288 REPORT OP OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



serve to familiarize the pupils with sources of authentic information 

 on agricultural subjects, and this is one of the most important accom- 

 plishments aimed at by those advocating the introduction of agri- 

 culture into the public schools. 



The oral work of the class room should be supplemented in many 

 ways. Agriculture is a subject which lends itself admirably to the 

 laboratory method of teaching. It is rich in illustrative material, 

 and more than almost any other subject of study, it may be made to 

 draw upon and utilize the resources of the whole comnumity for the 

 material. There should be laboratory work at school, garden work 

 at school and at home, and study of farm animals, irrigation and 

 drainage systems, home water supply and sewage systems, buildings 

 and fences, orchards and spraying machinery, rotations and other 

 systems of cropping on the better farms of the district. Pupils 

 should be taken to local dairies to study dairy animals and machinery, 

 to creameries, cheese factories, and canneries to study methods of pre- 

 paring farm products for consumption and shipment, to cold-storage 

 plants to study the preservation of foodstuffs, to the butcher shop to 

 study meat cutting, to the green grocer to learn methods of preparing 

 fruit and farm products for market, and to the implement dealer to com- 

 pare types of farm machinery. Clubs of boys should be organized for 

 the discussion of agricultural topics and to give practice in parliamen- 

 tary proceedings. School and county fairs have been found very 

 efficacious in stimulating interest among children along agricultural 

 lines. In some States the county and State fair associations have 

 aided the movement for agricultural education by ofi"ering liberal 

 prizes for the best displaj^s of agricultural products grown by school 

 children. 



The time to be devoted to agriculture will necessarily vary in difl'er- 

 cnt schools, but it is believed that on the average not less than one 

 hour a week during the seventh and eighth years will be required to 

 make the class work and laboratory experiments effective. The time 

 spent in visiting farms, factories, etc., will depend so much on local 

 conditions that no reliable estimate of it can be made in this article. 



OUTLINE OF COURSE. 



The course in agricidture should include an orderly and progressive 

 study of the elements of ])lant production, animal production, and 

 dairying, together with brief and very elementary consideration of a 

 few topics ui rural engineering and rural economics. 



In jdant production we would first consider a few plants with rcfei-- 

 ence to their structure and ]>hysiology — how they feed, grow, and re- 

 produce. It would be well in this connection to select one plant that 

 is reproduced from seed, one from bulbs, another from cuttings, etc., 

 and to teach and give ])racticc in grafting, budding, layering, and 

 making hard and soft cuttings. 



