Febkuaky 19, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



283 



government and the state aid in providing 

 technical education to the great mass of 

 farmers so that the practical farmer can 

 sustain himself and maintain a strong posi- 

 tion in life? Teelinically educating the 

 whole of the farmers and making it pos- 

 sible for each to remain in the life-school 

 of independent business experience, by 

 means of consolidated rural schools, agri- 

 cultural high schools and the central col- 

 lege—is the answer, which has been worked 

 out to some extent so successfully in Minne- 

 sota. (See Revieiu of Bevieius, October, 

 1903.) The cost as compared with the 

 present developing systems of schools might 

 be larger, but the immediate economic 

 benefit from enlarged farm production 

 woulcl several times over pay the increased 

 cost. 



The next problems are to accumulate the 

 facts, the philosophies and the processes 

 which a scheme of education should teach, 

 and to reduce them to pedagogical form. 

 The teachers and experimenters of America 

 have worked out many of the details of 

 farm management, but have not vigor- 

 ously taken up the farm as a whole. The 

 soils, the crops and the stock, and the 

 manufacture of farm crops into finished 

 products have been investigated as indi- 

 vidual features. These investigations of 

 the parts have reached that degree of de- 

 velopment where it seems practicable to 

 take up the problem of managing the farm 

 as a whole. In fact, a feAV teachers and 

 experimenters have in a preliminary way 

 blocked out some of the more general prob- 

 lems. 



There is imperative need of facts as to 

 the relative value per acre of the several 

 crops adapted to a given farm ; the cost of 

 labor, seeds, buildings and machinery re- 

 quired for each crop ; the amount of its 

 beneficial or injiirious effect on the land; 

 the time of year when it requires labor; 

 the desirability with which it dovetails in 



with other crops and with the care of live 

 stock; and the value per acre of each crop 

 when marketed, or manufactured into 

 meat, milk, sugar or other finished product 

 before marketing. A knowledge of how to 

 arrange the sequence and the proportions 

 of the best paying crops into the most 

 profitable combination of crop rotation 

 with live stock is a necessity. 



Economic Functions of Live Stock: 



Chaeles F. Curtis, Iowa State College, 



Ames, Iowa. 



The fertility of the soil as part of the 

 nation's working capital returns an annual 

 dividend proportionate to the intelligence 

 of methods employed. However large the 

 crop, not more than one per cent, of the 

 soil's total supply of plant-food is ex- 

 hausted by a single crop. Otherwise one 

 generation might impoverish another com- 

 pletely by robbing the soil of its resources. 

 Maintenance of fertility is secured by ro- 

 tation of crops, by chemical fertilizers and 

 by bacteriological methods. But by none 

 of these has the virgin strength of the soil 

 been maintained over long periods except 

 as plant production has been associated with 

 animal husbandry. By selling products 

 (butter) and restoring by-products we 

 take from the soil but one tenth of fertility 

 lost by a grain crop. Grain growing and 

 animal husbandry are complemental in- 

 dustries, the one a summer industry and 

 the other a winter industry. 



Thus the latter is necessary to furnish 

 continuous employment for farm labor 

 throughout the year, the demand being 

 greatest during the winter months when 

 there is a cessation of field work, and light- 

 est during the summer when the field work 

 is most exacting. The live stock industry 

 is, therefore, admirably adapted to supple- 

 ment grain growing in its labor relations. 



Then again, it contributes to a more 

 economical use of plant food that may be 



