THE RESULTS OF AGRICULTURAL EXTIiNSION IN BELGIUM. 



Translated and summarized by J. M. Stedman, Assistant Farmers' Institute 

 Specialist, Office of Experiment Stations. 



INTRODUCTION. 



Special interest is now felt throughout the United States in agri- 

 cultural extension. State and national legislators, the managers of 

 the great transportation companies, the officers of boards of trade, 

 residents in towns and cities, as well as educators and educational 

 institutions, particularly the agi-icultural colleges and experiment 

 stations, and State and national departments of agi-iculture, all 

 have suddenly come to realize the immediate and paramount im- 

 portance of the practice of a better agriculture by the gi'eat body of 

 farming people in the United States. Just now attention is turned 

 as never before toward the discovery of effective and economic 

 methods for accomplishing this end. 



That which has come upon this country with such suddenness was 

 felt by older nations years ago and efforts were then begun to pro- 

 vide for the future food requirements of their growing populations 

 before these populations would have overtaken production and their 

 people be face to face with insufficient means for self-support. In 

 endeavoring to solve the problems that land impoverishment had 

 brought upon them various experiments were tried by different 

 countries with varying degrees of success. 



An examination of the present condition of agriculture in European 

 countries, compared with that when attention to better farming first 

 began, shows that there has been great advance and that the limit 

 of production has not yet been reached. The results that have been 

 accomplished in one of the smallest countries of Europe — Belgium — 

 and the methods that were employed in effecting her remarkable 

 advance have been set forth in detail in a recent publication ' by the 

 minister of agriculture of that country giving the methods em- 

 ployed in each Province, and the rise in price of agricultural lands, 

 and increase in their productive power during the last 25 years. 



This report is of special interest just now because extension work 

 has been carried on in Belgium long enough and thoroughly enough 



1 L' Agriculture Beige de 1885 &. 1910. Monographies publl^es H I'occasion du XXV 

 anniversaire de I'lnstitution du service des agronomes de I'^tat. Louvain, Imprimerie 

 Femand Giele, rue de la Station 15, 1910. 



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