Excerpt from A Manual of Agriculture for the Eighth Grade

No attempt has been made to make an exhau'stive list of exercises. It would be an easy matter to devote all the time allotted to the study of agriculture in the eighth grade to any phase of the subject. Exercises are included in practically every phase of this great subject. Teachers are urged to lay special emphasis upon that type of farming that is of most importance in their locality. All the exercises included are easy to work out and illustrate some principle necessary in the study of agriculture. No apparatus is called for that cannot be easily procured at little or no cost. In any good text book on agriculture the teacher will find ample material for additional exercises if they care for extra ones along any particular line.

In the back of the book six blank pages have been left in which the teacher may insert additional exercises. In case the county superintendent or county agriculturist desires to add exercises so as to amplify the work for the agriculture of his county, they may be prepared on typewritten sheets about 517§x8$§ and the teachers in structed to paste them in the back of the Manual.

The study of agriculture offers splendid opportunity for coopera tion between the home and the school and every opportunity should be taken advantage of. For example in the testing of seeds; have the pupils test seeds for any patron of the school who may care to have his seeds tested. In the spring, when you start the hotbed, have it understood that you are going to start different kinds of plants for transplanting, and that the parents are welcome to them. If the pupils have gardens at school, let them take their produce home. Have the pupils ask their parents practical questions that come up in their study. This will not only get the parents interested in what the children are doing, but it will give added interest to the children to know that they are studying things that they will be able to use and that older people are concerned about.

Whenever possible to have school gardens, they will be found to be of great value, but they should be taken as a means to an end and not the end. Their value lies in the training and personal inspection that the teacher is able to give during the preparation of the ground; the sowing of the seed; and care up to the time school is out. After that they are seldom of any real value. They aid greatly in arousing interest. If every boy and girl could and would have a small garden at home, it would be better, because they could tend it during the summer, and have it where they could see it at all times. Most of these exercises have been tried out and used in the grade work of the Snohomish public schools. A few additional ones have been selected to make a more complete list, and to offer a somewhat larger field for selection by the teacher.

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