Biennial Report of the Commissioner of Horticulture of the State of California for (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ...much intelligence and expert skill. Hundreds of the pupils attending that high school would naturally, if not necessarily, make agriculture in that region the business of their lives. And yet no pupil of that school was learning anything about the requirements of successful agriculture or the aid which science may give the farmer in his struggle with the forces of nature vitally affecting his business. The whole drift of the education given in that school was away from the farm. Could anything be more unwise? Is it not absolutely certain that, considered merely as a matter of business policy, the taxpayers of that city could well afford to pay all the additional expense which would be required to maintain courses in agriculture in that school? Undoubtedly the farmers of the vicinity ought to share in this expense, and there is good reason to expect they would do so. There are hundreds of American communities where a similar state of things exists. It is not a matter of interest and concern to the farmers alone. The enduring prosperity of cities is inextricably bound up with the success of agriculture. Technical education has proved a sure road to commercial development and greatly increased wealth in connection with every industry which has received its benefits. It will prove equally so as regards agriculture. The tremendously productive results which have already come from the work of the agricultural colleges and experiment stations may be multiplied a hundredfold by the education of hundreds of thousands of the flower of rural youth in secondary schools in which there is definite and systematic teaching of the technique and scientific principles of agriculture." THE FRUIT-GROWER AND THE PARCELS POST. By EDWARD BERWICK, Of Pacific Grove. The...