In your study of grammar you have learned that both long and short sentences consist of essential elements and their adjuncts and that any of the parts may be compound.

In this chapter and in the preceding one you have analyzed many well-constructed sentences; and you have found that in them the parts fit neatly together. Each part has a definite work to perform in expressing the speaker's thought, and therefore, a definite place in the construction of the sentence. Some of the sentences you have analyzed have been taken from literary sources (§§ 42-44). Others were found in technical magazines and bulletins, and in advertising material. Sentences from the last-named sources are generally as well constructed as those from literature. But occasionally we find very loose writing in books and articles written especially to give information. This is illustrated by Exercise 105 and by the passages in the next exercise. In Exercise 106, some of the groups of words that are written as sentences have no verbs and so are not sentences. Others do not "hang together." You cannot analyze them.

Exercise 106

Try to analyze these passages. Explain your difficulties in doing so. Get the author's thought as well as you can, and express it in clear, well-constructed sentences.

1. Two of the best ready-market crops grown in this district are Irish and Sweet Potatoes. The yield is large and are usually planted, Irish Potatoes in February which are harvested in April, then on the same, ground follow with Sweet Potatoes, which are harvested in the Fall, and followed with Winter crop of Oats or Clover. The average yield per acre of Irish Potatoes being 100 to 200 bushels, and of Sweet Potatoes 200 to 500 bushels; while under especially favorable conditions, as high as 1000 bushels have been obtained from one acre, with prices ranging from 50 cts. to $ 1.00 per bushel, according to time of year.

2. It is possible to raise two crops of tomatoes on the same • ground, the first crop marketed in May and the last in November or near Thanksgiving. The profits running from $200 to $400 per acre.

3. To a basket of berries, washed and thoroughly mashed with a fork, put four tablespoonfuls of granulated sugar and one bottle of cream, after it has been stiffly whipped; made early in the morning left to chill in the ice-box, and is served in small glass cups.

4. The largest amount of money ever offered for the production of a single flower was $ 100,000 for a perfectly black tulip over three hundred years ago during the tulip craze in Holland.

Topics For Composition

Decide upon the different things you want to tell and make an outline.

Before writing a division of the composition, think how to make it clear and interesting, choosing your words carefully.

Then, when you begin to write, you will be able to give thought to the construction and punctuation of each sentence.

1. A letter of application for a position.

a. The occasion of your writing.

b. Your qualifications.

c. Your references.

d. Your desire to succeed and willingness to do your best.

2. The opening ball game of the season.

3. One definite plan for the improvement of home grounds or school grounds.

4. Attracting song birds.

5. The protection of song birds.

6. Uses of the telephone.

7. What the mouse saw.

8. Testing the vitality of seed corn: (1) its importance, (2) a good method.

9. Learning to ride a bicycle.

10. An afternoon I kept house.

11. A kind deed.

12. Some suggestions to the users of telephones.

Topics For Short Talks

Do not fill up pauses with and's, er's, or well's.

1. A "good fellow."

2. A likable girl.

3. How to reach some well-known place in your town. (Let the class see if a stranger could find the place by following the directions).

4. Some piece of public work that is going on in the vicinity.

5. The advantages of a public playground for the summer.

6. The advantages of a school garden.

7. The work of my Sunday school class.

8. The first railroad trip that I remember.