122 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



instruction in horticulture to lads and young men of the type to which 

 I am alluding. We have the County School of Horticulture at Chelms- 

 ford, which, begun by Mr. David Houston under the Essex Education 

 Committee, has now been in successful existence for twelve years : 

 a school in which instruction in the practice of horticulture based on a 

 study of plant physiology is given by means of three-week courses in 

 each of the four seasons of the year ; we have the Basing Farm School 

 in which instruction is given in gardening, farming, and dairying by 

 means of short courses which occupy the winter months ; and we have 

 short courses of a similar kind given in one or two of the agricultural 

 colleges. But the provision of such courses is totally inadequate to the 

 needs of the country. Perhaps the most hopeful line to take would be 

 to endeavour to secure some of the numerous charities which were 

 originally intended for the education and apprenticeship of poor boys, 

 and with them to establish schools of practical market gardening, consist- 

 ing of market gardens conducted as business concerns and cultivated by 

 the pupils of the school. 



The Wives. 



In all considerations of the education of the small cultivator there is 

 one factor in his success which must not be lost sight of — his wife. It 

 is upon her ability to cook the food, preserve the fruit, milk the cow, 

 churn the butter, cure the bacon, and keep the place sweet and attractive 

 with flowers that his success largely depends. But the education of the 

 small cultivator's wife, while equally important with that of the cultivator 

 himself, is outside the scope of this address. 



At the conclusion of the address a series of slides were shown illustrating 

 gardening and nature study in American schools, of which five are repro- 

 duced as illustrations of this paper. 



[We understand that fig. 23 was taken from the " Cornell Nature 

 Study Leaflets," figs. 24 and 25 from the " Nature Study Eeview," and 

 figs. 26 and 27 from the U.S. Agri. Dept. Farmers' Bulletin, No. 218.] 



