582 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



boys and girls who choose other occupations or callings. You have 

 labored long and hard, and at times under great discouragements, 

 to advance and protect the interests of the agricultural classes 

 whom you represent. 



We will not at this time attempt to give a detailed history of the 

 work accomplished by your persistent and self-sacrificing efforts 

 in and for the cause of agriculture since the organization of this 

 Board over thirty years ago. Suffice it to say that through the 

 medium of the Farmers' Institutes and many other channels which 

 were children of your creation, there has through them been taught 

 and disseminated a line of agricultural knowledge that has been and 

 will be of untold benefit to the agricultural classes of the Com- 

 monwealth. The history of the success of years of effort are re- 

 corded in the annual reports of the State Board and Department of 

 Agriculture from the date of your organization, so that he who 

 runs may read and accord honor to whom honor is due and credit 

 to whom credit is due. The interest you have taken in advanced 

 agricultural education is familiar to all and the results achieved 

 will ever redound to your credit. 



But as much as we may have reason to be elated over the success 

 attained, we must remember that the accomplishment of so great a 

 work demands the united efforts of all our State agricultural or- 

 ganizations to bring about the desired end; hence, it was by the 

 united and persistent efforts of the allied agricultural organizations 

 of Pennsylvania, through their executive and legislative commit- 

 tees, backed by the progressive farmers of the State that secured 

 the passage of a bill, which was promptly signed hy our Honorable 

 Executive himself — a farmer — appropriating a sum sufficient t© 

 build and equip an agricultural building at our State Agricultural 

 College, so long needed, that will be an honor and credit to our 

 great agricultural state, and which accord us a place among the 

 Agricultural Colleges of our sister states which we should have 

 held long ago. So as a Board, with the allied organizations, we 

 may well feel elated and congratulate ourselves on the success 

 achieved in this line of work. 



But our efforts must not stop work so auspicously begun in aid 

 of agricultural education and investigation. The buildings are an 

 assured fact and will soon be completed as the next Legislature is 

 practically pledged to appropriate the remaining .|15(),000 for their 

 completion. But we have learned that State institutions are not 

 run without liberal appropriations, and the appropriation of fG,000 

 a year for maintenance of the Agricultural Department of the Col- 

 lege is entirely inadequate to do the v.ork Avhicli the farmers of the 

 State will rightly demand, and we recommend that the sum first 

 suggested by the allied organizations, namely 130,000, be asked for 



