4 AGRICULTURE 



Agriculture is the practice of producing useful plants 

 and animals. It is based on physiology, botany, chemis- 

 try, and other natural sciences. It is also an art because 

 success in agriculture requires skill and experience and 

 business methods. In agricultural books, papers, and 

 pamphlets is recorded much of the experience of the best 

 farmers. In studying agriculture we shall learn some- 

 thing about flowers, fruits, vegetables, and animals, as 

 well as about crops that grow in the fields. 



Reasons for studying agriculture. Agriculture is 

 worthy of our most earnest study. It is the industry that 

 furnishes food to all mankind and on which many arts and 

 industries are built. Its study teaches us how plants feed, 

 grow, and multiply ; how man may take common plants 

 and greatly increase their productiveness, beauty, or hardi- 

 ness ; how he may rear animals ; how a farmer may make 

 his poor soil rich, his scant crops bountiful, and his life 

 and the life of his family full of comfort and pleasure. 

 Surely, it is worth while to learn how to make the crops 

 larger, the farm animals more useful and profitable ; how 

 to make the garden and orchard yield a continuous supply 

 of vegetables and fruits ; and how to beautify the grounds 

 around the home and the school. 



It is worth while, too, for all of us to know how to pro- 

 tect our plants from disease and how to conquer our insect 

 foes. If blights, smuts, and mildews destroy the crops 

 of field, orchard, or garden, knowledge suggests ways of 

 preventing or destroying them. If caterpillars, bugs, 

 weevils, and a host of other insect pests strip bare the 

 growing crops and despoil the stored grain, knowledge 



