Part 1 (1/2)

Agriculture for Beginners.

by Charles William Burkett and Frank Lincoln Stevens and Daniel Harvey Hill.

PREFACE

Since its first publication ”Agriculture for Beginners” has found a welcome in thousands of schools and homes. Naturally many suggestions as to changes, additions, and other improvements have reached its authors.

Naturally, too, the authors have busied themselves in devising methods to add to the effectiveness of the book. Some additions have been made almost every year since the book was published. To embody all these changes and helpful suggestions into a strictly unified volume; to add some further topics and sections; to bring all farm practices up to the ideals of to-day; to include the most recent teaching of scientific investigators--these were the objects sought in the thorough revision which has just been given the book. The authors hope and think that the remaking of the book has added to its usefulness and attractiveness.

They believe now, as they believed before, that there is no line of separation between the science of agriculture and the practical art of agriculture. They are a.s.sured by the success of this book that agriculture is eminently a teachable subject. They see no difference between teaching the child the fundamental principles of farming and teaching the same child the fundamental truths of arithmetic, geography, or grammar. They hold that a youth should be trained for the farm just as carefully as he is trained for any other occupation, and that it is unreasonable to expect him to succeed without training.

If they are right in these views, the training must begin in the public schools. This is true for two reasons:

1. It is universally admitted that apt.i.tudes are developed, tastes acquired, and life habits formed during the years that a child is in the public school. Hence, during these important years every child intended for the farm should be taught to know and love nature, should be led to form habits of observation, and should be required to begin a study of those great laws upon which agriculture is based. A training like this goes far toward making his life-work profitable and delightful.

2. Most boys and girls reared on a farm get no educational training except that given in the public schools. If, then, the truths that unlock the doors of nature are not taught in the public schools, nature and nature's laws will always be hid in night to a majority of our bread-winners. They must still in ignorance and hopeless drudgery tear their bread from a reluctant soil.

The authors return hearty thanks to Professor Thomas F. Hunt, University of California; Professor Augustine D. Selby, Ohio Experiment Station; Professor W. F. Ma.s.sey, horticulturist and agricultural writer; and Professor Franklin Sherman, Jr., State Entomologist of North Carolina, for aid in proofreading and in the preparation of some of the material.

TO THE TEACHER

Teachers sometimes shrink from undertaking the teaching of a simple textbook on agriculture because they are not familiar with all the processes of farming. By the same reasoning they might hesitate to teach arithmetic because they do not know calculus or to teach a primary history of the United States because they are not versed in all history.

The art of farming is based on the sciences dealing with the growth of plants and animals. This book presents in a simple way these fundamental scientific truths and suggests some practices drawn from them. Hence, even though many teachers may not have plowed or sowed or harvested, such teachers need not be embarra.s.sed in mastering and heartily instructing a cla.s.s in nature's primary laws.

If teachers realize how much the efficiency, comfort, and happiness of their pupils will be increased throughout their lives from being taught to cooperate with nature and to take advantage of her wonderful laws, they will eagerly begin this study. They will find also that their pupils will be actively interested in these studies bearing on their daily lives, and this interest will be carried over to other subjects.

Whenever you can, take the pupils into the field, the garden, the orchard, and the dairy. Teach them to make experiments and to learn by the use of their own eyes and brains. They will, if properly led, astonish you by their efforts and growth.

You will find in the practical exercises many suggestions as to experiments that you can make with your cla.s.s or with individual members. Do not neglect this first-hand teaching. It will be a delight to your pupils. In many cases it will be best to finish the experiments or observational work first, and later turn to the text to amplify the pupil's knowledge.

Although the book is arranged in logical order, the teacher ought to feel free to teach any topic in the season best suited to its study.

Omit any chapter or section that does not bear on your crops or does not deal with conditions in your state.

The United States government and the different state experiment stations publish hundreds of bulletins on agricultural subjects. These are sent without cost, on application. It will be very helpful to get such of these bulletins as bear on the different sections of the book. These will be valuable additions to your school library. The authors would like to give a list of these bulletins bearing on each chapter, but it would soon be out of date, for the bulletins get out of print and are supplanted by newer ones. However, the United States Department of Agriculture prints a monthly list of its publications, and each state experiment station keeps a list of its bulletins. A note to the Secretary of Agriculture, Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., or to your own state experiment station will promptly bring you these lists, and from them you can select what you need for your school.

AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS

CHAPTER I

THE SOIL

SECTION I. ORIGIN OF THE SOIL

The word _soil_ occurs many times in this little book. In agriculture this word is used to describe the thin layer of surface earth that, like some great blanket, is tucked around the wrinkled and age-beaten form of our globe. The harder and colder earth under this surface layer is called the _subsoil_. It should be noted, however, that in waterless and sun-dried regions there seems little difference between the soil and the subsoil.

Plants, insects, birds, beasts, men,--all alike are fed on what grows in this thin layer of soil. If some wild flood in sudden wrath could sweep into the ocean this earth-wrapping soil, food would soon become as scarce as it was in Samaria when mothers ate their sons. The face of the earth as we now see it, daintily robed in gra.s.s, or uplifting waving acres of corn, or even naked, water-scarred, and disfigured by man's neglect, is very different from what it was in its earliest days. How was it then? How was the soil formed?

Learned men think that at first the surface of the earth was solid rock.