SUGGESTIONS FOR CHART MAKING

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zant," "Feed Ball" and "Spoonbill" pens and a good quality of round or flat showcard brushes are helpful additions to the equipment if much work is to be done on paper.

When printing and drawing are finished, go over the whole with

FIG. 193.-Figures for agricultural charts may often be copied from books, bulletins and catalogues. These three are from Lewis's Poultry Keeping.

a good quality of black wax crayon and retouch any weak spots. Then go over crayon work with the fixative, spraying it from a small hand sprayer similar to a perfume or medicine atomizer.

Errors may be obscured by sewing a piece of cloth over them

or by applying China white or Chemnitz white, or by applying tailors' mending tissue.

Using the Charts.-Charts frequently may be made to do teaching service without any person being present to talk about them. Charts used for this purpose must be quite complete and self-explanatory and should be so displayed that they are easily

FIG. 194. Collect or make pictures showing successive steps in various farm and garden operations, such as the six steps here shown for hotbed making. Use the sets of pictures on placards for your school room. (Kentucky Station.)

visible to those for whom they are intended. In using charts so arrange them that the class or audience sees only the chart upon which the teaching is concentrated at the time. Do not turn to a new chart until you have prepared your hearers for what it teaches, because as soon as it is exposed their attention will concentrate upon it to the loss of what you may be saying if you are talking upon a different topic. Place the charts where they are easily seen by all; care must be taken that those in the rear are able to see the bottom of the chart. The presence of charts should

not cause the speaker to omit the use of real objects. The best of charts are no substitute for the real thing. Have actual objects present when possible. They and the charts will be mutually complementary. As on any good class exercise, permit sensible, pertinent questions aimed at obtaining information, but do not allow your main purpose, which is to teach, to be thwarted by indiscriminate or voluminous questioning or by debate and wrangling. If there be charts in the set that are not applicable or that you do not wish to use because of lack of time, it is sometimes well to show them with a passing word of explanation rather than to appear to be keeping them obscured. Sometimes curiosity regarding the mysterious unshown chart will prevent concentration upon that which you desire them to learn.

Placards.-There is much use for placards in teaching agriculture. Cards of various sizes and qualities are used in making them. If pictures are to be printed or mounted on the cards, a good color for the card is gray. The cards should be heavy enough not to warp badly when pictures are pasted on them (Figs. 194 and 195). If a number of placards are to be made for use in the school-room and laboratory, it is well to have them uniform in size. A standard size of cardboard for this purpose is 22 by 28 inches.

Printed placards on many subjects may be obtained from the various offices of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Teachers should obtain many of these and also ask their own state college for placards that are useful in teaching.

Students and teachers should make placards on many agricultural subjects. Illustrate them with pictures from farm journals, bulletins, and catalogues. Have the lettering neat and plain, as suggested for the cloth charts.

Such placards may be stored flat on a large shelf in a store-room when not in use. They may be easily provided with eyelets for hanging on the wall. When desired, such cards may be suspended in series or tiers, one card being tied to the bottom of the card above it. They are thus easily folded together when taken down for storage.

Maps.—The regular political and physical maps belonging to the school should be available for use in agriculture. In addition to these, outline maps should be used for many purposes. An outline map of the United States, of the state, and if possible of the region, painted upon slated cloth, should be a part of the regular agriculture equipment. Areas devoted to certain types of farming,

FIG. 195.-A live teacher will obtain a good supply of instructive pictures and display them advantageously. Except on special occasions, they should be well distributed around the room. (W. C. Christensen and S. R. S., U. S. D. A.)

certain crops or animals, and the areas in which certain conditions of soil or marketing prevail, or certain pests or diseases are preva

lent, and countless other types of information can be illustrated on such blackboard maps. Outline paper maps of sufficient size for group use may be mounted upon pulp board and colored tacks used for the location of specified items of interest.

Small outline maps for the use of individual pupils may be used to record in graphic form some of the most interesting agricultural truths which will be better understood and more successfully remembered because of the pupil having thus worked out the truth on a geographic basis. All available maps of local, state, and regional agriculture, such as those relating to soils, animals, crops, and rural surveys, should be obtained. Enlargements of important census maps relating to agricultural topics of local interest may be worth making. This would not be difficult if a slide were first made and this projected as suggested in the making of charts. If there is a soil survey map of the state, it should be at hand at all times.

Lanterns. In the chapter on equipment the owning of stereopticons and slides was advocated. There are a half dozen good makes of stereopticon lanterns on the market each with its strong points. If the school does not own one, the teacher of agriculture should learn what sources of illumination are available not only in the school building but at the many points in the community where he will probably want to use the lantern, such as rural schools, farmers' club halls, stock pavilions, rural churches, fair buildings, and similar places. He can then choose the lantern best adapted to his needs in that regard. He must also know the approximate focal distance it will be possible to obtain in these various places and see that the lenses in the machine to be bought can be adapted to those distances without too small or too large an image or too slight definition. If he decides upon a machine that uses electricity, he must know whether his available current is direct or alternating and of what phase and voltage. If the places in which he expects to use it are not of uniform current, he must know whether he can obtain a rheostat or transforming device that will permit his using the same lantern on all circuits. Some lanterns can be furnished with an equipment for electricity and also one for gas. He will then need to decide whether his source of illumination, if electric, is to be of the arc or the incandescent type. The possibility of using a magneto light or storage light from an automobile, or of using a portable generator, should also be considered.

"To obtain list, see Appendix, p. 416.