Some Typical High Schools Teaching Agriculture 51 



home, especially with corn. The students had the advantage 

 of being able to observe the ten-acre plat of a local seed-corn 

 breeder, and to note his method of detasseling the stalks. Much 

 rivalry arose in a boys' corn contest, in which one of the boys 

 managed to excel the exhibits of this gentleman's son, according 

 to the judgment of the class and the agriculturist present from 

 Washington. Ordinary seed was used the first year the experi- 

 ment was tried, while the second year the seed used v;as from 

 ears selected from the boys' own plats and tested before plant- 

 ing. As many as fifty or seventy-five ears were tested, and 

 from one to a dozen ears in a lot were brought to school for 

 the trial. Corn testing is generally practiced by the farmers 

 of the district, due quite largely, the superintendent thinks, to 

 the influence of the school work. Owing to a bad season three 

 years ago, it was necessary to test the seed in order to be 

 sure of a stand. One year the boys planted seed sent out from 

 the State University, which did not yield as well as the home 

 grown seed planted by their fathers. The fathers in this case 

 were able to use the failure to point the lesson that home grown 

 seed is better than that shipped in, especially from a different 

 latitude, as this was, having been raised fifty miles northeast. 

 The general plan followed by the boys was to plant 288 hills, 

 enough for two shocks, in the corner of the father's field, and 

 to leave the two outside rows uncultivated. As there was much 

 rain early in the season, the boys reported a marked difference 

 in the growth under the two kinds of treatment. This fur- 

 nished the application of the principle of capillarity that had 

 been studied experimentally in the laboratory. The test of the 

 corn growing experiment seems to have been entirely qualita- 

 tive, as measured by the selected ears ; whereas it might have 

 been measured quantitatively, either absolutely or comparatively, 

 by weighing the yield and computing from that the rate per 

 acre. 



About twenty-five experiments in all were performed to illus- 

 trate osmosis, capillarity, etc. Some of the simpler chemical 

 phenomena were demonstrated by the students, and others by 

 the instructor. The school did not then possess even the modest 

 apparatus it has since acquired. Fifty dollars a year is being 



