

 to do something in this direction? The Board might require the 

 societies to offer prizes for the best herbariums of ferns and 

 grasses collected by children and thus educate them to observe 

 better than ever before. Another point is that we now have a 

 series of lectures every winter which are listened to mostly by 

 gray-headed persons ; might we not have one lecture especially 

 adapted to the older children in the High School? In Hingham, 

 notice is sent to the teachers of whatever is done by the Agricul- 

 tural Society which will be for the benefit of children, and the 

 13 



