February, 1912 
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aN 
AMERICAN HOMES AND 
GARDENS ix 
FOR MARCH, THE ANNUAL HORTICULTURAL NUMBER 
HEN one sits in his easy chair, drawn up before the 
cheery blazing fire of the Winter months, he may be 
dreaming of the delights of Summer and of all that Na- 
ture’s loveliest season now holds in store for him to be dis- 
closed when the months to come shall clothe the earth in 
gay raiment of emerald verdure, patterned with countless 
gorgeous flowers. But if he would assist in making the days 
to come more joyful in all the happiness the possession of a 
beautiful garden (even though it may be a tiny one) brings 
to everyone, he must begin early in the year to busy himself 
with all the things that concern planting. That is one of 
the reasons why the March number of AMERICAN HoMEs 
AND GARDENS, this magazine’s annual horticultural number, 
will devote much of its space to gardening articles. Indeed, 
no amateur gardener can afford to be without it, for it will 
serve as a veritable garden primer of the subjects of which 
it will treat. The opening article will tell the reader all 
that it is probably necessary for him to know about the 
flower garden, while the original and very helpful planting 
table for flowers, as well as the exquisite illustrations that 
accompany the text, will make this March gardening guide 
invaluable not only to the amateur, but to the professional 
gardener as well. Moreover, the article will be of interest 
to every reader whether or not he is or has been interested 
in the subject, for itis approached from an unhackneyed point 
of view in a manner that should make a wide appeal. The 
Editor of AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS believes that 
many of the gardening articles appearing from time to time 
in various publications that assume the task of helping the 
home-builder are, after all, little more than ‘“‘dry bones” of 
compilation dug out of encyclopaedias of horticulture, 
culled from agricultural bulletins, or government reports, 
with little reference to their constructive value outside of 
specialization. Of course, a magazine devoted solely to 
the subject of gardening may be expected, in the course of its 
run throughout several years, to have covered its field pretty 
thoroughly, and for novelty to be depending somewhat upon 
specialized subjects with a limited interest. However, know- 
ing that there exists a perennial interest in the planning, 
planting and care of a garden, the Editor of AMERICAN 
Homes AND GARDENS seeks writers on horticultural sub- 
jects who are also alive in their interest to the fact that our 
readers should have, and are having horticultural articles 
placed before them in the pages of this magazine, designed 
to have a definite constructive bearing upon the relationship 
of the garden to the home and home life. AMERICAN 
HoMEs AND GARDENS does not seek to present mere horti- 
cultural novelties, compilations or specialized agricultural 
experiment notes, but instead gives every one of its readers 
horticultural information that will prove of value to all, 
and presents it clothed in readable text that is more than 
mere pen-task. Mr. F. F. Rockwell, an American agri- 
culturist and horticulturist of recognized authority, will con- 
tribute an unusually valuable article to the March number 
on “Planning and Planting the Vegetable Garden,” which 
will be copiously illustrated with reproductions of the finest 
photographs procurable, and further enhanced in both 
utility and interest by the accompaniment of one of the best 
and most practical planting tables ever devised. There will 
be other gardening articles in the March number, and two 
architectural articles on two attractive Western houses, to- 
gether with a description of ‘‘A Chalet on the Maine Coast.” 
FARMING AND EDUCATION 
T the time of its recent national convention in New 
Orleans, the American Bankers’ Association appointed 
a committee, to be known as the Committee on Agricultural 
Development and Education, for the purpose of referring 
to it the matter of looking into the financing of farmers on 
small tracts of land. This follows the example set by the 
Minnesota Bankers’ Association, appointed some time ago 
to investigate the subject of agricultural development in 
Minnesota. It was found by the Minnesota committee that 
out of the state’s 435,000 school children, some 1,800 were 
taking the agricultural courses offered by the state’s various 
schools and colleges. From these figures, the committee 
reasoned that 99.6 per cent. of the coming generation were 
being educated by the state primarily to be consumers, 
whereas the future producers were represented by only 
four tenths per cent. With Minnesota’s 45,000,000 acres 
of uncultivated land, against some 19,000 million acres of 
farm land under cultivation, as has been pointed out in a 
recent review of the situation by Mr. Joseph Chapman, Jr., 
chairman of the American Bankers’ Association committee, 
it would seem that there must be some definite connection 
between the educational problem and the agricultural 
problem, suggesting the necessity of bringing about a re- 
construction of our present school system to meet the neces- 
sity of fitting our children for meeting the more practical 
problems of life, that must be faced by an earlier training 
for pursuits, trades or professions that will enable them to 
earn their own livelihood. ‘This is a matter which the 
Editor of AMERICAN HoMEs AND GARDENS believes to be 
one of the most important questions of the day. We have 
been prone to admit everything from bead-stringing to 
basketry into the curriculum of our schools, but we have 
paid very little attention either to discovering the natural 
bent of the child in school or of developing it in accordance 
with natural interests. ‘The old-time apprenticeship system, 
fraught with hardships and rigors our civilization could not 
tolerate to-day, still offers to us much in the way of valuable 
suggestion that our educators could well afford to study, 
inasmuch as the seriousness of our present drifting away 
from the responsibility of beginning early enough in the 
child’s life to help him to help himself in the matter of 
choosing the vocation that shall make his future a happy 
one is definite enough to call for some decided reaction 
against its pernicious tendencies. Of course, the Editor 
does not mean that we must returm solely to the three R’s, 
nor does he ignore the value of the manual training and like 
courses in our schools, but he does believe that we waste an 
enormous amount of time over pedagogic foolishness, to 
the detriment of our national advance, and he wishes that 
for every library donated to a municipality there would stand 
someone ready to follow it—or, better still, precede it— 
with a trade, technical, agricultural or vocational school. 
