No. 7 DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 259 



and gives back a part of that water, and in studying these phases 

 of plant life, they are acquiring knowledge that will be of service 

 to them in agriculture. 



Then they began to study other things — plants, animals, and soil; 

 they go out into the fields and study the formation of the soil; they 

 bring the soil into the schoolroom, and experiment with it there, 

 and get some idea of the management of soils, of the power of the 

 soil, of the water it absorbs, and how; they can readily see which 

 soils retain the largest amount of water, and why. Of course, it is 

 in a crude way, and not as exact as the scientific studies of the soil, 

 but in a way they are getting at the facts which will be of use to 

 them in their work. There are many things in connection with 

 farm and country life that are just as worthy of study as any 

 problem in Euclid. They used simple apparatus — things they could 

 make themselves. I visited this school a few weeks ago, and the 

 boys and girls were deep in the study of some interesting experi- 

 ments in the soil management. Each pupil had two cans filled with 

 soil; this was wet and seeded, as you would garden soil, and they 

 were trying to see the difference in capillary attraction in the differ- 

 ent soils. While this exercise was going on, they took a kettle of 

 soil, filled it up, and set it on the stove to see whether there was 

 anv evidence of moisture in it. The bovs and girls lent themselves 

 eagerly to these studies. 



One important feature of their work there, in connection with 

 their course of study, was the testing of seeds. They tested various 

 kinds of seeds, and some of the farmers in the surrounding country 

 sent their clover and other seeds to be tested for germinating quali- 

 ties by these boys and girls. 



They put a notice in the paper stating that any farmer who wished 

 to have fifty ears of corn tested should send them in, taking test 

 kernels from each, and numbering them, and they would be tested 

 by the children in the school, and sent back to them. They had 

 some eighteen samples of fifty ears each sent in while I was there. 

 This interest had been very largely brought about by the holding 

 of a corn show in the school this spring. After the corn show was 

 over and the corn which took the prizes was selected, the teacher 

 tested this corn, and found it very low in vitality, much to the sur- 

 prise of the people who were there and thought they had brought 

 good specimens of seed corn. They had been in the habit of simply 

 selecting their seed corn by looks. The way they made these tests 

 was this: they took a box about three feet square, dividing it up into 

 little four inch squares by means of wire netting; in it they cut 

 about two inches of ground, and over it they spread a piece of mus- 

 lin, and in these little squares they put the kernels of corn to be 

 tested, and covered it with damp saw dust. They turned the recita- 

 tion room into a little laboratory, and each boy was given full 

 charge of a box, and told to report its germination, or refusal to 

 germinate, to the teacher. 



Another interesting experiment was made in this way: A farmer 

 who had some seed corn selected in the field, which he wanted to 

 have tested, was also requested to bring samples of corn that had 

 been kept in a crib under cover over winter, to see the relative 

 value to the corn of being taken care of during the winter. The 



