14 HISTORY OF FARM 



seeds, studied in the field, will be very desirable. You will 

 want to take another look at them after you get back: so, 

 prepare to take them home, where you can sit at a table and 

 work with them. A bag or a basket will hold, besides tools, a 

 lot of stout envelopes, for keeping things apart, with labels 

 and necessary data written on the outside. 



7. As to reference books: "Study nature, not books" 

 said the great nattualist and teacher, Louis Agassiz. By all 

 means, get .the answers to the questions involved in your 

 records of these studies direct from, nature and not from books. 

 But while you are in the field, you will meet with many things 

 about which you will wish to know. Ask yotu instructors 

 freely. Get acquainted, also, with some of the standard 

 reference books, which will help you when instructors fail. 

 Oidy a few of the more generally useful, can be mentioned 

 here. 



There are three classical manuals for use in the Eastern 

 United States and Canada, that have helped the naturalists 

 of several generations. These are Gray's Manual of Botany, 

 Jordan's Manual of the Vertebrates and Comstock's Manual 

 for the Study of Insects. There are two great Cyclopedias, 

 both edited by Professor L. H. Bailey — ^The American 

 Cyclopedias of Horticulture and of Agriculture. There are 

 many books of nature-study but most useful of them all is 

 Mrs. Comstock's Handbook of Natvu-e-Study. A new book 

 that will help toward acquaintance with aquatic plants and 

 animals is Needham and Lloyd's Life of Inland Waters. All 

 these should be accessible on reference shelves. 



Study 1. A General Survey of the Farm 



The program of this study should consist of a trip over the 

 farm with a good map in hand showing the streams, the 

 roads, the buildings and the outlines of all the fields and 

 woods. 



The record The student should record directly on this 

 map, the sort and condition of crops found in all the fields and 

 the character of all the larger areas not used as fields. He 

 shoidd put down the names of all prominent topographic 



