No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 621 



country is largely due to his planning ahead. The apples we eat 

 came, perhaps, mostly from the trees our fathers or grandfathers 

 planted, and these trees are living monuments to those who showed 

 their unselfishness in providing for others as well as for them- 

 selves. 



Where can we be nearer to Nature than in the country? Is it not 

 the source from which poets get their material to put in beautiful 

 verses? Isn't it the place where the famous painters go for a beauti- 

 ful view which they later paint on canvas, and by mixing brains with 

 colors produce a picture bringing thousands of dollars? These very 

 pictures adorn the homes of some of the wealthiest people in the city. 



AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 



By H. O. SAMPSON, B. S., B. 8. A., Instructor in Agriculture, at Waterford, Pa., High School. 



The subject of education should never fail to interest an assem- 

 bled audience. We are to consider this evening for a short time an 

 especially interesting phase of this subject, namely, agricultural 

 education. Work along this line is comparatively recent. A few 

 years ago a father did not think his son educated unless he attended 

 college and took up the study of the leading professions. Times 

 have changed in this regard. We can not all be doctors or lawyers. 

 The American people are becoming practical, — and we may now 

 justly claim to be the people who do things. 



In our leading universities and colleges to-day, we find boys not 

 only studying the classics and other book-learning subjects, but 

 find them delving into the mysteries of science and learning to apply 

 them. "Science with practice" we may call this kind of education. 

 As I have said, educational work in agriculture is recent. Most of 

 the instruction at the present time is of a college grade. In each 

 state the land grant institutions offer a course of study in the natu- 

 ral sciences relating to agriculture. Coupled with the work of 

 instruction we have the State Experiment Stations. Each station 

 receives f 15,000 from the National Government annually for investi- 

 gation purposes. To this $15,000 many of the states have added 

 liberally, until in some institutions as much as $50,000 is expended 

 each year in this work. The results of these investigations are 

 issued in the form of bulletins and reports that may be procured 

 free upon application to the directors of the several stations. 



The number of persons engaged in educational and research work 

 in agriculture in the land-grant colleges and experiment stations 

 in 1903 was 4,359. The lines of study may, in general, be included 

 under the four heads: Agronomy, Animal Husbandry, Horticulture 

 and Dairying, with separate instruction in Agricultural Chemistry, 

 Zoology, Botany, etc. In agronomy, the students have work in field 

 crops, including variety tests of grains, the grading and judging of 

 grains, plant breeding, pollination, best methods of planting, culti- 

 vation, etc. Also work in soils, treating of their formation, con 

 stituents, adaptability to certain crops, food elements needed by 

 the plants, fertilizers, their use and their misuse, effect of tillage, 



