io AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 



About 15 per cent of the daily issue of weather maps is used 

 in the public schools. Lectures are given by officials of the 

 Weather Bureau at teachers' institutes and elsewhere. The 

 policy of this bureau has been to assist the public schools in 

 every way possible as far as general duties to the public will 

 permit. 



The Forest Service is reaching the schools through its publi- 

 cations, lantern slides, and other illustrative material concerning 

 the conservation of the forests of our country. The Forest 

 Service believes that "the public school should treat forestry as 

 one of the important economic and public questions in the life 

 of the world" (n, p. 6), and that forestry should have a promi- 

 nent place in our education. "Below the secondary school 

 forestry should form part of nature-study, arithmetic, and gen- 

 eral geography; in the high school, of United States history, 

 civics, physical geography, commercial geography, botany, agri- 

 culture, and woodworking" (n, p. 7). One of the recent efforts 

 of the Forest Service to co-operate with the public schools is 

 through phenological studies of our native forest trees. On re- 

 quest the Forest Service will send to any school a set of blanks 

 on which to record observations on such matters as general 

 character of country, situation of trees, character of season, 

 date of swelling of buds, of bursting of buds, of beginning of 

 leafing out, of general leafing out, of blossoming, of change of 

 color in foliage, etc. (dates of fifteen special observations in all). 

 These blanks are accompanied by a circular giving complete 

 directions for study of trees and making records. This work 

 is of great value not only in encouraging pupils to make a close 

 acquaintance with trees, but also in the reaction that must come 

 to them in feeling that they are materially assisting the govern- 

 ment in its work. Similar phenological studies of common 

 flowering plants have been carried on very successfully for a 

 number of years by the public-school children of Canada under 

 the direction of the Botanical Club of Canada. Suggestions 

 for forest nurseries for public schools have also been prepared 



