DEMONSTRATION OF AGRICULTURAL HIGH SCHOOL 

 METHODS AND RESULTS. 



By Russell R. Lord, Abram Pearce and Lee Parry, 



Three Graduates of the Sparks (Md.) Agricultural High School and Members of the 

 Boys' Committee on the Oread School of Country Life. 



Russell R. Lord: I am one-third of three country boys who have 

 tackled a big job, — a kind of agricultural threerring circus on our own 

 hook. Thi^ show which we have gotten up for your benefit is intended to 

 give an idea of some of the methods by which our alma mater — the Agri- 

 cultural High School at Sparks, Maryland, — has succeeded in raising the 

 entire countryside, which supports it, on a superior plane. In the five 

 years of its existence it has made grow the proverbial two blades of grass 

 where before there was but one; better still, it has made grow two thoughts 

 where before there was but one. 



Some of these soil experiments which we bring to you are those which 

 performed in the school laboratory, gave rise to the alarming rumor over 

 the farthermost ends of our county that ''they don't do nothin' at Sparks 

 but make mud pies." As a matter of fact, much of our soil physics demon- 

 stration is just about as simple and easy as making mud pies. But I believe 

 that you will see a very real method in our madness. And perhaps you 

 will begin to suspect, before we finish our performance, that a great deal 

 of agricultural high schooling is play — and blamed interesting play at 

 that. I am almost prepared to say that the true success of our school lay 

 in its putting everyone — old and young — to playing agriculture profit- 

 ably. Properly played, you know, the game of farming is just as much 

 fun as the game of baseball. 



Aside from my duties as ringmaster of this show, my real excuse for 

 being on my feet is to tell you of my short experience in ''Making Corn 

 Make Good." It is neither profound nor astonishing, but I believe that I 

 have chanced upon some figures that mean dollars in or out of the pockets 

 of everyone in this audience who grows corn, or feeds it, or eats it himself. 



Every person in this room, as well as every ear of corn on our demon- 

 stration table, has been shaped by two great fundamental forces — environ- 

 ment and heredity. Heredity furnishes the material, good or bad ; environ- 

 ment molds it, for good or bad. 



As in the case of people, almost all the attention is paid to the en- 

 vironment of a corn crop. Great pains is taken in the molding, regard- 

 less of the inherent merit or demerit of the material. The newest method 

 of making corn make good might well be called corn eugenics. 



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