As a matter of fact, this subject is taught along with botany, zoology, or pomology, if it is taught at all. Nearly always it comes with botany or zoology; very seldom has it come with pomology. Yet pomology is the very subject in connection with which it can best be taught. The material is all more easily within reach—that is, all but the textbooks. The objects to be classified are well known to all of us. Even the critically distinctive characters are such as are of common knowledge to every boy or girl who has had the privilege of growing up on the farm. Even the more complex matters of nomenclature and classification are easier to handle in a strictly scientific manner in the classroom when they concern peaches or cherries than when they concern agremones or penicilliums or ichneumons.

In a word, systematic pomology offers the best opportunity yet discovered for studying taxonomy, the basis of all the natural sciences.

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There are points of detail in which the 'pedagogic value" of systematic pomology is especially marked. Suppose a student is given some specimens of Sheldon pear to

study. He is directed to prepare a description according to the formulas suggested in Chapter IV. In order to do this he must examine the specimens closely, critically, point by point. He is developing his power of observation-one of the most fundamental processes in education, yet one in which the most advanced students need constant training.

The pupil goes over the specimens character by character. He studies size, form, markings. He should be required to make drawings showing what he sees. Students who do these things in other departments of biologic science say that they are studying morphology. Morphology is a fine word, and stands for an important kind of study; but in no science can the student have a better drill in it than in this work in pomology.

If, in addition to the specimens of Sheldon pear, the pupil is given some samples of Anjou and of Winter Nelis, with the direction that he shall learn to distinguish the three varieties with speed and certainty on sight, then his study assumes another phase. He compares each character of each variety with the corresponding character of the other vari

eties, and notes the likenesses and differences. Now he is studying comparative morphology.

It is ordinarily a great satisfaction to a college student, and to his parents, when he can write home saying that he is studying comparative morphology. Let the young man do this after his first exercise in systematic pomology.

Next, when the pupil seeks the names of his pears, he is studying nomenclature; and later, when he classifies them, he is taking the last step in taxonomy. It is highly proper, too, that he should appreciate that he is at work on a science of wide application and of very great importance. He may very properly have a greater respect for systematic pomology if he sees that its principles are of such general use in so many great departments of science.

In general it is the writer's experience with students that they are helped most by those matters in the course of instruction which come into direct contact with other matters already discussed in other courses. It may be that some practice in horticulture is explained by referring it to some principle in chemistry. The principle may have been

learned already in the chemistry class; it may have had some other application in the agriculture or zoology class. But the fact that the horticultural explanation falls into touch with something already known, tends very much to strengthen the student's command of the subject and his confidence in it.

This is why the student should see, when he is making descriptions of fruits, when he is studying their nomenclature, and when he is practicing their classification, that he is at work upon a subject as broad as the whole of science. Everything he does has its immediate and direct application in zoölogy and in botany, and sometimes also in geology, mineralogy, and the related sciences.

The teacher will probably find it best in most cases in the administration of a course in systematic pomology to follow the laboratory method. This means simply that the subject should be taught objectively. The students should handle the fruits just as much as possible. They should become thoroughly familiar with them from every point of view.

In the descriptive work this is as easy as it is obvious. One variety after another can be

presented, studied, and described, and the descriptions can be criticized in due form. This makes very agreeable and useful laboratory work.

In the discrimination of varieties the laboratory method is almost equally easy. After a considerable number of samples have been described, the student ought to be able to recognize them one from another. Variety after variety is added to the collection, and the student frequently tested as to his ability to pick them out and name them. It is surprising how much a little well-directed training of this sort will do. Almost any student

of ordinary ability can

Almost

learn in two or three lessons to pick out and name a dozen or two dozen varieties of apples mixed together in a bushel basket.

The laws of nomenclature have to be studied from the book, and the teacher should not omit to require advanced students to make extended comparisons between the pomological rules and those in vogue in botany, in zoölogy, in ornithology, etc.

Actual practice in determining the correct names of fruits (aside from identification) can be given in the laboratory. The simplest