398 



THE GARDENERS 7 CHRONICLE. 



[June 15, 1912. 



ROYAL IHTERrmTIOrmL HOR- 

 TICULTURAL EXHIBITION 



THE CONFERENCES. 



Two conferences were held in Hie Recreation 

 Hall of the Chelsea Hospital — one on Thursday, 

 May 23, on " Horticultural Education/' and 

 another on Friday, May 24, on " Legislation in 

 Connection with Plant Diseases and Pests." The 

 Rt. Hon. A. H. Dyke Acland presided at both 

 conferences. 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



The Chairman, in opening the proceedings, 

 6aid that he hoped all would agree that the 

 Science and Education Committee of the Royal 

 International Horticultural Exhibition had done 

 wisely in selecting horticultural education as one 

 of the subjects for the conferences. It might, 

 of course, be thought by those who had 

 seen the magnificent and wonderful exhibition 

 that it was evidence that further education was 

 hardly necessary. But that would be taking a 

 limited view of the situation. Horticulture in- 

 cluded more than success in growing and exhibit- 

 ing plants. To take this country alone, there was 

 the whole of the great industrial side, everythin 

 that concerned vegetables and fruits which coul 

 not be effectively dealt with by an exhibition 

 alone, and with respect to which, particularly in 

 this country, education had still a most impor- 

 tant part to play. Another aspect of horticul- 

 ture which could hardly be effectively re- 

 presented in any exhibition was the ex- 

 treme value of the social and recreational side 

 of gardening, even in the humblest gardens, as a 

 means of enjoyment to the people of this country. 

 The better the means of education placed within 

 the reach even of the humblest gardeners the 

 better would be their work and the greater their 

 success. Horticulture brought people of all coun- 

 tries together in a spirit of unity and amity. 

 They welcomed the announcement made at the 

 luncheon on the previous day by Mr. Runciman 

 that he had established a branch of horticulture 

 in his department. Speaking as an old Minister of 

 Education, he ventured to say that that was a 

 most important step. He concluded by extend- 

 ing a hearty welcome to the distinguished 

 visitors w T ho had so kindly come to take part in 

 the conference. 



PUBLIC HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION 



IN THE UNITED STATES. 



Prof. L. H. Bailey, of Cornell University, 

 Ithaca, U.S. America, read a paper on this sub- 

 ject. He said the general horticultural educa- 

 tion in the United States was mostly a part of a 

 national system of industrial education of colle- 

 giate grade or name. There was little develop- 

 ment, as yet, of the training-school idea on either 

 a private or public basis, and relatively few in- 

 stitutions or establishments in which persons 

 were trained for " gardening " as they were 

 trained in the Old World. There was no recog- 

 nised apprentice system for gardeners. 



The whole subject, therefore, needed to be con- 

 sidered quite by itself, and not in comparison 

 with systems or methods of education in horticul- 

 ture in other countries ; and it was necessary to 

 understand something of the systemof publicly 

 endowed industrial education, of which this was 

 but an incident or a part. 



The public industrial education of the 

 United States, of college grade, was founded on 

 the Land Grant Act of 1862. By the terms of 

 this great instrument, every State received from 

 the Federal Government 30,000 acres of land for 

 every representative that it had in Congress, the 

 proceeds of which were to be used for "the en- 

 dowment, support, and maintenance of at least 

 one college where the leading object should Jbe, 

 without excluding other scientific and classical 

 studies, and including military tactics, to teach 

 such branches of learning as were related to 

 agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such man- 

 ner as the legislatures of the States might re- 

 spectively prescribe, in order to promote the 

 liberal and practical education of the industrial 

 classes in the several pursuits and professions in 

 life." This endowment had been supplemented 

 by subsequent direct federal appropriations to 

 further the objects for w r hich the original grant 

 was made. On this liberal foundation all the 



forty-eight States comprising the Union had 

 established colleges of agriculture and the 

 mechanic arts, about half of them separate insti- 

 tutions and about half of them connected with, 

 or part of, State universities or other general in- 

 stitutions. The States themselves had supple- 

 mented the proceeds of the land grant, often 

 many times multiplying those incomes. These col- 

 leges represented many types of organisation and 

 method. Many of them would not be called tech- 

 nical colleges. Their purpose was increasingly to 

 train young men and women broadly by means of 

 agricultural and country-life subjects. They were 

 now exerting great influence in re-directing rural 

 civilization in the United States. They were 

 rapidly putting agricultural and rural subjects 

 into educational form, and were demonstrating 

 that such subjects might have training and even 

 cultural value equal to that of historical subjects. 

 The land-grant colleges contained many depart- 

 ments, and horticulture was usually one of these 

 departments, co-ordinate with the others. In 

 one college of agriculture, for example, which 

 was part of a university, there were twenty-two 

 teaching departments, aside from the work in 

 the fundamental arts and sciences, as follow : 

 chemistry in its relation with agriculture; 

 entomology, biology, and nature-study ; plant 

 physiology ; plant pathology ; plant-breed- 

 ing ; soil technology; farm crops; farm 

 management (the principles of business 

 as applied to farming) ; horticulture ; pomo- 

 logy; forestry; animal husbandry; poultry; 

 husbandry ; dairy industry ; home economics ; 

 farm mechanics ; rural economy ; landscape art ; 

 drawing ; rural education ; meteorology ; exten- 

 sion teaching. It would be seen, therefore, that 

 horticulture was only one contributing part in an 

 educational establishment for the teaching of 

 agriculture in a broad way ; and the same might 

 be said of all the other land-grant colleges. 

 There were a few other regular colleges that 

 taught horticulture with other work, but they 

 had not made great headway, although the sub- 

 ject would assert itself strongly in many of these 

 institutions in the future. There were two or 

 three training schools, one for women. 



The students in agriculture in the land-grant 

 colleges numbered many thousands, in some cases 

 a thousand and more in one institution. They 

 came from all walks and conditions of life, and 

 from city and country alike. Some of them, of 

 course, had strong inclinations for horticulture, 

 and soon specialised in that subject. The full 

 course of instruction was uniformly four years, 

 following college-entrance requirements, and the 

 student at graduation received a diploma carry- 

 ing Bachelor of Science or a similar degree. In 

 many of these institutions post-graduate work in 

 a variety of subjects was provided, leading to a 

 master's degree, or even to a doctor's degree. 

 This sketch would present a general view of the 

 kind of education in horticulture that is now 

 developing in the United States. It was largely 

 a training for citizenship on the basis of general 

 collegiate education. The Americans had had a 

 continental area to discover and to conquer ; they 

 were endeavouring to conquer it by many means, 

 and the most fundamental means was by organiz- 

 ing all industry educationally. The horticultural 

 subjects were important not only in themselves 

 but in their personal appeal, and the organising 

 of horticultural knowledge into large plans and 

 methods of human tiaining was one of the best 

 privileges of any people. 



HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION IN 



GERMANY. 



Herr K. Weinhausen, of the Imperial School 

 of Horticulture, Dahlem, dealt with this sub- 

 ject. He prefaced his remarks on the theoreti- 

 cal training of gardeners in Germany with a few 

 words on the importance of horticulture in the 

 Fatherland, in which he showed that German 

 horticulture went so far back as the year 

 380 a.d., when the Huns laid out many gardens 

 and orchards in Germany. Horticulture received 

 a great impetus after the year 1870, and at the 

 present day Germany had a large number of 

 horticultural schools, differing widely from one 

 another. Pointing out the difference existing at 

 the present day between the training of lady 

 gardeners and that of men gardeners, he said 

 that whereas the male gardener served a prac- 

 tical apprenticeship before attending the horti- 

 cultural training school, most ladies who were 



desirous of taking up this profession attended 

 such schools for women without having obtained 

 any previous knowledge whatever, and hoped to 

 be both practically and theoretically trained in 

 two years. As long as the ladies did not have 

 the same training as their male comrades, it was 

 not possible for them to do the same work. 

 Moreover, for about five years outsiders had been 

 admitted to the horticultural colleges, and ladies, 

 with the same preparatory training as men, 

 could enter as full-course students at Dahlem. 

 Dahlem made the greatest demands with re- 

 ard both to general education and to practical 

 nowledge. Whereas the other training colleges 

 required that students should have passed 

 through only four classes at school, Dahlem 

 was the only horticultural training school 

 in Germany that required six classes to 

 have been passed through : the student who 

 achieved this was required to give only one year's 

 military service. Dahlem thus required the same 

 as the agricultural and technical colleges. Instead 

 of a two-years' practical training, it required 

 one of four years. Owing to this, Dahlem is 

 enabled entirely to omit practical work during 

 two years of study, whereby a great deal of 

 time is, of course, gained for theoretical and 

 technical education. 



Short courses for ladies and gentlemen are 

 arranged as required, e.g., in the spring, a 

 course for amateur gardeners ; in late summer, a 

 course on fruit and vegetable preserving, &c. 

 In addition to its museum collection and material 

 for scientific instruction, the college has a de- 

 partment for the utilisation of fruit, a department 

 for plant physiology, with a house for experimen- 

 tal work, four large hothouses, three vineries, one 

 Peach house, one Mushroom house, a shelter wall 

 for Peaches, 10 large walls for better class or des- 

 sert fruits, and grounds oartly laid out in orna- 

 mental beds and partly clevoted to flower, fruit 

 and vegetable culture, which altogether, and with 

 the demonstration fields, is nearly 19 acres in 

 area. 



Royal favour had placed the Royal gardens 

 at Potsdam at the disposal of the college for 

 educational purposes, while the neighbouring in- 

 stitution of the Royal Botanical Gardens and 

 museums of Berlin University, and the Biological 

 Institution and the experimental fields of the 

 Agricultural College afforded ample opportunity 

 for instruction and demonstration. 



THE EDUCATION OF A GARDENER. 



Mr. W. Hales, A.L.S., followed with # paper 

 on this subject. He stated that our present 

 system was more or less a system of "drift." 

 That such a system — or rather want of system- 

 had produced (many excellent gardeners was 

 freely acknowledged, and was clearly shown in 

 the magnificent exhibition; and when one pon- 

 dered over the training these men had had, the 

 though naturally arose, how were we to improve 

 upon the methods employed? 



The work of a gardener covered such a num- 

 ber of different branches that the education 

 which a gardener should receive must of neces- 

 sity be a subject upon which there were many 

 diverse opinions. There could, however, be 

 no two opinions but that the boy who 

 wished to make gardening his life's work 

 should receive while at school as full a 

 general education as the circumstances allowed ; 

 and if it were possible for him to con- 

 tinue his studies up to the age of 16 or 17 y ear ? 

 at a good secondary school, where he would 

 receive an additional training in those sciences 

 which would ultimately have a direct bearing 

 upon his profession, such as geology, botany, 

 chemistry, and land-surveying, he would be pos- 

 sessed of an asset which would undoubtedly be 

 of value to him in his future work. 



Two years spent in acquiring the sound ele- 

 mentary details of his work would be ample to 

 fit an intelligent and capable boy for the more 

 important duties of a journeyman, and he must 

 then realise that the future success or failure of 

 his life as a gardener would largely depend upon 

 himself, in the use he made of the many and 

 varied opportunities of acquiring knowledge 

 which occurred in his daily work. Neither should 

 he forget to use every endeavour to further im- 

 prove his general knowledge of those subjects 

 which have a direct bearing upon his profession, 

 since it is at this period of his life that his 

 mind is most receptive to new facte and ideas- 

 and his memory most retentive. The young 





