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

To acquire a badge in Nut Culture, kids would literally have to culture nuts, like grow nuts and other legumes in their back yards. Fortunately for kids with peanut allergies, this badge was discontinued in 1954.

Masonry was one of the original 57 boy scout badges, and required boys to gain a thorough knowledge of contemporary stonework. Not the least handy badge to have, but maybe a little heavy for some kids.

This badge was actually pretty good. Consumer buying taught boys how to shop smart, and requirements for the badge included studying consumer laws, reviewing a company's customer service policy, and thinking critically about ad campaigns.

This boy scout badge was available until 1987. They apparently knew that print media was on its way out even then.

No, the predator on this badge is not meant to be the boy scout but the animal he was responsible for stalking through the woods. This was not, however, a hunting badge. Scouts had to identify footprints, follow an animal for one quarter mile, and photograph it before it could run away.

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.

While the General Science badge was eliminated so kids could learn more specifics, the Dairying badge was eventually eliminated so that kids could gain a more broad knowledge of livestock with the Animal Science badge created in 1975.

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.

Cotton farming consisted of exactly what it sounds like. It was eliminated in 1975, thank god.

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.