10 Weird Boy Scout Badges We're Kind Of Glad Are Discontinued

Aspiring Eagle Scouts no longer sew these patches onto their merit badge sashes, much to the chagrin of taxidermists and almond farmers everywhere. 1. Nut Culture Scouts learned how to raise an assortment of nuts and legumes en route to earning this badge before it was eliminated in 1954. 2. Masonry One of the Boy Scouts of America’s original 57 merit badges, “Masonry” instilled a basic understanding of contemporary stonework. 3. Consumer Buying Rest assured—the organization’s never condoned purchasing actual human shoppers. Instead, this merit badge aimed to help young men become astute, thrifty customers. Requirements included studying consumer laws, reviewing a given company’s customer service policy, and critically evaluating advertising campaigns. 4. Bookbinding The BSA struck an early blow against print media by canning this one in 1987. 5. Stalking Requirements included identifying assorted animal footprints, tracking a creature for one-quarter of a mile, and photographing some of the beasts you’ve silently followed. 6. General Science This badge, which did a pretty good job of teaching kids about science for a while, was actually eliminated for the great reason of teaching kids even more about science. This badge originally included knowledge of astronomy, geology, microbiology, and meteorology, but fortunately, those all have their own category for earning a badge, giving boys more incentive to gain in-depth knowledge on the subjects. 7. Dairying Don’t have a cow, man. Instead of dying off entirely, elements of this merit badge merged with five others (Sheep Raising, Hog Farming, etc.) to form the Animal Science merit badge in 1975. 8. Blacksmithing This badge, eliminated in 1952, required boys to "forge a chain hook out of 3/4 x 1/2-inch soft steel or 3/4-inch round iron." We're just assuming kids worked out more before 1952, I guess. 9. Cotton Farming Cotton farming consisted of exactly what it sounds like. It was eliminated in 1975, thank god. 10. Skiing It was actually a pretty sad day for boy scouts when this badge was eliminated in 1999. The BSA lumped it in snowboarding for the Snow Sports badge, making it a lot harder to get a badge for it. Credits: mentalfloss Share this story on Facebook with your friends.

10 Weird Boy Scout Badges We’re Kind Of Glad Are Discontinued

By Zack Walkter
8 years ago

9. Cotton Farming

10. Skiing

9. Cotton Farming

10. Skiing

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