December 20, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



835 



An important part of the teaching lies in 

 the working out of special problems by the 

 students. Some of the results of this work 

 are worth publication, and a number of 

 them have found record in the bulletins of 

 the experiment station. Some topics now 

 under consideration by horticultural stu- 

 dents are these : 



The influence of the mechanical texture 

 of soils upon plants under glass; the evolu- 

 tion of the cultivated begonias; the rela- 

 tion of pollen bearing to the vigor of the 

 plant; the relation of flower bearing to the 

 vigor of the plant; the cultivated species of 

 oxalis; the physics of greenhouse roofs; in- 

 fluence of crossing upon the resulting fruit; 

 can acquired characters persist? the evo- 

 lution of the current chrysanthemums; the 

 philosophy of the watering of plants; the 

 year's rewards in sweet peas; the vibur- 

 nums as horticultural subjects. 



The study of some of these subjects ex- 

 tends over a pei'iod of two or three years, 

 and an effort is made to place all available 

 material within the student's reach. The 

 general plan of study is the monograph. 

 In a study of the canna there were brought 

 together nearly 300 varieties ; of sweet peas, 

 120 varieties; of chrysanthemums, from 100 

 to 200 varieties. It is thus possible to 

 arrive at a comprehensive judgment of the 

 merits and evolution of the varieties, and 

 the educational value of such work is great. 



All this is work which demands a con- 

 siderable maturity of judgment and much 

 training on the part of the student. The 

 reader will now want to know who these 

 students are. In the first place, it should 

 be said that they are few. This teaching is 

 new and it has not yet secured for itself any 

 recognition amongst the traditions of educa- 

 tion. It is one of the most recent develop- 

 ments of the modern impulse which aims to 

 carry the eductional method into every 

 realm of thought and industry. It must 

 be of slow growth ; it must overcome much 



prejudice, and it must prove its right to 

 exist. The roster of a single class, that in 

 the evolution of cultivated plants and which 

 is by no means the largest one, may satisfy 

 the reader's curiosity. Fourteen students 

 are at present taking the course. One is a 

 professor of horticulture in a New England 

 State institution and holds the degree of 

 Master of Science; another holds the de- 

 gree of Bachelor of Arts from the Univer- 

 sity of Michigan ; another is a graduate of 

 the Michigan Agricultural College; two are 

 graduates of Cornell, one of them fi-om the 

 College of Mechanical Engineering and who 

 has a love for rural life as well as for me- 

 chanical pursuits ; one is the son of a lead- 

 ing Eastern seed merchant, who expects to 

 enter his father's business ; one has been a 

 florist for fifteen years and has had train- 

 ing in two universities ; two are Japanese ; 

 the others are special students who expect 

 to follow rural occupations. Most of these 

 men are fitting themselves for teachers or 

 experimenters and have already reached 

 years of maturity. 



Aside from this class of students there 

 are others direct from the farms who are 

 crowding much special and technical work 

 into a brief time. They find their places 

 chiefly in the applied courses, as pomology, 

 propagation of plants and the like, and at 

 work in the gardens and forcing houses. 

 They return to the fai-ms when they have 

 done with their college work. The total 

 number of persons receiving instruction of 

 the horticultural depai'tment during the 

 year has been between sixty and seventy 

 for the past two years. These are bona 

 fide agricultural students, having come up to 

 the Universitj' for the specific purpose of 

 receiving instruction in the College of Agri- 

 culture. 



EXTENSION TEACHING. 



The teaching of agriculture is now in- 

 delibly associated with the distribution of 

 the published results of research or experi- 



