No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. .335 



teach <^chool in the rural districts; but be that as it may, it will not 

 solve the problem of the boy; but if in this twentieth century we are 

 able to have the township high school and all the sciences taught in 

 a practical way. The problem will possibly have a solution; but 

 somebody may say, ''I have had very little schooling, and have live<J 

 a successful life." With the environmentis of (his century, friends, 

 there is and will be more educalioii demanded in all spheres of human 

 life. 



Some one remarked that the sciences had nothing to do with 

 agriculture, and especially astronomy; but it teaches the change of 

 seasons, causes and time of tides and other things which relate to 

 commerce. Isaac Newton said: "Teach your sons and daughters in 

 the country and cities the grand laws of nature; it will lift them one 

 step nearer to the Creator." 



Botany. — How and what has that to do with your pursuit? How 

 many of us are familiar with the two department® of botanical life? 

 I shall use no scientific terms. The flowering plants and the non- 

 flowering plants, know iug the means by which they propagate them- 

 selves. In the stud}' of this subject you will also gain a knowledge 

 of those mysterious fungous diseases. 



Take the science of chemistry. A great many of the things with 

 which a farmer has to deal or contend with, depends upon laws that 

 are as strict and immutable as the laws of God. I do not mean the 

 higher realms of chemistry; but that chemistry that we come in con- 

 tact with every day in life. 



Entomology. — A knowledge of inisect life. We don't want any ex- 

 pensive apparatus to gather these things, and investigate them in the 

 public schools, and discover the various stages through which they 

 pass; but to show the boy the two classes of insects. Those who have 

 gnawing jaAve and those that are called suctorial insects. Show the 

 boy the class that are beneficial to the farmer and those that are 

 enemies to the farmer. 



Geologv. — From what sources soils come, and w'hether thev were 

 formed through the agencies of heat or cold, and transported to the 

 other portions of the earth. Some one has said, and and I myself 

 firmly believe and repeat the declaration again, and I will stand 

 by it, "that if the money that is uselessly and ignorantly expended 

 for commercial fertilizers in Pennsylvania, by farmers applying to 

 their soils that w^hich their soils do not need, that this amount not 

 only would establish the towmship high schools in every connty of 

 the State, but pay their teachers also. There are persons who are 

 using potash when their soil contain an abundance of it. There are 

 persons using nitrogen when their soil has an abundance of it." 



Teach Zoologv. — ^The science by which your boy can investigate 



