No. 6. 



DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 



325 



Wheat, . 

 Oats, . . . 



Rye 



Barley, . 

 Potatoes, 



Crop. 



n 





12.5 

 31.9 

 12.4 

 26.8 

 93.0 



If the averages therefore are selected from the most productive 

 years of the seven foreign countries, France, Germany, Great Brit- 

 ain. Ireland, Sweden, Belgium and Netherlands out of the three 

 years, 1903, 1904 and 1905, the increase is applied to the five crops 

 in the United States, wheat, oats, rye, barley and poatoes, as re- 

 ported in the census of 1900, would represent an additional value 

 of $812,253,344, or 109.86 per cent., and if this percentage is applied 

 to the entire crop production of this country it would amount to an 

 increase of 13,197,078,335 over the reported aggregate yield for that 

 year. 



INCREASED PRODUCTION ABROAD DUE TO IMPROVED METHODS OF 



DISSEMINATION. 



This increased average production by foreign countries over the 

 United States is not because of any inherent or naturally superior 

 properties of the soil or climate abroad, but is due to the systematic 

 methods pursued in carrying information respecting improved agri- 

 cultural operations directly to the farming people. 



It is a matter worthy of special note that most of the information 

 given in these countries to farmers is through personal teaching, 

 advice and instruction, and not through bulletins and books. This 

 fact is most significant in that it is a radical departure from the 

 methods pursued in the United States which has thus far depended 

 almost solely in the dissemination of agricultural information upon 

 the printed page, and the slow progress that has been made in agri- 

 cultural improvement in the United States has no doubt been largely 

 due to the fact that the information that the bulletins, pamphlets 

 and other printed matter contain has not been brought through 

 living, personal teachers directly to the attention of those whom 

 it is specially intended to benefit. 



THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LIVING TEACHER. 



The movement, therefore, that looks toward the placing of the 

 living teacher in direct contact with the tiller of the soil through 

 the farmers' institute, the movable school of agriculture, and the 

 itinerant advisory professor, as well as the teaching of agricultural 

 subjects to children in the public schools is in the right direction, 

 and is in conformity with the best practice and most successful re- 

 sults secured after many years of experiment in foreign countries. 



