A laboratory manual of agriculture for secondary schools

Front matter

i immum it mt » **m*wr*M m m ii> n *ind>nm*+i l l.i l ii l i li i i il ln i l lllji liw

ORATORY

AL OF ICULTURE

Preface

As population increases, society is demanding greater efficiency on the part of the producers — the men and women who feed, clothe, and shelter society. This demand can be met only by giving the producers an education that will function in greater social and vocational efficiency. During the last decade there has been an increasing interest in agricultural education for the secondary schools.

The greatest danger to agriculture as a subject for a course of study in high schools has resulted from attempting to make it conform to the organizing ideas of that kind of education that has for its controlling motive formal discipline, instead of making it strictly vocational. The result is that agriculture is being taught as a textbook subject in too many of the high schools. This is due largely, no doubt, to the fact that there have been no laboratory and field guides in agriculture adapted to high schools. The controlling motive in the organization of a course in agriculture should be vocational efficiency.

The authors of this manual are experts in agriculture. Both of them have spent much time in studying how agriculture can be adapted to the needs of secondary education. Their training and experience in teaching the subject have admirably fitted them to prepare a workable manual for

Vi PREFACE

the high schools. I have examined carefully every lesson in the manual and have seen many of them worked out in the laboratory and field, and I am firmly convinced that it meets an urgent need in the high schools to-day. It is scientific, systematic, and, above everything else, it is a workable manual. It can be adapted to the needs of the small and the large high schools.

In writing this valuable manual the authors have done credit to themselves and have rendered a great service to the high schools.

Edwin L. Holton.

Department of Rural Education,

Kansas State Agricultural College.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

In the preparation of this manual the authors have used freely every available source of information. They are indebted to Pres. H. J. Waters, Prof. E. L. Holton, Prof. Albert Dickens, Prof. J. W. Searson, Prof. H. L. Kent, Prof. G. H. Hine, Mr. C. F. Chase, and Mr. W. T. McCampbell, of Kansas State Agriculture College, for suggestions and assistance in the preparation of this manual.

They are also indebted to the Animal Husbandry Department of Purdue University for illustrations Nos. 15, 21, 22, and 23 ; to the Animal Husbandry Department of Kansas State Agricultural College for illustrations Nos. 18 and 20; to the Dairy Department of Kansas State Agricultural College for illustration No. 19; and to Mr. H. Yuasa for assistance in the preparation of drawings.

Material taken from other sources has been properly credited where it appears in the manual.

vn

Contents

EXERCISES FOR SEPTEMBER

EXEKCI8E PAGE

1. Distribution op Seeds 1