No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 437 



followed by experiments in the laboratory and trips out into the field 

 where the various types of soil are studied. It frequently happens, 

 where we have these agricultural high schools located, that the boys 

 in the class, with the help of the teacher, and sometimes with the 

 help of the other members of the class, will make a complete soil 

 survey map of their own home farm. As I partially explained a 

 few moments ago, there are two ways in which an agricultural course 

 may be added on to a secondary school in the country; either it may 

 be added as a Department of Agriculture to an existing high school, 

 or a complete vocational school may be established. 



This slide represents a school in one of the western counties of 

 the State. The old building on the left is the high school building; 

 the new addition houses the Department of Agriculture in which a 

 four year course in agiicuHure is given. In charge of that depart- 

 ment is a man who devotes twelve months of the year to his work. 

 One of the earliest schools started in this State was at Troy, in Brad- 

 ford county. That school Avas so successful that the peoj)le author- 

 rized a bond issue in order that an addition might be built to their 

 high school building to properly house the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. The old building on the right is the high school building. In 

 this addition there is an agricultural laboratory, poultry room, dairy 

 room, wood shop and a blacksmith shop. Field trips of all kinds are 

 taken. Various methods are eniployed to take these field trips. Us- 

 ually the boys walk. Very naturally, in some of our high schools, it 

 happens there are enough farmers' boys who own automobiles or 

 whose fathers' own automobiles, that it is possible to get the use of 

 these automobiles while making their field trips. Quite a number 

 of very interesting trips have been taken through the counties in 

 which these schools are located. It would be impossible for me, in 

 the brief of this lecture, to go into details with reference to any of 

 these trips. 



Poultry raising is of course a great interest to boys. If interest in 

 poultry raising qualifies one as a boy, I suppose most of us here are 

 boys, because most of us, particularly the men folks, are interested in 

 poultry raising, and there is many a man who has made a stab at 

 poultry raising, and some of them are now wiser. All kinds of prac- 

 tical work are carried on in connection with the study of poultry rais- 

 ing. In these scliools a study is made of the various methods of kill- 

 ing and dressing chickens to put them upon the market. After this 

 study has been made, the supervisor of agriculture gives a demonstra- 

 tion showing hoAv the chickens should be killed and dressed according 

 to that particular method he has described. This is followed by 

 work on the part of the boys. In some schools where we have a home- 

 making department in connection with the Department of Agricul- 

 ture, we are able to correlate the work very nicely, the boys killing 

 and dressing the chickens and turning them over to the girls, who 

 cook and serve them. The boys correlate again on eating them. 



This is a group of boys in one of the first departments we estab- 

 lished in Erie county. The town of Waterford, in Erie county, has 

 a very live poultry association and condiicts a poultry show. These 

 boys are interested and desiied, when the time came, to submit some 

 birds, and they did. In the shop work they built every one of the 

 coops shown on this slide with the exception of one which was the 



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