The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-05-20
FARM AND
GARDEN ~
INTERESTS
Agricultural Training.

New England Farmer.
That agricultural training is needed was
proved when a scientist examined Boston
school children, only TO find that large
percentage did not know lumber came from
trees nor milk from COWS An eminent
teacher of cookery did not know what
wheat was when showed her. Many par
ents have not the trained minds for any
kind of teaching. and others are too busy
with their own pursuits. Agricultural edu-
cation, properly conducted, does prove at
tractive. My three methods of teaching
agriculture of useful nature study are see
ing, working, talking.
Children learn a great deal by mere alb
sorption. Instead of the walls being en-
tirely covered with spelling charts and
maps, l would add such as the University
of New York at Albany can furnish of our
destructive and friendly insects. Charts of
the friendly and injurious birds are hung
in every French schoolroom, and that list
on guide boards are seen in many parts of
Great Britain. Fauvre says if the indis-
criminate slaughter of insect-eating birds
is not stopped our children will be crying
for bread in fifty years. Professor Hayes,
of Minneapolis, is preparing charts of
grains, showing infioresence under micro
scope structure, stages and habits of
growth / am personally acquainted with
two farmers clubs that, at set times, visit
from farm to farm to see whatever the re-
spective farmer has to show in the way Of
worthy stock, fruits, crops or machinery
If there is intelligent farmer and tidy
farm near the sehoolhouse let the teacher
ask his permission TO go there some after
and mir nor mil hE tod
around. Then ask the children to write
essays on their inspection, and draw plans
of the farm and fields, locating the build
ings By the aid of a farmers ten-foot
pole, even a long tape line, or a bicycle
cyclometer, a very accurate map of the
country around a schoolhOuse, say taking
radius of one-half of a mile or a mile,
may be made in time
Under the head of agricultural work.
L would suggest three kinds of gardens,
experimental, competitive and rOtatory.
The competitive, giving each child equal
plot and similar seeds, and comparing re-
suits, has been tried till familiar. There
Is at least one rotatory garden in Minna-
sofa, neighboring farmer having kindly
loaned the use of a little corner of his
farm. On one part OF the plot, the same
thing is raised over and over. On the other
is maintained a shift. showing by its better
yield that a sameness in crops will ex-
haust some certain element or elements of
plant food.
1 have talked with several Hampton.
Va, students on the experimental work
there. A variety of seeds are planted all
at the same depth. Some come up rapidly,
some with great difficulty, and others are
lost entirely Similar seeds are put into
different soils. that the effect of sand. clay
or humus may be seen, and the soils in
the nelghborhood are washed and Sifted to
discover the proportion of sand, etc.-what
the experiment station does more elabor-
ately and perfectly with chemical analysis
and fertilizers. Weedy, unsorted seed pack
ages are used, also old dead seeds, and re-
suits noted.
Let children see water follow up the
threads of a towel by capillary attraction.
Tell them it will climb up solid soil in the
same way, but if the surface is pulverized.
the connection is broken and water escape
stopped. Two plots, one with surface stirred
and the other not, can be examined after
few days of hot weather. Moisture will be
found around roots Just below the dust
blanket, while the solid earth of the other
plot is dry to a great depth. This surface
STIRRING Will save crops in any but ser
tons so dry there is no water at any
depth.
Beautifying the grounds of a school gives
agricultural education.
While We should memorize enough about
the chlef countries and cities. that we need
not consult a geography every time we read
a newspaper, the main idea in teaching
geography, as pushed by Columbia Uni
versity, New York city, and set forth in a
treatise by one of her professors Prof
Butler, is to show the effect of environment
on pursuits. An illustration of this can be
given in agricultural teaching. To this day
farm Institutes of the West fear to have
an Eastern horticultural speaker, because
In the damp, cloudy atmosphere of New
England tree heads need thinning out to
admit circulation of air, while in the drv
sunny, burning air of the Western prairies
the thicker the head the better, because
each part shades and protects every other
part. In Florida there is both moisture and
heat.
The. circulating library and the central
school Will powerfully aid agricultural
teaching. the former by furnishing helps to
both teachers and pupils, and the latter by
proVldlng instructors for special depart
ments instead of one poor maid-of- ALL work
in the schoolroom
AT least let every district or teacher own
good microscope and field glass.