X. Report of Farmers' Reading-Course Department. 95 



requested the Bulletins during the year. On the 15th or i6th of 

 each of the five months of the Reading-Course term we sent the next 

 Bulletin to every reader on this list unless he had returned a Dis- 

 cussion-Paper and received a Bulletin since the first of the month. 

 With the exception of the few who enrolled late in the winter or 

 during the summer, practically all our readers have received under 

 this arrangement a complete series of five Bulletins. The new Bul- 

 letins were sent to those who returned Discussion-Papers and a 

 special effort was made to answer all questions found on the Dis- 

 cussion-Papers within a few days of the time the Discussion-Papers 

 reached this office. 



On August I, 1906, the reports of the Department show an en- 

 rollment of 6,700, of whom 3,498 were newly enrolled during the 

 ten months preceding, and 911 of whom were organized into 45 

 Reading-Course Clubs. During the ten months 6,092 Discussion- 

 Papers have been returned. 



In round numbers we have 2,000 readers who are corresponding 

 with us. The remaining 4,700 have simply requested that the Bul- 

 letins be sent to them. Of those returning Discussion-Papers 



1 140 have been answering fully 

 383 have been answering in part 

 138 have written very little 

 291 have written nothing except their name 



44 have said they had no experience and therefore could not answer 

 800 have asked questions for us to answer 



In answer to requests for information we have sent 3,109 letters. 

 These were sent under two cent stamp. Besides these, about 16,000 

 circular letters were sent under one cent stamp. 



We have received many requests for information on such general 

 subjects that we could not answer fully in a letter. In such cases 

 after answering as fully as possible we have referred the reader to 

 Bulletins from the Experiment Station here or at Geneva, or to 

 the Farmers' Bulletins from Washington. Lists of the available 

 Bulletins from these places are kept on hand at all times. If no Bul- 

 letins touching the subject were available, books were recommended. 

 We know that many of the readers have received and read the litera- 

 ture recommended in this way ; but we do not know how many. The 

 case of those who apply for correspondence work is a good example. 

 They fill out a card asking for literature on a certain subject. We 

 recommend certain books which they may purchase. We always 

 ask them to correspond with us freely so that we can help them on 



