4 Breeding Plants and Animals 



training in carrying out the daily routine of the busi- 

 ness of the farm and the farm home would pay the 

 American farmers. Our colleges of agriculture are 

 slowly but surely converting the farmers of this coun- 

 try to the idea that it pays to send boys and girls who 

 are through the rural primary schools to practical 

 schools of agriculture for their secondary course in 

 education. And nothing is more true than that the 

 nation and the States can well afford to pay millions 

 of dollars annually that our farmers may have a tech- 

 nical education in agriculture and country home-mak- 

 ing and a better general training in citizenship. Money 

 thus spent not only helps the farmer's sons and daugh- 

 ters who take advantage of schools of agriculture, but 

 by increasing and cheapening the cost of farm pro- 

 ducts, and by bettering country life, all the people of 

 the nation receive an ample return for the expenditure. 

 The intricacies of financing, equipping, advertising and 

 governing such institutions; of experimental research, 

 of writing text books, and of developing laboratory 

 facilities and teaching, on the part of teachers and 

 other officials ; and of study of text, of laboratory prac- 

 tice work, of examinations and of individual research 

 on the part of students, are complex almost beyond 

 measure. Yet the presence of these problems enables 

 us to comprehend them and the American people seem 

 nearly ready to establish an adequate system of agri- 

 cultural education including elementary work in the 

 consolidated rural schools, practical technology in agri- 

 cultural high schools, in many cases reorganized into 

 larger units as consolidated farm schools ; and scien- 

 tific technology in agricultural collegiate courses. The 

 people have seen that this education is profitable 

 and they propose to pay the price. 



The improvement of animals and plants by breed- 

 ing can likewise be proved and made to seem real. No 

 one who will examine existing facts will doubt that 

 five per cent, can be added to the value of our crops 



