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Image provided by: South Dakota State Historical Society – State Archives
Newspaper Page Text
several meals at home. A bushel of potatoes are estimated to have been grown on one farm. Ripening tomatoes and heading cabbages are still holding the attention of these little scientific agriculturalists. To say nothing of other vegetables that have helped reduce the cost of living and the seeds they are saving to plant next year. The children have come regularly on Saturday morning during the summer vacation to their fields and gardens, thus proving that the interest can be kept up and results secured when school is not in session. Several of the children come in from country homes some distance from the city. At the beginning some these amateur farmers were anxious to raise straw, but were at a loss to know where to purchase straw seed. Many interesting experiments were performend that would please even Mr. Burbank. In their sixteen hills of potatoes they planted one eye in the first hill, two in the second and so on to five. Then one small, one large and one medium size potato to the hill was planted. A uniform program is followed by the entire group and records made and kept for future reference. "When they harvest their potatoes they are expected to compare the products from each hill, and all the farms. Next year their planting will be governed by the results. SELECTING SEED. Another interesting experiment is the pedigree selection of seed corn as opposed to mass selection. This consists in starting with a given ear of corn and selecting each succeeding season an ear that corres ponds most nearly to the perfect type of the kind. Within a few years it is possible for these students to produce an acclimated kind of corn that will add $1 to the value of every acre produced in the state. This, and other kind of experiments are conducted with other seeds. It may be argued that our agricultural colleges are working out ail such problems. Their results do not reach the individual child and are soon forgotten and often unheeded by those who know of them. "What the child learns by experience he knows and remembers. All the experiences of ages will not teach the child to avoid the fire 9.