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VKK.siTV OF 



CALIF* ;; 

 PREFACE. 



This book is intended to supply an important defect in the 

 instruction of youth. Children should not only receive instruction 

 in the various studies now pursued in the schools, but they 

 should be enabled to obtain the rudiments of a correct agricultural 

 education in the forming period of life. Many of them are 

 destined to work upon the surface of the earth, and to use the 

 materials of which it is formed. They are to cooperate with 

 the great powers of nature and to be able, in many instances, 

 to control these powers. They instinctively long to become 

 acquainted with the materials they are to work upon, and the 

 powers they are to work with. An agricultural education 

 should, therefore, be commenced in childhood. 



Children are always interested in animals and other natural 

 objects. There is scarcely a fact exhibited in nature which does 

 not, at once, interest their curiosity and appeal to their imagi 

 nation. They should, therefore, learn about the earth, the 

 different kinds of soil, the names of the different kinds of rocks 

 and their uses. Tell children that, in the soil, the roots of the 

 grasses dissolve the stones, and carry particles of them up and 

 leave them, infinitely minute but infinitely numerous, in the stem 

 and leaves, and that these particles make the grass strong enough 

 to stand up, and they will be interested in the information. 



