School exercises in plant production

"The course in agriculture for the rural common schools, as outlined by the committee on instruction in agriculture in its ninth report to the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, was designed to extend over two years, the seventh and eight years in schools having eight grades. The first year was to be given up to a study of plant production, and the second year to animal production and some matters concerning dairying, farm mechanics, a nd farm accounts. The experiments thus far tried in teaching agriculture in elementary schools have been directed mainly along the line of plant production; hence there is much more material in teachable form on this phase of agriculture than on any other phase. On this account, and for the further reason that a bulletin dealing with the whole subject of elementary agriculture would be so large as to preclude its wide distribution, it has been decided to limit this bulletin to exercises illustrating some of the more important principles of plant production, leaving to subsequent bulletins the application of these principles to particular crops."--Scope of the bulletin (p.8).