REPORT 01* SEED IMPROVEMENT WORK. 43 



Meetings. No. Attendance. 



Dairy Testing Associations lo 440 



Granges 6 914 



Breeders' Associations 2 89 



Farmers' Institutes 2 287 



Seed Improvement Association ... 3 51 



Poultry Association i 32 



24 1813 



Seventeen of tliese meetings have been held in two sessions. I 

 have devoted considerable time to chart and demonstration work 

 in the lectures which I have presented and have endeavored to 

 make them as informal as possible. In addition to the above 

 meetings, three weeks of my time were devoted to the demon- 

 stration work on the "A'lodern Farming Special" which made a 

 tour of the State in June, and another week was spent at the 

 New England Corn Exposition at Worcester, Mass., in No- 

 vember. 



GENERAL. 



In addition to the card system of reporting daily work, I have 

 kept a detailed record of visits to members; these records give 

 such information as interest taken, character of experiments, 

 and crop experimenting work. A card filing system is also 

 employed for keeping an alphabetical list of members, accord- 

 ing to counties, and a record is kept on the cards of the work 

 done by each. 



In meeting and conversing with the farmers of the State, 

 I have tried to emphasize the importance of seed selection in 

 all crops and have discussed its relation to yields per acre. 



During the months of March and April, 1910, germination 

 tests were conducted with corn, small grains and grasses for 

 any farmer of the State who desired this information regard- 

 ing the seed he was to plant. This is, indeed, an important 

 phase of work and is worthy of more attention from the De- 

 partment. Although there is a law at the present time, requir- 

 ing a purity test of seed, it seems that the germination per- 

 centage is of sufficient importance to receive some attention 

 from the coming Legislature. 



Great credit is due the members of the Seed Improvement 



