Extension Work in Horticulture. 5(>3 



binding together the University, the rural schools, and all rural 

 literary or social societies; (3) itinerant or local experiment and 

 investigation, made chiefly as object-lessons to farmers and not 

 for the purpose, primarily, of discovering scientific facts; (4) the 

 publication of reading bulletins which shall inspire a quickened 

 appreciation of rural life, and which may be used as texts in 

 rural societies and in the reading courses, and which shall pre- 

 pare the way for the reading of the more extended literature in 

 books; (5) the sending out of special agents as lecturers or teach 

 ers, or as investigators of special local diflSculties, or as itinerant 

 instructors in the normal schools and before the training classes 

 of the teachers' institutes; (6) the itinerant agricultural school, 

 somewhat after the plan of our horticultural schools, which shall 

 be equipped with the very best teachers and which shall be given 

 as rewards to the most intelligent and energetic communities. 



All these agencies, to be most efficient, should be under the 

 direction of a single bureau wholly removed from partisan politi- 

 cal influence and intimately associated with investigational work 

 in agriculture. Such a bureau should also have most intimate 

 relations with the Department of Public Instruction, for not only 

 must the public schools be reached, but teachers must be trained. 

 The teachers in our public schools are now of a high grade, and 

 they will quickly seize opportunities to prepare themselves to 

 teach the elements of rural science. There should be facilities 

 placed at the disposal of every normal school in the state, where- 

 by it may receive courses of lectures upon rural subjects from 

 teachers of recognized ability, and teaching-helps, in the way of 

 expository leaflets, should be placed in the hands of every teacher 

 who desires them. All this v>^ork of carrying the modern uni- 

 versity extension impulse to the country, is too important and 

 too fundamental to be confined to any one particular agricultural 

 interest or to any one district of the state; and it is a work, too, 

 which should be treated as a teaching extension and not as an 

 experiment station extension. 



In conclusion, I must say that the farmers, as a whole, are 

 willing and anxious for education. They are difficult to reach 



