REPORT OF ASSISTANT DAIRY INSTRUCTOR. 



To Hon. /. A. Roberts, Commissioner of Agriculture: 



It is with much pleasure that I submit to you this report of 

 work done under my direction the past year, leading to seed 

 and crop improvement in Maine. There is no one improvement 

 in our agricultural methods which will give us at once results 

 so financially attractive and so conducive to personal satisfaction 

 as seed and crop improvement. 



How much more pleasant it is to grow a crop which is uni- 

 form as to variety, which is free from disease and weak plants, 

 and which gives us a large yield, than to grow crops made up 

 of mixed varieties or strains, and crops of which the yield has 

 been reduced by disease or hereditary weaknesses of the plant. 



A rapidly spreading interest has been noted the past year 

 in the slogan which has been our motto, "Better Seeds for 

 Maine." We have at all times kept this motto in mind and 

 have urged its importance by means of the press, lectures at 

 institutes and grange halls, by correspondence, and by personal 

 conversation while in the field. 



Holding as I have the position of secretary of the Maine 

 Seed Improvement Association, close cooperation has been main- 

 tained between this division of your department and the asso- 

 ciation, to the mutual advantage of both. Short mention of this 

 association may not be out of place in this report. The Maine 

 Seed Improvement Association was organized January 25, 1910, 

 with the following Declaration of Purposes : 



'Tt is the purpose of this association to promote the agricul- 

 tural interests of the state: 



1st. By establishing more cordial relations between the farm- 

 ers of the state, thus enabling them to act unitedly for the bet- 

 terment of rural pursuits. 



