290 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



iri uot pressing, generally beginning the first week in January. This 

 course is the most practical, because persons of any age over 15 

 years, without any previous preparation, can enter and receive 

 thorough instruction through recitations and lectures upon all farm 

 topics. To make it still handier and le®s expensive, the college and 

 Experiment Station is coming to us in the form of the Chautauqua or 

 Correspondence Course, and the Farmers' Institute. Here we have 

 to-day in our midst practical educators and scientists sent here at the 

 expense of the State, to solve and explain the perplexing questions 

 that confront us every day in the year. Now show me if you can 

 another class of citizens with an equal legislative favoritism for men- 

 tal improvement. 



Yet how few avail themselves of the simplest, inexpensive of all 

 chances, viz: The Farmers' Institute. To-day many are absent who 

 badly need the information by the State speakers, should they desire 

 to become ideal farmers. 



Another means of self culture is to own a farm library, obtain all 

 bulletins issued by the Experiment Station, subscribe for a number 

 of agricultural and stock papers, read and study all of these, com- 

 paring the methods used by successful farmers, formulating there- 

 from a system that is applicable to the locality and circumstances of 

 the individual. An article entitled "Dont's on the Farm," by Prof. 

 Geo. C. Butz, in a November issue of the American Agriculturist, is 

 not simply worth a years subscription, but hundreds of dollars an- 

 nually to any farmer that will put his advice into practice. I re- 

 cently heard a woman make the remark that she who would take the 

 Farm Journal and follow its instructions, would have a tidy home, 

 everything done at the proper time, and raise the best crops of every- 

 thing; in short, would be an ideal farmer. 



It is not that we only need the intelligent farmer at home to make 

 \i attractive and raise big crops, but we need him in the State Legis- 

 lature and National Congress in order that our vocation may not 

 suffer through the tricks and treacherous schemes of the trusts and 

 monopolists, who are continually trying to fleece us. 



Second, the ideal farmer succeeds because he pays strict attention 

 in detail to all branches of his vocation. His dairy is making big re- 

 turns for the capital invested ; his cows never stand in the yard dur- 

 ing all kinds of winter storms long before the sun is up and till after 

 it has set, drinking ice water, and their digestive organs burning up 

 grain to give them heat, that should go towards the making of milk 

 and butter. His scientific knowledge has compounded a ration that 

 will produce, at a minimum cost, the greatest results in the pail, and 

 at the same time return the most fertility through the manure to his 

 fields. He has also continually employed two dairy detectives, the 

 scale and Babcock tester. These two through their vigilance inform 



