Gloucester County Democrat., 1909-04-22
@AgriculturaI Education.

pEOSIdlu 10 eau Il pdp9 on lne ABOVE
named subject, but the stress of the
last legislative week untitled him for
the effort, and Prof Tharp, supervis-
ing principal of Harrison Township
schools, read his paper as follows:
Agriculture is the art of raising pro-
ducts from the land, it produces the
food and clothing for the world In
its larger sense it means not only the
production of all these things, but
their preparation for the market and
the marketing of them. 1t is both an
4 art and business.
AS an art it is probably more close
ly related to a greater number of
sciences than any other vocation 1t
deals with physics on hundred lines.
Its foundations rest on geology. 1t
depends on many branches of biology,
botany, zoology, entomology and ply
siology of both animals and plants.
/ Chemistry does it a mighty service.
| For it climatology must be understood.
And yet for the pursuit of an industry
which requires so large a knowledge
and embraces so many subjects there
has been for years no special prepara-
ton made. A man assumes that ma
ture has endowed him with sufficient
inherent knowledge O these abstruse
subjects. 1t is asked if agriculture is
of enough Importance to be entitled
to special place on our school cur
riculum? 1t would be waste of time
to tell of the Importance of agriculture
| for all know that through it the world
| is clothed and fed. It is the founda-
tion of all prosperity. When the far
mer prospers men laugh as they toll,
women sing as they work, and happy
children grow into robust manhood
and womanhood; long railroad trains
cross the continent loaded with the
product of his labor, and mighty ships
! plow the deep as they carry these pro
ducts to other lands; when he is
prosperous thousands of factories give
employment to millions of men who
build happy homes and opulent cities.
You know that world empires have
arisen only where food and clothing
were abundant, and that when these
have failed, desolation and barbarism
have returned to the land.
The exports of agricultural ro-
ducts from the United States are what
have given it a foremost position
among the nations of the earth. They
changed the balance of trade. The
greatness of America is her agricul-
ture. 1t is asked if this is so already,
why teach agriculture in the schools I?
1t is because history teaches us to do
this. The valley of the Euphrates
was once as fertile as any of our lands
but for 1000 years it has been desert
The corn of Egypt fed the conquorers
of the world, but neglect and ignor-
ance of the science of agriculture
brought its husbandmen to the verge
OF starvation centuries ago. The his
tory of the Aryan race admonishes us
to do this The root of the word Ary-
an is the same as the root of the word
arabic" "Aryan-the race that p1ows," !"
arable-plowable." We, in the by
gone ages, soon exhausted the fer
tility of our Asiatic home and then
the soil of the Mediterranean penin-
sulas. A few hundred years was
ample time to make the life of the far
mer stale and improbable in the Brit
ish Isles, then we pressed on to the
new country. At one time in the
South the word planter" was the syn
onym for wealth, ease and luxury, but
now these lands are too sterile to re-
pay cultivation. In spite of his thrift
and industry the land of the Yankee
abounds in abandoned farmes. In
many other States of this, the greatest
of agricultural lands, there are vast
| areas yielding diminishing returnes to
the farmer for his toll. During the
centuries the Aryan race like mighty
swarm of locusts have crossed contin-
ents, alighting on fruitful fields from
which it has extracted the fertility and
passed on, leaving poverty and barren
ness in it's track. If the teaching of
agriculture can lessen this bIighting
| effect, who can doubt that it should
4 be given in our public schools. 1t is
asked if sterility is not a necessary re-
suit of cultivation and the dwelling of
great numbers of people on any land?
Not at ALL, The plains of China from
the early dawn of history have main
tanned more than one-fourth of all the
people of the globe and all of their
food has been produced by the
ground upon which they live Given
a correct knowledge of agriculture
and the ground grows more produc-
tive with time. What could be of
more advantage than to teach this
ideal system of agriculture to those
who are to become the farmers of
America? All over this country with
/ few exceptions agriculture is carried
on in more or less wasteful, destruc-
tive and neglectful manner. The fer
tility of the soil, the accumulation of
vast periods of time is being recklessly
exhausted. Fungous parasites through
Ignorance are being permitted to
greatly reduce the yields of our GER
eals.
Insects destructive to fruit and ber-
ries are allowed to multiply till those
necessities to health which should be
for all are within the reach of only a
few Forests that held rich soil upon
hillsides are destroyed and soil wash
ed away never to be replaced Native
grasses, valuable for grazing are de-
stroyed and no others can be found to
take their place. A score of years ago
no remedy was known for these and
other errors, but of late years there
have been vast additions to human
t