Agriculture for Beginners Part 34

If the thousands on thousands of pupils in our schools would become active workers for these things and continue their work through life, then, in less than half a century, life in the country would be an unending delight.

One of the problems of our day is how to keep bright, thoughtful, sociable, ambitious boys and girls contented on the farm. Every step taken to make the country home more attractive, to make the school and its grounds more enjoyable, to make the way easy to the homes of neighbors, to school, to post-office, and to church, is a step taken toward keeping on the farm the very boys and girls who are most apt to succeed there.

Not every man who lives in the country can have a showy or costly home, but as long as gra.s.s and flowers and vines and trees grow, any man who wishes can have an attractive house. Not every woman who is to spend a lifetime at the head of a rural home can have a luxuriously furnished home, but any woman who is willing to take a little trouble can have a cozy, tastefully furnished home--a home fitted with the conveniences that diminish household drudgery. Even in this day of cheap literature, all parents cannot fill their children's home with papers, magazines, and books, but by means of school and Sunday-school libraries, by means of circulating book clubs, and by a little self-denial, earnest parents can feed hungry minds just as they feed hungry bodies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS FOR THE HOME]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 291. AN ATTRACTIVE COUNTRY HOME]

Agricultural papers that arouse the interest and quicken the thought of farm boys by discussing the best, easiest, and cheapest ways of farming; journals full of dainty suggestions for household adornment and comfort; ill.u.s.trated papers and magazines that amuse and cheer every member of the family; books that rest tired bodies and open and strengthen growing minds--all of these are so cheap that the money reserved from the sale of one hog will keep a family fairly supplied for a year.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 292. AN UNIMPROVED SCHOOLHOUSE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 293. AN IMPROVED SCHOOLHOUSE]

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 294. THE SAME ROAD AFTER AND BEFORE IMPROVEMENT]

If the parents, teachers, and pupils of a school join hands, an unsightly, ill-furnished, ill-lighted, and ill-ventilated school-house can at small cost be changed into one of comfort and beauty. In many places pupils have persuaded their parents to form clubs to beautify the school grounds. Each father sends a man or a man with a plow once or twice a year to work a day on the grounds. Stumps are removed, trees trimmed, drains put in, gra.s.s sowed, flowers, shrubbery, vines, and trees planted, and the grounds tastefully laid off. Thus at scarcely noticeable money cost a rough and unsightly school ground gives place to a charming school yard. Cannot the pupils in every school in which this book is studied get their parents to form such a club, and make their school ground a silent teacher of neatness and beauty?

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 295. WASHINGTON'S COUNTRY HOME]

Life in the country will never be as attractive as it ought to be until all the roads are improved. Winter-washed roads, penning young people in their own homes for many months each year and destroying so many of the innocent pleasures of youth, build towns and cities out of the wreck of country homes. Can young people who love their country and their country homes engage in a n.o.bler crusade than a crusade for improved highways?

APPENDIX

SPRAYING MIXTURES

FOR BITING INSECTS

DRY PARIS GREEN

Paris green 1 lb.

Lime or flour 4 to 16 lb.

WET PARIS GREEN

Paris green 1/4 to 2 lb.

Lime 1/4 to 1/2 lb.

Water 50 gal.

FOR SOFT-BODIED SUCKING INSECTS

KEROSENE EMULSION

Hard soap (in fine shavings) 1/2 lb.

Soft water 1 gal.

Kerosene 2 gal.

Dissolve soap in boiling water, add kerosene to the hot water, churn with spraying pump for at least ten minutes, until the mixture changes to a creamy, then to a soft, b.u.t.terlike, ma.s.s. This gives three gallons of 66-per-cent oil emulsion, which may be diluted to the strength desired. To get 15-per-cent oil emulsion add ten and one-half gallons of water.

FOR FUNGOUS DISEASES

COPPER SULPHATE

Copper sulphate 1 lb.

Water 18 to 25 gal.

Use only before foliage opens, to kill wintering spores.

BORDEAUX MIXTURE

Copper sulphate (bluestone) 4 to 5 lb.

Lime (good, unslaked) 5 to 6 lb.

Water 50 gal.

Dissolve the copper sulphate (bluestone) in twenty-five gallons of water. Slake the lime slowly so as to get a smooth, thick cream. Never cover the lime with too much water. After thorough slaking add twenty-five gallons of water. When the lime and the bluestone have dissolved, pour the two liquids into a third vessel. Be sure that each stream mixes with the other before either enters the vessel. Strain through a coa.r.s.e cloth.

Mix fresh for each time. Use for molds and fungi generally. Apply in fine spray with a good nozzle.

BORDEAUX-PARIS-GREEN MIXTURE

Ordinary Bordeaux mixture 50 gal.

Paris green 4 oz. to 2 lb.

Use for both fungi and insects on apple, potato, etc.

BORDEAUX-a.r.s.eNATE-OF-LEAD MIXTURE

Ordinary Bordeaux mixture 50 gal.

a.r.s.enate of lead 2 to 3 lb.

Used for fungous and insect enemies of the potato, and of the apple when bitter rot is troublesome.

COMMERCIAL LIME-SULPHUR a.r.s.eNATE OF LEAD

Commercial lime-sulphur 1-1/2 gal.

a.r.s.enate of lead 2 to 3 lb.

Water 50 gal.

Use for spraying apples.

AMMONIACAL COPPER CARBONATE

Copper carbonate 5 oz.

Ammonia (26 Baume) about 3 pt.