1 he Farm School.
IxiHors  Indiana  Farmer
I wish still further to illustrate tlie evidence of creative thought in animal anatomy; and the eye and ear will serve the
purpose admirably.
The eye is a globular organ, plated in
the best possible position for seeing. It
rests in a bony cavity, just deep enough
to shield it from accidental blows, and not
too deep to allow the eye a perfect visual
angle.
Within this socket, there is a perfect
cushion of fat, where the ball can turn
without friction; and there are three pairs
of muscles so attache.] as to turn the eye
upward, sidewise, oblique-wise and downward.
The muscle that turns the eye downward is a most wonderful contrivance; impossible by any supposition to be the crea- i
ture of accident. To attach that muscle |
to the bony wall below would make it
play right across the track of the nerve
of sight that passes from the brain
through tlie lower side of this wall to the
eye-ball. So it is attached at the upper
side and connected with the back part of
the ball above this nerve. But this would
never turn the eye-ball downward. Iu
fact, it would not turn it at all. But the
contractor who had undertaken to make
a ball that would turn iu every direction
devised a pulley-loop: namely, a hole in
the rim of the bony socket, through
which that particular muscle must play.
Thus the rear side of the ball is elevated.
and the front side, turned downward; the
lower oblique muscles co-operating with
the one which passes through the loop.
There is not a pulley in any factory more
evidently planned thau is this one.
Then the eye has some other wonderful
designs in its construction. The ball is
round and of the right size to contain just
the proper amount of liquid humors. But
the surface of a ball of tbat sine is relatively a little too flat for correct refraction of the light. So there is a front portion laid on, not so flat, and through this
the light takes exactly the right direction.
Any one can see this "watch crystal" on
another person's eye-ball by looking at it
from one side. It iss clearer than the
finest glass, and 'behind it is a liquid
quite as clear. Behind this again is a
lens, shaped like a button, thin at the
edges and fuller at the middle part. This
has the wonderful power of contracting
and expanding, so as to be a little thicker
or thinner, according to the distance of the
object to be seen. Attached near its edges
■ire little curtains that fold forward or
backward, so as to let in, through the little black spot called the pupil, just the
proper amount of light. If the light is
strong these 'ciliary processes," as the cur-
';iins are called, are so moved as to make
•he pupil smaller; and, in a very strong
!ight, it is not larger than a pinhead. In
•i shadowy light, the pupil is enlarged,
hy the folding hack of these curtains,
v"metimes appearing more than a quar-
•t of an inch in diameter. So the same
' •■ can see things distant or near, nnd in
;i light, bright or dim, all by mechanical
'""trivanees operated without the action
'"" our own will.
The lens mentioned last is called the
1 rystalline lens; and the rays of light prev-
'""sly caught by the front lens, called the
" Tea, are turned toward one another so
•ls to come to a point, called focus, right
:it the rear of the Iball, where the nerve
"'sight is spread out to receive them.
This nerve is spread on a black surface
'"'Hed the retaina, and its dense blackness
ls what we see as the pupil.      The pupil
itself is a perfectly clear way iuto the
retina, and it appears black because we
see at the rear side of the ball, the "pig-
mentum" through it. Upon this black surface the image of the thing we look at is
projected; but the process is too complicated to be explained iu full here.
The ear is quite as wonderful as the
eye. The ends of the nerve of hearing
(atfditory nerve) are distributed in a liquid about as fluid as water. This secures an action of the waves of sound on
all of the nerve at once; for liquids act
instantaneously in every part. This liquid is caused to vibrato by the weaves into
which  the  air is  thrown  when sound  is
WHY CORN TURNS YELLOW.
Editors Indlsna  Farmer
In reply to W. W., of Clarke county,
who inquires as to the cause of his corn
crop turning yellow, possibly a little experience of mine (I am a Missouri farmer)
will help him to see wherein he has erred.
Several years ago I was a great believer
in clover and green manure ofl all kinds.
In the summer of 1903. I had a fine stand
of clover. The first crop made nearly 2%
tons   of  hay   to  the  acre. The  latter
part of the season being wet, the second
crop was nlmosr as heavy as the first
crop.
I  wanted  to raise  a  fine crop of corn
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Centralized Schools to Stay.
Editors  Indiana Farmer
1 see In a recent issue, I. D. R., of Clinton county, stays that school centralization
has proved a failure and that the hack
business is not only expensive but dangerous. Down here in Bartholomew
county, Ilawcreek township, we have
three wagons running. The drivers get
$1,60 per day and furnish their own
teams. The trustee furnishes the wagons. They abandoned three school houses
here, whieh would have an average of 11
scholars, and a teacher for each school at
a salary of $2.50 a day, besides the fuel
and other expenses attached. They simply transfer the scholars from these weak
schools and make a strong school, at the
same time greatly reducing the cost.
The utility of centra lizion is that from
the moment the scholars enter the wagon
they are under the care of a competent
driver or the teacher until they arrive at
home in the evening. The parents have
no fears of their son or daughter being
brought home with frozen feet, even if it
registers ten below zero. They surely
have careless drivers up in Clinton, if
they allow the children to hang onto the
side of the hacks. If our drivers would
; suffer that, they would not hold their
"1 job. We are not afraid to put 20 or 30
children in a closed vehicle, for we have
careful drivers and the youngsters are in
no more danger than if they were riding in
a railroad coach. School centralization
is like rural mail delivery. It has come
to stay. . A.   D.  G.
Bartholomew Co.
A Texas  Irrigation   Pumping  Station, on the Southern  Pacific Railroad.
produced, and the nerve of hearing receives the waves and communicates them
to the brain.
In the construction of the ear
the Creator has done some things that
the wisest of men have never been able
to  comprehend. There   are  four  very
small bones, connected in such a manner
as to carry these vibrations from the "outer" through the "middle" to the "inner"
ear. There is a snail-shell spiral cavity,
together with three canals shaped like
horse shoes, so arranged that the three
planes enclosed by them are at right angles with one another, just like the three
dimensions of a cube. As these canals
are in all kinds of ears, they are evidently indispensable; and yet their purpocse
has never been made out. But men have
supposed them to aid in deciding the direction from which a sound approaches. As
that mystery has never been solved either,
it is possible that the one mystery balances tlie other.
Who has not noticed the action of a
horse when a sound reaches him? Both
ears are instantly turned, forward, backward or sideward, and thus he poses to
listen. But what causes him to know
which way to turn them? It is one
of the most marvelous things in all nature, and many a philosopher has puzzled
his head over the study of it.
"God understandeth the way thereof,
and he knoweth the place thereof; for he
looketh to the ends of the earth, land
seeth under the whole heaven." Job
XXVIII :23, 24.
In the next lesson I will consider, more
briefly the other organs of sense, those
of touch, taste and smell.
Rush Co. W. S. S.
on this field, so I turned the clover under
late   in   the   fall. The   next   spring  I
planted corn as usual, but when it came
up it failed to grow, and turned out even
worse than W. W.'s corn. I was so disgusted that I plowed the field, about June
10th, and sowed it to cow peas. Even-
this crop failed to grow, so I wrote to the
State Experiment Station and received
the suggestion that my land was sour.
1 let the cow peas grow all they would,
and in December burned them off. Shortly
afterwards I applied 700 pounds of lime
per acre (the field contained 8\_ acres),
and plowed it under in the spring for corn.
Last year I made up for the loss of my
1904 crop in a yield of 62 bushels of corn
per acre, above the average for this section.
Ithink the field to which W. W. refers must be soured by the excessive
amount of organic matter turned under,
especially if the season was too wet to
favor rapid decomposition. I suggest
that if his field is still in this sour condition he apply air slaked lime or ground
limestone, at the rate of 400 to 800
pounds per acre, and turn it under. It
may be wise to burn off the field before
applying the lime.
This has proved advantageous in Missouri. Why not the same in Indiana under similar contritions? II. A. H.
Webster Groves, Mo.
In some ectiOns of the country rural
mail carriers are using motor cycles to
make their daily rounds.
A farm is incomplete unless it can supply its owner and his family with plenty
of home grown fruit.
CENTRALIZATION    XOT   DESIRED.
Ktllrors   Indiana   Farmer:
This is an important subject. It is one
of the greatest questions that our State
has had to deal with, for it affects the individual, the family, society aud the
State. What does consolidation mean?
It means an increase of taxes, a loss on
much of our school property, the purchase
of other property, an outlay of $300 to
$1,000 for hacks, the $2 a day or more,
for men and teams, eight to nine months
sk-hool, and a'bout hall! tlie present number of teachers. It means an uneven development of our country, aud an advance
in the value of the lands near ihe school,
at the expense of those more remotely situated.
It opens up a wider field for "graft." It
means a step toward communism and
socialism, for the turning of young children over to the state from eight to ten
hours a day for the school term. It
means that you place your children in the
same line with those of the reform schools
of the State: the wiping out of those conditions best suited for the development of
broad-minded, intelligent, healthy and
Inmost boya anil girls, the State's future
citizens and the parents of the next generation. In short it means complete revolution of the common school system. Are
you ready for that?
The merits of a cause can often be
measured by its advocates. Who are
the advocates of consolidation? Possibly
some parents who live a mile or more
from  school. It   is  advocated   by   the
s< hool supply firms. . It is advocated by
Supterintendent Cotton, and is one of his
great hobbies; it will be remembered that
higher wages for teachers is another
holbby of his. It is advocated by a certain class of county superintendents, and
by many who do not really know what it
means.
If those high in authority cannot devise  and  put  in    practice  a     system   of