42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



each, the largest edition of any Government publication. That 

 goes to the farmers all over the coimtry. It also goes to the 

 libraries, as it constitutes a valuable work for reference, and is 

 thus made accessible to every farmer in the land. We also 

 publish a farmers' bulletin, which goes all over the country. It 

 is distributed broadcast. We are attempting in every way pos- 

 sible to cooperate with the experiment stations and with the 

 farmers' institute work. Many of our men are delivering lec- 

 tures and talking in that way. 



I may say that our methods are undergoing something of 

 a revolution. You have perhaps heard of the famous corn 

 trains of the West, of the vegetable trains, apple trains, etc., 

 which have been utilized as a means of spreading knowledge of 

 these crops. I never realized what a success those trains were 

 until I was detailed on one of the corn trains in Iowa last 

 season. The value of that method for distributing knowledge 

 simply depends upon the simplicity of the facts which are being 

 taught. Let me illustrate that. I joined a corn train in Iowa 

 at Sioux City in February of last year. On a Monday morning 

 we pulled out from the station in Sioux City running south. 

 It was snowing very hard. You could hardly see across the 

 street. There were at least two feet of snow on a level. When 

 we pulled into a little station with probably not more than a 

 couple of dozen houses I never was so surprised in my life 

 as I was to see teams lined up for almost half a mile about that 

 little station, and I would be willing to wager that three car- 

 loads of people were packed into a small space waiting to be 

 addressed. There were so many of them they could hardly 

 get in. At every station we visited that day, and I think it was 

 fourteen different places, giving talks of half an hour each, 

 we had from four hundred to five hundred people present. 

 And that in spite of the inclemency of the weather. Such a 

 movement under the direction of the State Board of Agricul- 

 ture, and of the Department, in conjunction with the experi- 

 ment stations, is certainly of the greatest value in enabling us 

 to bring to the farmers here and there information which they 

 otherwise would never get. It savors of political speaking 

 from the back platform of a train, but I believe that men will 

 attend those trains that never would attend a farmers' institute 

 meeting. The Department is endeavoring to aid in this move 

 ment so far as lies in its power. 



