FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



139 



societies to take place in connection witli it. 

 The officers of the Massachusetts Institute of 

 Technology and of the Boston Society of 

 Natural History have offered the use of their 

 halls and rooms — constitutiug three closely 

 adjoining buildings. The corporation of Har- 

 vard University will make the association its 

 guest for a day in Cambridge ; the Essex In- 

 stitute has arranged for a day in Salem ; and 

 there will be an excursion in the harbor, and 

 after the meeting, trips to the White Moun- 

 tains and Cape Cod. It is hoped that one of 

 the results of the anniversary meeting will be 

 an increase of the research fund of the asso- 

 ciation, which in twenty years has grown to 

 only six thousand dollars. All members whose 

 names have dropped from the roll are request- 

 ed to renew their membership, either by pay- 

 ing back assessments and having their names 

 replaced on the roll under their old date of 

 election, or by re-election. 



Nature Study for Farmers.— The Agri- 

 cultural Extension work instituted by the 

 College of Agriculture of Cornell University, 

 in compliance with a law of the State of New 

 York, has so far borne the shape of an at- 

 tempt to discover the best method of teach- 

 ing the people agriculture. The results to 

 the present time indicate as the most efficient 

 means of elevating the ideals apd practice of 

 the rural communities the establishment of 

 Nature study or object-lesson study combined 

 with field v/alks and incidental instruction in 

 the principles of farm practice in the rural 

 schools ; correspondence instruction in con- 

 nection with reading courses ; itinerant or 

 local experiment and investigation, made 

 chiefly as object lessons to farmers, and not 

 for the purpose, primarily, of discovering 

 scientific facts ; the publication of reading 

 bulletins which shall inspire a quickened ap- 

 preciation of rural life; the dispatch of spe- 

 cial agents as lecturers or teachers, or as in- 

 vestigators of special local difficulties, or as 

 itinerant instructors in the normal schools 

 and before the training classes of the teach- 

 ers' institutes ; and the itinerant agricultural 

 school. The farmers are found, as a whole, 

 the report says, willing and anxious for edu- 

 cation ; but " it is astoni.shing, as one thinks 

 of it, how scant and poor has been the teach- 

 ing which has even a remote relation to the 

 tilling of the soil; and many of our rural 



books seem not to have been born of any 

 real sympathy with the farmer or any proper 

 appreciation of his environments." In the 

 belief that the fundamental difficulty with 

 our agriculture is that no attempt is made 

 to instruct the children in matters that will 

 awaken an interest in country life, the experi- 

 ment was tried of vi.^iting the rural and vil- 

 lage schools and talking to the children about 

 any object that presented itself at the time. 

 The children imbibed the information with 

 notable readiness and showed a keen interest 

 in it, while the teacher took an almost uni- 

 versal interest in this kind of work ; so that 

 the conviction resulted that the greatest good 

 that can be rendered to the agricultural com- 

 munities is to awaken an interest in Nature 

 study on the part of teachers and children. 

 The best way to reach these persons appears 

 to be by short and sharp observations upon 

 plants, insects, and other objects, and not by 

 means of definite lectures of stated lengths. 



Hand Spinning, — Domestic spinning, ex- 

 cept in its modern revival, is treated by Mr. 

 T. Blashill, of the British Archajological As- 

 sociation, as a lost art. Although it went 

 out in England some fifty or sixty years ago, 

 and in the United States a little later, it has 

 become as completely forgotten by the world 

 as if it had been for centuries unknown. 

 Spindle whorls have been discovered from 

 time to time in deep excavations ; imple- 

 ments used in spinning may be seen in the 

 most ancient Egyptian sculptures ; and spin- 

 dles with the whorl attached are found in 

 Egyptian excavations ; so that we have means 

 of acquainting ourselves with the conditions 

 of the art in all ages. In hand spinning w-ith 

 spindle and distaff there has been no progress 

 through all these ages, and the most ancient 

 specimens extant might be used by women 

 who in remote countries practice hand spin- 

 ning to-day. The great wool wheel was in 

 use as early as the fourteenth century and 

 lingered on in Wales down to recent times. 

 The ordinary spinning wheel was known as 

 early as the middle of the sixteenth ceutury, 

 and was at first turned by hand and after- 

 ward by the treadle. The earliest spinning 

 wheel extant in England is believed to be in 

 the British Museum, and is of the fourteenth 

 century. In former times the art of spinning 

 was a necessary accomplishment for women 



