Agriculture, Its Fundamental Principles (Classic Reprint)

The subject is as interesting and as teachable as it is important, dealing in a practical way with the elementary principles of many sciences. The purpose of teaching agriculture is not to make a farmer of each child, any more than the purpose of teaching literature is to make an author of each one. The study is, however, especially useful to children who will some day be men and women with good farms to maintain or poor ones to improve. The knowledge of the forces and laws which control plant and animal development raises the daily round of farm tasks from drudgery to intelligent labor. As labor is better informed, it is better directed; it brings larger returns in dollars and in happiness. The aim of this book is so to state the scientific facts and principles which underlie the processes of agriculture that they will be intelligible and interesting to young people. These principles are stated briefly but clearly; illustrations and examples are drawn from common crops and methods. The constant effort is to bring the student in contact with nature, to have him observe for himself how plants live and develop under various conditions, to learn by these observations and by simple experiments the relation of the soil and its elements to crop growing, and to understand how the processes of nature may be influenced and aided by man. By means of the experiments described and suggested, every student can use to advantage the great laboratory of nature. It is believed that the full experiments and exercises on every topic, the orderly arrangement of subjects, the clear chapter outlines, and the full index make this book especially valuable for class-room use. The appendix supplies useful tables and suggestions for supplementary study of special subjects. No pains has been spared to make the illustrations really illustrate the text, and thus add to the value as well
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)