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CHILDREN AND HORTICULTURE. 
SECRETARY CHARLES W. GARFIELD. 
Some time since Professor Beal delivered an 
address upon the above topic or something 
akin to it, in which he gave some excellent 
hints couched in the language of children’s 
conversation. [This excellent paper was 
printed in the Rural New-Yorker several 
weeks prior to its delivery. Eds.] I met a 
farmer sometime afterward, who listened to 
this address, and conversation gradually 
turned toward the Michigan^ gricultural Col¬ 
lege and ran about like this: 
Farmer.—By the way I have had my fill of 
that Agricultural College. 
Garfield.—You’ve been up to Lansing and 
seen the institution, then? 
Farmer.—No! uor I don’t want to sec it. 
I’ve seen Professor Beal and heard him talk 
children’s clatter and if the Agricultural 
College can’t send out a Professor to talk any¬ 
thing better than children’s nonsense, I don’t 
waut to know anything about it. If I want 
to hear children gabble I can go out into the 
street any day and get all I want of it. But 
when I go tea miles to an Institute where 
College Professors are advertised to lecture, 1 
want something better than 1 can hear among 
my own children. 
Garfield.—Have you ever read anything 
that Professor Beal has written concerning 
farm and garden matters? 
Farmer.—No, and I shouldn’t think any 
printer would be williug to print such stuff as 
he gave us at that Institute. 
Garfield.—Perhaps you were not interested 
in his topic and whatever he might have said 
would have been uninteresting to you. 
Fanner.—Yes, I was interested in his subject 
and went hoping to get something I could 
take home with me. He was advertised to 
talk about ”children in the garden,” and I 
never can get my young ones to have any¬ 
thing to do with the garden; don’t like to work 
in the garden myself; but I thought maybe 
he would tell us how to manage the boys so as 
to get them interested. Instead of that, all 
under the heavens he did was to tell what two 
little girls of six or eight years talked over 
when they played garden. 
Garfield.—But, my dear friend, I heard that 
address and pronounced it one of the most 
attractive and practical discourses that 1 ever 
heard Professor Beal give, and I find that a 
great many others think just so, even the 
printers, as you call them, seemed very glad 
to get it; and it has l eeu published in whole 
or in part in a large number of Agricultural 
papers. It seems to me you must admit that 
you are somewhat singular in this matter, and 
may possibly make a false estimate of the 
Agricultural College. 
Farmer.—My boys cau hear enough chil¬ 
dren’s talk at home aud in our country school, 
without going to college tor it: and what they 
learn farmiug and gardening for, is to get a 
living. The quicker I cau get them to quit 
child’s talk and get at business the better they 
will be off; I tell you I am right in this matter 
ami I know- it. Professor Beal or any other 
Professor w r ants to tell us farmers how to grow 
more wheat, corn, potatoes aud fruit thau we 
now do with the same outlay of labor, time 
and money, and if they can’t^do this they 
better be iu other business, or rather the State 
had better send them out to earn an honest 
living. 
1 heard the man through, opening my eyes 
wider and w r ider as he proceeded and finally 
left him feeling that he was champion of the 
field, for I confess there is a class of am' mils 
with long ears that I never wanted much to 
do with, and generally give way to them when 
there is any conflict of opi ion. 
It may be possible that I might get myself 
into trouble by relating the above actual con¬ 
versation, but I do it that the reader may 
better understand what is to come. As I 
travel over the country there are two facts 
that I constantly encounter. First:—Little 
childien everywhere have a common interest 
in the ground and things they find growing 
out of it, Secondthere is the grossest 
ignorance among people about the simplest 
horticultural operations. I don’t wonder 
there are so few flower borders and so poor 
kitchen gardens in the country, for the ignor¬ 
ance concerning these attributes of the farm 
is propagated from one generation to another. 
Children are allowed to plant out pebbles, dry 
sticks, etc., with, either nothing said concern¬ 
ing their work, or else they are laughed out 
of the notion of planting anything at all and 
childish activity finds vent in other kinds of 
play. 
Two children belonging to a family upon 
our farm were staking off gardens and plant¬ 
ing out things without a vestige of life in 
them, for weeks; nothing had been said to the 
little folks aboutitheir operations only there 
seemed to be a feeling of satisfaction result¬ 
ing from the fact that the children were oc¬ 
cupied. 
Yesterday Mrs. Garfield and I fitted up 
our borders and planted out a lot of annuals 
from the cold frames and these two little peo¬ 
ple became greatly interested in our work. 
They asked a great many questions and 
wished very much that they could have a 
flower bed. They promised if they could 
have some plants to put them out carefully 
and take care of them the whole season. They 
got permission to occupy a cornerof the “ big 
garden” and the plants were given them 
without, further instruction beyond what 
they received by inquiry, and this morning 
while 1 was mowing on the lawn the little 
workers were busily engaged where I could 
hear bits of their conversation. Gertie is 
six and Louis is four years of age aud this is 
how they talked. 
Gertie—Here is a cut-worm and we must 
kill it for Mis. Garfield said they would eat 
off the plants. 
Louis—But he is too little. I have found a 
big, long one I will kill him. 
Gertie—But that isn’t a cut-worm for it isn’t 
a bit like the one Mrs. Garfield showed me. 
You may kill it though for maybe it will do 
something bad. 
Louis—Let me take your trowel ? 
Gertie—No, you a’nt big enough to use a 
trowel, 
Louis—Then I’ll have to make a hole with 
my finger to put the plant in. 
Gertie—No scoop out the ground with your 
hand, aud then you can pack the dirt in around 
it ever so hard, aud you can’t do so with a 
little finger bole. 
I quote this bit of child’s conversation to 
show how quickly children catch hold of 
facts in gardening and use them. They even 
get at the philosophy of common operations 
before one would suspect it. It is just as 
much fun for the little ones to play garden¬ 
ing in a way that shall add to their knowl¬ 
edge of methods and secure results that they 
can see aud enjoy as it is to exercise the im¬ 
agination as to results and forget the play 
4 -uif. ici mmi* flhiiilran vv'hn n r a 
the moment it is over. Children who ure 
taught the-e things while young will have 
gardens of their own when they are needed 
and will be adopts in the management of 
them. 
I am discouraged iu the outset about get¬ 
ting many people to interest the children, 
iu uie garden. But I do think that miniature 
gardening could be made n putt of the cur¬ 
riculum in our country schools, and com¬ 
plete u great work both as an immediate as¬ 
sistance to the teacher aud a permanent good 
to the pupils. 
In Michigan we have been earnestly trying 
to accomplish something iu this direction, 
but our school system is not such as to rend u- 
ideas of this sort catching a m jug the teach- 
Iu the capacity of school inspector I have 
been visiting the schools in my township dur¬ 
ing the past fortnight, and iu every school¬ 
room 1 find a vase of either cultivated or wild 
flowers on the teachers desk. I have made 
some very careful inquiries of teachers and 
children concerning the employment of these 
dowers and 1 find there is not a bit of infor¬ 
mation employed iu connection with these 
flowers. The children do not even know the 
names of the most common ones, because there 
is no one to tell them. Ii is their usual Jove of 
beautiful forms and colors that leads to the 
enjoyment of gathering the specimens and 
bringing them to school; and nothing that 
could lie taught the children would they take 
so readily to as facts m elementary botany and 
horticulture. Still iu place of this delightful 
information they read about thiugs they do 
not understand, analyze sentences, when they 
should analyze flowers; dig at roots of words, 
when they had better be studying the roots of 
plants. 
I am not an advocate of trying to teach 
everything in the common schools; I do not 
I.elieVe even iu teaching the elements of farm¬ 
ing there, because the boys will mostly be 
farmers. But i am very much in earnest 
about teaching the little people such things as 
will, when they become farmers or farmers’ 
wives, help them to get the most comfort out 
of their business. If boys and girls at school 
were taught to care for flowers, plants anil 
trees, together when they arrive at manhood 
and womanhood aud have homes of their own 
the garden, the trees,yes, and the flower borders 
will be of common interest to both branches 
of the family, and there would be more beau¬ 
tiful homesteads throughout the country, 
and more united families in these homesteads. 
So I urge that the children be given a bet¬ 
ter chance in the pursuit of horticulture and 
by no means inculcate a feeling that gar¬ 
dens and flowers may oe good enough tor guts, 
but beneath the attention of the boys. 
After my experience with the farmer who 
criticised i’rof. Beal so severely, I inquired 
about his family and surroundings, and found 
that the prettiest flower in his garden was a 
cabbage, aud that there was a dearth of 
everything to make a home a pleasant place 
to be iu. His success iu acquiring a farm was 
due to energy aud economy, but there was 
not a tree or a live thing about the premises 
about which pleasant associations w ore 
gathered to be carried away by the children 
in good remembrance. I lake stock in the 
man who nan gather from the chatter of his 
children hints ihat will aid him to make his 
home a pleasant, lovable place for them to 
live in and come back to when they are 
separated from it; that man would go home 
from Rrof. Beal’s lecture with some valuable 
ideas thut be could incorporate in his own 
home methods, even although the hints may 
have come from the simple conversation of a 
. couple of little girls, 
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