Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-01-16

| partment of Agriculture made the
happy dis
Boys and Girls Clubs covery Of
in the Country. girls, clubs
as a remarkably efficient agency for
spreading practical education in the
| rural communities. Since then it has
| been steadily extending the use of its
newly evolved juvenile organization,
and similar work has been gotten I'M
der way by the bureau of education and
other government agencies.
The latest step by the Agricultural
Department in the utilization of the
club for development of country life is
the working out of a schedule of ac-
tivities for the boys and girls during
the late fall and winter, when the work
of cultivating crops and canning foods
can no longer be carried on. To meet
the needs of the situation the depart
ments agents who devote their time
to extension activities have evolved
the handicraft club through which the
young people of the country will be
taught to perform with quickness and
ability the numerous little jobs and
chores that Spresent themselves on
farm, and to make many articles and
l.
convenience and efficiency of country
life, while developing at the same time
in the youthful craftsman valua BILE ere
ative ability. The aim will be the emil
youthful desire ito make something"
and to turn the energy back of the inn
pulse into useful channels.
Practical considerations have. of
course, dominated the plan as so far
worked out for the new clubs. Car
pentry has an important place in the
schedule and will consist largely in in
structions in the making of such ar
ticles as seed testers, breeders and hem
coops, fly traps. window screens. hot
beds. ladders, market crates. farm and
school furniture. gates. fireless cook
ers, birdhouses and watering and feed
ing troughs. Another phase of the
work will deal with the mending of
locks, book bindings and crockery. as
we'll as furniture and farm machinery
and tools.
Others of the varied activities in
which the club members will receive
instruction and make demonstrations
include rope tying and splicing. sharp
ening tools. mixing and laying cement,
forging and welding, drawing plans
for farms and farm structures. paper
hanging, tree surgery, painting and
staining. In addition to some of the
activities already mentioned the girls
clubs will devote themselves particu-
larly to such projects as basketry.
household metal and leather work,
modelling in clay and plaster. dyeing,
pressing and cleaning, knitting rugs,
drafting patterns and fitting garments
and designing and making home pot
terry.
The handicraft clubs are being work.
ed out first in the northern and west
ern states, as the corn clubs were
evolved in the south. The work has
received the enthusiastic cooperation
tension services. and is being shaped
SO as to make possible its correla ton
by teachers with manual training work
in school. Like the corn clubs, pig
clubs. canning clubs and similar or
CARNATIONS for production. it is be-
lieved by Agricultural Department of
fcials that the handicraft clubs will
steadily develop from a relatively small
beginning into place of vital impor-
lance in the rural educational scheme.
i =
Through watching the goods that
pour in across the borders and the
stream Of materials
A Waste of that flow out. as
-, well as keeping an
Liza oIia". eye on home activi-
ties, Uncle Sam learns some striking
things about the inconsistency and
wastefulness of his citizens. One such
fact that recently has been brought to
light by specialists in the Department
Of Agriculture is that the country pro-
duces nearly a million and half tons
of fax straw annually, burns practical
ly all of 1t in the fields. and then i'm
ports large quantities of fax waste
from foreign countries to use in paper
and fiber board manufacture. The eX-
~ Of he ~ 1flIr T1ay. TIM.
are anxious to change this condition of
affairs and they are pointing out that
the use in this country of the fax straw
now thrown away would contribute an
additional 100000 to the farmers
each year. The domestic supply, they
estimate, is sufficient to make a guam
tity of paper equal to all of the wrap
ping paper produced in the United
letter paper.
One of the chief reasons why the
straw of fax is wasted is that the crop
is raised primarily for the seed from
which linseed oil is made. Since the
profit has lain in the seed these have
been thrashed out and the stalks looked
upon as worthless. If. however. the
domestic stalks were used for paper
making instead of the foreign ones the
farmer would actually be making APP
proximately an additional dollar for
every six made on seed. and one more
large item in the country's dependence
on foreign products would be eJiroi
mated.
Pharaoh had no scientists, so far IS
the records show, to Investigate the
plague of locusts that
Grasshopper came down upon Egypt
n,,4L., in the dim past and ate
up all the vegetation of
the country. But the modern. and per-
haps equally as extensive, occurrences
of the same type of insect-the grass
hopper-in the United States have been
subjected to careful study by govern
ment scientists, who have discovered
coua with thu 5o,%r,o+;,,.