SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE, JULY 12, xli 



tries ratlier than those which at present are made educationally 

 more alluring ; so that the brighter youths of the rural districts 

 who now flock to the cities will rather be drawn towards rural 

 pursuits than city professions. It is hoped, by thus aiming at 

 the highest possible horticultural education, to elevate horticul- 

 ture into a recognised position of equality with the most dignified 

 arts and sciences. Degrees will be given in horticulture of 

 equivalent value to those in other departments of the University, 

 when the students have acquired the necessary proficiency. The 

 first degree can be obtained by students in horticulture after four 

 years' satisfactory work. After this three years of independent 

 work are provided, giving the student every opportunity to make 

 original investigations and conduct experiments, as well as 

 follow out any line of practical work, thereby enabling him to 

 earn still higher degrees. As an illustration of what we hope to 

 do, a class will plant, say, 50 acres in orchard, and the students, 

 before acquiring their first degree, will not only have budded 

 and grafted the trees, but will have pruned and brought them 

 into bearing, packed the fruit and shipped it, and kept accurate 

 accounts of their operations. 



Of course, at the same time that students are carrying on 

 their practical work in the field, regarding which they have no 

 discretion outside the directions of the professor in charge, they 

 will be conducting their scientific studies, such as entomology, 

 botany, geology, ornithology, zoology, agricultural chemistry, &c. 

 The chief branches of the department (any special one of which 

 students may follow out as a specialty for the three years after 

 obtaining their first degree, and all of which have to be taken in 

 the general course) are fruit culture, fruit preservation, vegetable 

 growing, floriculture, and landscape gardening. One feature of 

 this system of education is that each student must, at some period 

 previous to taking his first degree, work for several weeks in one 

 of the best nurseries, canneries, greenhouse establishments, &c, 

 in the country, under the direction of the regular superintendents 

 of the several establishments. This enables the student, upon 

 taking his first degree, to decide which industry he may prefer to 

 make the chief object of his three years' independent work and 

 study. For the constant aim will be to teach the commercial 

 aspect of every problem as thoroughly as the scientific and 

 operative sides. 



