PREFACE 



The Cornell University Nature-Study propaganda was essentially an 

 agricultural movement in its inception and its aims ; it was inaugurated as 

 a direct aid to better methods of agriculture in New York State. During 

 the years of agricultural depression 1891-1893, the Charities of New York 

 City found it necessary to help many people who had come from the rural 

 districts a condition hitherto unknown. The philanthropists managing 

 the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor asked, 

 "What is the matter with the land of New York State that it cannot 

 support its own population?" A conference was called to consider the 

 situation to which many people from different parts of the State were 

 invited; among them was the author of this book, who little realized that 

 in attending that meeting the whole trend of her activities would be thereby 

 changed. Mr. George T. Powell, who had been a most efficient Director 

 of Farmers' Institutes of New York State was invited to the conference as 

 an expert to explain conditions and give advice as to remedies. The 

 situation seemed so serious that a Committee for the Promotion of Agricul- 

 ture in New York State was appointed. Of this committee the Honorable 

 Abram S. Hewitt was Chairman, Mr. R. Fulton Cutting, Treasurer, Mr. 

 Wm. H. Tolman, Secretary. The other members were Walter L. Suydam, 

 Wm. E. Dodge, Jacob H. Schiff, George T. Powell, G. Howard Davidson, 

 Howard Townsend, Professor I. P. Roberts, C. McNamee, Mrs. J. R. 

 Lowell, and Mrs. A. B. Comstock. Mr. George T. Powell was made 

 Director of the Department of Agricultural Education. 



At the first meeting of this committee Mr. Powell made a strong plea 

 for interesting the children of the country in farming as a remedial measure, 

 and maintained that the first step toward agriculture was nature-study. 

 It had been Mr. Powell's custom to give simple agricultural and nature- 

 study instruction to the school children of every town where he was con- 

 ducting a fanners' institute, and his opinion was, therefore, based upon 

 experience. The committee desired to see for itself the value of this idea, 

 and experimental work was suggested, using the schools of Westchester 

 County as a laboratory. Mr. R. Fulton Cutting generously furnished the 

 funds for this experiment, and work was done that year in the Westchester 

 schools, which satisfied the committee of the soundness of the project. 



The committee naturally concluded that such a fundamental movement 

 must be a public rather than a private enterprise ; and Mr. Frederick Nixon 

 then Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Assembly, 

 was invited to meet with the committee at Mr. Hewitt's home. Mr. 

 Nixon had been from the beginning of his public career deeply interested 

 in improving the farming conditions of the State. In 1894, it was through 



