Agricultural Extension Law. 329 



inquire into the agricultural status, to discover the causes of the 

 rural depression, and to suggest means for improving the farmer's 

 position. This attempt has been specifically directed to a single 

 great branch of rural industry, horticulture, in pursuance of the 

 provisions of the law ; but what is true of the horticultural com- 

 munities is esseuiially true of other agricultural regions, and, 

 morever, these two types of agricultural industry cannot be sepa- 

 rated by arbitrary lines. The work, therefore, has practically 

 resulted in a broad study of rural economics. We conceive that 

 it is impossible to really extend the Experiment Station and 

 University impulse to the people in such manner that it shall come 

 to them as a living and quickening force, without first studying 

 the fundamental difficulties of the farmers' social and political 

 environment. 



In this extension work, therefore, we have sought not so much 

 for new facts as for some way of driving home the old facts. We 

 have tried to set forces at work which would silently extend them- 

 selves when we had left them. Fortunately, we have been greatly 

 aided by the hard times and the multitudes of bugs and special 

 difficulties. These things have driven people to thinking and to 

 asking for information. The agricultural communities are 

 thoroughly aroused, and now is the time to teach. When one is 

 thoroughly prosperous in his business, there is little chance — as, 

 in fact, there is generally little need — of teaching him other 

 methods. 



The efforts to reach the people, in the progress of our work, 

 may be classified under five general heads. These efforts have all 

 been experiments in methods of extension teaching as applied to 

 horticulture. We have tried to ascertain the value of: 



(i.) The itinerant or local experiment as a means of 



teaching. 

 (2.) The readable expository bulletin. 

 (3.) The itinerant horticultural school. 

 (4.) Elementary instruction in the rural schools. 

 (5.) Instruction by means of correspondence and reading 

 courses. 

 In the local experimental work, something over one hundred 

 different experiments have been planned and prosecuted in differ- 



