98 



JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



schemes of horticultural education current in Australia it will be found 

 that the dominant note is to provide a man with a working knowledge 

 of horticulture for his own needs and benefit, and not to qualify him as a 

 specialist to hire out his services. In New Zealand the same features are 

 to be found in respect to horticultural instruction as are common to the 

 States of the Commonwealth, excepting, however, the Victorian School of 

 Horticulture, which, managed by the Board of Horticulture in that State, 

 stands alone as the only experiment in this direction that has been 

 attempted, and which so far has been comparatively successful. New 

 Zealand has an agricultural college, a number of experimental farms 

 with horticultural sections, and a staff of scientific specialists and techni- 

 cal experts, all affording, in some degree, instruction in the theory and 

 practice of horticulture to those desiring such information. 



It must be borne in mind that in all new countries there are to be found 

 men at work on the land who have had no previous training as horticul- 

 turists or agriculturists, but who, having a natural liking for the work, 

 have acquired their information as they went along. It is to help these 

 men that schemes of horticultural instruction are organised in our great 

 self-governing colonies. Such men, like other people, are apt to experience 

 difficulty in carrying into successful effect written directions for pruning 

 and other common horticultural operations ; but if they once can see how 

 it is done their perplexities vanish; and so the main feature in colonial 

 horticultural schemes is that the instruction needed will be given through 

 experts, who visit individual holdings and perform whatever operation is 

 in doubt in the presence of the farmer or orchardist and his neighbours. 

 There are also people on the land, it must be admitted, who are too listless 

 bo acquire information, and seem content to fritter away their lives in 

 watching the outcome of a sequence of misdirected efforts. Such men 

 do not desire horticultural education : they need a volcanic eruption, and 

 this a Government department cannot command. 



Before we can complete our survey I must add that in our tropical 

 South Sea possessions we return once more, as in Fiji, to the Botanic 

 Station, as the educative medium in respect to horticulture. The aptitude 

 for gardening shown by the various races so materially differs where these 

 stations are placed that the effect of such efforts must also vary. 



I have now endeavoured to place before you a short resume of what 

 is being done at present in the interests of horticultural education in 

 Greater Britain. The question still remains, Can we not take a broader 

 outlook in our educational schemes at home as affecting horticulture ? 

 We cannot, of course, in England, take any action in respect to horti- 

 cukura] instruction for natives — that must be left to local effort— nor can 

 we effect such schemes as are intended to benefit those already settled on 

 the land in our colonies, and it would not be advisable if we could. It 

 will not be disputed, I think, that our schemes of horticultural instruc- 

 tion at present are all directed towards training men and women in a 

 handic r aft aad to make them intelligent and enlightened workers in a 

 comniunitj w inch is able to hire and desires their special services. Why 

 should not those who go abroad be able to obtain similar instruction, 

 though not so advanced ? 



A training at home in the theory and practice of horticulture would, 



