THE 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



DEVOTED TO ALL PHASES OF NATURE-STUDY IN SCHOOLS 



Vol. 4 MARCH, 1908 No. 3 



AGRICULTURE IN HIGH SCHOOLS 



By A. B. GRAHAM 

 Supt. of Agricultural Extension, College of Agriculture, Columbus, O. 



So long as the virgin soil, under traditional methods of tillage 

 and cultivation, responded generously to the hand of the farmer, 

 he felt little the necessity for that kind of education which would 

 make him the master over the materials with which he was 

 obliged to work. The productive power of the soil, the crude 

 materials which he was obliged to use, and the lack of necessity 

 for greater production to feed the city obliged him neither to con- 

 serve the productivity of the soil nor to improve the implement — 

 nor even to give a little care to the improvement of the product. 

 As far back as 1824, Daniel Adams wrote an "Agricultural Reader 

 Designed for the Use of Schools," and up to 1861 there were no 

 fewer than nine elementary books on the subject of agriculture; 

 vet no attention was given to them except by a few scientists and 

 a few publishers who were exerting every effort to give variety to 

 the state school libraries that were being put on the market in the 

 decade from 1850 to i860. A few of these books can be found 

 today as remnants of old state school libraries. The expensive 

 and reckless farming carried on during the past forty years has 

 reduced the productive power of the soil. The population of the 

 cities has increased rapidly; and with their growth has come so 

 importune a demand for the products of the farm that it has 

 become quite as necessary to produce in large quantities as to 

 produce of high quality. The people of the cities have been and 

 are now looking upon the farmer as an individual who must be 

 able to respond not only with his physical, but with his mental 

 ability to furnish products from his fields that will satisfy the 

 demands of the most fastidious. 



65 



