

:IUNIOR AGRICULTURIST SUPPLEMENT 



A Teacher's Supplement Issued to Further 

 Agricultural Teaching in Elementary Schools 



\..l. 1 February-March, 1918. No. 4 



MORE ACTIVE PRODUCERS WANTED. 



(".iven, an active interest, it is no task at all for a grammar school boy or girl 

 to spade and to plant a plot 10 by 20 feet. There are 200,000 or more such boys and 

 girls in this state. Bring mathematics to bear and one may be astounded at the 

 possibility ; 200,000 times 200 .square feet equals 40,000,000 square feet, or more than 

 900 acres. An acre may produce 20 tons of carrots, beets, or turnips, 200 bushels 

 of potatoes, one and one-half tons of sorghum. One acre correctly handled will 

 produce a large amount of foodstuff. 



It is not too large a problem for the state to organize this potential force, to 

 make producers of the boys and girls. In so doing, they will receive real education 

 through doing, through creation, for the garden is a miniature world patterned 

 after the universe. In the garden, practically all of nature's forces are at work. 

 Here the children may obtain fundamental background experiences with plants and 

 animals which are necessary to afford a foundation upon which to build the super- 

 structure of literature, art, biology. Children must nce<ls get this background, for 

 life is a continual reaction with nature and her forces and the interpretation of the 

 same. The school must not concern itself alone with tools and agencies for inter- 

 pretation, arithmetic, geography, history and the like, but must carefully build the 

 foundation. These definite, typical, clear-cut experiences obtained in garden work 

 offer exerci.se to the agencies, arithmetic, drawing, painting, oral and written speech. 

 Through the garden, the children may be brought in touch with the work and 

 problem of their community. 



The garden should become a unifying center for the study of plants and animals. 

 In the preparation of the seed bed, earthworms are encountered. Study them. .-Vs 

 the plants mature, insect pests are met. Study them. Now rs the ideal time. The 

 children have a vital interest in the cabbage butterfly since it is a question of its 

 destruction or the loss of their cabbages. Every garden hour brings a surprise. 



It is a short step from the garden pest to the problem of the community, of the 

 state, in controlling insect pests. 



The big problem is one of organization, of helpful supervision. The University 

 of California and the State Board of Education are the first links in the educational 

 chain. Then follow the high and the normal schools, and the elementary schools. 

 The state should reach down through these institutions to the people. 



There should be field men to assist superintendents and teachers directly in 

 different localities. Their work should con«»ist largely in teacher training and in 

 active helpful direction of this phase of industrial and vocational work. 



HELPFUL DIRECTION IS NECESSARY. 



If you are urged to further the home garden — if you have become somewhat 

 enthusiastic over its possibilities, we suggest that first of all you decide this one 

 question, "Am I willing to work overtime in order that planted areas may be 

 visited — am I willing to visit the home plots of the children?'* If you can not 



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