UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, READING
Principal: W. M. Childs, M.A., Keble College, Oxford (Professor of Modern History).
Director of the Department of Agriculture and Horticulture: Professor John Percival, M.A., St. John’s College, Cambridge.
Assistant Directors: Edward Brown, F.L.S. (Agriculture); Charles Foster, F.R.H.S. (Horticulture).
Registrar: Francis H. Wright.
The day classes of the college are open to men and women students over the age of sixteen. Students who do not live at their own homes are required to reside in the college hostels or in lodgings licensed by the college. Women students in residence for not less than one session (three terms) are required to reside in the college hostels, unless they have received the principal’s permission to reside elsewhere.
COURSES IN HORTICULTURE
The Department of Agriculture and Horticulture was founded in 1893. Its work is carried on under the inspection of the Board of Agriculture. Courses in Horticulture consist of lectures and laboratory work in the college and of practical work in the college garden and fruit station.
The college garden, four acres in extent, adjoins the main college buildings in London Road, Reading. It consists of vegetable and flower gardens and orchard, and is provided with horticultural buildings. The houses, greenhouses, vineries (early and late), peach house, etc., are used for plant and fern growing, general florist work, market work, and the culture of grapes, pot fruit trees, etc. Students spend upwards of twenty hours per week in the garden, and, in addition, pay frequent visits to neighbouring private gardens, as well as to Messrs. Sutton and Sons’ Trial Grounds, the exhibitions of the Royal Horticultural Society, and the Royal Gardens, Kew.
Besides instruction and practice in the routine operations of the garden, students are placed in charge of sections of both indoor and outdoor work. In their second year they may specialise in market and florists’ work, or in fruit growing, in preparation for work at home or in the Colonies. In all cases they pay special attention to the business side of horticulture and assist in the work of marketing and book-keeping.
During their two sessions’ course, students may take advantage of the workshop, and of the instruction in carpentry, etc., provided, to learn how to make up boxes, staging, and how to repair, glaze, and paint.
In addition to preparing for the college diploma or certificate, students may also prepare for the examinations of the Royal Horticultural Society or of the Board of Education, South Kensington.
During the session 1905–6, eleven acres of the college farm at Shinfield, two and a half miles from Reading, were planted as a fruit station. On this station students will be able to study modern methods of fruit and vegetable cultivation on a commercial scale.
Courses of instruction have been arranged as follows:—
The diploma in horticulture is awarded at the end of a two years’ course in the science and practice of horticulture. The course is designed for students who intend to take up horticulture as a career. It provides training in the sciences on which the practice of horticulture is based, in market and florist work, and in fruit-growing.
Each session of the course extends over forty weeks, including the thirty weeks of the ordinary college session, together with ten weeks of practical work only, arranged to suit the convenience of individual students.
The diploma with distinction in special subjects is awarded to students who, having gained the diploma, spend a third year at the college pursuing special studies, and who pass the examination prescribed. The course is adapted to the requirements of those who may become teachers of horticulture or specialists in some particular branch of horticulture.
Note.—The above diplomas are granted by the Oxford and Reading Joint Committee, on which are represented the college, the University of Oxford, the Royal Agricultural Society, and the Royal Horticultural Society.
The certificate in horticulture (granted by the college) is awarded to students who have followed a one-year course at the college (forty weeks) and have satisfied the examiners in the subjects of the first year examination for the diploma.
The subjects of examination for the diploma and certificate are as follows:—
Diploma (First Year) and Certificate
1. Theory and practice of horticulture (including composition of soils, cultivation, the use of tools and manures; the vegetable garden, flower garden, rose garden, rock garden; orchard, lawn, shrubbery; aquatic and bog plants).
2. Botany (theoretical and practical).
3. General chemistry and physics (theoretical and practical).
4. Book-keeping.
Diploma (Second Year)
1. Theory and practice of horticulture (including more advanced study of soils and manures, cultivation under glass, forcing, methods of dealing with fungoid diseases and insect pests, improvement of plants by budding, hybridisation, etc., packing and marketing, florists’ work, storage of fruit).
2. Botany (theoretical and practical).
3. Entomology (theoretical and practical).
The fees for the above full courses are as follows:—
For students who have resided for not less than a year in the County Borough of Reading or the administrative Counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, or Buckinghamshire, £18 the session of forty weeks; for other students, £24 the session.
Students may, however, enter for shorter periods than one year, and may take courses of practical work, together with such lectures as may suit their requirements. The fees are:—For five weeks, £7 7s., for ten weeks, £10 10s. In addition to the above fees, all students pay the registration fee of one shilling per session, and there are entrance fees for examinations. The cost of board and lodging at the college hostels is 21s. per week (for a cubicle), or 25s. to 30s. (for a study bedroom).
Diplomas are not awarded to candidates under the age of twenty-one.
Scholarships tenable at the college are awarded from time to time by the County Councils of Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Dorset, Hampshire, Somersetshire, and Gloucestershire. Application should be made to the Education Secretaries of these counties.
Courses in Agriculture, Dairying, and Poultry-keeping are held at the college. Practical instruction is given at the College Farm, Shinfield, the British Dairy Institute, Reading, and the College Poultry Farm, Theale.
List of Women Students who have Passed the Examinations for the Diploma in Horticulture
1904.—Ellen C. Wallace. 1906.—Caroline Pellew, Lilian S. Tuckett, Brenda M. Young. 1907.—Dorothy M. Cayley, Dorothy A. E. Dyson, Adelaide M. Taylor, Henrietta C. Tuke.
“POTTING”: STUDENTS AT WORK, READING UNIVERSITY.