MAY 42 
304 
(Educational. 
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES—!!!. 
SEC. W. I. CHAMBERLAIN. 
In two previous articles on this subject I 
tried to show in what respects the manage¬ 
ment of these colleges, the trustees, presidents 
and professors, were in fault in making or 
permitting them to swerve from their original 
purpose; and, secondly, in what respects we 
farmers ourselves have been in fault in not 
sending our sons to these colleges in order to 
make farmers of them, and with tastes for 
farming so strong us to resist the pressure that 
is brought to bear upon educated young men 
to enter other callings. 
I wish to ask now. how can we inspire our 
sons with such a love of Nature and of watch¬ 
ing and guiding Nature’s handiwork that they 
shall not desire to leave the farms but to be¬ 
come skillful, educated, land-owning farmers? 
And I answer thut the training mast begin at 
home and almost in them infancy. In a word, 
them training should be somewhat of the 
“ Kindergarten ” sort. The modern Kinder¬ 
garten .(children's garden, or garden school), 
is a school in w hick young children are taught 
from object lessons to be interested in objects 
of nature, in material things; are taught from 
colored lines, planes, cubes, balls, etc.. ideas of 
form, color, size and movement, and the ele¬ 
mentary principles of mathematics and phy¬ 
sics ; also from insects, shells, fishes, birds and 
the like, or pictures and models of them, are 
taught the facts and primary classifications of 
Natural History; or from flowers, fruits and 
vegetables, the facts aud principles of Struc¬ 
tural Botany, and the laws of growth Such 
in general is the plan of Kindergarten instruc¬ 
tion, varied somewhat in this country from 
the original plan in Germany. 
Now I think the general idea should be ap¬ 
plied to the farm life and training of our sons 
and daughters if we hope to interest them in 
rural life and educate them for the farm. The 
objects of interest abound on the farm, and 
we, the parents, should tit ourselves to give our 
children the necessary instruction. There are 
just two ways of treating a boy upon the 
farm, aud the two results are diametrically 
opposite. The one way is to treat him as a 
drudge and beast of burden, the other as a 
learner and prospective partner. If we treat 
him as a drudge, give him all the “grindstone’’ 
work, all the water carrying, stone picking, 
cow driving and none of the interesting work, 
he will, of course, never be interested, aud will 
leave the farm the first chance he gets; and 
he ought to leave. We have no right to ex¬ 
pect anything else, i speak with some knowl¬ 
edge and some feeliug ou this matter, for my 
own farm training as a boy was largely of the 
drudge sort, though my parents were far 
above the average in intelligence. But my 
father was never a well man since my remem¬ 
brance, and my farm training was chiefly di¬ 
rected by hired men! But, ou the whole, it 
was much like the average boy life on the 
farm forty years ago. For example, when the 
apple trees were primed I hauled away the 
brush. I didn’t know aud was not encouraged 
to ask why the men sawed off the limbs. I 
only knew that when they were off and fell 
with a crash and whack, I had to drag them 
to the brush pile, and I knew it was a nuis¬ 
ance. I was not shown the philosophy of 
pruning—how to shape tho head of the tree 
from the first, according to its “habit of 
growth,” “aspiring” or “drooping,” giving it 
well-balanced form and well-ventilated growth 
of limbs. Here was a chance for an interest¬ 
ing object lesson lost. When grafting was 
done, I pulled wax and hauled brush; but was 
not taught the principles and details of graft¬ 
ing—how the sap ascending through the cells 
and pores of the liark of the limb sawed off, 
and entering the cells and pores of the cion, 
wedged bark to bark aud, protected from the 
air with wax, made the little cion grow aud 
bear the better fruit of the tree it was cut 
from. 1 say I was hauling brush to the piles, 
and so another chance for an object lesson was 
lost. 
When hogs were butchered my object lesson 
was to pump and heat the water and lug it to 
the scalding tub, and help souse the hogs in 
aud scrape the hail* off, mid after the sausage 
meat was frozen, chop it on a board w ith a 
sharp axe till ton o’clock at night; and I was 
always rewarded with a bladder to blow up 
for a foot ball! But I never had the functions 
of the pig’s vital organs explained, as they 
might so easily have been when the wonderful 
vital organism of tho boast was laid open to 
the sight by the keen dissecting knife of the 
butcher—the lungs thut breathe the breath of 
life, the liver that, secretes the bile, the heart, 
that great engine-pump, with its marvelous 
valves in plain sight, that send the rich warm 
current ) through all the arteries anil veins. 
What a chance for an object lesson in anatomy 
and physiology, that need not much have hin¬ 
dered my present boy usefulness as a hewer of 
wood and—chopper of sausage meat. I saw 
the great bowlders in the fields with their 
strange formations, but never was taught 
where they came from, how they got there or 
how they were formed. I supposed they 
“growed” like Topsey in “Uncle Tom.” I 
knew right well that the small ones had to be 
picked up and the big ones sunk, and that I 
had to help do it! When sheep died in Winter, 
I pulled the wool with one hand and held my 
nose with the other; and it seemed as if I could 
smell my fingers till the next sheep died, and 
I didn’t admire farming, not when I was 
“picking” dead sheep. When the men stopped 
to rest in hoeing, I went for water, and hoed 
my row when I got back! 
And so I might go through the entire routine 
of farm work. The effort, seemed to be to get 
all the work possible out of the boy, not to 
direct his attention to the interesting things, 
inspire him with a love of nature or make him 
feel that he was an adviser and a future partner. 
I was sent to a “deestrick” school four 
months each Winter and did chores morning 
and night. I was taught the three r’s, “readin 1 . 
’ritin’ and ’rithmetic,” and was put back each 
Fall to the very place in arithmetic where we 
began the Fall before: aud when I was about 
twelve years old my parents, disgusted with 
this kind of progress, ( f) sent me to an academy 
for two or three half yea is. and there I was 
set at what? Leaniing anything of the min¬ 
erals, plants, insects or auimals the boy sees on 
the farm, or of the laws of formation, re¬ 
production, growth, health, death and decay > 
No. I was set to digging Greek and Latin 
“roots.” And all through college I learned to 
read the thoughts of Livy. Horace, Cicero, 
Xenophon Plato and Homer, men that 
lived two or throe thousand years ago; was 
taught to calculate eclipses of the sun and 
moor. Thus our minds (in college) were 
fixed chiefly on things far off in time and 
space, while with regard to the wonders of 
earth and air. of living plants aud animals 
that intimately concern us all, especially on 
the farm, the college seemed not to care. The 
course was telescopic not microscopic. It was 
making ministers and lawyers and had no 
time or care to make farmers. Indeed, the 
worst of it was that most of the farmers who 
sent their sons, wanted them, not to be farmers, 
but something better and bigger. 
Natural Philosophy (physics) was indeed 
taught in college to some purpose even then 
(So to 30 years ago) auil was of practical every¬ 
day value to me afterwards in farming. But 
chemistry, physiology, zoology, botany and 
the like sciences were all crowded into a term 
or two at the close of tho senior year after our 
tastes and loves were all formed away from 
agriculture and away from natural science. 
And so we college boys grew to be insensible 
to the objects of Nature all about us, and to 
the reasons why they are as they are, and to 
their marvelous beauty and adaptations and 
mechanism, grew to be like the man of whom 
Wadsworth sings: ♦ 
“A Primrose by the river’s brim, 
A yellow Primrose was to him. 
Arid it was uothiug more J” 
And when, after some years of teaching, I 
was driven to the farm to regain health, I bit¬ 
terly, bitterly felt the need of these things 
that ought to be taught with thoroughness in 
every college iu the land. Now, 1 take it if 
we are ever to have a race of intelligent land¬ 
owning farmers in the future, and not of 
ignorant foreign tenants or lured help, then 
our own sons must in some way be taught, 
and early tuugl t, the things that are closest to 
them —how the earth was formed which they 
daily till, and which rewards intelligent til¬ 
lage with rich returns; what constitutes fer¬ 
tility and how may it be conserved aud in¬ 
creased; what are the special adaptations of 
any soil for fruits or grains or grazing; what 
are the laws of life and growth and reproduc¬ 
tion in plants aud animals, and how may any 
species or variety lie marvelously improved 
by selection, crossing, care, tillage, pruning, 
feeding; the birds of the air. of the forest 
and the thicket—which ones arc the farmer's 
friend* aud how may their haunts be pre¬ 
served and their Increase lie secured. The in¬ 
sects—some of them work for us, like the 
honey-bee—how may their work lie mi de to 
yield us more? Some of them Injure or de¬ 
stroy our fruit, our wheat, our various crops; 
what are their habits and their haunts, and 
how may their Increase be prevented and 
their destruction be secured? What are the 
laws of frosts and storms, and how may they 
lie foreseen by the farmer to bis great pe¬ 
cuniary advantage? 
Now, the thorough knowledge of these and 
similar things can be obtained only at a good 
agricultural or scientific school with large 
equipments of apparatus. But the beginning 
of such thorough knowledge must be gained 
and the taste for it formed by our sons on the 
farm and in early childhood, if we expect 
them to become enthusiastic, successful, edu¬ 
cated farmers in the future. And ire, their 
parents , must see to it that they have the 
necessary books and pictures and papers and 
guidance at the start. And it is worth some 
personal effort and expense. 
SUboricullural. 
FORESTRY No. 38. 
Forest Nursery. Part XI. 
DR. JOHN A. WARDER. 
CONIFERS CONTINUED. 
Other Modes of Propagation; Loudon, Cook 
and Others; Cuttings — Treatment; Joseph 
Huopcs's Book of Evergreens; Grafting; 
Tschoudis Herbaceous Grafting; Dela- 
marre's Description; Choice of Stocks; Lar- 
minet’s Side-grafting; Mr. Dawson's Su - 
cess; Trumpy's Plan. 
Let us now take a glance at some other 
modes of propagation and multiplying this in¬ 
teresting class of trees. 
Mr. Loudon tells us in his voluminous 
Arboretum et Fmticetum Britannicum, that 
the only mode of propagating the Pine and 
Fir trees on a large scale is by their seeds; but 
all the species will succeed by layers, by in¬ 
arching on closely allied kinds and by herba¬ 
ceous grafting; many, if not all, may also he 
grown from cuttings. Evelyn was aware that 
some species might be grown from cuttings; 
this was ‘divulged liy him as a considerable 
secret.' Cook also mentions those methods in 
his “Forest Trees,” but until lately they were 
not much used.” * * * The species which 
strike from cuttings most readily, are those 
belonging to the genera Picea. Abies. Larix 
and Cedrus. The cuttings may be taken from 
the lateral branches, when the current year's 
shoots are beginning to ripen. * * * They 
should be planted in sand and covex*ed with 
glass, say in August aud September: frost 
must be excluded from the frame during the 
Winter, and the greater part of them will 
throw up shoots the following May or June 
and may be planted the following Autumn. 
Mr. Gordon, who was very successful in the 
London Horticultural Garden, took the cut¬ 
tings from the points of the lateral shoots in 
September, planted them in shallow pots of 
sand, and placed them in the shady parts of the 
frame, where they were left without bell- 
glasses until Spring, when they were put into 
very gentle moist heat, and began to grow in 
April The kinds he found most easy to grow 
were Abies Smithiana. Menziesii, Douglasii, 
Picea Webbiana and Cedrus Deodara. * * * 
Mr. Lindsay preferred to take his cuttings in 
the Autumn, though early Spring will answer, 
preferring the smallest, from two to three 
inches long. They should be of the current 
year’s growth, and cut in October, at the base 
of the shoot. He uses silver or pure white 
sand mixed with a little peat bog or heath 
molds. He prefers a gentle heat, but only 
after the cuttings have been for some weeks in 
the shady part of a house kept at *30 degrees, 
and covered with a bell-glass. * * * He 
has succeeded with Pinus Halepeusis, sylves- 
tris. Cembra, excelsa and mouticola; Abies 
exeelsa. nigra, pichta, Smithiana, (or Morin. 
dn), Menziesii. Douglasii. Clanbrasiliana: Picea 
pectiuata, nobilis, Webbiana and amabilis; 
Larix microcarpa; Cedrus Deodara and Li- 
baui; Cuuuiughamia Sinensis, and Araucaria 
imbricate.” In all these citations we may 
make allowance for the humid climate anil 
milder Winters of Great Britain, aud may lie 
less successful iu some cases. 
In our own country, however, large num¬ 
bers of various species of this family of trees 
are annually produced from cuttings. 
This is particularly the case with scarce 
kinds that have not yet produced seeds, and 
the many fancy varieties and sports, which 
can only be multiplied by this method of pro¬ 
pagation. Our most successful cultivators 
prefer to make their cuttings before any 
severe frosts occur, aud they usually prefer to 
have a portion of tho matured wood at the base 
of the cutting. These are placed in boxes 
tilled with sharp saud, on good drainage, some 
using old sphagnum, well shredded, on the 
bottom under the saud. These boxes are kept 
from frost during the Winter to allow the 
cuttings to callus; iu the Spring they are sub¬ 
jected to a mild bottom heat, aud on the ap¬ 
proach of Summer the boxes are moved to a 
partially shaded border, where they make a 
nice growth and are ready for bedding-out by 
the eud of Summer or the following Spring. 
In either case they should lie slightly protected 
during the next Winter, say by a light mulch¬ 
ing of forest leaves or by shading. 
Mr. Josiah Hoopes. of Pennsylvania, who 
has had long experience in handling and mul¬ 
tiplying this class of trees, has given us a 
chapter upon the details and appliances he has 
called into requisition, which may Is? found ou 
pages 38 to 45 of his admirable volume, called 
* f The Book of Evergreens,” to which the rea 
der is referred, and which should be in the 
hands of every young nurseryman. 
The Pines he thinks the most difficult to 
increase by cuttings: the Larches grow more 
easily with him; the Cedars are still more 
tractable; the Spruces and some Fire are 
most easily grown. In the Cupressinse all the 
members root more or less readily. He finds 
that the American Arbor-vita? and most Ju¬ 
nipers root most freely. The Biota, or Chinese 
Arbor-vita?, especially the Golden, often fails, 
the Thuyopsis strikes quite readily, the Cypress, 
Cryptomeria, Sequoia and Libocedrus are 
uncertain and often fail with him. 
The Taxineas all grow from cuttings for 
him, but with varying success, and he finds 
that in every genus there are some species 
which are more tractable than others, and as 
a rale, all plants having variegated leaves are 
difficult to manage; to this, however, the 
variegated Yews are cited as an exception. 
Propagation of Conifers by Grafting. 
—From Mr. Loudon we learn that this opera¬ 
tion was first done on soft, young wood by 
Baron Tschoudi about the end of the last cen¬ 
tury, near Metz, using the soft wood, Tt 
has been called herbaceous grafting. Dela- 
marre, in his Traite prati/pte, thus describes 
the process: The species to be united should be 
as nearly united as possible, for though the 
Pinus pinea and pinaster may be grafted upon 
the sylvestris, and the Cedrus on the Larix. yet 
it is preferable to graft species that are ever s 
greens on evergreen stocks, and those having 
leaves in bundles on stocks that not only have 
their leaves in bundles, but have also the same 
number of leaves (needles) in a bundle. Thus 
Pinea succeeds on Maritima (each having two 
needles, binae), and Cembra on Strobus (which 
are both quiriiei. 
Cleft grafting Is the plan practiced. * * * 
the leading shoot of the stock should have 
| grown eight or twelve inches, and still be so 
I soft as to break clean i. ithout tearing the 
bark, a condition which continues but a few 
days; the side shoots are to lie removed or 
shortened. The grafts are to be snapped off 
with the thumb and finger, at about half their 
length. After breaking off the shoot of the 
stock, leaving about four inches of its base, the 
lower leaves are then removed except about 
an inch at the top. * * * The cions must 
be kept fresh and covered with mo® in a ves¬ 
sel of water, two inches is the proper length; 
remove the leaves from their lower half, and 
cut to a thin wedge shape with a very sharp 
knife; the cion thus cut should be rather nar¬ 
rower than the stock. When inserted it 
should be tied with bast or woolen yarn. The 
whole is then covered with a cone of paper to 
shade and shelter it for 15 days, aud the liga¬ 
ture may be loosened or removed in 15 days 
more. In six or eight weeks the leafy shoots 
may be taken away so as to throw the <ap 
into the cion. Trees three or four feet 
high, standing where they are to remain, are 
preferred for stocks. * * * In the forest 
of Fontainbleau are 10,000 of the Pinus Laricio, 
which were grafted in this manner. 
The plau oi Mr. Larminat is slightly differ¬ 
ent. He preserves two sheaths of leaves at 
the top of the broken shoot into which the 
cion is inserted, or by side grafting. The 
leaves on tho top of the stock are removed 
when the union has been effected. 
Mr. Jackson Dawson, the successful propa¬ 
gator and foreman of the Arnold Arboretum, 
at the Bussey Institute, near Boston. Mass., 
has been very happy in his efforts to multiply 
many rare species in that collection by the 
several methods which have been here indi¬ 
cated. Like Mr. Trumpy, who has helped to 
make the establishment of Samuel Parsons A 
Sons, at Flushing. L. I., so famous for its rich 
collections of rare plants and trees, so also Mr. 
Dawson does his grafting chiefly on potted 
stocks: these are kept in frames until firmly 
uuited, which will lie in one or two years, af¬ 
ter which they are lined out in the nursery. 
Our American nurserymen do uot approve 
of the custom of keeping young forest trees in 
pots, though it is very prevalent in Europe, 
and warmly advocated by propagators there. 
We seek cheaper methods, and our customers 
greatly prefer the free system of roots pro¬ 
duced in the open nursery grounds to the tan¬ 
gled and crowded roots of the plants that have 
been cramped in pots for several years. So, 
too. do the customers appreciate the liberal 
prices for w hich they are able to procure the 
home-grown products of American skill 
Wit. talent, invention and industry furnish 
the best protection to the development of 
Horticulture. 
Quince on Thorn. 
I can vouch for all that has been said in the 
Rural in regard to the value of Quince grafted 
upon Thorn. I have one in my yard that has 
been grafted on Thorn for at least 40 years, 
and is to-day a firm and substantial tree and 
bears every year, while all 1 had of the natural 
Quince have been destroyed by the borers. 
Hammondsport. N. Y. d. r. 
