Agriculture for beginners

Front matter

.GRICULTURE

EGINNERS

URUETT, STEVENS AND HILL

Preface

The authors of this httle book beheve that there is no line of separation between the science of agriculture and the practical art of agriculture. They are assured by experience that agriculture is eminently a teachable subject. They are convinced that the theory and practice of agriculture can be taught at one and the same time. They see no difference between teaching the child the fundamental principles of farming and teaching the same child the fundamental truths of arithmetic, geography, or grammar. They hold that a youth should be trained for the farm just as he is trained for any other occupation.

If they are right in these views, the training must begin in the public schools. This is true for two reasons :

I. It is universally admitted that aptitudes are developed, tastes acquired, life habits formed during the years that a child is in the public school. Hence, during these important years, every child intended for the farm should be taught to know and love nature, should be led to form habits of observation, and should be required to begin a study of those great laws upon which agriculture is based. A training like this would go far towards making his lifework profitable and delightful.

IV

PREFACE

2. Most boys and girls reared on a farm get no educational training except that given in the public schools. If, then, the truths that unlock the doors of nature are not taught in the public schools, " Nature and nature's laws will always be hid in night " to a majority of our bread winners. They must still in ignorance and hopeless drudgery tear their bread from a reluctant soil.

The authors return hearty thanks to Professor Thomas F, Hunt, Ohio State University ; Professor Augustine D. Selby, Ohio Experiment Station ; Professor W. F. Massey, North Carolina Experiment Station ; and Professor Franklin Sherman, Jr., State Entomologist of North Carolina, for aid in proof-reading. For valuable assistance in securing illustrations grateful acknowledgment is made to the German Kali Works, New York ; Mr. Alexis Everett Frye, Cambridge, Mass.; Professor Byron D. Halsted, New Brunswick, N.J.; Director R. J. Redding, Experiment, Ga. ; Director I. P. Roberts, Cornell University; Vermont Farm Machine Company, Bellows Falls ; the Agricultural Experiment Station, Cornell University ; the Indiana Experiment Station, Lafayette; Mr. H. L. Bolley, North Dakota Agricultural College ; Mr. J. F. Kemp, Columbia University ; Mr. Clarence M. Weed, New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts ; and the United States Department of Agriculture. Detailed credit is given in connection with many of the illustrations.

Preface To Supplement

In preparing Agriculture for Beginners, the authors purposely refrained from treating in detail many subjects of agricultural importance. This was done for two reasons : first, schools are, in general, just beginning to teach agriculture, hence the authors wanted to present, as far as possible, only fundamental principles ; second, they did not want to put too large a book into the hands of school children.

There has, however, been a demand from several states for a more extended treatment of some topics, and this supplement is prepared to meet that demand.

Professor W. F. Massey has rendered much kindly aid in the preparation of the Supplement. Thanks are also due to the Bowker Fertilizer Company for the loan of several interesting and attractive photographs.

Chapter I - PAGE

Section

I. Origin of the soil

I

2. Tillage of the soil

. 6

3. The moisture of the soil

. 10

4. How the water rises in the soil .

• 14

5. Draining the soil ....

• 15

6. Improving the soil

. 18

7. Manuring the soil ....

. 22

Chapter II — THE SOIL AND THE PLANT

Section 8. Roots . . . . .

9. How a plant feeds from the soil .

10. Root tubercles ....

1 1 . The rotation of crops .

27 31 33 35

Chapter III— THE PLANT

Section 12. How a plant feeds from the air .

13. The sap current ....

14. The flower and the seed

15. Pollination .....

16. Crosses, hybrids, and cross-pollination

17. Plant propagation by buds .

Plant seeding : cotton ; wheat Selecting seed corn Weeds ......

Seed purity and vitality

18. 19. 20. 21.

50 54 62 69 73

n vm

CONTENTS

Chapter IV — HOW TO RAISE A FRUIT TREE

Section 22. Grafting ......

24. Planting and pruning ....

83 86

Chapter V — THE DISEASES OF PLANTS

Section 25. Tlie cause and nature of plant disease

26. Yeast and bacteria

27. Prevention of plant diseases .

28. Some special plant diseases .

Fire blight of the pear and apple

Oat and wheat smuts

The potato scab

Late potato blight

The club root .

The black knot

The peach curl

The cotton wilt

The fruit mold

Chapter VI — ORCHARD, GARDEN, AND FIELD INSECTS Section

29. 30-

Insects in general . . . . . .118

Orchard insects : San Jos^ scale ; codling moth ; plum curculio ; grape phylloxera ; cankerworm ; apple-tree tent caterpillar ; pear-tree girdler; peach borer . . .126 Garden and field insects : cabbage worm ; chinch bug ; plant louse ; squash bug ; flea-beetle ; weevil ; Hessian fly ; potato beetle ; tobacco worm . . . . . .140

CONTENTS

Chapter VII — Section 32

Cotton .

Tobacco

Wheat .

Corn

Peanuts .

Sweet potatoes

Rice

The farm garden

IX

159 163

168 173 175 177 179

Chapter VIII — DOMESTIC ANIMALS

Section 47. The dairy cow : care of the cow . . .216

48. Milk, cream, churning, and butter : milk ; the

different kinds of milk ; cream ; the churn ; churning ; butter ..... 220

49. How milk sours . . . . . .225

Section 40.

Horses .

Cattle .

Sheep

Swine

Farm poultry

Bee culture

Why we feed

Chapter X — MISCELLANEOUS

Section 50. Growing feeding stuffs on the farm

51. Farm tools and machines

53. Life in the country

234 240

CONTENTS

Chapter XI — SUPPLEMENT

Section 54. Horticulture: Market Gardening; Hotbeds Cold Frames ; Sowing ; Care of Crops Asparagus Beans Cabbage Celery Cucumbers Cantaloupes Egg plants Onions Peas .

Tomatoes Watermelons

55. Flower and Window Gardenin

56. Forage .

Grasses Alfalfa Clovers

57. Cotton-Boll Weevil

58. Farming on Dry Lands

59. Irrigation

Appendix — References and Tables Glossary , . . .

Index

327 335 343

TO THE TEACHER

An earnest teaching of this book will, we believe, add to the attractiveness of your course of study. Do not hesitate to enter heartily into the new subject. To teach agriculture you need not feel that you must be an authority on all questions arising in this broad field. To teach some agriculture one need not know all agriculture. If you know even a few valuable facts, methods, or principles that will make life on the farm easier, that will make the farm more beautiful, more productive, and more profitable, you will be doing good by imparting these methods and these principles.

Lead the pupils out into the field, make simple experiments before them, and have them also perform experiments. Let them learn directly from nature : a fact gained at first hand will linger in the mind long after mere second-hand book knowledge has departed. Teach by observation and experiment. The young mind grasps the concrete but wearies with the abstract.

You will find in the practical exercises many suggestions as to experiments that you can make with your class. Do not neglect these. They will be the life of your work. In many cases it will be best to perform the experimental or observational work first, and turn to the text later to amplify the pupil's knowledge.

xii TO THE PUPIL

Although the authors have arranged this book in a logical order, they hope that teachers will feel free to teach each topic in the season best suited to its study.

TO THE PUPIL

Consult the glossary in the back of this book for the meanings of all hard words.

Try to get for your school library every farm bulletin issued by the United States Department of Agriculture and as many bulletins as possible from different State Experiment Stations. These bulletins cost nothing and are mines of practical and interesting information.

Perform all the suggested experiments for yourself. Do not be content to watch your teacher or your fellowstudents perform these experiments. First-hand work gives expertness, accuracy, interest, knowledge, power.

Above all, learn of nature. At first she is a shy and silent teacher, but on better acquaintance she will talk to you in many tongues.

Section I— Origin Of The Soil

The word soil occurs many times in this httle book. In its agricultural sense this word is used to describe the thin layer of surface earth that, like some great blanket, is tucked around the wrinkled and age-beaten form of our globe. The harder and colder earth under this surface layer is called the subsoil. It should be remembered, however, that in waterless and sun-dried countries there seems little difference between the soil and the subsoil.

Plants, insects, birds, beasts, men, — all alike are fed on what grows in this thin layer of soil. If some wild flood in sudden wrath could sweep into the ocean this earthwrapping soil, food would soon become as scarce as it was in Samaria when mothers boiled and ate their sons. The face of the earth as we now see it daintily robed in grass, or uplifting waving acres of corn, or even naked, waterscarred, and disfigured by man's neglect, is very different from what it was in its earliest days. How was it then ? How did the soil originate.-*

Learned men believe that at first the surface of the earth was solid rock. How were these rocks changed into workable soil? Occasionally a curious boy picks up a rotten stone, squeezes it, and finds his hands filled with dirt, or soil. Now, just as the boy crumbled with his fingers this single stone, the great forces of nature with boundless patience crumbled, or, as it is called, disintegrated, the early rock mass. These simple but giantstrong agents that beat the rocks into powder with a clublike force a million fold more powerful than the club force of Hercules were chiefly: (i) heat and cold; (2) water, frost, and ice ; (3) a very low form of vegetable life ; and (4) tiny animals, if such minute bodies can be called animals. In some cases these forces acted singly; in others, all acted together to rend and crumble the unbroken stretch of rock. Let us glance at some of the methods used by these skilled world makers.

Heat and cold are working partners. You remember that most hot bodies shrink, or contract, on cooling. These early rocks were hot. As the outside shell of rock cooled from exposure to air and moisture, it contracted. . This shrinkage of the rigid rim, of course, broke many of the rocks, and here and there left cracks, or fissures. In these fissures water collected, froze, and, as freezing water expands with irresistible power, the expansion still further broke the rocks to pieces. The smaller pieces again, in the same way, were acted upon by frost and ice, and again crumbled. This process has continued more or less until this day.

Running water was another giant soil former. If you would understand its action, observe some usually sparkling stream just after a washing rain. The clear waters are uglied and discolored by mud washed in from the surrounding hills. As though disliking their muddy burden, the waters strive to throw it off. Here, as low banks offer chance, they run out into shallows and drop some of it. Here, as they pass some quiet pool, they deposit more. At last they reach the still water at the mouth,

Fig. I. Ruck marked by the Scraping of a Glacier over it and there they shake off the last of their mud load, and often form of it little islands, or deltas. In the same way, bearing acres of soil in their waters, mighty rivers like the Amazon, the Mississippi, and the Hudson, when they are swollen by rain, sweep to the seas. Some soil they scatter over the lowlands as they whirl seaward ; the rest they deposit in deltas at their mouths. It is estimated that the Mississippi carries to the ocean each year enough soil to cover a square mile of surface to a depth of two hundred and sixty-eight feet.

The early brooks and rivers, instead of bearing mud, ran oceanward bearing ground stone that either they themselves had worn from the rocks by ceaseless fretting, or bearing stones that other forces had dislodged from parent nest. The large pieces were whirled from side to side, beaten against one another, or against bed rock, until they were ground finer. The rivers distributed this rock soil just as the later rivers distribute muddy soil. Year after year for ages the moving waters ground against the rocks. Vast were the waters ; vast the number of years ; vast the results.

Glaciers were another soil-producing agent. Glaciers, as Stockbridge says, are but " streams frozen and moving slowly but irresistibly onwards, down well-defined valleys, grinding and pulverizing the rock masses detached by the force and weight of their onslaught." Where and how were these glaciers formed .''

Once a great part of upper North America was a vast sheet of ice. Whatever moisture fell from the sky fell as snow. No one knows what made this long winter of snow, but we do know that snows piled on snows until mountainlike masses reared their heads above the rocks. The lower snow was by the pressure of the upper packed into ice masses. By and by some change of climate caused these masses of ice to break up somewhat and to move to the south and west. These moving masses, carrying rock and frozen earth, ground them to powder. King thus describes the stately movement of these snow mountains : "Beneath the bottom of this slowly moving sheet of pressureplastic ice, which with more or less difficulty kept itself conformable with the face of the land over which it was riding, the sharper outstanding points were cut away and the deeper river canons filled in. Desolate and rugged rocky wastes were thrown down and spread over with rich soil."

The joint action of air, moisture, and frost was still another agent of soil making. This action is called weathering. Whenever you have noticed the outside rocks of a spring house, you have noticed that tiny bits are crumbling

Fig. 2. Ground Rock at End of a Glacier

from the face of the rocks, and adding little by little to the soil. This is a slow way of making additions to the soil. It is estimated that it would take 728,000 years to wear away limestone rock to a depth of thirty-nine inches. But when you recall the countless years through which the weather has striven against the rocks, you can readily understand that its never-wearying activity has added immensely to the soil. In the rock soil formed in these various ways, and indeed on the rocks themselves, tiny plants that live on food taken from the air began to grow. They grew just as you now see mosses and lichens grow on the surface of rocks. The decay of these plants added some fertility to the newly formed soil. The life and death of each succeeding generation of these lowly plants added to the soil matter accumulating on the rocks. Slowly but unceasingly the depth of soil increased until higher vegetable forms could flourish and add their dead bodies to the deepening soil. This vegetable addition to the soil is generally known as Jmmns.

In due course of time low forms of animal life came to live on these plants, and in turn by their work and their death to aid in making a soil fit for the plowman.

Thus with a deliberation that fills man with awe, the powerful forces of nature splintered the rocks, crumbled them like a potter's vessel, filled them with plant food, and turned their flinty grains into a soft, snug home for vegetable life.

SECTION n— TILLAGE OF THE SOIL

A good many years ago there lived in England a man by the name of Jethro Tull, He was a farmer and a most successful man in every way.

His claim to fame comes from his teaching the English people and the world the value of thorough tillage of the soil. Before and during his time, farmers did not till the soil very intelligently. They simply prepared the seed bed in a careless manner, as a great many farmers do to-day, and when the crops were gathered the yields were not large.

Jethro Tull centered attention on the important fact that careful and thorough tillage increases the available plant food in the soil. He did not know why his crops were better when they were frequently and thoroughly tilled : but he

Fig. 3. Slope to Water shows Soil weathered from Face of Cliff knew the fact. He explained the fact by saying that " tillage is manure." We have since learned the reason for the truth that Tull taught, and, while his explanation was incorrect, the practice that he was following was excellent. The stirring of the soil enables the air to circulate through it freely, and permits a breaking down of the complex compounds that contain the elements necessary to plant growth.

You have seen how the air helps to crumble the stone and brick in old buildings. It does the same with soil if permitted to circulate freely through it. The agent of the air that chiefly performs this work is called carbonic acid

gas, and this gas is one of the greatest helpers the farmer has in carrying on his work. We must not forget that in soil preparation the air is just as important as any of the tools and implements used in cultivation.

For most soils a two-horse plow is necessary to break up and pulverize the land.

If the soil is fertile and if deep plowing has always been done, good crops will result, other conditions being favorable. If, however, the tillage is poor, scanty harvests will always result.

A shallow soil can always be improved by properly deepening it. The principle of greatest importance in soil preparation is the gradual deepening of the soil in order that plant roots may have more comfortable homes. If the farmer has been accustomed to plow but four inches deep, he should adjust the plow so as to turn five inches at the next plowing, then six, and so on until the seed bed is nine or ten inches deep. This gradual deepening will not injure the soil but will put it quickly in good physical condition. If to good tillage rotation of crops be added, the soil will become more fertile with each succeeding year.

The plow, harrow, and roller are all necessary to good tillage and a proper preparation of the seed bed. The soil must be compact and clods of all sizes crushed. Then the air circulates freely, and paying crops are the rule and not the exception.

Tillage does these things : It increases the plant-food supply, destroys weeds, and influences the moisture content of the soil.

1. What tools are used in tillage.''

2. Why should a poor and shallow soil be plowed shallow ?

3. Why should a poor and shallow soil be well compacted before sowing the crop ?

4. Explain the value of a circulation of air in the soil.

5. What causes iron to rust?

6. Why is a two-horse turning plow better than a one-horse plow ?

7. Where will clods do the least harm, — on top of the soil or below the surface ?

8. Do plant roots penetrate clods ?

9. Are earthworms a benefit or an injury to the soil ? 10. Name three things that a plow does.

lO AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS

Section III — The Moisture Of The Soil

Did any one ever explain to you how important water is to the soil or tell you why it is so important ? Often, as you know, crops entirely fail because there is not enough water in the soil for the plants to drink. How necessary is it, then, that the soil be kept in the best possible condition to catch and hold enough water to carry the plant through dry, hot spells ! Perhaps you are ready to ask, " How does the mouthless plant drink its stored-up water? "

The plant gets all its water through its roots. You have seen the tiny fibrous roots of a plant spreading all about in fine soil ; they are down in the ground taking up plant food and water for the stalk and leaves above. The water, carrying plant food with it, rises, by means of a peculiar process, through roots and stems.

The plants use the food for building new tissue, that is, for growth. The water passes out through the leaves into the air. When the summers are dry and hot and there is but little water in the soil, the leaves shrink up. This is simply a method they have of keeping the water from passing rapidly off into the air. I am sure you have seen the corn stalks all shriveled on very hot days. This shrinkage is nature's way of diminishing the current of water that is steadily passing through the plant.

A thrifty farmer will try to keep his soil in such good condition that it will have a supply of water in it for growing crops when dry and hot weather comes. He can do this by deep plowing, by subsoiling, by adding any kind of decaying vegetable matter to the soil, and by growing crops that can be tilled frequently.

The soil is a great storehouse for moisture. After the clouds have emptied their waters into this storehouse, the water of the soil comes to the surface, where it is evaporated into the air. The water comes to the surface in just the same way that oil rises in a lamp wick. This rising of the water is called capillarity.

It is necessary to understand what is meant by this big word. If into a pan of water you dip a glass tube, the water inside the tube rises above the level of the water in the pan.

The smaller the tube the higher will the water rise. The greater rise inside is perhaps due to the fact that the glass attracts the particles of water more than the particles of water attract one another. Now apply this principle to the soil.

The soil particles have small spaces between them, and these spaces act just as the tube does.

When the water at the surface is carried away by drying winds and warmth, the water deeper in the soil rises through these soil spaces. In this way water is brought from its soil storehouse as plants need it. Of course, when this water reaches the surface, it evaporates. If we want to keep it for our crops, we must prepare a trap to hold it. Nature has shown us how this . can be done. Pick up a plank lying on the ground. Under the-plahk the soil is wet, while the soil not covered by the plank is dry. Why.? Capillarity brought the water to the surface. The plank, however, keeping away wind and

Fig. 6. An Enlarged View of a Section OF Moist Soil showing Air Spaces and Soil Particles warmth, acted as a trap to hold the moisture. Now of course a farmer cannot set a trap of planks over his fields, but he can make a trap of dry earth, and that will do just as well. When a crop like corn or cotton or potatoes is cultivated, the fine, loose dirt stirred by the cultivating plow will make a

Fig. 7. Apparatus for testing Retention of Water by Different Soils mulch that serves to keep water in the soil in the same way the plank kept moisture under it. The mulch helps to absorb the rains and prevents the water from running off the surface. Frequent cultivation, then, is one of the best possible ways of saving moisture. Hence the farmer who most frequently stirs his soil in the growing season, and especially in seasons of drought, reaps, other things being equal, a more abundant harvest than if tillage were neglected.

1. Why is the soil wet under a board or under straw?

2. Will a soil that is fine and compact produce better crops than one that is loose and cloddy? Why ?

3. Since the water which a plant uses comes through the roots, can the morning dew afford any assistance ?

4. Why are weeds objectionable in a growing crop ?

5. Why does the farmer cultivate growing corn and cotton ?

Section Iv— How The Water Rises In The Soil

When the hot, dry days of summer come, the soil depends upon the subsoil, or undersoil, for the moisture that it must furnish its growing plants. The water was stored

in the soil during the fall, winter, and spring months when there was plenty of rain. If you dig down into the soil when everything is dry and hot, you will reach the cool, moist undersoil. It becomes more moist as you go deeper into the soil.

Now the roots of plants go down into the soil for this moisture, because they need the water to carry the plant food up into the stems and leaves.

Fig. 8.

Using Lamp Chimneys to show Rise of Water in Soil

You can see how the water rises in the soil by performing a simple experiment.

EXPERIMENT

Take a lamp chimney and fill it with dry, fine dirt. The dirt from a road or a field will do. Tie over the bottom of the lamp chimney a piece of cloth or a pocket handkerchief, and place this end in a shallow pan of water. If the soil in the lamp chimney is clay and well packed, the water will quickly rise to the top.

By filling three or four lamp chimneys with as many different soils, the pupil will see that the water rises more slowly in some than in others.

Now take the water pans away, and the water in the lamp chimneys will gradually evaporate. Study for a few days the effect of this evaporation on the several soils.

Section V — Draining The Soil

A wise man was once asked, "What is the most valuable improvement ever made in agriculture.'* " He answered, " Drainage." Often soils unfit for crop production because of the free water in them are by drainage rendered the most valuable of farming land.

The benefits of drainage are as follows :

1. It deepens the subsoil by removing unnecessary water from the spaces between the soil particles. This admits air. Then the oxygen which is in the air, by aiding decay, prepares plant food for vegetation.

2. It makes the surface, or topsoil, deeper. It stands to reason that the deeper the soil the more plant food becomes available for plant use.

i6

3. It improves the texture of the soil. Wet soil is sticky. Drainage makes this sticky soil crumble and fall apart.

4. It prevents washing.

5. It increases the porosity of soils and permits roots to go deeper into the soil for food and moisture.

6. It increases the warmth of the soil.

7. It permits earlier working in spring and after rains.

Fig.

Layinc; a Tile Drain

8. It favors the growth of germs which change the unavailable nitrogen of the soil into nitrates ; that is, into the form most useful to plants.

9. It enables plants to resist drouth better because the roots go into the ground deeper early in the season.

A soil that is hard and wet will not grow good crops. The nitrogen-gathering crops will store the greatest quantity of nitrogen in the soil when the soil is open to the free circulation of the air. These valuable crops cannot do this when the soil is wet and cold.

Sandy soils with sandy subsoils do not need artificial drainage ; these soils are naturally drained. With clay soils it is different. It is very important to remove the stagnant water in them and to let the air in.

When land has been properly drained, the other steps in improvement are easily taken. When soil is dried and

Fig. 10. A Tile in Position

mellowed by proper drainage, then commercial fertilizers, barnyard manure, cowpeas and clover can each most readily do its great work of improving the texture of the soil and of making it a cosy home for plants to grow in.

Tile Drains. Tile drains are the best and cheapest that can be used. It would not be too strong to say that draining by tiles is the perfection of drainage. Thou^ sands of practical tests in this country have demonstrated the value of tile draining for the following reasons :

l8 AGRICULTURE FOR BEGINNERS

1. Good tile drains properly laid last for years and do not fill up.

2. They furnish the cheapest possible means of removing excess of water from the soil.

3. They are out of reach of all cultivating tools.

4. Surface water in filtering through the soil leaves its nutritious elements for plant growth.

EXPERIMENTS

To show the Effect of Drainage. Take two tomato cans and fill both with the same kind of soil. Puncture several holes in the bottom of one to drain the soil above and to admit air circulation. Leave the other unpunctured. Plant seeds of any kind in both cans and keep in a warm place. Add every third day equal quantities of water. Let seeds grow in both and observe the difference in growth for two or three weeks.