820 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



different educational institutions, oflices, and a<j;riculliiral associations, 

 by consolidatin<i^ weak country sdiools, by encouraging more thorough 

 preparation, larger salaries, and longer tenure of positions for teach- 

 ers, and by the further development in state normal schools of facili- 

 ties for training country school-teachers. 



A similar association of agricultural school-teachers has been 

 formed in Wisconsin, and another in Nebraska. 



The teachers of New Jersey were fortunate in being able to attend 

 a very successful sunnner school of agi'iculture and industrial arts 

 at Cape May, from August G-31, 11)08. The Avork in agriculture 

 was in charge of Mr. H. O. Sampson, of this Office, who was assisted 

 by Miss Laura E. Woodward, nature-study teacher in Trenton city 

 schools, and Mr. Earle Anderson, a pupil of the Calvert Agricultural 

 High School. The instruction was carried on by lectures, laboratory 

 demonstrations, and field trips, no text-book being used. The aim 

 of the instructors in the agricultural classes was to give the student 

 teachers work that could be taken up in the schools of the State 

 where no special equipment, as expensive laboratory apparatus, is 

 placed at their disposal. For exami)le, they were taught how to 

 use tin cans, plates, bottles, and similar articles in the working of 

 experiments. One of the experiments was the testing of small seed 

 for germinating power by the use of an old plate, a handful of sand, 

 and a piece of muslin as the materials needed to make the tester. 

 Another experiment was the testing of seed corn for germination 

 by using a yeast box, some sawdust, and a square of cloth. A fur- 

 ther demonstration to show why clay is stickier than sand ^vas made 

 b}' using two glass lamp chimneys, some sand and water as the 

 material needed, the aim in the experiments being to use materials 

 that can be easily procured by any teacher. 



All of the agricultural work was made as practical as possible. 

 Thus, when a lecture on grafting was given, the students were required 

 to bring models of their own construction that illustrated the prin- 

 ciples given in the lecture ; when they were taught that water passes 

 out of small holes in the leaves of plants they proved the statement 

 by placing a tumbler over a small growing plant and w^atching the 

 moisture collect on the inside of the tumbler, this moisture coming 

 from the leaves of the plant in the form of an invisible vapor and 

 being condensed by the coolness of the glass. 



Domestic animals were studied by having representatives of the 

 different classes of live stock before the students while stock lectures 

 were given. At one of these lectures two Jersey cows were brought 

 before the class. One was somewhat beefy, had a short, thick neck, 

 and departed somewhat from the ideal wedge shape desired in a 

 dairy animal, while the other one was lean, with bones protruding, 

 and possessed the wedge shape desired. These two were compared 



