Xo. C. DEPARTMENT OF AGKICLLTUHE. 489 



greatest drawback, and we have got to teach them, but we cauuot 

 teach them bj talkiug; we must have a blackboard and do the prob- 

 lem for them, and then they will be able to carry it with them and 

 whenever they are able to do that then you will create an interest 

 which will hold them, and they will go right to work in a business 

 wa}', 



I was interested the other day in reading an article on the great 

 performance of a dairy cow. It stated how much food she con- 

 sumed and how much butter she produced in seven days. It stated 

 it was the record-breaker, making over 30 pounds in seven days, 

 breaking the 30-day record and also the GO-day record. I found 

 the experiment was made at the New York Experimental Station. 

 I was anxious to know how that cow was fed and all about it, what 

 was the profit, and I simply took my lead pencil out of the desk 

 and I calculated the problem and found, after making a careful 

 calculation, just what per cent, of ration was used in feeding 

 that famous cow, just how much each pound of butter cost, how 

 much dry matter w^as consumed and all about it, and I discovered 

 that lots of Pennsylvania farmers have got cattle more profitable 

 than she is; while a record-breaker she is not a money coiner. 



I just simply want to say that I am heartily in favor of the black- 

 board, and that it should be used ten times more than it has been. 

 I think one reason that it has not been used is that it takes more 

 time and that the program is crowded. It is very much easier 

 for the lecturer to tell a person how to do it than to work the 

 problem out. These are my views about this question. 



MR. MILLER: I would just like to have a few minutes on this 

 subject. I was very much impressed at one of our institutes with 

 the illustrations given on the blackboard and there it was shown 

 in fifteen minutes w^hat most of the speakers could not explain in 

 sixty minutes. The lecturers will talk for hours, and after they 

 are done, ninety per cent, of the farmers will go out and not know 

 anything about it. These facts I have observed; but after the 

 illustration on the blackboard and explanation of the question, they 

 take hold of it and put in their diaries and papers and pocket it, 

 and afterwards talk about it. 



Then there was another thing besides a blackboard, and that 

 is the chalk, the colored chalk used in illustrating the way of 

 teaching, and it came into my mind that this State Board of Agri- 

 culture or the Secretary of Institutes or Managers of Institutes, if 

 they would have published these charts and distributed them to the 

 interested farmers of our county, it would have done more good than 

 all the agricultural books published ever since the publication of 

 these agricultural reports is in vogue, because there is a lesson 



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