The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-07-29

where Oue OFeW hetohe-Ahe SehooA'S Crampsd Acreage Promptly Out grown-wOmen Given the same In- struetIOn as Msn-seven Men and One Woman Graduated.
 "school of Practical Agriculture and Horticulture" is the name of an insti tuition whose increasing attendance and need of larger accommodations seem to indicate that it is making itself valua- ble. The school, which held its first commencement exercises yesterday af- ternoon at Briarcliff Manor, was estab- lished by the committee for the promo ton of agriculture of New York (now merged into the board of trustees), to offer an independent means of liveli- hood for young men and women, espec- ially from the large cities. It purposes also to teach that greater returns may be derived from land under intelligent management, and finally it aims to de- velop a taste for rural life. One of its watchwords is the Belgian proverb:
 No grass, no cattle; no cattle, no ma nure; no manure, no crops"
 The old aspiration, to make two blades of grass grow where formerly the soil nurtured only one, seems to have inspired those in control of this under taking, for of the sixty-five acres in the estate all but @ few isolated patches and stray strips, hardly amounting to a single acre, are under cultivation con- stantly. The harvesting is soon fol- lowed by a planting or sowing, and some parts of the plantation maintain as many as three different crops in one year.
 The 'New Farming" as the move ment is called, came in with the new century. The school was established in the autumn of 190O Its officers are Theodore Langdon Van Norden, presi- dent; ex-Mayor Abram s. Hewitt and William Earl Dodge, vice-presidents; R. Fulton Cutting, treasurer; and Thatcher T. P. Luquer, secretary. Among its trustees are Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell, Professors Keener and Pellew of Columbia university, ex-Sec- retary of the Treasury John G. Carlisle, the Rev. J. w. Hegeman, and Messrs. Theodore Havemeyer, Erneste G. Fabrl, Walter w. Law, V. Everit Macy, James a Speyer, William Jay Schieffelin and E. Morgan Grinnell.
 These persons and their friends agreed to finance the experiment for three years, with an eye to its future endowment in the event of the success of the project. Its prosperity can best be shown by the mere statement that inside of the first two years the school has completely outgrown it's cramped acreage and that negotiations are no" 11nder way for the acquisition of land more than six times as large as the r,lace at Briarcliff Manor. The new site Of the school, covering four hundred and fifteen acres, will be on this side or Poughkeepsie, on a high elevation ana on the road to Wappinger's Falls.
 It may be supposed by some that the school is merely duplicating the work of agricultural colleges such as those at the Universities of Michigan and Cornel in this state. Such an idea is, however erroneous, for at the Briarclin Manor institution stress is laid most emphatl- cally on the practical and business side of agriculture and horticulture. The student at a state farm college, whether he takes the four or the two years course, or even a shorter term, learns his business only in theory, like the prospective lawyer in school employ ing a textbook system. Its relation to actual material existence is shown only in an incidental way, generally because If inadeauate facilities. At the Briar- f Ifg I~I;e r, tho other hand. every student, man and woman alike, digs in the fields, trains the vines breeds and feeds the poultry, prunes the young fruit trees, cuts down the grass, stacks the hay, ploughs the fields and cleans the horses Women, it must not ba overlooked, are taught to do exactly +ha same farm work as men, though, Of co,,rse. their actual duties are consid- erab1y frightened.
 The school differs from such institu- lions as the George Junior Republic and the Baron de Hirsch colonies chiefly ill respect to the age of the students. Here at the present time they are all above eighteen years old. The student body. similarly, is drawn from the cit ies. When most of the students entered T0GY were lSSS NdludulC hlioiA tiIC Hih ckilled farmland, one man failing to distinguish between growing wheat and oats. Now, as one of the instructors expressed it, they can go back and show old farmers few tricks they don't know"
 Each student, besides his or her at X tendance on a number of classroom re- citations and lectures each day, is obliged to take part in every kind Of work included in the course. This h. cludes farm surveying and plotting, computing areas, roadmaking and fen cling. tilling soils, the use and applica- tion of fertilizers, the manipulation of Implements; planting, cultivating, har- yesting, storing and marketing farm, garden, greenhouse and orchard crops; the improvement of various cereals, fruits, vegetables and flowers by hy- bridization and selection; and the care, management and valuation of poultry, m-animals and bees. Dairy-work, while part of the plan, cannot be under taken in the present small estate, and horticulture, too, must be sacrificed to considerable extent. Another side of the work which for the same reason is in the curriculum only in theory, is the problem of cold storage. In due time, however, students will be made ac- quainted with the products that can be