The Silent Readers Part 30

It is still part of the everyday life of Holland to reclaim the stretches of mud and marsh from the sea. When this has been done, the land is first enclosed with a d.y.k.e to prevent any water flowing into it.

On the edge of this d.y.k.e wind-mills are erected, each of which works a pump. You remember how every picture of a Dutch landscape shows a country dotted with windmills with wide-spreading arms and sails. As the mills draw up the water, it is discharged into a ca.n.a.l, which takes it to the sea. Only fifty years ago, an immense piece of submerged land called the Haarlem Lake was drained and rendered fit for cultivation, and one of the favorite projects of certain Dutch ministers is the draining of the Zuyder Zee, an enormous stretch of water of which you have certainly heard, and which once must have been dry land.

When I traveled in Holland, one of the greatest discomforts which I experienced was the want of good drinking water. The Dutch people are used to it, and drink a good deal of tea and coffee; but both are taken so strong and so bitter, that, even if made with the purest water, they would be undrinkable for you and me. Once, when I was staying in a tiny village called Volendam, I had taken a little crying child home to his mother, whom I knew. She wanted to wash his face which I could hardly see through dirt and tears, and from where do you think she drew her water? She lifted a loose board in the floor of her room, and there, immediately underneath, was a ca.n.a.l which pa.s.sed under her house. The house was built on piles over the water, and the whole family used this dirty water for everything--to wash in and to cook with and to drink. Besides much dirt, there were two or three tiny fish in the bucket that she took up when I was there, and when I asked her if she filtered the water at all for drinking, she shook her head, not understanding the reason for anything of the kind. So I told her how much better it would be for her and her family if she boiled the water before drinking it; but she replied that she thought this would take away all the taste. Just imagine wanting your water to taste of dirt and fishes!

--_From "A Peep at the Netherlands", by Beatrix Jungman._

AGRICULTURE

Here is an article from a cyclopedia for schools. The farther you go in school, the more frequently you will need to consult such books. In such cases you should learn to turn quickly to the part of this article you want without reading it all through. Sometimes the topic you are looking up will be the same as one of the headings in the book. Often it will not. Instead of reading the whole article, however, you will generally be able to judge what heading is likely to cover your topic.

If you don't find what you want, keep looking. For example, if you wished to find more about wheat, oats, poultry or cattle you would turn to other volumes of this cyclopedia and read the special article on the subject you were seeking.

Your teacher will a.s.sign different individuals or different sections of the cla.s.s one or more of the following topics covered in this selection. Of course you will not think that you have in this brief selection anything like a complete discussion of each of these topics.

You will, however, find something interesting about each of them.

1. How much time it takes to raise a bushel of corn.

2. How barren areas can be made productive.

3. Four causes of progress in agriculture.

4. Four different kinds of agriculture.

5. Where America raises her cereals.

6. What agriculture does for each of us.

7. Good roads and the farmer.

8. Things the farmer has to fight.

9. Truck farming.

10. Where animals thrive.

11. Agriculture experiment stations.

12. Changes in agriculture methods.

Agriculture is the art of cultivating the soil to produce material for feeding and clothing the human race. It is the oldest of all occupations. "The first farmer," says Emerson, "was the first man, and all historic n.o.bility rests on possession and use of the land."

Agriculture is also the most widely-extended of all occupations, and it lies at the foundation of all other industries. Daniel Webster once said, "When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization." Unless man were fed and clothed the race would perish.

ILl.u.s.tRATING ITS IMPORTANCE.

Mr. and Mrs. Adams with their children, John, aged 14, and Mary, aged 12, lived in the city. Like many other city children, John and Mary knew but little of the country, and did not seriously consider farming or anything connected with it. Their father and mother, however, had come from the farm, and they decided to help John and Mary to obtain correct ideas of the country and of a life such as they lived in their younger days.

"John, where did this bread come from?" asked Mr. Adams, at dinner.

"Why, mother bought it at the baker's, I suppose."

"Very well, but where did the baker get it?"

"Oh, I know," said Mary, "he makes it."

"But what is it made of?" continued the father.

"There is flour in it," said John, "and water, and--and--lots of other things."

"A boy never knows anything about cooking; let me tell," said Mary.

"Bread is made of flour, water and yeast and--what else do they put in it, mother?"

"I don't see as you know much more about it than I do," said John.

"You children can learn how to make bread some other time," said Mr.

Adams; "I want to know where the baker got his flour."

"He bought it of the wholesale grocer," replied John.

"Well, where did the grocer get it?"

"That is about as far as I can go," said John. "I have often wondered where all the things we eat come from, but I have so many things to study in school that I don't have time to read about anything more."

"Well," replied the father, "suppose we make a little study of these things at dinner. Let us begin with the bread. What you and Mary have said is true, but we need to look into the subject a little further, if we would know the real source from which we obtain bread and all other articles of food. The real source of all these is the farm, and were it not for the farmers all the people who live in the city, as we do, should soon be without food."

"Why, I never thought of that before; I never supposed the farmer amounted to much, anyway," said John. Mary expressed a similar idea, and both asked their father to tell them about those common articles of food which we all eat without giving a thought to the source from which they come or the labor required to prepare them for our use.

During the next few days Mr. Adams took the children on a number of imaginary journeys. With him they visited in fancy the great wheat fields of the Dakotas and Canada, the corn belt in Illinois and Iowa, the cattle ranches of Texas and Montana, the fruit orchards of the Pacific states, the dairy farms and creameries of Wisconsin, the sugar plantations of Louisiana, the beet farms of Michigan and Colorado, and the poultry farms near some of our great cities. Then he took them to far-off lands--to the coffee plantations of Brazil, the tea gardens of Formosa, the rice plantations of China and the spice groves of India.

Before these imaginary excursions were ended, John and Mary learned that everything they ate, except salt, came from a farm in some part of the world and that agriculture was carried on in every country. But Mr. Adams did not stop here. In the same delightful way he led the children to the study of cotton, flax, wool, and silk, so that they were convinced that we depend upon the farm for what we wear as well as for what we eat. In their minds the farmer at once became a very important individual.

PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE.--Agriculture began when the first man selected plants for his food. His next step was to scratch the ground with a stick and plant seed. Then he took a forked stick and made a plow of it. Two or more men hauled this plow while another held it in position. But this labor was too hard, so man tamed the ox and the a.s.s and made them do the hauling and the carrying of his burdens, as well.

From these simple beginnings, agriculture has advanced through the centuries until to-day traction engines haul over our great wheat fields gang plows that turn more than fifty furrows at a time. Later these same engines haul over the fields of ripened grain a machine which at one operation harvests, thrashes and sacks the grain ready for market--does everything, one humorist says, except to cash the check for the crop.

Such has been the progress in agriculture since the middle of the last century that the labor of producing a bushel of wheat with the most modern appliances has been reduced from a little over three hours to about ten minutes. Formerly it required four and one-half hours' labor to produce a bushel of corn; now it requires less than forty minutes.

Then, it took thirty-five and one-half hours' labor to grow a ton of hay; now, it takes eleven hours and thirty-four minutes. But this is not all. Production has been increased many fold; new and better varieties of grains, vegetables, fruits and live stock are being constantly produced; the use of agricultural machinery has enabled the farmer to give more attention to the business side of his affairs, and the best farms are now operated on a systematic plan which includes both the fields and the home.

CAUSES OF PROGRESS.--While the progress of agriculture may seem to have been slow, it has advanced about as rapidly as other arts. The more rapid advance of recent times is due chiefly to the following causes:

_Transportation._--It is of no advantage to the farmer to raise crops that he cannot market; therefore, good roads form one of the most essential conditions to his success. Of these the country has far too few, but railways have become so numerous that most farms are now within a few miles of a station if not directly on the railway itself.

Increased facilities for marketing his crop have greatly increased the farmers' production.

_Machinery._--The machines which have done most towards the progress of agriculture are the harvester, or reaping machine, the gang plow, the seeder and the horse hoe. What these have accomplished in reducing the cost of production is told in the preceding paragraph. Without these inventions cultivation of the large farms in the Prairie states and the Canadian provinces of the Northwest would be impossible. Many other machines have also contributed their share. Among these are the steam thrasher, the traction engine, the gasoline engine, and the cream separator. Moreover, we must not forget the improvement in the simpler farm implements such as the hoe, the spade, the rake, and the ax, which, by being made lighter and of better material than in the long-ago, have enabled those using them to do more work with less expenditure of strength.