DjamgaMind Kids
George Washington Carver was born into slavery in Missouri, and he was a small, often unwell child. While other children ran about, George wandered into the woods.
There he found his life's work. He collected plants. He looked at leaves and roots and worked out what was wrong with sickly ones and how to make them well again. People nearby started calling him the plant doctor, and brought him their poorly seedlings.
When he grew up he became a scientist and a teacher in Alabama, and he noticed a serious problem. Farmers grew cotton in the same fields year after year, and the soil was growing tired. Tired soil grows almost nothing.
George knew something useful. Peanuts and sweet potatoes do not drain the soil — they feed it. So he told the farmers to plant peanuts one year and cotton the next, and let the ground rest and recover in between.
It worked. The soil came back. But now the farmers had mountains of peanuts and no idea what to do with them.
So George went into his laboratory and found hundreds of things to make from a peanut — soap, ink, paper, dye, milk, glue.
He gave nearly all of it away, because he thought knowledge should be free.
Goodnight, little scientist. The garden is sleeping too.
