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Show 422 REPORT OF SUPERINTENDENT OF INDIAN 8CROOL8. The question of good water must be considered. If there is running water on the place, or near, the barn should be built not far distant, care heing exercised in not letting the stable drain into this water. The farmer must remember that the boy mill not have the school carpenter to call upon in case his roof should leak or his fences need repairs, and he must be trained to do this work himself and do it well. Nor will he have a blacksmith to whom to take his horse should it cast a shoe. The tire of his wagon .wheel may need repairing or tine spo!tes require fixing. ' The boy's training in farming must embrace enough work at the forge to do all this work easily. His farmlng implements will need repairing and he must be taught to know how to mend them. Farmers must talk to the boys constantly abont the importance of their know-ing how to do theie things for themselves. When a wheel breaks, go directly to the shop with the boys and show them what needs to bedone,mending the broken wheel at once and having them he1 to do the work. Show them how easily they may have a shop of their own anghow useful one is in saving time that would have to be consumed in making long trips to a blacksmith; also in the expense of paying someone to do what a boy can do so easily himself. Impress in every leaeon that a penny saved is a penny earned. Foorth year.-Make the instruction in tarming as pleasant aidfascinating to the boys as possible. Be practical, i. e., teach onlv those things that will he of advan-h e to the boy when he is farming far himself. Each boy will atill be conducting hisgarden or "farm."as outlinedin the course on nature study, but at the beginning of this year the supervision and control of the work will pass from the naturestudy teacher to the farmer. It is needless to say that this work is of very great vvalne to the pupil. When he has finally fin-ished school and has a farm of his own, his natural impulse will be to he the real owner of a garden similar to, though larger than, the one he leaves behind him at school, and from his long experience with the work at the sohool-his experi-ments, failures, aud sucoesses-he will commence his work with a skill and conti-dence that will go far to insure his success. The farmer will render all necessnry assistance to the pupils in their gardening, showing them the best methods of planting and cultivation and manner of conducting. In the farm work, whenever practicable, assign to a detail of boys the work of doing some separate piece of work, as, for instance, the planting of a section ot a cornfield, and such similar work as mav arise as the season Drogresses. Exercise a little supervision over the work, and when done critioise it heiore them, oom-mendingwhat is well done, telling them what makesit satisfactory, and showing them in what respects it might be improved. Model fawn.-In many schools it will be possible to have a model farm of 2, 3, or 4 acres, dividing the proceeds among the boys having it in charge under the management of the farmer. To make this a practical illustration of what can be doneat the homes, this farmshould produce crops sufficient to furnish amoderate-sized family with vegetables throughout the year; furnish the coarse fodder for one horse, one cow, one or two pigs, and some poultry, and havesomething left to sell, ths farmer to select the craps adapted to the market facilities, soil, and cli-mate of his home. In moatplaces theland should beoccnpiedwithoropsnot only during the summer, but a180 during the winter months, thus preventing more or less the loss of plant food by the wash of winter rains. Usually eaoh field shanld grow at least two crops, and sometimes more, every year. Each field should gww a mannrial crop (cowpeas, etc.) regularly epery otber year, which crop not only tends to increase the suppply of plant food m the soil, but also tokeep up the supply of organic or decaying vegetable matter in the soil, which is so necessary and helpful in maintaining the proper soil texture. A part of these manurial crops is plowed nuder; the rest is harvested as forage for the stock, the manure from the stock being returned to the soil. In lessons in uractical farming the farmer will show the pupils very plainly the principles involved in the rotation of crops and how the continued renewal of any one kind of crop is sure to produce exhaustion. For example: If the crop is potatoes, the available supply of potash will soon be exhausted if thesame crop la continuously ralsed, and the surplus phosphoric acid for which the potatoes have no use might be washed out of the soil and wasted: while if some crop requiring more phosphoric acid should be planted a gwd crop mi ht be obtained and at the same time the decomposition going on in the soil wonfd render a new supply of potash available. For this reason the crop grown by eaoh boy must be changed every year. The.fact must also be emphasized that after crops have been harvested the formation of plant food in the soi1.i~c ontinued and is liable to be lost if there are no growing crops present to make use of 'it. |