THIRTY-THIRD BIENNIAL, SESSION 
33 
It occurred to the teacher that this line of instruction would have 
something to do with what the children would see at the coming State Fair 
and so every day she gave them some lesson concerning the naming of 
apples, their proper arrangement for purposes of display and made them 
acquainted with the quality as expressed in the different varieties. She 
hastily, because the time was short before the exhibition, gave them lessons 
concerning plums, peaches, pears, and grapes so that by the opening of the 
fair they had a considerable amount of information which could be used 
in helping them have a good time at the fair. 
Miss Mercer arranged to go with the children the first day of the fair 
when the fruits would be fresh and attendance would not be so large as 
to prevent the children from seeing things well. The day at the fair was a 
great one for the neighbors, because, under the inspiration of the teacher, 
everybody wanted to go and became all at once especially interested in 
fruit exhibitions. A part of the fair exhibit in the pomological hall had been 
arranged by the Experiment Station with plain labels and logical classifi- 
cation. Under the leadership of Miss Mercer not only the children but their 
parents spent most of the day examining the fruits and listening to her 
suggestions and really seeing the salient features of the exhibition through 
her educated eyes. 
The primary purpose was accomplished of awakening an interest in 
fruits never before manifested in the neighborhood. The children became 
skilled in the selection of varieties to be grown; they learned how to graft 
and to bud. They learned the use of the knife and the saw in properly 
pruning trees. They studied insects and diseases which were the enemies 
of successful fruit culture. 
Outside Aids in the Work. 
Through the aid of the city museum they had managed to make a 
collection of insects which prey upon farm and garden products. The teacher 
called to her assistance the aid of the Agricultural College and her table was 
covered with books and pamphlets which were used by the pupils and the 
neighbors in learning about fruits and how to grow them. 
Occasionally she called to her assistance experts who had become in- 
terested in her experiment and who were glad to give their services in illus- 
trated lectures upon the various phases of fruit culture. Two or three of the 
school patrons were quite successful growers of apples, strawberries and 
grapes. These she called upon to come into the school several times during 
the winter and although they had never developed any skill in speaking she 
drew out from them by means of her skill in questioning, facts of the deepest 
interest to the school, and before the winter was over these men all had 
become quite fluent and at the Farmers’ Institute which was held in a neigh- 
boring Grange Hall in February, for the first time these men found that they 
could talk on their feet, and interest an audience. 
During the year the school house became decorated with drawings and 
lithographs of fruits, pictures of orchard trees and a local hardware firm 
loaned a case of tools and implements used in connection with gardening 
