114 JOUKNAT OF THE KOYAL HOKTICULTUKAL SOCIETY. 



practical course of the physiology of plant-life in relation to the soil. 

 The course outlined in the Board of Education Syllabuses (Stage 1 of 

 Subject XXIV.) is especially intended for this purpose. The work in the 

 laboratory should be accompanied by practical experiments in the field 

 or garden, e.g. on sowing seeds at different depths and at different dates, 

 on thick and thin seeding, on sowing with large and small seeds, on 

 variation of yield with different depths and methods of cultivation, and 

 on increase produced by different chemical manures. The students 

 should unite in cultivating a botanical garden, and use the vegetable 

 garden .attached to the school for studying different methods of propaga- 

 tion, &c. Field expeditions should be made to study soils and sub-soils 

 and the formation of soils, and the character of the flora growing on 

 different classes of land. The whole of this work is truly educational — 

 far more so than much of the science now taught — and it need not for a 

 moment be feared that in carrying it out the interests of those boys who 

 are not to follow rural pursuits are being sacrificed. 



The great difficulty in the way of introducing such work into rural 

 secondary schools is that the science masters (generally townsmen) have 

 never themselves learnt what abundant illustration for their science- 

 teaching the surroundings provide. It is imperative that steps should 

 be taken to enable them, by means of summer vacation courses at 

 agricultural colleges, to procure a knowledge of the application of 

 science to rural life and industry. Such a course is to be given next 

 summer at Wye College. The County Councils might well consider the 

 desirability of offering some inducement to the science masters in their 

 secondary schools to attend such courses. 



HOETICULTUEAL COLLEGES. 



With such a preparation the young men who go on from the rural 

 grammar school to the horticultural college should make rapid progress. 

 It is not my purpose to say anything about the excellent institutions we 

 already have at Wye, Kingston, Reading, Leeds, Holmes Chapel, Swanley, 

 and other places. I would only urge the importance of bringing rather 

 more into harmony the practical and the science teaching than has been 

 done in the past. The two do not always hang together, are not as 

 absolutely independent as ought to be the case. It is the secret of the 

 success of the American colleges. In these science is taught, but every 

 scientific principle is brought to bear upon the practice of horticulture. 

 The practice of horticulture is taught, but the mind of the student is 

 constantly being directed to the principles underlying every operation. 



The Small Cultivatok. 



The extraordinary development that has taken place during the last 

 fifteen years in horticultural instruction is one of the most encouraging 

 features in the recent history of education. This is due, first, to the 

 enormous impetus given to technical education by the Local Taxation and 

 Excise Act of 1889, with funds from which the Technical Instruction Com- 

 mittees began horticultural teaching ; and secondly, the Act of 1902 put 

 elementary education into the hands of County Committees which were. 



