Ensilage: green foods preserved in a silo.
Evaporate: to pass off in vapor, as a fluid often does; to change from a solid or liquid state into vapor, usually by heat.
Exhaustion: the state in which strength, power, and force have been lost. When applied to land, the word means that land has lost its power to produce well.
Fermentation: a chemical change produced by bacteria, yeast, etc. A common example of fermentation is the change of cider into vinegar.
Digestion: the act by which food is prepared by the juices of the body to be used by the blood.
Dormant: a word used to describe sleeping or resting bodies,—bodies not in a state of activity.
Drainage: the process by which an excess of water is removed from the land by ditches, terraces, or tiles.
Element: a substance that cannot be divided into simpler substances.
Croup: the top of the hips.
Culture: the art of preparing ground for seed and raising crops by tillage.
Curb disease: a swelling on the back part of the hind leg of a horse just behind the lowest part of the hock joint. It generally causes lameness.
Curculio: a kind of beetle or weevil.
Dendrolene: a patented substance used for catching cankerworms.
Concentrated: when applied to food the word means that it contains much feeding value in small bulk.
Contagious: a disease is said to be contagious when it can be spread or carried from one individual to another.
Cross: the result of breeding two varieties of plant together.
Cross pollination: the pollination of a flower by pollen brought from a flower on some other plant.
Cereal: the name given to grasses that are raised for the food contained in their seeds, such as corn, wheat, rice.
Cobalt: a poisonous chemical used to kill insects.
Cocoon: the case made by an insect to contain its larva or pupa.
Commercial fertilizer: an enriching plant food bought to improve soil.
Compact: a soil is said to be compact when the particles are closely packed.
Carbolic acid: a chemical often used to kill or prevent the growth of germs, bacteria, fungi, etc.
Carbon: a chemical element. Charcoal is nearly pure carbon.
Carbon disulphide: a chemical used to kill insects.
Carbonic acid gas: a gas consisting of carbon and oxygen. It is produced by breathing, and whenever carbon is burned. It is the source of the carbon in plants.
Cambium: the growing layer lying between the wood and the bark.
Canon: the shank bone above the fetlock in the fore and hind legs of a horse.
Carbohydrates: carbohydrates are foods free from nitrogen. They make up the largest part of all vegetables. Examples are sugar, starch, and cellulose.
Bud (noun): an undeveloped branch.
Bud (verb): to insert a bud from the scion upon the stock to insure better fruit.
Bud variation: occasionally one bud on a plant will produce a branch differing in some ways from the rest of the branches; this is bud variation. The shoot that is produced by bud variation is called a sport.
Calyx: the outermost row of leaves in a flower.
Biennial: a plant that produces seed during the second year of its existence and then dies.
Blight: a diseased condition in plants in which the whole or a part of a plant withers or dries up.
Bluestone: a chemical; copper sulphate. It is used to kill fungi, etc.
Bordeaux Mixture: a mixture invented in Bordeaux, France, to destroy disease-producing fungi.
Available plant food: food in such condition that plants can use it.
Bacteria: a name applied to a number of kinds of very small living beings, some beneficial, some harmful, some disease-producing. They average about one twenty-thousandth of an inch in length.
Balanced ration: a ration made up of the proper amounts of carbohydrates, fats, and protein, as explained in text. Such a ration avoids all waste of food.
Annual: a plant that bears seed during the first year of its existence and then dies.
Anther: the part of a stamen that bears the pollen.
Atmospheric nitrogen: nitrogen in the air. Great quantities of this valuable plant food are in the air; but, strange to say, most plants cannot use it directly from the air, but must take it in other forms, as nitrates, etc. The legumes are an exception, as they can use atmospheric nitrogen.
To enable young readers to understand the technical words necessarily used in the text only popular definitions are given.
Abdomen: the part of an insect lying behind the thorax.
Acid: a chemical name given to many sour substances. Vinegar and lemon juice owe their sour taste to the acid in them.
Adult: a person, animal, or plant grown to full size and strength.
Ammonia (ammonium): a compound of nitrogen readily usable as a plant food. It is one of the products of decay.
The lime should be placed in a barrel and enough water poured on it to start it slaking and to keep the sulphur off the bottom of the barrel. The sulphur, which should first be worked through a sieve to break up the lumps, may then be added, and, finally, enough water to slake the lime into a paste. Considerable stirring is necessary to prevent caking on the bottom. After the violent boiling which accompanies the slaking of the lime is over, the mixture should be diluted ready for use, or at least enough cold water added to stop the cooking. From five to fifteen minutes are required for the process. If the hot mass is permitted to stand undiluted as a thick paste, a liquid is produced that is injurious to peach foliage and, in some cases, to apple foliage.
The mixture should be strained through a sieve of twenty meshes to the inch in order to remove the coarse particles of lime, but all the sulphur should be worked through the strainer.
The self-boiled lime-sulphur wash is a combination of lime and sulphur boiled only by the heat of the slaking lime, and is used chiefly for summer spraying on peaches, plums, cherries, etc. as a substitute for the Bordeaux mixture.
| Lime | 8 lb. |
| Sulphur | 6 to 8 lb. |
| Water | 50 gal. |
| Home-Made Lime-Sulphur Wash | |
|---|---|
| Lime | 20 lb. |
| Sulphur | 15 lb. |
| Water | 50 gal. |
The lime, the sulphur, and about half of the water required are boiled together for forty-five minutes in a kettle over a fire, or in a barrel or other suitable tank by steam, strained, and then diluted to 50 gallons. This is the wash regularly used against the San Jose scale. It may be substituted for Bordeaux mixture when spraying trees in the dormant state. Commercial lime-sulphur may also be used in place of this homemade wash. Use one gallon of the commercial lime-sulphur to nine gallons of water in the dormant season.
Use for spraying apples.
| Ammoniacal Copper Carbonate | |
|---|---|
| Copper carbonate | 5 oz. |
| Ammonia (26° Baumé) | about 3 pt. |
| Water | 50 gal. |
Dissolve the copper carbonate in the smallest possible amount of ammonia. This solution may be kept in stock and diluted to the proper strength as needed.
Use this instead of the Bordeaux mixture after the fruit has reached half or two thirds of the mature size. It leaves no spots as does the lime-sulphur wash or the Bordeaux mixture.
Used for fungous and insect enemies of the potato, and of the apple when bitter rot is troublesome.
| Commercial Lime-Sulphur Arsenate of Lead | |
|---|---|
| Commercial lime-sulphur | 1½ gal. |
| Arsenate of lead | 2 to 3 lb. |
| Water | 50 gal. |
Use for both fungi and insects on apple, potato, etc.
| Bordeaux-Arsenate-of-Lead Mixture | |
|---|---|
| Ordinary Bordeaux mixture | 50 gal. |
| Arsenate of lead | 2 to 3 lb. |
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. |
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 coarse cloth.
| 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. |
| Kerosene Emulsion | |
|---|---|
| Hard soap (in fine shavings) | ½ 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, butterlike, mass. 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.
| Dry Paris Green | Wet Paris Green | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Paris green | 1 lb. | Paris green | ¼ to 2 lb. |
| Lime or flour | 4 to 16 lb. | Lime | ¼ to ½ lb. |
| Water | 50 gal. | ||
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 nobler crusade than a crusade for improved highways?
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, grass 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?
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; illustrated 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.
Not every man who lives in the country can have a showy or costly home, but as long as grass 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.
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.
Happy would it be for our nation if all the young people who live in the country could begin their training in good citizenship by becoming workers for these four things:
First, attractive country homes.
Second, attractive country schoolhouses and school grounds.
Third, good country schools.
Fourth, good roads.
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.
As ours is a country in which the people rule, every boy and every girl ought to be trained to take a wide-awake interest in public affairs. This training cannot begin too early in life. A wise old man once said, "In a republic you ought to begin to train a child for good citizenship on the day of its birth."
