HORTICULTURAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. 165 



Americans abroad sometimes laugh at what the}' are pleased to 

 call the primitive methods of agriculture in Switzerland, Sweden, 

 France, or Holland. As a matter of fact, our methods are primi- 

 tive in comparison with theirs. * * * The Swiss, Dutch, or Swed- 

 ish farmer recognizes the fact that the soil is the basis of all wealth, 

 and is more important than an}- implements used in its cultivation. 

 His methods of maintaining its fertility are as highly developed 

 and perfect as the average American farmer's are primitive. In 

 breeding profitable varieties of stock, too — varieties well suited 

 to his purpose — he is far ahead of the American agriculturist. 

 Our farmers, who are complaining almost everywhere of the 

 decadence of American agriculture, could not do better than adopt 

 some of these ' primitive' foreign methods." 



Farmers who would be successful in these days, must know 

 " how to feed the land while the land feeds them." Owners of 

 land are increasing with astonishing rapidity, and the size of 

 farms is diminishing ; consequently land in the future must be 

 made to yield more and more. It will yield more with better 

 farming, and better farming will result from adequate facilities 

 for teaching agriculture in the schools. How to produce much 

 upon a small area requires study, and, other things being equal, 

 children who receive proper elementary instruction in agriculture 

 in school will be likely to acquire such abilit}' at the most oppor- 

 tune season. 



If such instruction were general in our common schools, the 

 whole status of agriculture would be raised to a higher plane, 

 better and more abundant products would result, and more lines 

 of work allied to agriculture would be opened, — manufacturing 

 fertilizers, landscape gardening, seed-testing, and cultivating 

 flowers for perfumes and essences. 



"The increase of a single bushel per acre in the yield of the 

 wheat, corn, and oats of the country, would make an increase in 

 the value of those crops alone, of over one hundred and sixty-four 

 million dollars per year, which would be more than doubled by a 

 similar increase in other crops. This can all be accomplished by 

 good seed." 



"The average yield of wheat in the United States is about 

 twelve bushels per acre," with one and a half busliels of seed. 

 Professor Blount, of the Colorado Agricultural College, planted 

 seventy-six kernels of wheat, upon seventy-six square feet of land, 



