Skip to Main Content

Agriculture: Home

Farming, cooking, health, nutrition, and land use

Stats

Statistics from the 2017 CENSUS OF AGRICULTURE  include items about types of farms and ranches, crops, and more.

Use the CENSUS DATA QUERY TOOL to auger down to the information you need.

HATHI TRUST

Use Hathi Trust materials to locate books, pamphlets, etc. on agricultural related topics.

Using the topic: Home Economics - you can get to the booklet: "A book of huswifery" which is a companion to "500 points of good husbandry" written in England in 1812.

 

AG in the Classroom - primary sources

undefined

 Agricutural topics are not just for Ag classes - science, culture, and even English classes can easily utilize the primary documents of agriculture.  The NAL offers many teaching primary source lessons. Look at journals written before chemical fertilizers and pesticides were common - perhaps we could look back to see the roots of organic growing? 

Agriculture in the Classroom brings a series of lessons for many ages on "Growing a nation".

Try any of these: 

Early years: 1600 - 1929
The war years
Post WWII  - growth and change
The Information Age... what's coming? How does it relate to the past?

Historical Agricultural Lit

You are going to LOVE this!  This is an amazing collection of agriculture- related magazines.  My favorite for the classroom:  Boys and Girls - a nature magazine for kids. This collection covers 1903 - 1907.  Articles on how to make your own museum, stories, and more.   
The other collections include Annual Reports, Cornell Ag Information, and it also includes a home nature-study course (1904-1911) .  Check these out for science, history, culture, and literature classes.

Farmer's Bulletins

Farmers' bulletins were written to give information to farmers and their families. They covered topics from apples to turnips, strawberries, sweet potatoes, soil health, and more.  Check it out: covers the years from the early 1900s - the 1950s.

The University of North Texas has an interesting collection to peruse:

Send your students to these for some fun discoveries - search for BEES, or CHICKENS or FLOWERS... agriculture classes, environmental science classes, and more.  Start your own garden or school beehive!