West Lebanon High School - Piker Yearbook (West Lebanon, IN)

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YIKER Vocational Agriculture Agriculture is essentially a practical arts subject. It is prepos- terous to assume that boys can become fully informed in the whole field of agriculture in one or two years. While information that can be directly applied to practical farm problems should be obtained by the boys who study agriculture, yet this is not the sole aim of the work. Agriculture, like other practical art subjects, requires that the pupil learn to do by doing. Then should result from school work the habit of putting into' practice the information gained through cllassroom discussion and laboratory experiments into direct contact with the actual problems of the farm home. Seeing the need of these principals Mr. C. M. Bowlus, in 1920, introduced Vocational Agriculture into the West Lebanon High School. From the very first the boys took a great deal of interest in the work. especially in the poultry course, and as a result some of them today own their own purebred flocks. The success that was had with the orchard is well known. The second year opened with a much larger class, Animal Hus- bandry and Farm Management being taught to the advanced classes and Botany and Horticulture to the beginners. During this year field trips were taken in Botany, studying trees, weeds and soils. Poul- try demonstrations were conducted by the class, and pruning and spraying were done in the Horticulture course. Some good judging of live stock was done in the Animal Husbandry class. Along with all of this several prizes were taken at the different fairs in the coun- ty with live stock and poultry. This last year Farm Management and Animal Husbandry were taught to Freshmen and Sophomores, and the methods followed were the same as the preceding year. The study of soils and crops was taken up by the Junior and Senior boys, many interesting experi- ments being tried out. Seed corn was gathered last year and tested this spring for germinating power and disease, wheat was treated for smut by the hot-water method, and every boy in the vocational class, with his father, is treating seed oats for smut. In addition most of the boys have gone into the potato club work with the idea of producing the best potatoes that were ever raised on their father's farms, as well as making a little money for school next fall. These are just a few of the things that the class is doing, and we expect to do even bigger things in the future. When Howard W. finished his proposition in Geometry he placed N. Q. F. at the end. Mr. Lehner- Why did you put N. Q. F. at the end instead of Q. E. D., Howard? ' Howard- That means not quite finished. Mr. Lehner- Oh, I've learned something new. Page 46