1910 . 
33 © 
T M EC RURAL N TO VV-YORKE R. 
THE FARM EDUCATION PROBLEM. 
Not a Practical Education. 
I have heard and read so much about the education 
of children in the rural districts that I would like t.> 
give my views on the subject, as I am much interested 
in school work, and have made a study of it. We 
have three children in our family; the eldest is a 
girl 16 years old, attending the second year at our 
county high school, which is considered as good as 
the average. This young girl is at the head of her 
class, and is the brightest scholar in school, but I 
feel all the time that her education is being neglected, 
for when she comes home she cannot wash dishes 
systematically; she can do an equation in algebra or 
a problem in geometry that would make your hair 
stand on end, but when it comes to housework she 
is a hopeless case. Some say “She won't make a 
housekeeper, anyway,” but I think differently, for she 
loves the home and all the things in and about it. She 
simply does not have time to learn 
housekeeping and her school studies too. 
The trouble lies just here—the rural 
schools do not train the children for farm 
life, not even as much as the city schools, 
for there they do teach the girls to sew 
and cook. The chemistry class in our 
school is all right, for they are taught 
planting, and have window gardens 
where they can demonstrate in a small 
way. I have been in a good many rural 
districts through New England, and find 
the schools all about the same. An as¬ 
sistant teacher of the high school in one 
town was very highly educated in all 
the languages, was a star in that respect, 
but the most ignorant woman I ever met 
in regard to farming. She did not know 
what a farrow cow was, and asked me 
if calves gave milk. And she taught the 
farmers’ children! 
The system is all wrong; the schools 
should be divided so there would be 
an agricultural school supplied with 
teachers who know their business, where 
the girls would be taught housekeeping, 
gardening and sewing, and the boys 
farming; where they can learn things 
right to the point and not lose any time 
about it. The place tor the country 
t ! ildren is in the country, where the 
best chances are. If they are not edu¬ 
cated to it how can we expect them to 
stay ? I do not say not to educate, for 
we get the very broadest kind of an 
education in the agricultural course. 
Some say “Let them receive instruc¬ 
tions from their parents.” That is all 
right in many cases where the parents 
are up-to-date in all their ideas and 
methods, but there are too many back¬ 
ward farmers. I do not believe the boy, 
when he gets to be a man, ought always 
to bump his elbow against the wall every 
time he grinds his scythe just because 
his father and grandfather always had 
the grindstone stand in that certain 
place. Let us go ahead instead of back¬ 
ward, and keep the children in the coun¬ 
try. i oo many have already been 
graduated from the high school and 
gone to the city, where they are some¬ 
times lucky enough to get a position 
driving a coal team. m. m. w. 
New' Hampshire. 
Revise the Standard for Teachers. 
Th 
rural district up to a required standard, little can 
be done toward giving the rural children what will 
make them students in the larger school of self- 
development. 
Better teachers are required before an attempt can 
successfully be made to increase the efficiency of the 
rural pupil in the “three R’s” and in matters pertaining 
to agriculture, nature, literature, etc. The parents of 
the school children of the districts in our neighbor¬ 
hood think what was “good enough for them is good 
enough for the children,” and having no means of 
knowing what modern educational methods are do¬ 
ing for the children in more favored localities arc 
satisfied to let the buildings and environment remain 
what they are and to employ the teacher who will 
work for the lowest possible sum. 
Now, what is the solution of the problem? One 
remedy is to take the school out from the hands of 
the district trustee and place it entirely under the 
control of the State Board. But this would be the 
SATURDAY AFTERNOON ON THE LAWN. Fig. 133. 
THE CANDLE 
lie recent articles which have ap¬ 
peared in I he R. N.-Y. on education for 
the rural districts are timely, for with¬ 
out good, practical educational advan¬ 
tages for the children, who are the com¬ 
ing generation of agriculturists, there 
can be little improvement in rural life and farm 
methods. The schools in our neighborhood are held 
in one-room buildings, unattractive inside and neg¬ 
lected outside, wood heated, which makes growing 
plants impossible. 'I hey have no pictures on the walls, 
no libraries but a handful of popular histories foisted 
upon the districts by school commissioners. The 
teachers are generally young girls, not qualified for 
their positions, nor can they supply the inspiration for 
a wider educational outlook, nor stimulate the chil¬ 
dren s interest in the world around them and of 
which they are a part. I cannot see how requiring 
these teachers to add one more task (the teaching 
of agriculture) to those already insufficiently per¬ 
formed, will increase the efficiency of the rural scholar. 
S i long as the schools are managed by district trus¬ 
tees, with no effort by the State to bring the whole 
TREE (PARMENT1ERA CEREIFERA.) 
From the Loudon GardentM's* Chronicle. 
destruction of the principle of home government. 
The other remedy is to require a higher standard for 
the teacher’s certificate in the rural schools and the 
appointment of county superintendents to supervise 
the school work, in place of the elected school com¬ 
missioners, who consider that part of their work 
done when they pay a brief, formal visit to the 
school once a year Gertrude oris berylson. 
Sullivan Co., N. Y. 
Education on a Farm. 
While there is so much being said at present about 
farm education, 1 think it would be well to advise 
our young men who wish to get a knowledge of 
farming to take a course on a good farm. No doubt 
the agricultural colleges are doing good work. Even 
after taking a course at college, I would still advise 
the practical course. I was always interested in farm¬ 
ing, but being raised in a community where farming 
was carried on in a slip-shod sort of way there was 
not much of a chance for me to learn much about 
it, although I read a great deal. The most farm 
education I got was five months’ work on a truck 
farm in Virginia at $10 per month. As you see, the 
wages were small, but the experience I got in those 
live months is worth many times the wages. I not 
only obtained knowledge of gardening, but I learned 
a good many other things, which young men should 
know. Up to that time I was filled with the wander¬ 
lust, with which I believe most boys are affected. It 
was then I began to sec the opportunities at home. 
If the dudes and shirkers who are walking the streets 
and howling against the farmers and meat trusts 
would take such a course, and then go in to business 
for themselves, somebody would stop talking of boy- 
cotting. ^ c . F . s . 
R. N.-Y—Discussion of more practical school 
methods is not confined to the country 
alone, but is receiving much considera¬ 
tion in cities also, where manual train¬ 
ing seems to be a necessity. 
TALK ABOUT “GREEN CROPS.” 
What do you mean by plowing under a 
green crop? I had supposed it was to be 
taken literally, and the entire crop plowed 
under, but from a study of The It. N.-Y. 
this Winter it seems to mean to take off a 
crop first and plow under what is left, 
at: least in the matter of Canada peas and 
clover. n. M> j 
Strictly speaking, a “green crop” or 
green manure means an entire crop 
plowed under before it is ripe or dry. 
I*or example, a crop of clover in bloom 
or peas before they dried would be 
"green crops.” We have come, however, 
to call almost any growth that is plowed 
under without first feeding to stock or 
used as bedding a green crop. Green 
manuring means using such crops on the 
sod in place of stable manure. It some¬ 
times pays to cut the crop and cure as 
hay or feed green to stock. By doing 
this, you obtain two values—feeding and 
manurial. The fat in butter or laid up 
in the animal body has no manurial 
value, since it does not contain nitrogen, 
potash or phosphoric acid. An animal 
may take the fat-producing elements out 
of the fodder or hay and give back most 
of the actual plant food in the manure. 
I his manure plowed under with the sod 
would keep up the fertility of the land. 
\\ e conclude that it pays best to cut and 
cure Crimson clover hay and plow under 
the sod, and to handle rye in the same 
way. With some other crops we would 
plow all under. There is no definite rule 
about it, for it becomes a matter for 
figuring whether you can get more by 
feeding the green growth than by plow¬ 
ing it all under. There has been some 
question about the best time for plowing 
under these “green crops,’’ and some 
damage has been done by not doing the 
work properly. We, therefore, print the 
following excellent advice from the Ver¬ 
mont Experiment Station: 
Quite as Important as the growth of I lie 
crop is its destruction. It must be turned 
under aright, lest one do serious damage 
to both soil and succeeding crops. Light 
soils may lie harmed if a heavy growth 
is turned under in warm and moist weather, 
in that it is liable to ferment too rapidly, 
and cause over-acidity. Or, again, if the 
soil or weather is over dry, the mass may 
lie indefinitely undecayed, cutting off the 
connection between soil and subsoil, hinder¬ 
ing the rise of capillary water and loading 
h IG. 134. to surface drying. These dangers are less 
to be feared on heavy than on light soils. 
Again, some green manuring crops, turned 
under a lilt too late in the Spring, having got somewhat 
mature and made heavy drafts on the soil contents of 
moisture and of available plant food, leave too little food 
and drink for the succeeding crop, which suffers accord¬ 
ingly, germinating slowly and growing at first but feebly. 
It is often desirable under these conditions, particularly 
if the crop Is a very heavy one, to add lime in order to 
hasten decomposition and to neutralize acidity; and per¬ 
haps to roll tlie soil after it is otherwise fitted, the more 
closely to pack down the green mass. Sometimes a partial 
removal of heavy tops is advised. A drag chain aids in 
the more complete burying of the herbage. Hence, gen¬ 
erally speaking, crops to lie turned under in the Spring 
should be thus treated at the earliest possible moment, 
particularly if the regular crop is of primary importance 
and the catch one secondary. Ordinarily a two weeks’ 
interval between plowing under the reseeding is none too 
hxig. Fall green manuring crops may sometimes lie left 
Ull Spring, even though Winter-killed. Their manurial and 
humus making values are not seriously lessened and, in 
latitudes where snow-clad fields are less common than in 
Vermont, they serve to lessen surface wash, as, indeed 
they may do here in the Spring time on steep slopes. 
