Investigation In Floriculture

The investigation of problems in the growing of cut-flowers, exotics, and garden flowers; hybridizing; study of varieties. Designed primarily for upper classmen and graduate students.

Elements Of Landscape Gardening

Reconnaissance surveys and mapping, with special reference to the methods used in landscape gardening; detailed study of selected designs of leading landscape gardeners; grade design, road design and field work.

General Design

Field notes; examination of completed works and those under construction; design of architectural details, planting plans, gardens, parks and private grounds; written reports of individual problems.

CIVIC Art

The principles and applications of modern civic art, including city design, city improvement, village improvement, and rural improvement.

Trees And Shrubs

Plant material important to landscape gardening; landscape value of each plant with respect to adaptability to the soil and situation and the use of the plant in design.

Advanced Landscape Design

Real estate subdivisions and a complete set of plans, including a sketch plan, general plan, report, detailed study of architectural features, grading plans, planting plans, set of specifications, and estimate of cost.

Landscape Practice

Interpretation of topographic maps and their relation to landscape design; calculation of cut and fill; quantities of material; preparation of grading plans and working drawings.

Exotics

Temporary decorative plants used in landscape gardening.

Plant Materials

This course aims to make the student familiar with the character of the trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials used in ornamental work, and with the methods of propagating them.

Decorative And Bedding Plants

Tropical and subtropical plants used in decorative work in the conservatory; tender plants used in outdoor bedding.

Home Vegetable-Gardening

A study of vegetables and their production for home use. The planning and management of the garden, special crop requirements, factors influencing quality, and control of pests, will be considered. The laboratory work consists of actual practice in the garden. The starting of early plants in hotbeds and frames, intercropping and succession-cropping to secure largest yields from small areas, are studied. Each student assumes charge of his own plants and carries them through to the end of the term.

Commercial Vegetable-Gardening

The principles of vegetable-growing as applied in commercial production; the scope of the industry and its opportunities; choice of location; equipment; management. The vegetable crops are considered singly, as to their adaptation, culture, special requirements, varieties, enemies, marketing, and profits. The laboratory work includes exercises in growing plants under glass and in the planting and care of early outdoor vegetables. Each student assumes full charge of his own plantings.

For students specializing or desiring a fuller knowledge of vegetable - gardening, another course is given, throughout the year. Advantage is taken of the opportunity for practice in harvesting, packing, and marketing fall crops. A two-days' excursion to two or three important vegetable-growing centers some time during May constitutes a part of the course. Each student gives a part of his time to a special problem, to be agreed on. Report on this problem is presented in typewritten form.

Vegetable-Forcing

Vegetable-growing under glass. Important forcing crops. Laboratory consists of practical work in crop-production. Each student is assigned a plot in the greenhouse on which he grows vegetables to maturity, assuming full charge except in heating and ventilation. This is supplemented by descriptive studies.

Systematic Vegetable Crops

Lectures and descriptive studies dealing with vegetable crops, their origin and botany. Special attention is given to varieties, and their adaptation to different cultural and market conditions. The important commercial types of the different vegetables are grown in the garden each year, and there is an abundance of first-hand material for the course.

Advanced Vegetable-Gardening

The student's time is divided between advanced studies of vegetable crops and their culture and the study of a special problem to be agreed upon. An excursion to two or three important vegetable-growing centers constitutes a part of this course.

Elementary Pomology

A study of the methods of propagation and early care of commercial fruits, including the growing of seedlings, cuttings, and layers; the principles of budding, grafting, pruning, and planting; the soils, varieties, and planting plans for the orchard.

Practical Pomology

A study of the soils and varieties for the orchard; cultivation, cover-crops, fertilization, spraying, pruning, and thinning as practised in orchard management; the picking, grading, packing, storing, and marketing of fruit. This course considers the apple, pear, quince, cherry, plum, apricot, and peach.

Systematic Pomology

A study of the varieties of the different fruits and of nomenclature, with critical descriptions; special reference being given to relationships and classification.

Bush-Fruits

A lecture course which considers the grape, raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, currant, gooseberry, and strawberry. The topics discussed are: varieties, planting, culture, picking, grading, packing, and marketing.

Small-Fruits And Grapes

The strawberry, raspberry, blackberry, dewberry, currant, gooseberry, grape. History; extent of cultivation; soil; location; fertilizers; propagation; planting; tillage; pruning; insect enemies; diseases; varieties; harvesting; marketing.

Spraying Of Fruit Trees

A study of the preparation and application of the spray mixtures used in orchard practice.

Nuciculture

Lectures on the practical and systematic phases of nut-culture, with special reference to the cultivation and improvement of the forms native to the United States.

Subtropical Pomology

A study of citrous and other tropical fruits, with special reference to American conditions. Laboratory work in describing and judging the various fruits.

Plant-Propagation

Grafts; buds; layers; cuttings; seeds.

Systematic Pomology

A course designed primarily for graduates and students who are preparing to do experimental work. A study of the characters and botanical relationships of the fruits of the United States. Each student is required to collect and mount a number of varieties and species.

Research In Pomology

Original investigation of problems in pomology. A typewritten thesis is required.

The equipment for the horticultural work usually consists of classrooms, laboratories with tables and sometimes equipped for microscopic work, and herbaria; workrooms in which practice may be had in the mixing of soils, the compounding of spraying materials, the testing of machines, the study of vegetables and fruits, and the like; range of glasshouses; and a number of acres of land for gardens and orchards. Sometimes the orchard area amounts to fifty and more acres. In some colleges the plant-breeding is included with the horticulture; and in some of those that are least differentiated the plant pathology and economic entomology are also included, as also forestry. In the courses detailed above, all these subjects are excluded as horticulture, since they are likely to be handled in regular departments by themselves in numbers of different courses.

The subject of landscape architecture, or landscape gardening, has developed in the institutions in the United States from two sides. When it is an offshoot of colleges or departments of architecture, or when strongly dominated by architectural ideas, it is likely to be known as landscape architecture. In the agricultural colleges, however, the subject has developed mostly from the horticultural or gardening side, and has usually been called landscape gardening. As a part of the curriculum, landscape gardening is given more or less attention in nearly all the land-grant institutions. In three or four of them, however, the subject is now being given special and professional attention, as also at Harvard. Two institutions in this country give a post-graduate degree, Master of Landscape Architecture or Master of Landscape Design.

Other Forms Of Horticultural Teaching

The colleges of agriculture are engaged rather largely in extension work, the extension meaning all educational efforts prosecuted at the homes and on the farms of the people. The extension work is welfare work, and it is properly a necessary part of an institution that is maintained by the people for the service of the people. Some of this extension work is horticultural. It comprises tests and experiments in orchards, gardens, and greenhouses; cooperation with growers' associations; surveys of conditions and industries; the issuing of popular bulletins and other literature; lecture-courses, reading-courses, and much correspondence. See Extension Teaching in Horticulture, page 1199.

The experiment and research work of the institutions is also of course educational, but this effort is reserved for separate discussion. See Experiment Stations, page 1195.

In the public schools, there is now a strong sentiment for the introduction of agriculture. This pertains in all parts of the United States and Canada. This agricultural instruction will be organized eventually on the same basis as other instruction in the common schools. Agriculture will include a great variety of subjects, the horticultural affairs being given their due consideration. This will result in a gradual redirection of the youthful mind toward horticultural and other rural pursuits.

The nature-study movement is widespread and established, and the material of the teaching is largely of plants. School-gardening is growing in popularity and importance. All these subjects are finding their way into normal schools and colleges, in some of which there is definite horticultural work for the training of teachers. Correspondence courses, the rural press, state departments of agriculture, and other agencies and enterprises are also forwarding horticultural education as a part of the general rural betterment.

In the United States and Canada, horticulture is largely a training for citizenship, on the basis of general collegiate education. The Americans have had a continental area to discover and to conquer; they are endeavoring to conquer it by many means, and the most fundamental means is by organizing all industry educationally. The horticultural subjects are important not only in themselves but in their personal appeal, and the organizing of horticultural knowledge into large plans and methods of human training is one of the best privileges of any people. L,, H. B.