Figures 204 Elevating-grader in operation... Page 319 205 Road as left by elevating-grader where the belt is not long enough to carry earth to the road center.... 320 206 Narrow road showing earth as left by elevating-grader in a ridge.. 207 Road as left by Fresno or wheel scraper 208 209 Wide road with heavy side ditches.. Use of wheel scrapers and plows in grading a cut through 210 Dump wagon with drop bottom. 211 Substructure prepared for macadam surface. 212 First course of stone for macadamizing. Three courses of macadam surface.. 213 214 Macadam surface.. 320 321 321 324 325 : 326 326 326 326 Macadam road on one side of center of grade and earth track on the other side.. 330 220 Laying lower course of telford road. 331 221 How to apply measures during course of construction.. 335 222 Rock crusher.. Road with track on one side of the center laid with brick 344 230 Roadway built of granite blocks.. 235 King drag with steel edges bolted on the split logs Steam road roller with spikes breaking up macadam surface for resurfacing. 347 348 237 Sidewalk and bicycle path between road ditch and fence 348 238 Bicycle path or walk between wheel track and ditch.. Driving fence posts with sledge. 242 Device for pulling fence posts with the aid of a team. 243 Woven wire fencing. 244 Woven wire fence with barbed wire above. 245 Hog and cattle fence. 246 Actual size of wire, by numbers. 247 Method of anchoring fence ribbon between posts. 349 349 356 357 358 359 359 360 361 362 251 252 Hedge experiment at Minnesota Agricultural College. 366 367 253 Mold for making concrete posts. 368 254 255 Different forms of concrete posts... 369 370 257 256 Manner of building concrete posts in place. Cement posts faced with wooden stay. 371 372 258 259 Cement posts with wire loops for spacing fence wires. 372 373 260 Cement corner posts, brace post, and brace. 373 261 Stretching a ribbon of woven wire to attach it to a corner post 374 262 263 Cement corner posts and braces molded in place.. 374 375 264 265 Well-braced cement corner post and cement line posts.. 375 376 269 Bracing end post with steel rod and "dead man” of iron 378 270 Bracing corner post.. 379 271 Bracing end post with wire cables and "dead man" of stone. 277 Single hinged drive gate of angle iron and wire. 278 Large gate adapted for entrance to farm.. 279 280 Heavy paddock gate. 382 382 383 383 384 FARM DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Agricultural science and art deal with the production, from the soil, of foods, clothing, wood and other useful materials. Many of the natural sciences have a theoretical and a practical bearing on this greatest of the productive industries; and the arts which have a useful relation to farming are numerous and varied. In no other vocation are the sciences and the arts so extensively and intimately interwoven. While some persons with comparatively little book learning make money by farming, there is no other vocation in which there is so much useful and interesting knowledge that applies directly to the business and to the home. Differing from any other vocation, the business and the home are here a unit; and the family-sized farm, the "family farm," is our most important business, educational, social, and racial institution. In no other element of our national organization is Americanism so well exemplified; its democracy is well-nigh complete. None other of our institutions is more worthy of being copied by the people of other countries, because the separate family farm, supplemented by the consolidated. "farm school," uniting the apprenticeship work of the farm and the home with the general and technical work of the farm school, will provide the best conditions under which to develop superior races of men and women. The farmer and the farm home maker need to exercise great wisdom in selecting, from the mass of daily experience and from book knowledge, practical facts and theories which are of the highest importance in acquiring success under his or her environment. Home training.-Most of the plain farm arts, as plowing, sowing, harvesting, feeding, breeding, buying and selling, and much of the mechanical work of the farm, are best learned by everyday practice in the business. This is also the case with the home arts, as cooking, sewing, house decorating, home making, entertaining and character building. Without practical experience the would-be farmer is not adept in selecting the practical methods and theories from the great mass of available thought and adapting them to his conditions. Those who have more theoretical knowledge than practical experience are not inclined to be conservative in adopting new theories and new practices; on the other hand, those who lack training in scientific theory are not usually capable of working out new things of practical importance. A combination of theoretical and practical knowledge is necessary for the best success in any line of effort; and in no line of business is this more true than in farming. Technical and scientific as well as practical knowledge is of daily and yearly value in the home and on the farm; and in these progressive times every person should be constantly in the attitude of an inquirer, a student. All the agencies yielding useful information should be utilized. Agricultural periodicals, books on agricultural subjects, speeches at farmers' institutes and other farmers' meetings are sources of much information regarding farm life and farm business. Much of the best information and many theories of farm and farm home management may be acquired by young farmers from their parents and from intelligent folk with whom they associate. Consultation with those who have made a success of any special line of home or farm development is probably the most important source of information and advice. Personal friends, to whom one can trust his plans for suggestive and curative advice, are most important agencies to be employed with conservative freedom by farmers whose isolation makes necessary an effort to measure their plans through the minds of others. Giving suggestions to a friend is one of the opportunities for doing good; and every true man and woman sacredly keeps confidences given while another is asking advice. Technical education in agriculture.-Schools to promote the professions have long been organized. More recently, schools for the business vocations and for the mechanical trades are being established; schools of agriculture, which earlier proved difficult of development, have in recent years been made to succeed, and schools of household economics have been even later in their development. Schools designed to give instruction in agriculture and farm home making have as wonderful possibilities in building up rural business and country life as have schools of medicine in advancing the cause of preventive and curative medicine. Schools which teach agriculture are most useful to those persons who are so fortunate as to receive the advantages they afford before settling down to life's business of home making and farming. These schools have also a very great value in giving dignity, profit, and comfort to farmers as a class, and in providing more and cheaper farm products for all classes of people. These schools teach the underlying principles which govern farm and home management and add to the practical knowledge which every farm boy or girl acquires in youth. Many of the erroneous notions gained from the experiences of one isolated farm, or from practical people who sometimes have wrong theories, are here corrected. By coming in daily contact with able teachers and bright fellow-students, the boy or girl from the farm is enabled to obtain a |