144 THE PRINCIPLES OF 



in composition and in nutrient value at different stages of 

 growth is another section of the same subject. 



Cost of production and realization. Although somewhat 

 outside the scientific aspect of agriculture as usually described, 

 there are reasons for including cost of production and return 

 in a system of agricultural teaching. It belongs to the 

 domain of economy and statistics, and it is of great import- 

 ance that the cost of growing crops and the value of the 

 produce should be placed before pupils. The interdepend- 

 ence of our crops in a rotation is well brought out in this 

 section. Thus root and fodder crops are often grown at a 

 direct loss, but an indirect profit, inasmuch as they serve as 

 a preparation for saleable corn crops. The difference between 

 market value and consuming or feeding value is also a point 

 which should be explained in this connection. 



The seventeen sections above enumerated might be further 

 increased. If each crop, however, is taken separately, and 

 considered in each aspect, a large mass of information will be 

 brought before the student, of both practical and theoretical 

 interest, and the teacher will remain properly within his 

 province as an expounder of agriculture. 



This is all we can spare time for with reference to crop 

 cultivation. If I were to follow my inclination and plunge 

 into details I should miss my present mark. But when you 

 as teachers come to deal with classes, information of the sort 

 above indicated is the sort of information which will be of 

 the greatest value to them. It is a matter of regret that 

 such instruction has not long since been made compulsory 

 in rural districts. Here is a subject at once educational and 

 technical. In village schools how much better would it be 

 than teaching out of the way facts as to the length of African 

 rivers, the heights of mountains, and the habits of barbarians, 

 if the children were taught to know the principal varieties of 

 cultivated crops, with their enemies and their i'riends, the best 



