572 REPORT OF OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



of Wiisliiiij,'(i'ii, |). ('. Ollicci-s 111' tlic Dfipartiiitiit have in stvcnil iiistiuiccs vnliin- 

 t«'»'if<l !<• <lirc(l llu'sc experiments outside of olliee lioiirs. < ►iii-of tlu' most sneeessful 

 of tliese exiieiimeiits was eoudiieletl on tlie |)e|iartment <rroiniiis with ii elass of SO 

 lioys nii<l ^'irls from a near-l>y school, mitler the ihrection of the seienee t*'a<-her in 



tile iiiiriiial school of the city. 



'I'lic piiltlicatioiis of the DopiutnuMit (liiiin<i' the past yojir were issued 

 ill lai OCT iiuinhers and were more widely distributed tliiiii ever ])efore. 

 The totid munber of })ublicatioiis issued in lUOH was i>88, as coniiwired 

 with 757 in l!t(ii>. The total luiinber of eopies of tdl publications issued 

 in 19(»8 ao«.r(.oated not tar from 12,(100,000, of which about 7,000,000 

 were farmers' bulletins, rudoubtedly the educational intluence of 

 this immense volume of literature on our afjricultui-al population gen- 

 erally is very great, but it is also noteworthy that the number of 

 Department publications sent directly to schools in the cities as well 

 as in the country districts is already Jary'c and is steadily increasing. 



'fc^ """^ "' ■'^^"^'".' ...^.^l*.J,WJ,. 



EDUCATIONAL WORK OF THE OFFICE OF EXPERIMENT STATIONS. 



While the other Bureaus of the Department have done valuable edu- 

 cational work along the lines of research in which they are engaged, 

 the Office of Experiment Stations has continued to act as a general 

 agenc}' for the promotion of agricultural education throughout the 

 United States, and has enlarged the scope and extent of this branch of 

 its work during the past year. Special attention is being given to the 

 better organization of our system of tigricultural education, so that it 

 m:iy include properly graded courses of instruction reaching from the 

 graduate school and the college to the common schools, and may embrace 

 all the branches of agriculture considered as both a science and an art. 

 Part of this work is being done in cooperation with the Association of 

 American Agriculturtd Colleges and Experiment Stations, the Director 

 of this Office l)eing chairman of the standing conunittee on methods of 

 teaching agriculture. During the past year there have been ;ui unusual 

 numl)cr of opportunities to present the claims of agricultural educa- 

 tion through public addresses, and in this way representatives of this 

 Office have urged this matter on the attention of a considerable num- 

 ber of public men, educators, students, and influential farmers in dif- 

 ferent States. 



As regards the agricultural colleges, the Office has especially endeay- 

 ored during the past year to aid the movement for the development 

 of courses in rural engineering, the establishment of courses in that 

 branch of this subject entitled farm mechanics being particular!}^ agi- 

 tated in the colleges at this time. An account of the progress thus far 

 made in this line in our colleges is given later in this report. Some 

 attention is now being given to rural economics, a subject which is 

 beginning to take more definite pedagogical form in a few of our col- 

 leges, and which should be more extensively studied and taught in 



